Never mind counting sheep. Get to work doing good.

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Reign of Christ Sunday

Sunday November 26, 2023

Gospel ~ Mathew 25:31-46

The gospel this morning is as clear as it can be: it lays out for us what we have to do to get on God’s good side. Welcome the stranger, care for the prisoners, feed the hungry. The sheep gets a gold star; the goat gets left behind.

Are you feeling a little nervous? Cause I am. I suspect that was what Jesus intended with his sorting metaphor. How better to spur people to action than to make a little competition, a fear of failure in the mix: Am I a sheep or a goat? Which one are you? I, for one, would like to be a sheep – the good people who get to the good place – but I worry I might actually be a goat, when the final score is tallied.

In fact, the whole situation is really problematic. I mean, why pick on the goats? Do we really want to be sheep – passively trotting along, lacking independence, maybe just a bit dumb? Goats may be willful, and stubborn, but they also have personality. They have their own ideas of what’s what. The sheep sticks with the pack. The goat is a rebel – and in these modern times, that’s what gets celebrated: work hard, play hard, climb the ladder, collect a pile of toys.

And hey, if we are sorting people, we should do it right. Really keep score. At least I am still a better sheep than that goat over there. That guy has way more goat in him than I do.

You see where all this earthly sorting gets us? First, we get nervous about not measuring up. Then we get defensive rather than insightful about our mistakes and how we can do better. Finally, we take the easy way out – and throw judgement around to distract from our failings. Judging other people has gotten humanity in a lot of trouble for more than 2,000 years. And yet, we cannot help ourselves - we can’t seem to resist, whether we are deciding pass and fail by gender, or birthplace, or skin colour, or how you practice your faith, or your choice in the person you love. We even like to judge whether a person’s good deeds are truly good enough.

But guess who actually decides the goat and sheep question? The individual and God. The gospel makes this clear: it’s not about the other person. It’s about our own actions.

We know this because, while we live in a finite word, God is infinite. Too often, we act as though there is only so much space in heaven, which is just another way of thinking that there is only so much love. But you’ll notice the gospel doesn’t say there is room only for a set number of sheep; there are only two groups – sheep, and goats. We are to understand that every sheep has a place, and every sheep is loved. Once we think of it that way, we can stop worrying about who is in and who is out, and then start figuring out who we are.

That is the real question of the gospel. The hard challenge is to look inside and decide: who will we be? I will go first: I’d say I am not a terrible sheep, some of the time. But I am also a pretty good goat, too much of the time. It really depends on the day. I don’t always measure up to that long list of good works that Jesus offers us this morning. In fact, I rarely do. That is a very high bar. What we really need to know is how many sheep deeds we need to do, to avoid being a goat?

This is always the problem, as I have said before, with reading the gospel as if it were a collection of short stories, not a novel. In that novel, the character of the human– that is, you and me – is complex in our imperfections: we care for one another, we betray one another; we are greedy, we are charitable; we follow Jesus, we torture Jesus. The whole of the gospel doesn’t judge us, it embraces us. At the end of it all, neither Jesus, nor God is focused on shame for the days when we were goats. The gospel is about pride for the times when we were sheep.

And to Jesus, that means one thing: Go forth and get to work. Don’t worry about goats and sheep, look for those in need. Feed those who hunger, soothe those who are in pain. Every time you help one of those people, it is as if you are helping me. When you don’t help them, it’s as if you have passed me by.

Because, in the end, we have the sheep all wrong, anyway. They aren’t passive, and they aren’t dull. What does that flock that Jesus calls us to join actually do in the world? They break all the rules. They reject being ambitious for the sake of ambition. They focus on relationships and charity and all the qualities that drive good in the world. The sheep are lucky: when they have a goat-kind of day, they are forgiven because they have created a world where kindness is infinite.

That’s the message in our gospel for Reign of Christ Sunday. Never mind counting the sheep and the goats. Invest your energy in justice, not judgement. Get to work doing good. And let God be God. Amen.

Faith is not about knowing every answer, it’s about asking the right kinds of questions

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Sunday November 19, 2023

Gospel ~ Mathew 25:14-30

This morning, we are presented with another challenging parable from Jesus. Let’s recap: a wealthy boss who is headed out of town distributes wealth among three employees and tells them to look after it while he’s gone. And these aren’t small amounts of wealth. In the time of Jesus, a talent was worth a fortune – about 20 years of a day-labourer’s wage. That’s big, lottery-winning kind of money. In this parable, Jesus is obviously trying to get the attention of his audience.

So, what happens?

The first employee goes out with his five talents and comes back with ten to present to the boss. The second turns her two into two more. The third, apparently out of concern for the boss’s ethics, decides to risk nothing, and buries it. So, at the end, she can present only the same amount. For this, she is the only one punished: tossed out where there is gnashing of teeth. It’s all very grim.

This parable has been interpreted in many ways. There are actually three versions: we have heard the one in Matthew, with the most money and only three servants. In Luke, the money is significantly less and distributed among ten, though only three matter. And there is a third version in the Gospel of the Hebrews, in which the whole situation is turned on its head, and no one who saves the money is deemed the most worthy. The Gospel of the Hebrews was a text studied by early church thinkers but was destroyed because of an invasion in the 7th Century and never made it into what we now know as the Bible.

But in what we now know as the New Testament, the most common interpretation of this text is this: when we put the talents and other gifts that God has given us to good works, we reap the rewards. When we bury our talent under a bushel, we gain nothing. This is a good lesson, and certainly one for us to pay attention to.

Another interpretation of this parable, however, is that not everyone is equal, but we can all make contributions. The employee who doubled two talents was rewarded in similar fashion to the one who doubled five. And also, this parable could be seen as a push not to play it safe. To be out there with our talents and treasure. To take risks to make a real difference. These, then, would be three challenges of this parable: to make the most of our talent, to not get caught up in who is better than who, and to take risks in the world.

But what if we consider it from yet another perspective?

First, there is context to think about. Today, we can read the parable, ponder the words, go back and read it again. But that is not how it would have first been heard by the people. Jesus preached in an oral society, and he would have offered these parables to large, noisy crowds or groups. He was, in that society, deliberately provocative. His message was not mainstream. And surely, he would have encountered his critics in the crowd. Surely, he would have engaged in debate or been asked to clarify his message and repeat what he was saying. What would have been the goal of Jesus’s telling this kind of story to that kind of crowd?

We should also consider that this crowd would have just heard the parable we heard last week: the story of the ten bridesmaids who go out to meet the bridegroom; five bring extra oil and are able to meet him, and five forget and show up too late. God is in the background in that parable, asking: Have you stayed awake? Are you prepared for what is to come?

In the parable that follows, we might assume the landowner is God, but let’s take another angle: what if the landowner is just a rich man, and what matters is how the employees behave? This man is not just a little rich, he is very, very rich – he is travelling, for one thing, and he has staff that he can entrust with his money. He goes away for a long time; and while he is gone the first two servants get busy making their boss money, presumably on the labour and interest of others, and at the end turning a hefty profit.

How might the crowd have interpreted this with their own experience -- as people with much less money and much less power, more likely to be the workers many rungs down on the wealth ladder? As William Herzog observes, in his book on these parables: What did those servants accomplish, but to concentrate more wealth in the hands of an already wealthy man? And who might now be in debt to those servants because of it?

The third servant, then, takes the wealthy landowner to task: I knew you were someone who reaped what you did not sow – who, in other words, benefited from the labour of others – and I call you out on it. Seeing it from that point of view, what did the third servant do but refuse to exploit anyone to make more money for the corporation. But he didn’t steal it: he just put it aside and went on with his life. Who knows what he then did with his time? Perhaps, he worked on behalf of others, rather than exploiting them. Perhaps, as in the case of our five wise bridesmaids, this servant was the one who stayed awake to the gospel. The one who refused to work for the sake of achieving earthly riches. Perhaps he is calling out the system as corrupt, as creating inequality. Might that not also resonate with a mixed crowd gathered to hear the words of Jesus?

But what happens to that third servant? The cost is great: this servant is stripped of money, cast out into poverty. What did this person do? They called the wealthy boss to account, or as Herzog proposes, served as the whistle-blower in the story, the one who challenges society’s notions of class and labour – just as the gospel calls us to do. Was it fair what happened to him at the hands of the landowner?

So, what does the parable seek to teach? What did Jesus want us to take from it? That is for us to ponder. And in fact, isn’t that the challenge in a challenging parable? To get us thinking, and debating. Not to discern simple truths, but to consider the story against our own perceptions and assumptions? Who is right and who is wrong? What if what we always assumed was right is actually wrong? Faith, after all, is not about knowing every answer. In the days when Jesus told parables, as in our day, it’s about asking the right kinds of questions.

This is a great gift that our faith gives us—that sacred text gives us. The freedom to step back and consider all the angles, the call to put ourselves in the shoes of others. And the promise that when we wade patiently through the complexity of life to find truths centered on love and grace, we find God waiting for us with a fortune beyond earthy measure.

Amen

May we all set an example for the peaceful way we want the world to be.

Sermon by Pastor Joel Crouse

Sunday November 12, 2023

A couple of weeks ago, former U.S. President Barack Obama released a written statement on Israel. It was among the most thoughtful I have read from a political leader – perhaps the most thoughtful. Of course, Obama has the advantage of not being in power, and of speaking from the sidelines. But he still carries influence, especially when he speaks so eloquently.

In the weeks since, we have seen more reports of the terrible crimes carried out by Hamas against families, young people at a music concert, and children. And we have seen the results of Israel’s response in Gaza – the displacement or death, from air strikes, of countless people, most of them children. And we have seen hatred and prejudice in our streets – and even a swastika raised on the land outside Parliament. Our hearts weep for the tragedy of the history and the inhumanity of it all, committed on Holy ground in the name of God.

Obama’s words were measured and careful. Israel, he said, has a right to defend its citizens, to dismantle Hamas, to rescue those kidnapped from its borders. But Israel, Obama said, must also respond in a measured way, in keeping with international law. This is the complexity from which we must find a solution that, in the clearest of goals, values dignity, safety, and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. Because, Obama wrote, “Upholding these values is important for its own sake — because it is morally just and reflects our belief in the inherent value of every human life.” We must, all of us, argue for those values to be upheld, not just for the sake of future peace in the Middle East, but for the sake of the world as well. That requires a search for balance, he argued, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, but also that Palestinians have been displaced, that the push by some of their past leaders on both sides to find a solution has produced too few results. That a person can condemn Hamas and not be anti-Muslim, and that one can “champion Palestinian’s rights” and be critical of some of the policies of politicians in Israel and not be antisemitic. We can accept complexity, but also firmly and loudly condemn every act of hatred – here and overseas. Certainly we must make sure we do nothing to feed the hate we are seeing in our country.

But in the end, he said, perhaps most of all, for us here, so far away, is that we must try hard not to think the worst of those with whom we disagree. In talking to one another, we will find solutions that yelling never can. What’s more, Obama suggested, if we want peace, we must be peaceful people. If we care for children, he wrote, it falls upon all of us “at least to make the effort to model, in our own words and actions, the kind of world we want them to inherit.”

In essence, Obama was reminding us to stay awake. And is this not the lesson also of our Remembrance Day, a day to remember those who sacrificed so much to keep our country, and the world free from tyranny. Isn’t remembrance also a reminder to stay away. To keep awake to our own prejudices. To keep awake to the forces that threaten freedom, and thrive on intolerance. To stay awake to the times when we fail to listen, when we assume knowledge too quickly, when we pass judgment without wisdom.

When we fail, we might say, to bring oil for our lamps, so that our lights may shine in the night.

This is the lesson of our gospel this morning: stay awake. It is a lesson we will hear repeatedly over the next several weeks and into Advent. In a world of distractions, polarization, and argument, stay awake to the gospel in our midst.

Now, let me just say, I struggle with this metaphor in our gospel this morning. The notion of all 10 bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom analogy has the strong whiff of patriarchy – the women waiting for the men to arrive, competing for that attention, and framed only around how they are judged once the groom shows up. As a parable, it is also clumsy: Jesus isn’t a groom waiting to assess us, and who then shuts the door on us when we fail. Jesus is the shepherd leading and guiding us, who goes and cares for the wayward sheep. Even the bridesmaids are problematic: does Jesus really want us not to share what we have so others may also find the gospel? I don’t think so.

But as always, we can find wisdom here – important wisdom even. So let’s talk about a bunch of people with their oil lamps waiting for Jesus to show up. They can’t say when he is coming. Some of them brought extra oil to keep the lights on to watch for him. And some of them forgot, so that when Jesus comes, they have fallen asleep and their lights have gone out, and in the night, they cannot find their way. The ones with oil refuse to help; and so Jesus cannot know them.

What do we learn from this about discipleship? First, we see that the people who stayed awake and found their way most easily to Jesus had come prepared. They brought extra oil to light their lamps. They made their effort well in advance of the arrival of Jesus.

And so, don’t we learn that staying awake requires advance work on our part? What might that gospel preparation look like? Kindness, surely, and generosity. In the case of Israel and Palestine, it may mean that we seek to educate ourselves, to read and talk through issues calmly. We gather knowledge rather than assume we already have it. We collect the resources we require to serve the gospel -- to be that shining lamp in the night.

Also, what actually happens when those of us with oil refuse those who don’t have any? They are left outside. Jesus does not know them. Is this not a failure on our part? When we have plenty and decline to share to lift others, when we leave others outside the gate even though they want to enter, have we served the gospel? If you look at the parable the other way, we might see that we are the ones who have failed. We have failed to make room. We have failed to help others stay awake. We have grabbed our spot and thought nothing for those left behind. In doing so, did we not abdicate our own responsibility as disciples on earth? When some are left behind, are we not also culpable?

I would think we should be careful not to judge the foolish who forget their oil – for who among us has not been foolish? Perhaps we should save our disappointment for those deemed wise who did not share that wisdom – and who among us has not, at times, kept our wisdom for ourselves?

It is as Obama said. We can spend hours debating what is happening in the Middle East. And we can do it in the safety of our borders, far from the atrocities we are debating. But if we do not hold this one posture true, we have failed. If we want a peaceful world, we must be a peaceful people. If we want people to be thoughtful and prudent, we must also be thoughtful and prudent. We must – each and every one of us – set an example for the way we want the world to be. We must share our wisdom and forgive our foolishness. So that we might – each and every one of us – be a shining lamp in the night. Amen