Be defined by deeds

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost

October 20, 2024

Isaiah 53:4-12

Psalm 91:9-16

Hebrews 5:1-10

Mark 10:35-45

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

One afternoon, a young man stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, contemplating his own death. He was stopping traffic, and people were getting angry: Come on! Jump already! one cyclist called to him. On the catwalk of the bridge, an NYPD detective named Peter Keszthelyi, carefully stepped over to the young man. “I am not here to hurt you,” he said. The young man told him that he had no job and no place to live. He wasn’t even 25 years old. “You might seem like you are alone, but you are not alone,” the detective reassured him. Below them the cars kept honking.

This story still stays with me years after first reading it, and I want to return to that scene on the bridge, but first: How do you feel when you hear it? For my part, I feel sadness for the young man, and admiration for the detective. I struggle with the frustration of the people in the traffic jam, with their own concerns and life demands – but perhaps my struggle is guilt. Who among us hasn’t reacted first out of our own convenience without considering the needs of another? There are three characters participating in that desperate moment on the bridge - all acting in their own way: the young man so despairing he can’t see any other way out; the bystanders, hostile about being put out by someone else’s pain; and the detective compassionately trying to save the man on the bridge. I know which character I want to play, and I certainly know who I don’t want to be.

These days, we are obsessed, it seems, with our feelings. How do you feel? We talk about keeping our spirits up, about the power of optimism, about the burdens of our anxieties, about the limitations that come with feeling blue. These last few weeks, we have seen the disciples overcome with their own emotions – jealousy over someone’s healing in Jesus’s name, anxiety about their own needs being met, fear about the future that Jesus is facing. (And last week, of course, Jesus told us not to worry – yet, as we know, even the words of Jesus cannot release us from our worry.) 

There is no doubt that our mood impacts us, and that there is strength to be found in a cheerful demeanour. But have we shifted too far in the wrong direction? We are not defined by how we feel. We are defined by how we act.

Jesus, as I often say, was an action kind of guy. We never have a sense that he spent a lot of time sitting around, contemplating his mood. In fact, if his ministry had been all about giving good speeches and telling interesting stories, without serving, healing, and helping people, what value would it have had?  In this morning’s gospel, we get the same call to action. If we want to be great, we must be a servant.  If we want to feel good about ourselves and the world around us, we must do something: we must shift the gaze from our navel to our neighbour.

First of all, one of the key problems with relying on our feelings is that they are confusing, and subject to change, even from one minute to the next. Something happens and we go from happy to sad, from calm to angry. Actions, however, are concrete - they are the beginning of feeling, not the end of it. 

Science has come around to Jesus’s point of view, finding that meaningful action helps ameliorate the anxiety we feel about climate change or politics. Sitting at home, obsessively churning through social media, only makes those negative feelings worse. But getting out to vote gives us an outlet for our worry. Rallies or marches surround us with people who feel the same and are willing to be examples of action. Doing something – being a servant – doesn’t just make a difference in the world. It makes a difference for us. 

That doesn’t mean, as some popular self-help books have suggested, that we must always surround ourselves with positive people to feel positive. How could we truly be servants if we never risked exposure to unhappy circumstances or people who disagree with us? Believing this, incidentally, would exclude you from doing any version of the work performed by Detective Keszthelyi. And surely, our communities need more people like him, not fewer. 

But that’s the point Jesus makes over and over again: the gospel is tough. We can’t expect to feel good all the time carrying it out, but we can always rely on optimism to charge us up. Doing good takes a long time; the world doesn’t change in an instant. We have to believe in the power of little steps. Because otherwise, frankly, it’s all about us, and our actions are subject to the whim of our feelings.

In one way, it is a circular argument; actions lead to feelings and feelings lead to actions. In psychology, researchers have been using a test called the “Social Interest Scale” to figure out the variables of traits of people who exhibit high levels of empathy for humanity. For instance, one question asks participants to rank which groups the person believes are more important: Africans, for example, or Canadians. Those who score high on the scale ranked them the same. But the people who scored high also knew more about humanitarian issues; they had taken the action to educate themselves about the world. They gave more to humanitarian causes. Their empathy had been fed - and made resilient - by service and knowledge. 

Back to the bridge: In the end, as The New York Times story reported, the young man changed his mind; he came down from the ledge to give life another chance. His feeling was changed by the compassionate action of another. If that police officer had not arrived, you have to wonder if another passerby could have done the same, by serving the needs of another, instead of heckling. Either way, on some days, this detective, who saves people for a living, might prefer that he had an easier job, that he didn’t have to confront so much pain. But this is what Jesus would call a higher calling to action – rather than a slave to our feelings. Instead, we choose to be driven, and defined, by our action.

I always hold onto a wise piece of advice that I was given many decades ago, by all three of my mentors, senior pastors all, when I was just starting out in my ministry. All three have said to me at one time or another, “Joel, when you’re feeling like a pile of [uselessness], go out and visit.  Pick yourself up and go.” In that visit, that action of service, you will find the secret to Jesus’s advice to set worry aside. I have followed this advice over the years, many, many times. And each time, sitting with someone else in need has taken me out of my own head, rescued me from the bondage of my own negative feelings. 

The choice is ours, Jesus says. If we rely on how we are feeling on any given day - exhausted after a day of work, anxious about some personal trial, irritated with our partner - we would accomplish little. But the lesson of the gospel is the power of positive action. And that is the choice Jesus is talking about: To give up or to go on. To be the heckler on the sidelines or the voice of reason. To be slaves chained to feeling and sentiment, or servants defined by deeds. Jesus didn’t just know this, he set the example. It is action that defines us. Action that saves us. Action that frees us. Amen.

Then were we like those who dream

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

October 13, 2024

Joel 2:21-27

Psalm 126

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Matthew 6:25-33

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

In this morning’s gospel, we hear Jesus telling the disciples to just stop worrying. Don’t worry about your life. Stop worrying about when you will eat. Don’t worry about what you will wear. Just don’t worry.

To which we might all respond: easy for you to say.

This Thanksgiving, as we look around at the world and consider our lists of thankfulness, who isn’t worried? Around the world – and, most closely, in our neighbors to the south – we see upheaval and change, division and vitriol. The institutions and traditions of democracy normally held up as societal ideals are being challenged and eroded. The war in Ukraine wages on. Countries are becoming more wary of the newcomer crossing their border, more suspicious of their neighbors, more angry. We watched this week as Hurricane Milton ripped through Florida, devastating cities, taking lives and ruining many, many others.

If the main point of this morning’s gospel is that life is about more than what we wear and what we eat and what we own, how do we reconcile how this conflict and change are being driven by those very same worries? How do we ourselves respond?

Let’s consider specifically the worries that Jesus is addressing. Like the disciples, we have food and clothing. Our worry is about having fancier food and better clothing. Better food isn’t about nutrition; rather, it’s about pleasure. Better clothing isn’t about keeping warm or protected from the sun; it’s about looking good to others. And so, right away we see how those worries that Jesus is slapping down are not about living a Godly life. They are about striving for earthly goods. And not to share with others, but to keep for ourselves. So, being anxious about these things is not only exhausting, not only makes it hard for us to focus our energies elsewhere, but also leads nowhere – since there is always something better.

An indicator about what matters most in life is to listen to what people give thanks for today. I doubt few people will say, thank you for that designer shirt I got at the X- percent off sale last week. Or that someone will look around their table, or consider their life, and give thanks for the gourmet meal they enjoyed last month at the 5-star restaurant. No, they will say, thank you for my family and friends and neighbors. Thank you for clean air and nature. Thank you for the science that heals and the good work that brings peace. Thank you for the bounty that lies before us, and around us. Thank you for life.

There is both promise and risk in our interpretation of today’s gospel. The promise is that if we stop worrying, God will take care of everything. It’s a promise because it’s true – when we, who have much already, cease to worry about the material items that don’t matter, and put our energy in the qualities championed by the gospel, God does take care of things. When we invest our time and care in people, we are blessed with community. When we love and accept, we receive love and acceptance. When we work for a society that is more equal, we are rewarded with equality. When we refuse to accept injustice, we live in a more just world. That is a bounty, indeed.

But the risk of today’s gospel is also this: that we come to believe that if we stop worrying, God will take care everything. It’s a risk because people who believe this fail to see their own part to play. What is happening in society right now – the feeling that some are getting too much and others getting too little – is a problem we must all try to solve. The gospel, in fact, is all about displacement and replacement – never accepting the status quo, but investing energy in making it better. There are many ways to do this. Helping our refugees who arrive in our city. Running for positions of leadership when we see conversations that need to happen. Giving up our seat on the bus to a stranger that needs it more. Sitting with the person who is forgotten, lost, or dying.

Worry would make us believe: I don’t have an extra set of sheets or a pot to share. Or what if I try to make my voice heard and lose? What if my efforts to help are rejected? Other worries make us protect ourselves at all costs. What if no one gives me a seat when I need it? What if nobody sits with me in my time of need?

But thankfulness flips the narrative completely. We see that we have plenty to share, we have talents to contribute, we have extra space to make for someone else. We stop worrying about what’s empty, and we are truly thankful for all that is abundant, and all that we can make even more plentiful.

Aurora is a perfect example of this truth. Even for her, there will always be others who will have more. And there will always be those who are in greater need. The first call of her baptism – and for those who stand with her - is to begin learning -and teaching - how to worry less about the former and care more about the latter and bring both together.

This Thanksgiving and beyond, may we all worry less, and give thanks more. Not because God will simply take care of everything we want or need. But because when we truly recognize the bounty that lies around and before us – what God and good works have already done - we might then be inspired by the optimism and generosity of the gospel to look next for what we will do with all our blessings and the days that we have been given. Amen.

To remember who we were, before the world changed us.

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

October 6, 2024

Genesis 2:18-24

Psalm 8

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

Mark 10:2-16

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

Once in a while, along comes a gospel that in 2024, gives a pastor a little trouble. This week, I got especially lucky, because the first lesson is also a bit of a minefield. In the first lesson, we hear in the story of creation that God made a companion for man from his rib, and that companion – his helper and his partner - was a woman. And then, to add fuel to the already tricky fire, in our gospel we have Jesus talking about divorce and basically saying that anybody who gets remarried after divorcing is committing the sin of adultery. So two doozies on one Sunday.

In part, these are problematic texts because of how they have been interpreted and used throughout history: as weapons against people who step outside whatever is considered proper, moral behavior by the judgers at the time. More often than not, that was the church. But of course, as we are seeing in our times, the words of God can also be used for political purposes.

In any event, the idea of man’s coming first, and woman’s coming second, and her being a helper, seemed to further the idea that one should be subservient to the other. Of course, that is not what the lesson says at all: it talks about these two people – these companions - becoming one – not one and a second. But a lot of time, the Bible is read a lot more conveniently for whoever is in power at the time and wants things a certain way.

The gospel’s lesson on divorce is also uncomfortable. We all know people who are divorced, and we have probably all been to weddings where some of them remarried. If they are our family and our friends, we likely wish them well both times. Nobody gets married thinking they will divorce. I have counselled many couples through the breakup of their marriage, and it is usually the most painful thing they experience - full of grief, anger and worry – for the kids and for themselves, and even for their former partners. Those of you who are sitting here with long marriages also know that it isn’t easy. What people need when they experience a difficult break-up is compassion and support, not the kind of emotion that Jesus appears to be expressing today. Yet this passage has also been used to shame and judge.

But is there another way to look at what Jesus is really saying. Always, we must consider the context of when and to whom he was speaking.

In Jesus’s day, divorce was especially easy: a man said the words, wrote a document, and poof! – he had cast off his wife. There is some debate about whether woman could truly do the same – Jesus suggests she could – but how much did that matter? Women had less power in society and were more vulnerable. What’s more, not much is said about the children in such a marriage –we can assume that child custody laws did not give mothers equal standing.

So Jesus, in a world where divorce can happen in an instant, is saying divorce is wrong. But why? By calling a halt to frivolous divorce and remarrying, he is speaking to men who would cast their wives off with little to their name. Might he be amending an accepted understanding of the law, to protect the vulnerable? Jesus, we know, was a clever speaker: his inclusion of both husbands and wives in that last sentence about adultery, makes them equal to each other.

Now it is still not ideal – and it still doesn’t speak very well to us today -- except for one significant part in there. Jesus was not one to keep things the way they were because they had always been done that way. He didn’t overlook an injustice in society because it was tradition. He challenged that thinking. He broke those rules. He pushed society ahead. He looked at the world as it was, and he said, this is not gospel-led, and he argued for change.

Jesus was a disrupter, after all. We can’t forget that when we interpret his words. He didn’t want the world to stay as it was, he wanted to it to become better. I truly believe that he would have wanted us to understand that it is more important to be loved and loving and in a healthy relationship than anything else.

How do we know this? Consider the last lines of the gospel. “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the Reign of God as a little child will never enter it.” And what do we see in our children when they are young? Judgement? An obsession with rank or race or gender or sexual orientation? No, we see our children feeling joy and wonder and curiosity. We see them being open to the people they meet.

There are days when we need to read the verses in the Bible many times to figure out what we might be missing, to hear the message that God, in 2024, might want us to receive. And then we come to a passage like the one at the end of the gospel and it is revealed to us what truly matters. Not the law, but the grace. There lies the real challenge: to remember who we were before the human world changed us, to reclaim that openness, and, in doing so receive the Reign of God.  Amen.