Pentecost 17, 2020

 What is your favorite hymn?  The second reading for today is one of the oldest hymns about Christ.  The language is so inspiring.  It paints this picture of Christ with great power and equality with God, full of power and grace and glory.  Then comes a description of what he does with that power and that is to come among the lowliest of all and give that power away.  He emptied himself, let go of power, and became a servant, a slave.  He used his power for obedience, not for his own glory, and he gave himself away, even dying because of that sharing of power.  Power used on behalf of another, for their well-being, is called love.  Sometimes we think love is a feeling.  The Bible is clear—love is action.

Jesus was killed because of how he shared his power and love.  He was executed because the religious authorities were threatened by how he used his power.  He used his power, his time, his attention, his compassion, differently than important people are supposed to.  He spent his time with poor people, divorced people, sick people, people that didn’t matter, that weren’t seen as having anything to give like widows and children.  He spent time with tax collectors who were caught in a corrupt system of oppression by the Romans.  He used his time, his energy, his power to listen to and defend all the little people that everyone thought were a waste of time.  He heard their stories.  He healed them.  He stayed with them and taught them.  He fed them.  He loved them.  He received their hospitality and love.

Jesus had a lot of power--some say he is all-powerful.  Jesus had time, access to God’s teachings, wisdom, as well as food and healing.  People in power tend to use that power to build more power for themselves or people like them or give their power to people who can increase that power.  We invite people to dinner of a similar socio-economic status to us so that we can enrich each other and they can take their turn inviting us.  We tend to talk to people who are dressed a certain, familiar way, talk a certain, familiar way, and look like us.  And we clutch our bags closer and lock our car doors when we see people different from us, who seem to have less than us in fear that they will take from us. 

Even more rare than sharing power is someone willing to give his life for those people that others see as worth less, or worthless.  Because he spent time valuing them, Jesus gave them hope that others would see and hear them, too, that God heard them.  Jesus emboldened people to seek justice, to demand to be treated with respect because the Rabbi Jesus, the Son of God had treated them with respect.  They started treating others with respect, and sharing what little power they had—their time, their food, a healing word, a healing relationship.  Jesus sharing his power turned everything up-side-down, started a revolution from the way things usually are. We have inherited this revolution--a counter-cultural way of giving away our power, emptying ourselves, putting others’ needs before our own. 

The Christ Hymn, in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, tells us what happens from this sharing of power.  We fear that sharing power diminishes us—takes something away from us.  But what we find in Jesus is that this sharing of power elevates us all.  Because of his sacrifice, his sharing of power, he is lifted up, exalted and he is finally seen for who he is, one to be worshipped.  Every knee shall bow, everyone will know what he did for us all.  And that will lift us all up with him, giving new life to all.

Before our Gospel reading today, Jesus has entered the city on a donkey to shouts of “Hosannah!”  He has been seen as one with power, deserving of praise, but also humble, riding on a donkey.  He has then used that power to clear the temple of the money changers and take down those who were in authority.  He has used his power to denounce the temple powers that benefit the priests and hurt those who have nothing.  He has disrupted the ones keep God’s little ones that don’t have money for a sacrifice separated from God who loves them.  He has taken the coin, that is the power to purchase and control others with debts and taxes, and scattered it all over the floor, shocking and angering those that had a coin to their name. 

After clearing the temple and disrupting those in power, Jesus goes out and has his lunch, and then he returns to the scene of the crime.  And it is a crime—he has broken the temple laws, vandalized the temple.  How will they ever sort out what belongs to whom?  Jesus enters the temple.  The priests, the pharisees, the religious leaders are appalled.  Who does he think he is?  He has a lot of nerve, coming back to rub in their faces the mess that he’s made.  Jesus starts to teach.  The religious leaders and those with power ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”  In other words, “What gives you the right to march in here and disrupt hundreds of years of a system that has worked for ‘us.’” 

Jesus asks them a question about John’s authority—what gave him the right to baptize, another kind of cleansing, like the temple cleansing, giving God and not the corrupt powers of this world authority in our lives, naming a new authority for people following a new path of God’s love and grace.  The leaders won’t answer the question because they can’t twist an answer to benefit them.  They can’t use an answer to build themselves and their own power up. So Jesus also refuses to answer clearly.

Instead he makes them think for themselves and tells them a parable of two sons.  Neither of the sons tells the truth.  However, one uses his time, his power, his energy to do the work of his father and be obedient.  “It doesn’t matter that much what say,” Jesus seems to be saying, “It’s your actions that matter.”  Your actions are how you use your power.  Do you use your power and time to do what you want?  Or do you do what your father asks you?  Do you do what God asks of you to build up the kingdom of God, for loving your neighbor?

This is a tough one.  We Lutherans love our words.  Our prayers are wordy.  Our sermons are wordy.  We discuss issues.  We make statements.  We like to say the right things.  But when our father invites us to work in the vineyard do we smile and say yes and hope that is enough?

I am convicted, as a religious leader.  I spend a lot of time crafting words.  I like to say the right things.  I like to make people smile.  I like to make people happy.  And I certainly don’t mind earning a living.  I like to shop for the food I want and be able to order canning lids if I want to and to buy a computer for my kid to use for remote learning.  I like watching Netflix with a beer in my hand.  I like being comfortable. 

But I walked past the homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk 30 feet from my house probably more than 40 times before I ever stopped to ask his name.  I only gave him food 3 times in the almost 2 months that he lived there.  I never asked his story or shared any of mine and I was glad when folks from the city came and cleared him out.  I have not gone to my father’s vineyard with Travis, literally my neighbor.  I have not emptied myself.  I have not taken any risks for him.  I have not loved Travis.  Thankfully the invitation to the vineyard continues, however I am a hypocrite, every single day, a sinner hurting my siblings.

There is a new Lutheran pastor in our area who is calling for repentance, love in action from the ELCA for Black, Indigenous, People of Color.  He is calling out a history of racism in our Church.  Some of you were raised with the word racism meaning those who are actively hateful on purpose to people of other races.  However, the word has come to mean something that is often invisible to those of us holding the most power.  We are often unaware of our biases and racism, but nonetheless they impact us by helping us hang on to power, and they certainly impact people around us who are treated disrespectfully and ignorantly.  Rather than share power, we unknowingly expect people of color, people of different races to assimilate to our white way of doing church.  Pastors of color struggle to find churches to call them.  They are often not paid what white pastors are.  When they experience racism either overt or the quiet hurtful damaging actions that discount them, often Lutherans don’t want to hear about it.  Like the Pharisees and priests in Jesus’ day, we don’t want to examine how church might be done differently to more fully follow Jesus in emptying ourselves and taking the form of a servant, to learn at the feet of our siblings who are hurting, how to be a church for everyone.

We are being called into the vineyard to do God’s work.  We are being called to repent from our hurtful ways, to change our minds and our hearts.  We are being called to share our power, to make a sacrifice of time and money and energy and love for our siblings in Christ.  And not just to make ourselves feel better.  But to build up the Kingdom of God.  When we do, we will find that we are not less and we don’t have less, but that in releasing our power as Jesus did and dying to our old self, we will rise to new life as the body of Christ with our siblings in Christ empowered and all of us elevated.  Rather than bowing to our own power scrambling to keep it, we find ourselves in our proper place at Jesus feet and experiencing the new life of true relationship and love.

Jesus was never defensive.   He never held on to what he could give away, including his own life .  We don’t have anything to fear except that we will continue to trample on people that God loves.  Jesus is inviting you to go work in the vineyard. I will give you a first step in this work.  On October 1 at 7 pm, Pacific Lutheran University is hosting their Lutheran Studies Conference.  It is free and online.  We put the link in our Spirit of Life weekly update so most of you should have it.  If you don’t, please contact us in the office.  I invite you to register and join the Lutheran Studies Conference.  The speaker is the Reverend Lenny Duncan, the ELCA pastor that I mentioned before. We will leave that Conference with some concrete steps going forward of love in action for our neighbors and in obedience to God and more closely follow Jesus.  Then our hymn will match our actions and God will transform this world into God’s Kingdom of love and justice.