The 22nd Sunday after Pentecost - To Persevere - When is it a Virtue?

I'm taking my very first on-line course ever from Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia.  The course title is "Who Am I to Go to Pharaoh? Biblical Insights on Faithful Leadership."  Since it's only for continuing ed credit, there are no tests or papers.  However, it takes about 2 hours each week for 5 weeks--one hour for the lecture and another for reading and answering discussion questions in a forum.  The first week I was quite excited and looked forward to figuring out how it all worked.  When I discovered the professor would be interesting, I knew I had made a good choice, even though I went into quite blindly.  

However, the second week--this past week--I almost forgot to schedule the time to watch the video.  My commitment to persevere and complete the course expectations was clearly faltering.  I hurriedly carved out the time late Thursday evening and was rewarded by another great lecture.  I even discovered something I seemed to have missed in previous Bible study.  In Exodus 24 the writer recounts a covenant ritual of, first, sacrificing to God on the altar Moses had built at the base of Mt. Sinai and, then, of Moses reading the law to the people.  After this ritual some 70 plus men went with part-way up the mountain where they met God and they "ate and drank."  Worship followed by a parish picnic?  There is nothing new under the sun--but I digress.

The reason I told this story was to focus on a word from the Collect of the Day and my lack of that quality this week.  The word is "persevere."  In the collect it describes what the church all over the world needs to do: "persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of [God's] name."  Our faith and our displaying that faith in our lives and with our words shouldn't be just off-and-on--only when it's convenient.

We encounter perseverance in the story of Jacob at the fork of the Jabbock stream. Jacob perseveres in a very physical encounter with an unnamed "man."  He continued to struggle and refused to let go of the person whom Jacob understood to be God.  Jacob is blessed for his perseverance, but God's name remained hidden.  Jacob may persevere, but there is a limit to God's forbearance.  

Keeping on--persevering--appears in the epistle reading as well.  We heard a passage from the second pastoral letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul's faithful companion. Paul sent him to the Christian community in Ephesus to deal with false teaching. Timothy is expected lead that community, so they will be faithful to the gospel as Paul taught them first.  How should Timothy manage this sothat all who belong to God will by "equipped for every good work?"  These are the key words:  "I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable. . ."  Be persistent, in other words, persevere in what you are called by God to do.

And if these two examples weren't enough to convince us that persistence should be esteemed, we have the final example of the parable of the persistent widow--usually called the parable of the unjust judge, but we won't be focusing on him today.  Jesus tells the disciples that the parable shows them that they should "pray always and not lose heart."  The widow persevered in begging for justice in a court case.  Eventually she received justice, despite the odds being stacked against her.  Jesus' point was that when we pray the odds aren't stacked against us, so this should make it even easier for us to persist in calling to God in prayer.

So here we have three examples--each slightly different--of perseverance or persistence as a virtue.  When we think about this virtue, a concern comes to mind. In real life, though, perseverance may well drift into a negative stubbornness or a fixation on something lacking in real importance or even something hurtful.  The test of whether one's perseverance can be called a virtue or a fault lies in the context in which one expresses it.  Are others in the community helped or hurt by our perseverance?  Does it draw us--and those in our community--closer to each other and to God?  Is it expressed in a way that leads to the greater good?

A wonderful expression of the positive aspect of perseverance can be found in one of the promises of our Baptismal Covenant and in a prayer near the end of our baptismal rite.  In the Covenant we promise to persevere in resisting evil and when we sin, we will repent and return to the Lord.  We are promising to resist what prevents us from staying connected with God.  Then knowing that we cannot always behave in ways that please God, we promise to turn back toward God, saying that we will try once more to love God and our neighbor.

The other important time the word “persevere” appears comes just after the water is poured over the candidate's head.  The priest prays these words: "Sustain her, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.  Give her an inquiring and discerning heart; the courage to will and to persevere; a spirit to know and to love you; and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works."   In the second phrase of this prayer we are asking God to bless the candidate's steadfastness in making courageous choices and not giving up when life becomes difficult.

As we think about how we persevere or fail to persevere in the daily choices we make, let us pray for God's guidance to discern whether our choices will help others, will draw us closer to God, and, in the end, will promote the greater good.  If we put on blinders to the context of our choices and end up making self-centered choices, or if we give up when life becomes difficult, our lives will not show a steadfast faith.  But if we allow ourselves to be open to where God seems to be leading us--as Jacob did, as Paul urged, and as the widow who sought justice did, persevering in the path we have chosen will be a virtue and will show a steadfast faith!

The 21st Sunday after Pentecost - Moments of Mercy and Thank-yous

Kyrie eleison; Christe eleison; Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.

As you know, our prayer book offers two patterns to begin regular Sunday Eucharistic worship: Rite One and Rite Two.  The major difference between the two beginnings is what "may be" said or sung and what "is" required to be said or sung.  In Rite One asking for mercy receives greater emphasis than giving glory to God.  Only "when appointed," does the Gloria take precedence over the Kyrie.  In Rite Two the Gloria receives the precedence, coming first in the order of choices for opening worship.  Asking for God's mercy is allotted to "other occasions."  At St. Nicholas' we use the Kyrie instead of the Gloria or other hymn of praise only in Lent.

The relative emphasis between asking for mercy--Luke puts the word eleison in the mouth of the ten people with skin disorders--and giving glory and thanks to God comes through clearly in this passage. The one who turned back to thank Jesus and give glory to God receives Jesus' commendation: "Your faith has made you well."  

Asking for mercy is fine--and clearly appropriate--for those outcasts who were condemned to live in separation from society and those whom they loved.  Can you imagine how it must have felt to never be allowed to come near other people except those with the same very visible skin disorders that you have?  When we despair over some pain in our lives that we feel we must keep hidden in order to avoid being rejected by our friends, our family or our co-workers, we have a sense of how the people with leprosy felt.

The prayer, Lord have mercy, may find itself on our lips frequently. I often quote the writer Anne Lamott who says much prayer can be reduced to these words: Help, help, help!  Step 1 in the 12 Steps that guide Alcoholics Anonymous is: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable.”  Step 2 says: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  These two steps are indeed saying "Help!" and "Have mercy!"  How the AA member defines his or her Higher Power can be specific to that person, but asking for help in controlling the addiction is essential.  

Other situations may lead us to ask for mercy.  We may have lost our job.  We may have found out a friend or loved is gravely ill.  We may have received a diagnosis that scares us.  We may be angry at some unfairness that has blocked us.  So much in life can lead us to ask for help, for mercy, and also rail against the unfairness of fate--and even of God--for allowing such things to happen to us.

Having to ask for mercy means that we admit that we cannot take care of a situation or even of ourselves without help.  That rankles!  And even if we do ask, are we ready to recognize when mercy and compassion come our way?

Although all the leprosy or skin diseases afflicting those ten folks vanished, we have no idea how the nine who did not return to give thanks to Jesus handled things.  Were their lives all sorted out from that moment on?  Probably not.  I think the story seeks to make this point: only one of the people who no longer suffered from leprosy experienced complete healing.  And that person was not even well-regarded by most of those who surrounded Jesus that day.  Luke names him a Samaritan, and Jesus calls him "this foreigner."  Not "our kind of people," one might say!  But that foreigner discerned what he must do to find the wholeness he needed to get his life back on track: give thanks and glory to God--"Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back praising God with a loud voice.  He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him."

Although we may not focus on this aspect of the Gloria when we sing it, here are the words of its second stanza:  "Lord God, heavenly King,/ almighty God and Father,/ we worship you, we give you thanks,/ we praise you for your glory."  Our liturgy causes us to give thanks and glory to God, no matter how our week has been or how our lives are right now.

Is this a meaningless exercise, ancient words said for centuries, now sung to a rather nice tune, but repeated by rote with no thought of the context of our lives?  If that were so, we should just stop singing the Gloria.  Rather I believe, it calls us to be attentive to where we may in some way or other experienced the mercy and compassion of God.  It also calls us to be attentive where we have had the chance to reach out with mercy and compassion in God's name.

Despite what things may be weighing on our hearts and troubling our minds, where can we see a moment of mercy in our lives?  Have we created that moment of mercy for someone else?  And above all, are we willing to say, "Thanks!?"

Such a moment occurred this week, right here at St. Nicholas'.  A couple came to the door for some assistance--I am always a bit suspicious of a person's honesty under those circumstances--but as we talked, I could see she was shivering.  They said they had come here from Alabama for work.  They had slept in their vehicle last night, because the site where he had been working was vacated; and he had not been paid.  I asked if they were hungry.  Their response was, "Yes," said with an eagerness I have heard from children who hadn't eaten breakfast.  We had some left-over frozen ziti.  So I fixed them cups of tea and heated the ziti in the microwave.  When I came back from doing a couple things in the office, I found the woman washing up the dishes they had used.  She said it was the least she could do, given the meal they had just eaten.  I sent them on their way back to Alabama with a gas card from my discretionary fund and some of the food left over from our last packing of Go-bags for the Empowerment Center--crackers, juice, and a "protein source."   They had said their thank-you, but she demonstrated it by washing the dishes.  I am thankful to God for being part of St. Nicholas'; because of my work here I was able to experience this moment of mercy!

The 20th Sunday after Pentecost - Having Faith and Doing One's Duty

How do you think of God?  The writer of today's collect sees God as ready to hear and to give, to be abundantly merciful and to be forgiving. The writer identifies Jesus as someone who intercedes for us.  The theology behind this collect shows God as both the source of blessing and the means by which we are blessed.

          On the other hand, the writer of the collect describes humanity as unaware of what we should desire, undeserving of God's gifts, having a fearful conscience, and unworthy of God's good generosity.  Is that how we think of ourselves?  Probably not, although we may see others in our society and our world as unworthy because of their lifestyles or the choices they have made.

About 700 years before Jesus came, Habakkuk, a Judean prophet, lamented God's lack of action in the face of much wicked behavior by unrighteous people: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?"  He reports God's answer as calling for patience for now.  God tells him of a vision that he must "write" large enough, so even runners can read it. And the vision is of a time "appointed" by God when God will deal with the unrighteous.  Until then righteous people will "live by their faith."  

For Habakkuk the unrighteous are people who have chosen to abandon the way God has taught the in the Torah or the books of the Law.  He sees justice as not prevailing.  As we have heard in previous weeks, for the Jewish prophets, justice means carrying for the poor and those in need--not trampling on them by corrupt business practices or ignoring them as the rich man did Lazarus.

This week a recipient of one of our bags of food from our food pantry left a phone message.  She had lost her job and had run out of resources, but she was able to eat due to the food we provided to the Hudson State Service Center. She thanked us for our generosity that helped her in a very difficult time, before her new job started.

However, we as a society have a tough time understanding how widespread "food insecurity" really is.  Just recently I read some statistics about the Meals-on-Wheels program's declining ability in many locations to assist the elderly poor with food.  In wealthier areas private donations have made the difference between decreasing government funds for this entitlement program, but in poorer areas long waiting lists now exist.  The need for this program often outstrips its resources.

Recently some other clergy and I toured the food prep area and the Meals-On-Wheels program area of the Newark Senior Center. Impressed by its size and efficient organization, I had no idea that I should ask about its funding and whether or not it had a waiting list. I will be making that call.

The Newark Area Welfare Committee, to which we give a yearly grant and which some of our parishioners support with their time and talent, also fights food insecurity here in our community.  The Welfare Committee operates a food pantry too, and it has given our food pantry cans of food when it lacks room to store them.

So where does our faith come into all this activity to care for those who are hungry?  In today's Gospel reading from Luke we hear the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith.  The scriptural context in which they make this request is Jesus’ teaching about forgiving those who sin against you.  If people say they are sorry and will change, but you hold a grudge against them, you will be displeasing God.

Evidently the disciples expect to have trouble living this way and ask for greater faith.  Jesus responds by telling a parable about a rather hapless slave working all day in the fields and then having to serve at table in the evening.  I think point Jesus wanted them to see is this:  You may think you have done a very fine job of serving (or an excellent job at practicing forgiveness), but God (as the master) expects nothing less.  A new translation of verse ten in the Common English Bible says it very clearly, without the sense of worthlessness regarding the servant or slave: "In the same way, when you have done everything required of you, you should say, 'We servants deserve no special praise, we have only done our duty.'"  Yes, our faith leads us to serve.  And, yes, it is simply our duty to do so!

As part of this faith community of St. Nicholas, all of us are encouraged to find ways to serve both in our church community and in the larger community of Newark, our country and even the world.  Service comes on many forms.  We often call them "time, talent and treasure."  All three are essential to do the work of service God offers to us.  And in addition to the three T's of service we should include one more, intercessory prayer.

Using these four ways to serve--our time, our talent, our treasure and our intercessory prayers--we can do exactly what God would do in the situations where we are now.  For remember, as our collect tells us, God is ready to hear and to give, to be abundantly merciful and to be forgiving.  We trust in Jesus as intercessor, someone who mediates between God’s judgment and us.  Yes, as we have faith that God is both the source of blessing and the means by which we are blessed, so we can serve others as both the source and means by which they experience God's blessing.  And we will have done our duty!