Sermon: October 30, 2011

FINDING THE RIGHT WAY
Sermon Notes of The Reverend Canon Robert A. Picken
Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 26
October 30, 2011

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Have you ever gotten lost at night? Maybe while driving? About 12 or 13 years ago, I was on my way home one night from someplace on the north shore of Long Island. There were no street lights, no street signs even, and, certainly no GPS. Somehow, I crossed over the road I needed and ended up looping around so I was heading north again. Finally seeing a sign for the road I wanted, I made a right turn to head west. (You Boy Scouts in here realize that I was at this point, in fact, heading east.) After a few minutes of driving, I came upon a road sign announcing a north-south road – and I discovered what I thought was north was south and vice versa. I thought I had been going in the right direction, but I wasn’t … and actually I had no clue as to where I was even. I was lost. It took a while, but I was able to find my way home.

When we’re lost in the darkness, our only hope is to stop for a moment and look for the right way. Finding our ways through the wilderness of life involves pausing, noticing, opening, stretching, yielding and responding. But, first we have to recognize that we are lost.

The prophet Micah addressed this in our lesson from the Old Testament in which we learn of so-called prophets (or sooth-sayers) who are duplicitous and this is grounded in an astounding lack of self-awareness. Content in their affluence, these prophets of whom Micah spoke assume that the nation of Israel as a whole reflects their well-being. They speak of peace from a place of prosperity and are unable, and unwilling even, to see the pain of the homeless, hungry, and vulnerable. Their own security buffers them from others. And, though they see themselves as generous and merciful, their actions actually wage war on those who live in the margins of society.

The false prophets can’t see the connection between their behavior and others’ despondency. Their lack of ability to empathize displays their inability to experience and share the love of God. (As the Dean described last week, they have become like the Dead Sea… receiving only and not sharing.) They go through the motions of pronouncing spiritual wisdom, yet their words are hollow and irrelevant. These prophets are perhaps traveling in the wrong direction and have created a barrier between themselves and God that even God can no longer penetrate. Only a changed vision and heart can awaken them to the wisdom of God.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus is not criticizing those who try faithfully to keep the Law. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus speaks of the Torah as good and God-given. Here he is speaking about those who forget what really mattered in it: loving God and loving your neighbor. He is speaking about the big things: justice and mercy and faithfulness. He is speaking to the experts, the ones who were so good at telling other people what they should be doing. And he is speaking to those who work really hard at keeping the letter of the law while forgetting about the spirit of the law.

Tom Wright, a Biblical commentator, wrote that “Generations of preachers have used this passage to criticize church leaders who like dressing up and being seen in public. That’s fair enough.”

But this is about more than fancy clothes and good seats. Jesus criticized the Pharisees because they didn’t practice what they preached; their lives did not reflect the law that they continually debated; they didn’t live out what they taught.
While Jesus’ rebuke seems general, as though all scribes and Pharisees were guilty of love of place and honor, we know the rabbis themselves condemned such behavior. We know that some leaders of every generation – second temple Judaism, the early church, the church through the ages, and the church today – have not always lived out their vocations in congruence with the values of the gospel. So the real audience is not the Pharisees, but the disciples and, by extension, us. Jesus is talking to his Church.

In this same spirit, Paul declares the integrity of his mission to the Thessalonian community. He and his co-workers have embodied a life worthy of the gospel, so that the Thessalonians hear Paul’s words as if they are coming straight from God. This is not a matter of pride but an affirmation that our openness to God allows us to reveal divine wisdom.

Limited and imperfect as we are, our lives as well as our words will become vehicles of God’s love, if we listen to God’s spirit and live guided by God’s vision of wholeness and justice. But, sometimes, we get lost and we need to take a long look at ourselves and consider where our current values and behaviors have led us.

That’s why we come together, week by week, to be nourished by God’s Word and Sacrament. That’s why we have preaching and teaching. That’s why we gather together as a community of faith. There are no prodigies in the Christian life; all of us are apprentices; all of us are in need of constant conversion; all of us require formation. We are not prodigies, we are fellow travelers on the journey of faith.