Love or Perish

Matthew 25:31-46
Christ the King
November 22, 2020

William G. Carter

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In the opening weeks of the Second World War, the poet W.H. Auden created a new poem. He titled it “September 1, 1939,” after the day that Germany initiated the war by invading Poland. The poem is long enough that I’m not going to read the whole. But I will give you the next to last stanza.

Auden reflected on how wars begin. “Waves of anger and fear / circulate over the bright / and darkened lands of the earth, obsessing our private lives.” He had a grim view of arrogant politicians. He thought little of the inattentive folk who ignored what is going on in their own country, and ignorant of the games other countries were playing. And then there is this stanza. Listen:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

 At the heart of our human experience, this is the moral choice: to love one another or die. To care for one another or perish. There’s no question why many pulled that poem off the shelf after the tragedies of 9-11. With another wave of Covid-19 breaking out among us, Auden’s poem is both poignant and true. And it resonates with the familiar text we have heard from Matthew 25.

Jesus lays out this vision of how God will judge the earth. It comes at the end of a series of parables, so some regard it as a parable, a veiled story about the dominion of God. But it is more of a vision, a revelation of what it really going on and what is ultimately true.

I know we have heard it several times, so let me call attention to a few details.

 First, there is a clear difference in people. These are not red, blue, and purple in-between. No, they are split into two groups. No confusion about it. No blurring of the lines. No grading on the curve. We are placed either here or there – and we don’t get to choose. We are sorted by the King on his throne. Not just any king, but The King who sits on The Throne.

Now, anybody who has been listening to Matthew’s Gospel knows this is coming. Way back in chapter 13, he reports Jesus as declaring the kingdom of God is like a net that catches every kind of fish. There are goldfish and guppies, stingrays and sharks, and every conceivable type of fish. And when the net is full, says Jesus, it is pulled ashore and all the fish are sorted. (13:47-50). It is a glimpse of what is coming at the end of the age: sheep on the right, goats on the left, and nobody in the middle.

Second, the basis of the sorting is a single determining issue. Here it is: did you care for others in their time of need? Yes or no. There’s no room for a “maybe.” No room for an apology. No room for good intentions.

Again, this will be no surprise for anybody who has been working through Matthew’s lessons in discipleship. This is the book where Jesus blesses the meek of the earth. And he says, “If you give a cup of cold drinking water to the little ones (that is, those with the greatest needs), you will keep your reward.” (10:42). Since this is one of the later books in the New Testament, perhaps written 50 years after the resurrection, it sounds like old Brother Matthew is confronting a lazy congregation. They have theology in their heads but no love in their hearts.

And this is the very last teaching that Jesus offers before he dies. Matthew puts it at the end to stress its importance, as if to say, “If you have forgotten everything else, don’t forget this.” It is the final exam for the course of life. The single question: did you care for others? Yes or no.

And the third detail, perhaps the most unusual, is that Jesus is hidden among the needy. The One who will judge us is standing in the bread line, hoping for a meal. The One who sits upon the governing throne at the center of the universe is standing in the check out line at the Dollar Store, wondering if he has enough pocket change to buy a can of pork and beans.

Nobody will recognize him. Not those on the right, not those on the left. It’s just as well. He was not looking for preferential treatment. Listen to the Final Vision of Matthew 25. Nobody could say, “If I knew you were here, I would have paid more attention.” Nobody is permitted to push back and say, “If only I realized it was you, I would have shown you some care.” Oh no.

Both sheep and goats share the same question, “Lord, when did we see you?” Both get the same answer: “You didn’t.”  It doesn’t matter if anybody recognizes Jesus or not. His hidden presence exposes the truth about out: either we care, or we don’t. Either we love or we perish.

So if that is the single question on the final exam, our challenge is to prepare for it. And it will take some preparation. You know as well as I that some folks are easy to love and other folks are a lot more challenging. Some people will accept help and accept it graciously. Others are conditioned to say, “No thanks; I can do it myself; I will be OK.”

About a dozen years ago, we sent a few teams to clean up after Hurricane Katrina. We wanted to help, and not sit it out on dry land, and say, “Isn’t it too bad what happened to those poor people?” So we went.

One day, they sent a few of us over to Dina Drive, a suburban cul-de-sac. We started knocking on doors to assess if there was something we could do. One warm-hearted couple invited me in, offered me cold drink, and told me how the winds blew the roof off their house. They were OK, but the roof was gone. Fortunately, they had an emergency savings account. When a roofing contractor stopped by, they asked him to do the work, emptied out their account to give him a deposit, and he never came back. That was two months ago. The blue tarp was still on the top of their house. What could I say or do to improve that situation? I listened, they wept, we prayed.

Across the street was a single father named Jack. He worked as an engineer on an offshore oil rig. He and 12-year-old Jack Jr. lived in a FEMA trailer parked in front of what was left of his house. He wanted nothing to do with our work crew. “No way,” he said. “No offense,” he said, “but a group like yours comes down here, put up the dry wall and doesn’t keep it straight. The next youth group comes to paint it and does a lousy job. Both groups leave, most of them feeling better about themselves, and I tear out their work to do it right myself.” All I could do it listen. Let him unload for a few minutes. Let him know there was a fellow human being who heard his story.

It's hard work to care for other people, especially if you can’t fix their situations. Especially if there is little we can do to take away their suffering.

Early on in my ministry, in my ceaseless desire for people to like me, I would make all kinds of promises. Let me get you some groceries. Do you need some money? How about if I call you once a day? Is there something I can do? So on and so forth. You can guess how these promises turned out, especially if you have ever made them to somebody that you cared about. And let me offer a blanket apology to all the people I’ve let down. None of us can fix all the hurts and troubles of another person.

But here is what we can do: we can join them in their humanity. We can be present, completely present. We can be still in our own anxiety and listen. If we speak, we can offer open-ended questions, such as “How are you today?” and “What does it feel like to go through what you’re going?” Hush and let them tell us. Don’t worry about being an expert or a fix-it man. Settle in and be a human being.

I’ve taken courses and workshops in counseling. I’ve spent time with counselors myself. Yet the best training I’ve ever received was from a professor in a class that had nothing to do with counseling. We were all new at this caregiving stuff, and a classmate asked, “What do we do when somebody calls to tell us about a tragedy – a death or an accident or something like that?” He looked over his spectacles and simply said, “You go.” But what if you don’t know what to say? And he replied, “You aren’t there to speak; you are there to be there.” It was subtle but brilliant advice.

The alternative is to not go. To hold back. To stick to yourself. To choose isolation. To risk falling into indifference. To let your heart grow cold and surrounded by thorns.

Now, these are the days of Covid-19. The virus is real. It’s not a joke. So we must find ways to “go” without physically going. It might take a bit of imagination. Maybe it’s a phone call. Or an email. Or reaching into that desk drawer full of greeting cards that you haven’t sent in a while. Or – and imagine this – handwriting a personal letter to someone. Imagine what that would mean! When was the last time you got a handwritten letter? Just imagine what that would mean to somebody else.

One of the truths about caring for another is that it is reciprocal. True caring is never from a position of power. It works best side by side. Not by towering over someone, but by pulling up alongside. No need to fix something, especially something not easily fixed. But you can choose to be present, even from miles away.  

The other truth about caring is that it becomes the means by which the Risen Christ reaches all of us. Two things we know presently about Jesus: He is alive, and he is hidden. As we reach sideways to one another, the Mystery is that he reaches through us. Sometimes we might even catch a glimpse of him at work.

This takes some practice, of course. All important things take practice. But one thing I know: if we extend our love to one another, particularly those in need, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, we won’t ever ask, “Lord, when did we see you?”  We will know. Oh yes, we will know.

 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Those Who Endure

Revelation 7:9-17
All Saints Day / November 1, 2020
Rev. Bill Carter

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This is one of my favorite passages from the Book of Revelation. And I realize that’s a curious thing to say.

Christian people tend to extremes with this final book in the Bible. Either they love it, or they ignore it. Either they spend an inordinate amount of time mapping out the end of the World, to the exclusion to the teachings of Jesus or God’s promises to Israel. Or they dismiss the ancient book as a science fiction fantasy about dragons with seven heads and sharp teeth.

I like the Book of Revelation for a very simple reason: it tells the truth. 

It tells the truth about Jesus. He is the Risen One, with a sharp tongue that slices away falsehood. His countenance radiates perfect power. He holds all the stars in his hand. Jesus is the One who sits upon the throne, the Real Throne, the Only Throne – and to claim that authority, he looks like a Lamb who was slain but now lives. This Lamb now shepherds his people. With visionary language like this, Revelation reveals what it true about our Lord.

It tells the truth about life as we know it. Life is a struggle. It is not easy. The prophet John, who writes down the visions that become the book of Revelation, sees this as a cosmic battle between good and evil. Wherever Christ the Lamb sits on the throne, there is push-back and rebellion. Whenever the Lamb shepherds his flock and calls them to love, the equal-and-opposite reaction is for other folks to show a lot of hate. 

These days, we might know something about that. Yesterday, if it wasn’t enough for a thousand new people to die from the corona plague in our nation, a get-out-the-vote rally in North Carolina was stopped by police officers who fired pepper spray into a crowd. Political signs are popping up all over town; when they are stolen overnight, each side blames the other, shouting past one another, and obliterating common ground. 

We are living through a season of division and animosity unlike anything I have ever experienced in my adult life. Old-timers say, “You should have seen the 1960’s,” but it looks like the beginning of the 20’s are no picnic. 

In the passage we have today, the prophet John refers to the “Great Ordeal.” The Greek word that he uses is a word about “pressing together,” as in a squeezing, a compressing, an application of pressure. “I’m your brother in this ordeal,” he says in chapter one. He doesn’t give us a lot of details. We know he has fallen afoul of the Roman Emperor, and was sent to a small, barren rock of an island off the coat of western Turkey.

John felt the pressure. Rome demanded absolute allegiance, but John sees Christ the Lamb as the One who rightfully sits on the throne. The Empire pressed in to compel John’s obedience, but John will only answer to Christ who shepherds him with grace. Caesar – in this case, a Caesar named Domitian – enforces his pressure with cruelty and the threat of death, but John knows his future is secure in the God who is stronger than the grave.     

And in the stunning vision for today, John sees a multitude of saints in a cloud of glory. They are not Jews like him; they are from every nation. They speak every language. They are gathered in unity, a reversal of the legendary tragedy of the Tower of Babel. Together they break into song, offering a seven-fold praise of God:

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving

and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

John is telling us the truth, not only about God, not merely about life, but also the truth about getting through the ordeal. Whatever the ordeal happens to be, it does not define us. We can feel pressed by the voices all around us, but there is one Voice that we lean forward to hear. As the Barmen Confession declared in another time of pressure, “Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.”

Beyond all sight, beyond all the pressure of whatever ordeal we are currently enduring, there is a song. The saints are singing the hymns of God. It’s an amazing sound, especially for us, who cannot safely sing when there’s a deadly virus that spreads as it is expelled into the air. Beyond the crisis we are in, somebody is singing for us until we sing again.

I think of four of our saints from our flock who have gone to live with God this year. Two of them were brothers, raised among the Baptists of Peckville, both instructed in singing the Welsh hymns no matter what. Friends called them Skip and Beno. One was a gentleman, the other was a character. Both of them grew up singing and kept singing into their adult lives. They have gone before us and now stand in the full presence of God.

And two ladies are also in that choir, Lorraine, and Alma. Lorraine lived 94 years of public service. Employed by the United States Postal Service, she served on the Dalton Borough Council for 29 years. When her small congregation folded, she joined us here. She told me, “I’m a church person. This is where I belong.” Her list of the services she provided for others is a mile long.

The only list longer, I believe, is the list of Alma’s friends. She was another remarkable saint of God. Sometimes outspoken with the women, sometimes a flirt with the men, she touched a countless number of people and transformed them into friends. In Spanish, Alma means “soul,” that irrepressible, irreducible spirit within us that inhales grace and breathes out love. That’s Alma. 

Skip, Beno, Lorraine, and Alma – a quartet of those who now sing in the choir that is just beyond our hearing. We can count those four and add their number to others we have recently lost, but we cannot begin to count all those who now enjoy the full presence of God. Are they worried now? No. Are they sick any longer? No, they are completely healed. Are they concerned about the noise and the nonsense of our present ordeal? Not one bit. 

They have passed through, as all of us will one day pass through. They are experiencing the fullness of joy and the completeness of love. And nothing shall separate them from that joy and love. Not anymore. 

When you are feeling “pressed,” try to see it from the perspective of your future. Every ordeal is temporary. Measured against eternity, it will not last very long. That’s not to ignore how painful it might feel, but it is to acknowledge what lies ahead of us – and the truth of what already surrounds us.

The day is coming when “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”  

This is the future for us to claim. It is the very real present for those we have offered back to God. They live eternally with Christ while we keep living here and now. 

And once in a while, the gap between “now” and “then” collapses. It can feel like heaven is right here, and earth is completely connected to it. This is the work of the Lamb who is our shepherd. He gathers us in an enormous flock. He guards us from the forces of destruction. Ultimately, he breaks down the walls that separate earth from heaven. 

So even if life is hard, the hard parts are not permanent. What is permanent is life. What keeps going is the life of eternity; our trust in God, life begins here and now and goes on then. 

Blessed are those who endure in this truth.    

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

She Wore Out Seven Husbands

Matthew 22:23-33
Ordinary 30
October 25, 2020

William G. Carter

The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.” Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

The Bible has its stories. I’ve discovered that one of the best ways to understand begins by deciding what to call them. That might the interpretative key that can unlocks the meaning.

Take the well-known “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” for instance. Remember how that boy claims an advance on his inheritance, packs his bags, and runs off to blow it all in a far country, only to come home with his tail between his legs and beg for a place to stay? He’s the Prodigal Son. But that’s only half the story. He has a do-gooder older brother who never strayed, always did what right, and resents the grace that welcomed home the prodigal. There are two boys, not one, and the Father who loves them both. So let’s call it “The Man Who Loved Two Sons.”

Or the tale of the “Good Samaritan.” Jesus spins that one when asked by a self-righteous Bible scholar about defining the neighbor. Unlike the indifferent priest or the overly cautious Levite, the despised Samaritan stops his mule to climb down and care for somebody he doesn’t know who has been beaten and robbed. When Jesus asks the smug scholar which of the three acted humanely, the scholar cannot say the word, “Samaritan.” So let’s call that one, “The Neighbor You Don’t Want to Recognize.”

It's a fun little game. It’s also helpful, especially with the Bible stories we have tackled for the past couple of months. A father sends two sons to work in the vineyard; one says yes and doesn’t go, the other says no and finally gets there. Both are disobedient, so it’s the “Man with Two Disobedient Sons.” 

Or there’s the one popularly called the “Workers in the Vineyard.” All those workers were hired at different times, so they each expect different amounts in their pay envelopes. When the one-hour workers get a full day’s wage, the long-timers have multiplied that amount by the hours they’ve put in. Alas, all they get is a full day’s wage. Don’t call it the “Workers in the Vineyard.” Call it “The Boss Who Pays Everybody the Same.”

So what about the story we hear today? It’s a story from the Sadducees, not from Jesus. Sounds like a tale they’ve told many times, or at least a tale they’ve been polishing to toss at Jesus.

Who were the Sadducees? Matthew says they are the one who didn’t believe in the Resurrection, but they are more to them than that. They came from aristocratic families and were extremely wealthy. They ended up in high positions of authority in the Jerusalem Temple; the high priest Caiaphas was a Sadducee. And they were very conservative. That’s the truth of many wealthy people; the economic system tilts in their favor, so why should they mess with it?

Their conservativism supplied their religious views. Back in the day when the Bible was not yet a book but a collection of sacred scrolls, the Sadducees believed the only scrolls that counted were the Five Scrolls of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They dismissed the Writings, like Psalm 9, which says, “The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever (9:18).” And they had little time for Prophets like Amos, who thundered against those “who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way (Amos 2:7).”

Oh, no. The Sadducees declared, “If Moses didn’t write it, we will ignore it.” That’s why they didn’t believe in the Resurrection. It wasn’t in the five scrolls of their Bible. The Pharisees and many of the Jewish people believed in a final Day of the Lord, a final raising of every soul, a final judgment where God sorts through the holy lives of the righteous and the condemnation of those who are evil. The Sadducees said, “No, that’s not in the Book. It’s not in our Book.” They said, “Moses didn’t mention a resurrection. It’s empty speculation.”

This shapes the story they offer to Jesus. They say, “Teacher, Moses taught that if a man died without an heir, it is his brother’s obligation to marry the childless wife and produce a baby.” Now, before you flinch, that one is in the Book, tucked away in the dark corner of Deuteronomy (25:5). It was a law given when there was fear of the family line being cut off. There’s never been any evidence that any brother actually tried this. Marrying your sister-in-law isn’t always a good idea.

But no matter to the Sadducees. They want to make a point. “Teacher,” they say, “suppose a man dies without a son and his brother takes up the manly duty and marries the childless wife. Then he dies without producing a son, so a third brother steps up and marries the childless widow. But he dies without a son, too. So it goes with four more brothers, all of whom are living under the same roof. One at a time, all seven of them marry the same woman, who never produces a child, and all seven die. Finally the woman dies.”

“So, Teacher, in this so-called Resurrection, whose wife is she going to be?”

It’s the kind of story you dream up if you have a lot of time on your hands. The kind of story you cook up while you’re twirling the tassels of your robe and running your fingers through your beard. It’s the kind of question you ask if you have a lot of money, with servants who pour you a cup of Earl Grey from a silver tea pot.

It’s a ridiculous story. I try to imagine the face of Jesus as he hears them spin it. Does he roll his eyes? Or does he cackle with laughter at the absurdity of it? Or does his cheek redden at the overt sexism of it all? I mean, this is a story about a “hypothetical woman.” She doesn’t have a name. She is merely a prop. The Sadducees’ assumption is that the seven-fold widow exists only to give one of the boys a son. Their story reduces her life to that.

I, for one, would like to give her greater dignity. She had to endure being passed around. She had to put up with an old Bible verse that presumed men get to do whatever they want. Yet she is a child of God, equally made in the image of the Almighty. She deserves more dignity than the Sadducees give her. That’s why I would name this tale, “She Wore Out Seven Husbands.” Let’s give her some credit for her robust endurance. Let’s bring her out of the shadows and into the light.

Ever notice that sometimes, or much of the time, people tell stories or ask question or repeat things based on their preconceptions? I did this a few minutes ago by presuming a lot of wealthy people are inherently conservative. The Sadducees have done it in the story by presuming all women are insignificant. The Sadducees also presume that God only works in ways that had been described by the five ancient scrolls of Moses.

So Jesus responds to the story by saying, “You are wrong. You have gone off the tracks.” These Sadducees, who like to dress up in fine robes, who stand up in the Temple and repeat the scripted rituals, have a fixed view of life, religion, and God. If something doesn’t fit their point of view, they dismiss it. If something crosses the lines they maintain, they refuse it. If something exists beyond what they can imagine, they ignore it.

Now, all of us are prone to do this. We reinforce our beliefs by surrounding ourselves with friends who agree with us. We select the cable TV stations that reinforce what we already believe. We diagnose a difficulty based on the assumptions we have already made.

Psychologists have a phrase for this. It’s called “confirmation bias.” In the words of the great philosopher Warren Buffett, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”[1] In other words, I don’t want to change my mind nor enlarge my point of view; I want to stay the way I am.

This, says Jesus, is where the Sadducees go wrong. “You do not understand the scriptures,” he says. For one thing, you cannot keep telling stories that dismiss women as nameless props for the men. The scriptures declare women and men are equal in the eyes of God. If anything, Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the finished product.

What’s more, says Jesus, “You do not understand about God.” God is not a character in an ancient scroll, but the Living One who is the source of all life. God is free, alive, and eternal, not bound to any of our assumptions or opinions. “Hey Sadducees, what does God say to Moses out of the burning bush? ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ God speaks in the present tense, the eternally present tense.”

So God came before us – and God is waiting ahead of us. Resurrection is the step into God’s eternity. And in God’s eternity, it is wrong thinking to assume that everything here and now will continue into the full presence of the Holy God. Injustice? It will not continue before God’s righteousness. Corruption and bad behavior? They will evaporate before God’s purity.

There will be no more schools, for there will be no more ignorance. There will be no more hospitals, for all shall be healed. There will be no more temples or churches, for all who live eternally will dwell in the house of the Lord.[2] In the resurrection, says Jesus, we shall be living with the angels. Everything false, superficial, or just plain wrong will have passed away. This is the work of the living God. It shines light on how we are called to live here and now.

In the summer after I graduated from Princeton Seminary, I worked for a couple of weeks at a minister’s conference on campus. I was waiting for my first job to come through and needed the money. My job was to set up microphones and recording equipment for the conference teachers and speakers. That’s how I met a poet named Thomas John Carlisle. He had retired from the parish a few years before, and now he traveled around with books of poetry compiled from years of listening to scripture.

Here's a poem he wrote on our Bible text, entitled “Somebody’s Wife.”

Whose wife would she be in
In the resurrection
(if there should be one)?
Seven husbands
Might claim her
As their property.
What a grim dilemma!

No one thought of asking
Whose husband a man would be
If he outlived
A plethora of spouses –
As men often did.
That did not fit their plot.

Women were not supposed
To be so durable.
Frequency of pregnancy
And the vicissitudes of childbirth
Took a lethal toll.
Perhaps sterility could be a blessing
And barrenness have some benefits.

She who had seven times failed
To bear a child
Was not to be left out
In Jesus’ estimate.

Heaven does not perpetuate
The inequities of earth.
Though treated as a no one here
God provides for her and others
A revised and reasonable
Appraisal.

Worth trying now.[3]

“Heaven does not perpetuate the inequities of earth.” Thank God for that. Thank the Living God.

And today, as we remember She Who Wore Out Seven Husbands, let us pledge our lives to create a world as loving, just, and true as the heaven that God is bringing to earth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(c) William G. Carter.  All rights reserved.

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[1] See, for instance, F. Diane Barth, “How Confirmation Bias Affects You Every Single Day,” Psychology Today, 31 December 2017. Retrieved online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201712/how-confirmation-bias-affects-you-every-single-day

[2] Thanks to Tom Long for this insight, in his commentary Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) p. 253.

[3] Thomas John Carlisle, Beginning with Mary: Women of the Gospels in Portrait (Grand Rapids: William G. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986) p. 54.

Show Me a Quarter

Matthew 22:15-22
October 18, 2020 

William G. Carter

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Of all the questions they put to Jesus, this is the first question his challengers ask: should we pay our taxes, yes or no? They want his opinion about that.

Those in authority have already questioned his authority, essentially asking, “Who do you think you are?” (21:23-27) He doesn’t answer. As we already learn from conversations with his disciples, Jesus wants to know who they think he is (16:13-20). His true identity is something they have to figure out. So he doesn’t answer and goes on his way.

But now there are interrogators buzzing around his head like hornets. He has stirred up the hive, both in his elusiveness and some of those ornery parables we have been hearing this fall. So they swarm the Savior and come at him, stinger first, “Tell us about taxes. Yes or no? What do you think?”

Those of us with grown children remember the look on their faces. So excited to get a real job! Two weeks later, so ecstatic to get the first real paycheck. The envelope is opened. There’s a moment of silence. And the question comes, “Where’s all the money? Why isn’t it all here?” Welcome to adulthood, honey. Taxes are a part of life.

“Hey Jesus, should we pay our taxes?” It’s a worthy question -- if you have a choice about it. 

Most of us don’t have a choice. In the attorney’s conference room to sign my first mortgage, I wondered out loud. “If the bank owns my house for the next thirty years, shouldn’t the bank pay the taxes?” My good attorney smiled and said, “It doesn’t work that way.” He paused and said, “Wish it did.”

For us, maybe the better questions are these: do you want teachers to be paid a living wage? Would you like public safety officers to be protected? Would you like to have straight roads without potholes? Well, maybe we should skip over that one. The greater point was well made by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court justice. He said, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” We all need use a heavy dose of civilization, don’t you think?

Here in the Gospel of Matthew, it's curious that Jesus has already been asked if he pays his taxes. Back in chapter 17, the collectors asked if he paid the “temple tax.” The answer was yes, he does (Matthew 17:24-25). What was the temple tax? In that day, every Jewish male over the age of twenty was required to give two days’ wages every year to support the buildings and grounds of the Jerusalem Temple. You couldn’t worship there without supporting that institution. This tax was in addition to the ten percent tithe required by the Bible.

And you’ll be glad to know this is not what the Pharisees and Herodians were asking about. No, it was assumed that every believer supported the upkeep of the Temple and made their tithe to God. That was not the issue.

No, they were asking about the tax – the Empire Tax – the tax laid on their shoulders by Tiberius Caesar. He didn’t live in Jerusalem. He lived in Rome. He lived in an opulent palace in Rome and stationed his soldiers in Jerusalem to keep the Jewish citizens under his heavy foot.

Tiberius was not one of the better Caesars in Roman history. He built great roads, but he was reviled for his corruption. To quote the Roman historian Tacitus, “(Tiberius) was infamous for his cruelty and his veiled debaucheries. At the end, he plunged into every wickedness and disgrace; when fear and shame being cast off, he simply indulged his own inclinations.”

And the Pharisees and the Herodians ask Jesus, “Are you going to pay your taxes to support that guy?” It’s a good question, a really good question. It’s such a good question that they think they have him up against a wall.

On the one hand, if he pays the tax to Tiberius, he loses credibility with many of the people. For twenty-five years they have begrudgingly paid taxes to the Empire that occupied their towns and oppressed their lives. They protested the tax as an illegal act and moral outrage. If Jesus says, “pay it,” he loses the people who love him.

On the other hand, if Jesus says, “No, don’t pay any taxes to Tiberius,” one of the Herodians will whistle for the centurions to move in, grab this agitator, and get rid of him on their behalf. They think they’ve got him. They question Jesus with all the greasy smarminess they can muster. “Good Teacher, we know you’re fair, we know you’re impartial, we know you’re wise, yada yada yada…” 

As we know, he replies with a brilliant answer that sets them back on their heels. “Who’s got a quarter?” he asks. Whose image is on that coin? Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give to God what belongs to God. And they are speechless. They had nothing to say. They stood frozen with their jaws open. Then they shuffled away.

They should have known better than wrestle with the Christ. The same imagination that created the parables that we’ve been hearing this fall is the imaginative mind that raises three important questions, questions still with us, questions which do not easily settle into oblivion.

First question: whose image is on the coin? That’s the literal translation: whose image? The word is ikon, and it’s a loaded term. According to the ancient story, when God made human people, God scooped up mud from the river back, shaped it, and blew holy breath into the nostrils. It came alive when it could breathe – that’s the Bible’s view of when life begins, when we breathe. God said, “This is good. Very, very good.” And the Bible declares we are created in the ikon of God – the image.

That is why the Bible commands us, “Don’t make any fake images,” and if you do, “don’t bow down before them.” That’s the Second Big Commandment.   

So let me ask you this: What’s a Pharisee doing, within the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple, with a Roman coin in his pocket? On the face of that coin is the icon of Tiberius Caesar. Around it is the inscription, “Son of the Divine Augustus.” Biblically speaking, it’s a graven image, a small circular metallic idol. There were money changers at the gate, so nobody would dare to bring such a secular coin, a denarius, inside the Temple court.

But notice this. Jesus does not criticize the presence of that coin. Nor does he critique the mingling of sacred and secular. Why? If he were a purist, someone so heavenly would have nothing to do with earth or as tempting as money. But we believe he is the Incarnate Son of God, the marriage of heaven and earth walking around on two legs. He has set aside all heavenly privilege to live with us. Jesus is the complete Image of God, and a good part of his work is to restore God’s Image in us. It is a work still in progress.

So that points to the second question: what belongs to Caesar? There are two answers: not as much as Caesar thinks, and more than Caesar realizes.

If Presbyterians know about anything, we know about government. We know a government is necessary for order and protection. A government is called to care for its people and cultivate their ability to flourish. A government cannot exist on pure oxygen; it needs funding to function, and financial oversight to function responsibly. And the other thing know is a government lives only by the voice of the people who are governed.

No government carries out these functions perfectly because governments consist of imperfect people. Some of them are sufficiently imperfect to believe they are doing a better job than they actually are. Our spiritual tradition tells us why this is the case. Political authority creates its own blind spots. Power is easily corrupted. That’s why Presbyterians have always insisted on systems of checks and balances, so that power can be shared, and authority can be held accountable.

What belongs to Caesar? The people, for one thing. The common good, for another. Neither the people nor the common good are served by a government that ignores them. And a government that can be bought or sold by the few will never provide for the needs of the many. That was the crisis of the Roman Empire which led to its inevitable collapse. The empire demanded a tax from those who would never benefit from it.

Here's the third question: what belongs to God? The best answer is everything. Today we opened with a line from the 24^th Psalm. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. If Jesus unites heaven and earth, there is no place where God cannot reach. There is no sphere of influence that can totally exclude God’s influence.

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas reminds us that the pronouncement of Jesus is often misunderstood. We hear Jesus say, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, Give to God what belongs to God,” and we are tempted to believe there are dual allegiances – one to Caesar and country, and another to God.[1] Well, no. There is only one allegiance and that is to God. When we serve our country, it is one expression of how we serve the Only God to whom everything belongs. Caesar only exists because of the grace of God. Should Caesar ever be replaced, that also happens by the grace of God.

We know whose image is on the face of our coins. But whose image is on your face or mine? Whose image is on the face of friend or foe? It is the image of God. Looking at you, I see a striking family resemblance. That is why we value one another. That’s why we engage in God’s world. That’s why we vote, and we work to improve human government. That’s why we kneel beside those in need and care for one another.

And that’s why we pay attention to what we do with our money. Jesus did not dismiss the question about taxes because he knows we always must make choices. He didn’t spiritualize the matter of money because he knows money buys bread. As much as he knows the love of money can tempt us to evil deeds, he knows that money can also empower good works. Christ entrusts us with the stewardship of our choices. He calls us to bear the image of God in all that we do, all that we give, and all that we love. 

This is hard work. It’s grown-up work. Just as we noticed the shock on a kid’s face when she learns taxes were deducted from that first paycheck, so we acknowledge our lives are full of responsibilities. Some responsibilities come as a surprise. Other are welcomed joyfully. Still others shake us from complacency by their demands.   

Beneath it all is a question you can answer. It is the question that never goes away. In case you forgot the question, here it is again. What belongs to God? 

I think you know the answer.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved. 

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[1] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015), pp. 190-191.

Forgot His Tuxedo

Matthew 22:1-14
Ordinary 28
October 11, 2020 

William G. Carter

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

 

There’s a story that some of our children know. The title tells you everything: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It’s story where nothing goes right. When young Alexander wakes up, he discovers the chewing gum that he enjoyed last night is stuck in his hair. He leaps out of bed and trips on his skateboard. At the bathroom sink, his favorite sweater drops in. He knows from the outset, it’s going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

After hearing the parable today, it sounds like the Gospel of Matthew is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It begins with such promise. The king is throwing a party. There will be music and dancing and a lot of free food. All you need to do is show up!

That’s when everything goes wrong. The invited guests ignore the invitation. The king invites them again, but the guests joke about it. Some of them would rather work than celebrate. Others get downright nasty. They mistreat and then murder the messengers. Pretty soon, the king retaliated on the murderers in the same way that they mistreated his messengers. There’s a lot of blood, violence, and fire.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to this king.” That’s a head-scratcher. How is the kingdom like this king? No idea . . . except that the story goes on. The king tries Plan B. Rather than restrict the party to his invited guests (which he got rid of, anyhow), now the king invites everybody. He sends those poor servants back out to the streets, and says, “Fill my banquet hall!” And that’s what they do.

Matthew may be having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but I think we can make some connection. The kingdom is a free gift, like that party. The kingdom is an insistent invitation, like that king. The kingdom is now waiting for everybody to come.

But let it be said the kingdom can also be resisted and rejected. The inference, then, is the kingdom of heaven can be a dangerous place if you don’t live up to the invitation. For the story goes on, as we heard – there’s a Part 3, and the tossing-out of one of the guests. This is most troubling: to think that if you do show up, and you do respond, there’s a chance you might get thrown out on your ear. Many are called, at least one guest isn’t allowed to stay.

In a terrible parable, this is the worst part. Can’t Matthew make his point without getting so nasty about it?

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a great big meal. Many are invited to the feast, but they give lots of excuses. That’s what Luke wants to emphasize: the everyday excuses. So the party planner buses in a crowd of the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. They weren’t the king’s first choice, apparently, but the king wants to fill the banquet hall. Luke says you will miss God’s party if you keep giving excuses. Unlikely people will replace you.

Or there’s the Gospel of Thomas, a book that didn’t make the cut to get into the New Testament. Jesus tells another story like this. The king throws a party and people are invited, but the excuse-givers are specifically named as merchants and business people and merchants. They are too busy breaking the Sabbath to come to the party. So be forewarned by this good Jewish teaching about Sabbath-keeping: if you are consumed by a full schedule of commerce, the banquet is given to somebody else.  Surprise, surprise.

By contrast, Matthew’s version of the story sounds like the evil twin of these others. The king is vengeful when his messengers are murdered. He destroys everybody who ignores him. Then he throws the party anyway, filling every chair, only to furiously throw out an invited guest who was wearing the wrong clothes.

We can take the story literally, I suppose, and start assigning the part of the king to God, etcetera. But the story works better as is for its shock value. It’s supposed to be outrageous. It’s supposed to shake us up. Just when you think it ought to be excised from scripture, you realize that eight times Old Matthew insists the party is a “wedding,” not just any generic banquet. And then four times you hear him say the banquet is only for those are “invited.” At first, it’s not for everybody … but then it is.

And just when we think this is a story about including everybody in God’s party, a trap door opens at the last minute, and the poorly dressed sap gets thrown into “outer darkness.”

We must remember that this is Matthew who does the reporting. Since he’s talking about Jesus, you know he’s going to say a good bit about grace. But because he’s writing his book after fifty years of experience of what the church can be like, he is also going to remind us that God is a Judge. Grace leads to judgment. In the kingdom, there’s plenty of holy generosity, but there’s also a day of selective sorting.

It’s always been like this. Matthew remembers how Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a field planted with wheat and weeds.” (13:24-30). Good crops and bad grow side-by-side, until they are sorted at the final harvest and the weeds are burned.

"Again,” remembers Matthew, "the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind" (13:47-50). The generous catch is hauled ashore where it is sorted between the "good" and the "bad".  In case we don’t miss the comparison, Jesus says, "So it will be at the end of time."

I think we can see the sermon that Matthew is trying to preach. He sets this one in Holy Week, when Jesus is surrounded by the Holy Rollers of the Temple. Matthew knows religious people are not all that they say they are. Some of them put plastic grins over their meanness. Others don’t follow up on the promises and covenants they make.

In fact, I wonder if, in Matthew’s day, some of God’s chosen people weren’t very interested in acting particularly chosen. Maybe they were more consumed with consuming – making money and spending it - or consuming one another than about responding to a big party that was offered to them as a gift.  

Whatever the case, the parable announces there are some ornery people on the king’s guest list. That might cause us to squirm. I can think of a hundred different anecdotes to support this. Maybe you can, too. Even in the church, among God’s precious sons and daughters, there’s always some tiff that’s still unsettled. Maybe they bicker by the coffee pot. Or bicker because, these days, in the name of safety, there isn’t a coffee pot.

These days, some of my ministerial friends are getting push-back about the decision to hold off on large gatherings during a pandemic. Hate mail, veiled threats, blame, and abuse. A friend in North Carolina got a letter from an elder on his session after the session out-voted him on the matter. It said, “If you people don’t trust God enough to protect you from a virus, I’m going to find a church full of Real Christians.” I wonder if he might be directed to a friendly congregation of snake handlers.

It’s amazing that God puts up with any of us, you know. Some of the squabbles in God’s banquet hall will almost drown out the snoring of those who were invited but decided to skip out and get some sleep. And then, there’s that offensive notion that God might want to sort through the crowd. Really, now; do we want that?

Make no mistake: this is a Gospel story, so beneath it all, there’s a lot of grace. The king keeps inviting the whole town to a free, lavish feast. But this is a king with some expectations. He expects those gathered by grace to be transformed in graciousness. Accept the invitation, get along with the other party guests, maybe even say “thank you” if you’re able. It’s not your party, but the Host wants you to be here.

And he expects to see you properly dressed. Otherwise, you’ll get tossed out just like that hapless party guest who forgot his tuxedo.

So let’s focus on that for a minute. What’s that all about? The king never announced a dress code, especially for that mixed lot that he rounded up off the streets. As far as we know, he hasn’t handed out any clothing that he expects people to wear. (One of the participants in our weekly Bible study thinks he should have, but the story doesn’t say.)

All we know is the king weeds out the one guy who isn’t properly dressed. That’s one detail of the story that has given the theologians an opportunity to earn their paychecks.

• Saint Augustine said the wedding gown represented charity – the wedding guest wasn’t dressed in love.
• Martin Luther said the wedding gown symbolizes faith – the guest is inside the door, but he just doesn’t trust the host. So he gets expelled.
• John Calvin said the wedding gown is a metaphor for good works – you’ve got to grow up and act like a Christian even after you become a Christian.

All are good suggestions, but the best definition for the wedding gown comes from Jesus. Earlier in this book, Jesus talked about the “higher righteousness” of the kingdom. Jesus has already said it’s not enough to be like the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not enough to merely say the right words and go through the motions. The life of the kingdom must infuse every part of our being.

Over and over, Jesus says the “higher righteousness” is worn like a cloak by people who do the will of the heavenly Father (7:21).  They are the ones who:  

·         give up all arrogance and become humble like a child (18:2),

·         care for the lost, the left out, and the little ones (18:10),

·         forgive seven times, and seventy more times than that (18:22),

·         leave behind the charms of the world for Jesus’ sake (19:29),

·         give out cups of water to the thirsty and blankets to those who are chilled (25:34-36).

The higher righteousness is a life of unrestricted love, a life where others benefit by our goodness. It’s the life that becomes so joyful and generous that people can’t tell the difference between Jesus and you. Just imagine the conversation overheard in God’s banquet hall: “Hey, Henry, isn’t that Sally over there?”  “I can’t really tell; she looks like Jesus.”

This is the “higher righteousness.” Tt’s a life on earth that is saturated with the generosity of heaven. Grace may welcome us into the party, but it’s the higher righteousness keeps us there.

That is the message of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad parable. It was a message pretty much lost on those who murdered the Christ who first told it. I hope it’s a message that we hear, not just with our ears but with our hearts.

In the final analysis, it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. All of us are loved by God, and it’s one thing to know we are loved by God. But it’s another thing to know we are admired by God. Do you know the difference?

It’s the difference between being invited to the party and being allowed to stay.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.