Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Attitude is everything! Show up. look for the good. and
Be Prepared to Be Surprised at how much Better Other People have Become
Sermon by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
At Good Shepherd Church, Scranton
October 13, 2002 (Proper 23-A)
The gospel today is rather shocking, isn't it? The guilty party is going to be tied up and thrown out into the back alley. Matthew's world was a lot tougher than ours, and in the last few weeks he has not hesitated to talk about debtor's prison (which we have only recently gotten rid of for everything except alimony); he had people sold as slaves, or handed over to torturers. None of that would have shocked his audience.Matthew's violent world is one we don't live in, thank God, but it is a mistake to think that our distance from his world gives us an excuse not to hear his teaching, because that teaching is a vital one, and a helpful one.
Matthew's community was a Jewish-Gentile mix; some of those people had friends or relatives who died when Rome destroyed Jerusalem in the revolt that took place around 70 A.D. Others had only recently come to learn about God and this strange Jewish savior. They were also tasting a bit of persecution and betrayal, and some people were quitting the new religion. The church was uneasy, to say the least.
So Matthew reaches into his memory and tells this story. And the first part they can really get into. The reign of God is like a wedding reception-something that has not changed in its complexity and importance. So God is planning a party and invites people. The first time, the people he has chosen don't respond. So he sends messengers to say, hey, the food is being cooked, let's go. They kill God's messengers.
So Matthew's church is thinking, Aha, we get this. God has called his people to a great feast, just like Isaiah said, and we know that it was a feast for his son, Jesus. But "they" murdered the prophets right through John the Baptist, and "they" killed Jesus, too. So it makes sense to us that God would have allowed the Romans to destroy Jerusalem. OK, we understand that.
So far, so good. We don't agree with them, but we can understand that our ancestors in the fiath may have taken some comfort in seeing the destruction of Jerusalem as paying heavy dues for murdering the prophets. And of course they could have felt some pride themselves in having been called in the second guest list, when the king invited everybody-"the many" is a semitic expression for "everybody."
By the way, It's a wonderful image to think of life with God as a party, isn't it. Some of us more serious types might think about that this week. I love Richard Burton's line in the movie "Beckett": "he's not a dreary God after all."
OK, so everybody has been invited to the party, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying that. Then Matthew sneaks up on them with his 2 x 4.
One of the second group, their group, is shown as not paying proper respect to the occasion, to the host, and to the other guests, and shows up in sandals, faded jeans, and a Grateful Dead tee-shirt, with chest hair sticking out the top. He's slouching against the furniture and putting back a boiler-maker, and just at that moment, the king walks in to say hello to the guests.
The king asks him why he disrespected the king, the party, and the other guests, and he is speechless. There's nothing you really can say when somebody points out your thoughtlessness. He knows it isn't going to be enough to say, "well, your kingness, this is the way I feel today," or "hey, I gotta be me," or "lighten up, King, after all, times have changed." And out he goes.
This parable has one point, and one point only. It is not about whether we think people should wear ties to weddings or sneakers to church. It is not about whether people can be tied up and thrown out for ruining a party. The one single question Matthew wants his church to ask when they hear this story is this: HAVE I PERSONALLY AND HAVE WE AS A COMMUNITY RESPONDED APPROPRIATELY TO THE GIFT GOD HAS GIVEN US IN JESUS CHRIST?
Matthew doesn't know about baptism as changing clothes; he certainly doesn't know about kings giving people wedding suits; he just knows that folks aren't always taking seriously what God has given them: a new way of relating to God and to each other, and a mission to change the world. It is Matthew alone who reminds people that Christ wants us to "make disciples," of all nations. Disciples, followers, not just folks who agree that it's nice of God to have thrown the party.
It's like last week's vineyard story: God has gone to a great deal of trouble to bring us back, and God means that to have some effect, wants us to be of some earthly use.
The entire Christian life is nothing less than learning how to respond to God's goodness, so we cannot answer the question Matthew asks simply, because each of us has been given different gifts and challenges. We cannot give just one answer because of our differences, but there are things we share because of our sameness, our common humanity.
The epistle lesson makes this very basic point: we respond to God by the kind of attitude we let ourselves have. Attitude is how you live, what kind of a presence you are to other people, where you let your mind go. Here in the letter to Philippians, St. Paul is at his most revolutionary: have an attitude that is always looking for things to rejoice about, an attitude that can find the little bit of good in everybody, an attitude that seeks out WHATEVER is good, noble, admirable, and so on, and thinks about those things.
I hate that. I was brought up to believe, "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." I was brought up to believe that the customer is always right. I am owed perfection, and I am required to produce perfection.
St Paul says, well, how you get on with the customer service desk at WalMart is probably a good indication of how you think of the world and the people in it, even that turkey you work with.
And that's right. Until we try to see people in terms of how well they please us, as long as we focus on their faults, we continue to build what St. Paul calls "a dividing wall of hostility." Now don't jump up and say, yeah, but who could like Hitler? That's not the point; most people haven't given themselves over to evil. Most people we know are struggling just as you and I struggle, to live life as decent people,
and that is often hard, very hard.
I have a friend who has hurt me very deeply and because of what is going on in their life right now, is incapable of understanding that. If I focus on that hurt, I lose a friend and just get bitter. Instead, I accept that fact that each of us individually is like the whole crowd that was brought to the party, "good and bad." If we are focused on what is wrong with our spouse, our job, our church, we don't change them and just become bitter. I'm serious about the fact that being mad with someone doesn't change them. Do you improve if somebody calls you names?
St Paul is not worried about whether I could have gotten my mother-in-law to change. He is worried about whether I let the love and compassion of God that I receive shape how I see the world around me, starting with her.
Learning to rejoice, to look for the good, to really believe that Jesus did come eating and drinking and partying, is part of what it means to take the wedding feast God spreads seriously. So please DO NOT go home and make a list of all the good things you haven't focused on and then feel guilty about it. DO continue to offer God praise and thanksgiving in this eucharist, this Great Thanksgiving, and let that sense of God's generosity go with you. The baptismal covenant has us promising to "seek and serve" Christ in all people. Those who offer the Great Thanksgiving know how to find God in unexpected places like broken bread and poured out wine. So, for this week it is enough to focus on the seeking part, to be looking for God's hand in the strangest of places, in the oddest of people. And to see how much happier that makes us.
Attitude is everything, they say. For me this is always a challenge, because a lot of what comes across my desk is bad news-I mean, challenging. So if you struggle this week to keep an attitude of rejoicing in the good, remember that I am struggling with you, because like you, I have seen enough of God's goodness to know that the struggle is worth it. In fact St Paul urges us to remember that no matter what the circumstances are, the heart that rejoices in the goodness that indeed we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Thus the invitation to us who have shivered a bit at this parable is to show up at the feast of life looking for the good that is around us, and with that attitude, be prepared to be surprised at how much better other people have become.
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