Today’s readings take us back to the issue of sin. I know some of you don’t want to talk about it and frankly I think sin gets far too much attention in some versions of Christianity, but it is so fundamental to Christian thinking that we can’t just ignore it. We need to take sin seriously in all its forms.

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Christian narratives which don’t acknowledge the importance of sin “cheap grace”. Cheap grace preaches forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without formation, and communion without confession. Bonhoeffer himself described this as "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ". One of its characteristics he said is treating God's love as a superficial cover-up for sins, allowing people to continue living as they wish.

In contrast, Bonhoeffer called the obedience of following Jesus, the discipleship of ‘costly grace’. Costly grace acknowledges the need to take up our cross and follow Jesus the non-violent Savior into the desert, into his confrontation with the ease of compromise with empire, into his life-giving ministry and ultimately his death. Costly grace is not about coming to church to feel good, to enjoy the music and the liturgy and each other’s company. Costly grace is about the transformation of our lives, it is about resistance to all that masquerades as life-giving but which sucks the very life away from us.

Bonhoeffer was extremely critical of the German church of his time which he saw compromising its values. Instead of standing up to the Nazi authorities, church leaders tried to maintain a "viable" position: one that would conform to Christian doctrine, prevent the Church from dividing into opposing factions, and avoid antagonizing the Nazi authorities. Their public statements seem to have been a painstaking attempt to say neither too much nor too little about what is happening around them. Needless to say, this ruled out any real opposition to the Nazi persecution of Jews and others.[1]

For Bonhoeffer this lack of courage was “cheap grace” – preaching and receiving the love of God without the consequent responsibility of taking up the cross – which in his time meant standing up for those being killed and persecuted.

There are of course, many parallels to our own time. We have a federal administration which is centralizing power into its own hands, and seems willing to ignore systems of honor, ethics and even legality. We are seeing people rounded up in their places of works and in the streets because they look like they might be illegal immigrants. And in the process legal, passport holding Americans are shot and killed and then labelled domestic terrorists.

And it is tempting to do nothing. It is tempting to believe the propaganda that these people are all violent criminals. It is tempting to turn away from the injustices and ill-treatment being carried out in detention centers. It is tempting for us to sing and talk about the love of God without confronting the realities of sin.

But that’s not what Jesus did.

Those forty days in the wilderness Jesus confronted cheap grace. He was tempted to do it the easy way. Don’t worry about fasting – you’re hungry just order take out – a nice loaf of bread? or how about pizza? Want people to notice you? Take the easy way and jump off the top of the temple – you know the angels will catch you. Nah it’s really all about power isn’t it – take the easy way and let the empire handle all the details – don’t worry about ethics or honor or other people – don’t worry about the rich getting richer or the poor getting trampled on, join in with the rich and famous and everything will be yours.

Yet we know that Jesus said no. He didn’t take the easy way. He carried his cross to Calvary.
Y’all have been listening to me on or off for a year now and you know that I fully believe that God’s love is unconditional and embraces all of us. That’s grace. Grace is that we are totally accepted by God with all our warts and all our imperfections. We don’t have to be someone else in order to deserve God’s love.

Sometimes I worry that I am preaching cheap grace. So I hope I also talk enough about how our response to God’s love is to be transformed into the image of God, or perhaps back into the image of God as we were before we started to take the easy way. Before our ancestors took the easy way and ate the nice-looking fruit even though they knew it wasn’t right. No I don’t believe literally in the story of the fall but it is a myth that speaks to us again and again of how we are almost programmed to take the easy way, the way that brings us the greatest gain with the least effort, at least in the short term.

As our second reading this morning emphasizes, grace is free. Our reconciliation with God is not through anything we do or anything we earn, like points on a cosmic scoreboard - but it is the free gift of God, given to us through Jesus. Death is walking apart from God; life is walking with God.
This is the good news. We are given life. We are given the opportunity to walk with God. A little further on in the ancient story we hear, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”” The Lord God called, “Where are you?” God is calling for us in the cool of the day, ready to relax and hang out with us. Will we say ‘here I am Lord” or will we hide with shame because we took the easy way and never turned back?

Costly grace is not an easy path – we only have to look at Jesus’ life to see that. But it is the path of life. It is the path that brings life and hope not only to ourselves but to the stranger in our midst and to the whole of Creation.

Sin is much more than telling a few white lies or envying our neighbor their new car or their expensive landscaping. Sin is writ large in our faces every day. It is the way society rolls. Tax breaks for the wealthy and reductions in food stamps for the poor. The unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for true Americans who are not black, brown, Muslim or Hindu. We are enmeshed in a system which is sinful, I call it the sin matrix, that privileges some people and not others. And you and I my friends are among the privileged. You and I are offered the easy path.

But Jesus calls us to the path of the wilderness. The path of the cross. The path of pouring ourselves out for the good of the world. The path of costly grace. The path of Lent.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 


[1] https://www.adl.org/resources/news/role-churches-nazi-germany

Today is the last Sunday in Epiphany and as always, however long Epiphany is, we started the season with Jesus being baptized and now we end with him being transfigured. The baptism and transfiguration act like bookends for this season of revelation, the season when Jesus is revealed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and his disciples recognize and follow him. It is a season with two main questions – who do you say that Jesus is? And will you follow him?

During both the baptism and transfiguration, a voice from the heavens answers the first of those questions. In Matthew’s account of the baptism, “when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And in today’s reading, ‘suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”’

We can see these two events as initiations for Jesus – his baptism starts his ministry and perhaps the transfiguration marks the beginning of his journey toward the cross.

Yet the transfiguration event does more than that. It puts Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition of Moses and Elijah. If you had any doubt that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah this should make it clear. Moses went up a mountain and spent time with God. During that time he received the basis of the law – the ten commandments – and when he came back down his face was glowing. In fact it was so bright that he had to wear a veil so that he didn’t hurt everyone’s eyes.

Now Jesus also goes up a mountain and not only his face but his whole person becomes dazzling white, and wait, wait there’s more…Moses the embodiment of the law, and Elijah the archetype of the prophets appear there with him. You can’t get better credentials than that.

And then there’s The Voice.

It’s not surprising that Peter wanted the moment to last forever. But we are human and those moments of sudden revelation, those moments when we realize that there is no separation, are only fleeting.

The Trappist monk and mystic, Thomas Merton, had a moment like that. He wrote,

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun….

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…. [i]

Just as on the mountain top it was as though a veil lifted and for a moment Jesus was visibly the Son of God, so for Merton that day in Louisville, the veil lifted and ‘it was as if [he] suddenly saw the secret beauty of [people’s] hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.”

Our baptismal covenant calls us ‘to seek and serve Christ in all persons.’ What if the Christ in all of us is shining like the sun, but we cannot see the light of the Christ because we have learned to see the human? What if we could learn to see the Christ as well?

Take a moment to look around the church and imagine all the people sitting here shining like the sun…

now in your mind’s eye (it may help to close your eyes) imagine yourself as you really are - the beloved of God, marked as Christ’s own for ever, and shining like the sun…

now imagine someone you love and see them too shining with the light of Christ…

and now think of an acquaintance, someone you don’t know well and imagine them shining with the light of God…

And finally, think of someone you don’t like and try to see the person they are in God’s eyes and see them also shining with the light of the Christ…
 
Any quick reflections on how that was for you? ( It is an adaptation of the Buddhist kindness practice called metta.)

In this morning’s second reading, from one of the letters of Peter, the writer talking about the transfiguration as a confirmation of prophecy says, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.’

A couple of days ago I was feeling a bit down. I had received some unwelcome news and was having trouble integrating it. I was fetching something from the sacristy and as I walked back past the font I instinctively put my fingers in and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. As I did so I remembered the commitment of my baptism – “marked as Christ’s own for ever” and I remembered that nothing can take that away and that, like you, whatever happens I am God’s beloved. I walked out of here with a lighter step.

My friends, we are God’s beloved daughters and sons.

As Merton saw, we are all walking around shining like the sun.

And as the epistle says, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.’

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
 
 
 


[i] https://ancientanswers.org/words-to-live-by/thomas-merton/at-the-corner-of-fourth-and-walnut-in-louisville/

​ Matthew 5:13-20

When we think of someone who we see as having a special goodness about them, we might describe them as “salt of the earth.” We mean that without these people, life would lose some of its flavor. Such people help remind us of what is important. They’re like sounding rods that keep us grounded in what’s real in life. Life is richer because of their presence.
 
We have heard that we are, as Jesus says during his Sermon on the Mount, “the salt of the earth” and “light of the world.” He often used metaphorical language to help point us to deeper truth. But why is he talking about salt and light today and in what context?
 
The people of the first century would have known about salt. It was common for instance, for guests gathered for a meal to be seated in relation to the position of the saltcellar – or what today we call the saltshaker. The more honored guests were seated “above the salt,” meaning that they were located closer to the host. Those seated “below the salt” were considered to be of less importance. In Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, Judas Iscariot is portrayed with an overturned saltcellar in front of him. It’s an ominous visual of things to come. The Romans considered it a bad sign to spill salt and thought they could avert disaster by talking a pinch of salt and tossing over their left shoulder.
 
In the days of the Roman Empire, salt was nearly as valuable as gold. Its uses varied from enhancing the flavor of food to being used as a preservative or even a healing agent. A soldier was paid in part with salt which came to be known as salariu, from which the word salary is derived. A soldier’s salary was cut if he was not “worth his salt,” a phrase that came into use because the Greeks and Romans often bought slaves with salt.
 
Salt was often used in Jewish purification rites, and it was the custom to rub salt on a newborn infant. From this came the Christian practice in some places to add salt to the baptismal water. When I was confirmed by bishop Tom Shaw – a monk in the Society of Saint John the Evangelist and the bishop of Massachusetts  – I and the others confirmed that day were given a small vile of salt and a small candle as a reminder of Jesus’ claim that we are Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.
 
Salt was meant to enhance, to heal, to preserve, and to purify. Salt was an extremely valuable commodity considered to be of great worth. So, what did Jesus mean that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world? How do we ourselves enhance, heal, preserve, and purify the world around us? And what does it mean to lose our flavor – to lose our saltiness?
 
It helps to consider the context from which these words come, and we don’t have to look far. Jesus speaks to us from The Sermon on the Mount, and his claim that we are Salt of the Earth and Light of the World immediately follows the beatitudes where he outlines the characteristic qualities of one who is deeply committed to the love of God and of neighbor. So, it’s as uncomplicated as that. To be Salt of the Earth means that we are humble, meek, and merciful. We are to strive for righteousness and purity of heart and as children of God we are to be the peacemakers in the world. That sounds like salt of the earth stuff to me.
 
Although the qualities outlined in the beatitudes may seem extraordinary and a bit beyond us and where we are in our lives, they are not. These qualities are counter cultural – for sure – but they are not beyond our reach, and they are not beyond the expectations that Jesus has for all of us. These salt of the earth qualities are profound spiritual concepts for ordinary living that help bring about the kingdom of heaven right here on earth. It is the extraordinary living of the ordinary lives of God’s salt of the earth people like you and me.
 
Being salt of the earth people means that we live our lives within the knowledge of God’s abundant blessing upon all our humanness. It means that we can shake away superficial phoniness and move toward becoming pure, whole, and authentic persons that stand for values and beliefs that we know are worth dying for – and better yet, worth living for. We live in a way that enhances those around us, inspiring all people to be the best they can be, regardless of cultural, religious, or denominational stripes. It means that we promote unity, not division; peace, not violence; love, not hatred. We bring healing and purification into places that are wounded and hurting, and all the while losing ourselves as we point to the one true God of life.
 
Jesus reminds us that we are the light of the world and that we must let that light shine. We are to move in ways that illumine darkness. We must bring the light of Christ into the shadowy corners of the world. So, what does that look like and how exactly are we to do that? If we read further into the Gospel according to Matthew, we see it. Jesus states it clearly. We are to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick and visit those in prison. When we do these things for our brothers and sisters in the world we are doing it for Jesus. It really couldn’t be any clearer. It’s not rocket science. It’s salt of the earth.
 
And we shouldn’t waste time admiring our work and patting ourselves on the back because first of all, it’s what we should be doing anyway. And secondly, it’s not about us, it’s about God. Jesus said we are the light, he did not say we should be in the spotlight or limelight. We simply love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with God. No big headlines, just real salt of the earth stuff. Otherwise, we risk losing our salty flavor.
 
We live in a wonderful and magnificent world. Beauty is all around us. But we also live in a world that is filled with suffering. It is a world that is constantly at war and in great need of peacemakers; a world that is all too often driven by greed and consumerism in great need of a true sense of healthy priorities. We live in a world that diminishes the dignity of too many of our human family.
 
Being Salt of the Earth is the antidote to the domination systems that practice power over the people. Salt of the earth is about power with and for the people.
 
A sure way to claim or re-claim ourselves as salt of the earth people is to reach out and touch the hurting places in our world. Jesus puts high value on rubbing elbows with the most marginalized and disenfranchised among us. When we do that, empathy and compassion are sure to follow, and we just might experience God’s tears falling from our eyes. And when those tears run down our face and touch our lips we will taste who we are. We will taste salt. And so it is with people like us.
 
Brother Dennis

I don’t usually spend much time thinking about sin but this week I have been thinking about it. As in, what is it? And why is it?

In the Wednesday morning conversation, we heard theologian Marcus Borg talk about salvation. He said that the idea that Jesus saved us by dying for our sins is only one perspective, and that he sees salvation as being about transformation in the here and now, not about where we go after we die.

Which led us into an interesting conversation about sin.

There are many things that we may have been taught about sin. Some people say sin is an archery term which means missing the mark. Some people say it is part of our essential nature which shows that we are not divine. Some people say it becomes an essential part of each of us at conception. Some people say it is basically an issue of morality, and living a good life is all that is necessary. Other people think that we can only approach God by admitting that we are miserable sinners. The first letter to John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.    1 John 1:8,9”

Much of the teaching in the Old Testament points to the sin of human society. We are caught up in a sinful system – I call it the sin matrix – which has very little to do with my action but everything to do with our action. It seems as though pretty much everything we do as humans however well-intentioned has a dark side. For example, I drive an electric car in order to reduce my negative impact on the environment. But the motor probably uses rare earths and recycling the battery when it reaches the end of its life will take energy, both of which have significant negative impacts. And the clothes I wear were probably made by people in other countries earning hardly enough to live on… and then there’s the coffee I drink, and so on…  We are so bound up with one another that those of us in the rich countries can hardly get out of bed without causing oppression somewhere else. So sin is not just a personal individual thing, it’s also social.

So now it’s your turn. How do you understand sin? What have you been taught?
I encourage you to find someone else, even if it means getting up and moving around, to share your ideas with.
…
One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is where is personal sin in my life?

And what is the difference between sin and cultural expectation? That’s been a big question for me as a gay woman – is living and loving as a gay person a sin? It has been seen that way for hundreds of years but is that God’s opinion or just a human cultural understanding? Since I am standing here this morning wearing a backwards collar you will know that I have become convinced, together with The Episcopal Church, that God does not see LGBTQ people as sinners any more or less than straight people are sinners.

I think my besetting sins are irritability and procrastination. But how do I define those as sins? They are not in the Ten Commandments and Jesus never talked about them. I think of them as sins because they are not Christ-like. As far as we know, Jesus did not procrastinate and was not irritable on a daily basis.

But there are many other things I feel guilty about. Are they sins?

My front yard is a good example. It is a mess. And every day I feel bad about it and I think, “I’ll get to this tomorrow when I have time.” And I don’t. But is it sinful to have a front yard full of weeds or just an eyesore?
 
Today we have two readings which do not define sin but rather tell us how we should live in Christ, and I think focusing on how we should live is better than worrying about how we shouldn’t. Because God’s deep and abiding love for us is much, much greater than our limitations and failings. And keeping our eye on the goal is more helpful than getting stuck in the weeds.

In Matthew’s gospel there are five blocks of teaching. Scholars think that maybe he arranged things like that as an homage to the five books of the Torah. If that is so, maybe he thought of the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, as a corollary to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments mainly describe behavior. In contrast the Beatitudes talk about attitude. They describe how our inner lives would be if they mirrored Christ.

We would be humble, meek, not afraid of grief, longing for righteousness – both personal and societal, we would be merciful and compassionate; our hearts would be pure – filled with the Spirit of God; we would be peacemakers, working for peace and justice and reconciliation; and yet we would be courageous in the face of persecution and violence.

That’s a lot isn’t it? If that’s the goal, I know I miss the mark quite often.

This is not just about being a good person. This is not just about being a solid citizen. This is something quite different. This is about being Christ-like. None of us are naturally like that. It requires a process of transformation.

Perhaps this is what Marcus Borg meant when he talked about salvation as transformation. God offers us the possibility of becoming like Godself. And Jesus is our model. It’s more than being kind, it’s more than being loving, it is a complete change. A different way of  being human.

Paul puts it like this in his letter to the Philippians:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death--
        even death on a cross!   (Phil 2:3-8)

That is the goal, my friends. To have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. That’s going to take a lot of transformation, but it is the possibility, the hope, that we have as followers of Jesus – to become like him.

God does not require that we make sacrifices for sin or abase ourselves in order to gain his love. God’s all-encompassing love is totally available to us in every moment. In humility we confess our personal sins and our participation in the sin-matrix, but we don’t need to grovel.

I love the last few verses of our first reading from Micah.

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
And then there’s a silent NO.
No. He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
 
It makes it seem so simple doesn’t it: What does the Lord require of us but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God?

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall