Month: September 2023

Based on Matthew 18:21-35. Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla.

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One blessing of living in a university town is that distinguished speakers and entertainers sometimes come in. The Remmers Lecture Series has brought in diverse individuals over the years. In 2008, soon after we moved here, I had the privilege of hearing F. W. de Klerk speak. He was the transition leader when South Africa abolished apartheid. Among other things, he negotiated with incoming president Nelson Mandela to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC.

The goal of the TRC was to establish the facts of the human rights violations that had happened between 1960 and the end of the era in 1994. They allowed victims to tell their stories, granted amnesty, and drafted a reparations policy. Now, their work was far from complete and had many detractors, in part because not everyone participated. But the motivation was correct. The former apartheid leaders and the new democratically-elected government had to figure out a way to live together. Both sides had committed atrocities, especially the apartheid government and its security forces but also the opposition party led by Nelson Mandela. If the two sides were ever to live together, there had to be a full accounting of the ways that people had hurt each other, restitution of anything that could be restored, and ultimately reconciliation so that they could put the evil of apartheid in their past.

In today’s lesson, we hear about a man who had his own debts forgiven, but still enforces his rights against a debtor. I want to help you understand just how outrageous the story is. A denarius was the typical daily wage in that time and place. To make the math easy, let’s say that a typical hourly wage is $12.50, just over minimum wage, so for eight hours, the daily wage would be $100. The second slave owed the first one 100 denarii, or about $10,000. That’s a lot, right? Three months’ wages. Maybe he was a farmer and borrowed to be able to plant. Maybe he was a fisherman and bought a boat or some equipment. Or maybe he was sick or injured and couldn’t work for some time. It’s easy to imagine three months’ wages worth of debt.

But the first slave owed the lord an ENORMOUS amount. A talent was worth 6000 denarii, or about $600,000. One talent was a lot of money. He owed TEN THOUSAND talents, or six BILLION dollars. How is that even possible? That’s the amount that Galilee paid to Rome as tribute over a period of fifteen years. That’s 50% more than the combined budget of all four University of Missouri campuses, plus its healthcare system. How is it possible that a slave racked up so much debt?

I don’t personally owe anyone six BILLION dollars. If I did, it wouldn’t even seem real. Somewhere around a million dollars, it would start to seem like fake money. Like, it’s so much that I could never, ever re-pay it, so whether it’s one million or ten million or six billion, it just doesn’t matter.

The lord would have been completely within his rights to seize the slave’s possessions and sell off his whole family. Even then, I can’t imagine he would come anywhere near recovering his debt. How could he ever be made whole?

Jesus likens this enormous debt to the debts we owe God on account of our sins. The good news is that our sins have all been forgiven. Each Sunday, we are called to confess our sins together, knowing that they will be followed by a declaration of pardon. We can be confident that whatever we have done, or failed to do, God will forgive us.

Each of us has personally sinned in some way. Maybe we shaded the truth, or coveted our neighbor’s possessions, or were angry with someone. Whatever. We can easily rack up debts like the second slave. But Jesus implies that we have racked up debts like the first slave—government-scale debts.

We are participants in a society, in institutions, and in systems that are inherently sinful. There is nobody here who would say that everything our government does is righteous, and yet we are obligated to support it with our tax dollars. We are living on land that was once inhabited by Osage, Kickapoo, and Kaskaskia tribes of Native Americans. I personally hold a lot of unearned privilege and am the beneficiary of a society that is basically set up to favor people just like me. That’s not to say that I had everything handed to me, but that my life has been easier because I’m a straight white man who grew up in a good school district.

Some people have asked me why I am so committed to the work of LGBTQ+ Rolla. Well, the truth is that the Christian Church has been the perpetrator of many, many crimes against humanity. I am called to do my small part towards righting those wrongs. I know that it’s a hole that I can never fill, but I feel that I need to do something. We have collectively harmed millions of people for many reasons throughout the past 15 centuries of our alliance with empire, through our actions and our failures to act. Coming back to South Africa, we recently added the Belhar Confession to our Book of Confessions as a rebuke against those churches who found justification for the evil apartheid regime.

The South African TRC was created to deal with some of the harm that was done by the apartheid government. One way it fell short, though, was that it focused on the actions of individuals. Say, a soldier who committed some atrocity against a rebel. What the TRC did not investigate, catalog, or provide reparations for was the systematic harms done to the non-white population of South Africa. Individuals were called to account for the collective shame of the government.

And so, in our weekly confessions, we often include confessions of the way our society acts or fails to act. We ask forgiveness for the ways in which we exploit and destroy the Earth. We ask forgiveness for the justice system that keeps us safe but dehumanizes those caught up in it, guilty or innocent. We ask forgiveness for our community’s lack of action to clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and feed the hungry, and our participation in systems that perpetuate poverty and homelessness.

As we ask forgiveness, we are assured that God will grant us peace. But prayers are not only meant to communicate our needs to God. They are also meant to change our own hearts and align them more with God’s will.

God’s forgiveness is unconditional. But as we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” As Jesus implies in today’s parable, the only condition for God to forgive us is that we should then forgive others.

Why is forgiveness so important? As long as a debt remains, it creates a barrier between two people. The debt gives one party power over the other. The debt colors all of their interactions. Only when the debt is forgiven can two people build a healthy relationship. Only when we confess our sins, truthfully and with a contrite heart, can we accept being forgiven. We can confess to God openly through prayer. In some ways, that’s easier than confessing to those we have hurt. But stating our shortcomings truthfully, attempting to restore what has been lost, and asking for forgiveness is essential to repairing a damaged relationship.

You might be thinking, OK, I can do that. I know I hurt such-and-such, so I will go and confess and ask forgiveness. Maybe. But what about all of those ways in which you have hurt people unintentionally or even unknowingly? What about all of those ways in which you have participated in a sinful system and been sullied by other people’s actions?

That’s where God’s love comes in. I know that I have hurt people unintentionally, but I don’t know who. Or sometimes, I do know who, but I’ve lost touch with them and can no longer apologize. Or sometimes, I have been hurt in turn, and both sides need to apologize in order for forgiveness to take place. Or as I’ve said, I’m the beneficiary of a system that will keep doing what it does, whether I like it or not.

I cannot untangle all of this myself. I cannot change other people’s hearts. I cannot heal all of the hurt that I have caused, through action or inaction. I certainly cannot heal all of the hurt caused by the society and institutions of which I’m a part. But God can. All things are possible in God’s kingdom. One day, God will make all things right. The kingdom of heaven is that place where all relationships are made whole again, where all hurts are healed, where all are welcome.

One day, we will get to experience God’s eternal glory, God’s love binding us all together, flowing through us all. Wouldn’t it be great if we could experience just a little bit of that now? We can. We can’t heal all of the hurts. We can’t remedy all of the wrongs. But we can work together towards a world where there is no war, no anger, no hatred.

The month of September has been designated as a new liturgical season, first in 1989 by the Eastern Orthodox Churches, then by the World Council of Churches, and then in 2015 by the Roman Catholic Church. It is the Season of Creation. It starts September 1 and ends on October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of the environment and animals. It is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all of creation. It is also the time when we collect the Peace & Global Witness special offering. This month is a time to reflect on all that we have done, as a church, a community, and a society, to damage the Earth and also God’s most special Creation: humanity. For thousands of years, we have been taking advantage of what God has given us, exploiting the Earth’s resources, and exploiting one another. Someday, God will make all things new. But in the meantime, if we work together, forgive one another, and seek both truth and reconciliation, we can experience God’s kingdom now through healthy relationships with one another and the world. Amen.

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Sermon on September 3, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Matthew 16:21-28.

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Let me back up just a bit. This passage starts with, “From that time on.” What time? Well, Jesus was traveling with his disciples and came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, which is way up north, 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. That’s a long way from his home in Nazareth or their base of operations in Capernaum. It was a thoroughly Romanized city, a symbol of Rome’s occupation. Jesus asked his disciples who people said he was, and they had a variety of answers. Simon said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” In response, Jesus gave him the name of Peter, the Rock, the cornerstone of his church. Then he told them all not to say anything.

During the first century, Judea and, especially, Galilee were awash with messianic fervor. Many men stepped forward to claim the mantle of Messiah. Almost all of their movements ended in bloodshed. First-century Jews imagined that the Messiah would re-establish Israel in the mold of David’s kingdom. The Messiah would expel the Romans and re-order society according to God’s commandments. Some Jews expected two Messiahs, one to fulfill the role of king and one to be a new high priest who would cleanse the Temple and ensure purity of worship. Regardless, everyone expected God’s anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ, to overturn society.

Maybe that’s why Jesus told the disciples to keep it quiet. The ruling classes—the Romans, Herod and his supporters, the chief priests and Sadducees—wouldn’t just stand by and watch their world be overturned. As I said, almost every messianic movement ended in bloodshed. Still today, one of the hallmarks of a messianic movement, like the Ghost Dance movement of the Native American tribes across the western plains or the Branch Davidians in Waco, is that it ends in violence and bloodshed. Jesus didn’t want his disciples to rise up as an armed rebellion, because he knew how that would end.

Jesus had something quite different in mind. Yes, he planned to overturn the power structures of the world, but not through armed rebellion. Instead, he likened his kingdom to yeast that makes dough rise, or a mustard seed that grows into a huge bush. Eventually, the whole world will be transformed, but in God’s time, not ours. The transformation is a slow process, one that is almost imperceptible at times, one that is often three steps forward, two steps back.

So in just four verses, Peter goes from cornerstone to stumbling block. Poor Peter. He comes so close to understanding Jesus sometimes, but just doesn’t quite get there. He knows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, but cannot imagine that Jesus could die and then be raised from the dead.

When Peter rebukes Jesus for speaking such nonsense, Jesus rebukes him back. “Get behind me, Satan!” Peter may be the cornerstone of the church that Jesus’s followers will create, but he doesn’t quite hear God’s calling. He doesn’t quite understand what God wants him to do.

Well, the same goes for me, and for every other church leader across history. We all try to listen to God’s calling. We all try to do what is necessary to build God’s kingdom. But we all fall short in some way. We are Presbyterian and not Catholic because of one great rebuke against the church’s leaders five centuries ago. Whatever you might think of Pope Francis and today’s Catholic church, it is undeniable that the Roman Catholic church of the 1500s had some pretty serious flaws.

Some people have argued that we are going through a similar transition time today. Throughout history, it seems like every five centuries, there is some major change in God’s church. So we’re due for a renewal, a revival, a new awakening. This awakening will bring with it major changes in the church and in society.

Jesus said that his followers would suffer and must be prepared to deny themselves and take up their cross. He didn’t say that they would have to experience some minor inconveniences. He said that they would lose everything, even their lives, because they were following Christ’s teachings and building Christ’s kingdom. In some circles, this gets turned around to say that suffering is a way to measure your righteousness, and if you are suffering, it must be because you are doing good things for God’s kingdom. This is faulty logic. The truth is that people suffer for lots of different reasons, and suffering is not in itself a good thing. Suffering is not something that should be pursued for its own sake. Rather, God’s kingdom is what we should pursue, regardless of consequences. We should be prepared for the possibility of suffering if we challenge the powers and principalities that govern this world.

I am reminded of the movie, The Untouchables, with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. Costner plays Eliot Ness, the federal agent who ultimately brought down Al Capone. Connery plays Jim Malone, a Chicago policeman who helps him. Now, the movie is almost entirely fiction, but there are some good scenes in it anyway, mostly ones that involve Sean Connery. Anyway, early on, Malone says to Ness, “What are you prepared to do?” Ness wants to take down Capone. Capone wasn’t known for being easygoing or a pushover. Capone would fight to the death to maintain his criminal empire. So Ness had to be willing to go just as far in order to take him down.

Soon after, Ness, Malone, and a couple of colleagues were in an office. Malone grabbed four shotguns and told them it was time to go. They went on a liquor raid. Malone walked them directly to a particular building and said, “Here we are. Liquor raid.” Ness said, “Here?!?” Malone said, “Mr. Ness, everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn’t finding it. The problem is, Who wants to cross Capone?”

We all know what needs to be fixed in this world. The question is not, What’s broken? The question is, What are you prepared to do to fix it? In The Untouchables, as in real life, Eliot Ness is ultimately successful in bringing down Al Capone. But he and his team paid a heavy price to win that victory.

That’s what Jesus was saying. Knowing what’s broken is not sufficient. Knowing how to fix it is not sufficient. Being willing to act, regardless of the personal cost, is necessary.

If I may digress for a moment, I’d like to talk about atonement theory. The prevailing belief is penal substitutionary atonement: Jesus was killed because God demanded a sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. Jesus was punished for all of our sins. I’d like to offer an alternative that was popular in the first several centuries of Christianity and has made a bit of a comeback lately: moral exemplar theory. If the only thing Jesus had to accomplish was to die, why not let him be killed by Herod as a baby? Instead, let’s accept that Jesus had some work to do. I believe that the point of the Incarnation was to show us how to live, and how to die. Jesus set an example of how we are to care for each other, and how much we are expected to give for the good of humanity.

So, what are you prepared to do? What are you willing to sacrifice for the good of God’s kingdom? What problem do you see in the world that you want to help fix, but are too afraid to try because of the consequences for you personally? What problem do you see in the world that our church is called to help fix, but we are too afraid to try because of the consequences for our organization?

Almost two months ago, I asked you all to think about what ONE THING you care about, the thread that ties together the ways in which you are called to serve the world. I asked you to find partners in ministry. I hope that is going well for you. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that as a church, we already have something: the preschool. We already have an amazing director who has transformed the space and the programs into something that has incredible impact on the children of our community.

But here’s the thing: We let the preschool use our facilities, and we let them make changes if they can come up with all of the funding. We let the preschool use some of our staff time. The preschool management committee includes both members of the congregation and people who are tied directly to the preschool, either staff or parents. But we have not truly embraced the preschool as our ONE BIG THING. It is entirely possible for someone to attend our worship services and have NO IDEA that we even have a preschool. It is entirely possible for someone to attend our worship services and have NO IDEA how many people in our congregation care deeply for the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development of young people in our community.

Often, when the subject of the preschool comes up, there are questions about finances, or a desire to recruit preschool families as members. But that is the wrong way to think about it. The preschool is a mission of the church. What are we prepared to do to support the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth of children in our community? How can we reorient our discipleship to further that growth? I’m not saying that financial arrangements are irrelevant, only that they are secondary to the goal of supporting children. I’m not saying that evangelism to preschool families is a bad thing, only that the success or failure of that evangelism is not ultimately related to our mission of supporting the growth of the children.

But I think we are afraid to embrace that mission. We’re afraid to let go of who we are, for the sake of who we could be. We’re afraid to let the preschool truly take ownership of our shared future. The thing I struggle with, and maybe some of you struggle with, too, is that the preschool isn’t really my personal calling. I don’t know what I can do to support their work.

But you know what? Jesus didn’t say that building his kingdom would be easy. He didn’t say that everyone could keep doing whatever they personally wanted to do. He said that we should follow him wherever he leads, and be willing to let go of what we thought our future would be for the sake of the glorious future that awaits us in God’s kingdom. He said that we would almost certainly suffer along the way, but he will be with us, even to the end of the age. And he said that it is not the journey that matters, but the destination, and he has a wonderful destination in store for us, as the world is transformed into a place where everyone can flourish. Amen.

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