a sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 20A/Lectionary 25]

Matthew 20:1-16

Here’s a question: have you heard of surge pricing? Or perhaps you know it by its more official name of dynamic pricing? Surge pricing is the practice of charging more for particular items or services when merchants know that demand for them will be high. Airlines and hotels began doing this with airfare about 40 years ago and we have come to expect it in those industries, but two articles I ran across in the past week say surge pricing soon will be everywhere.[1] Clothing, concerts, groceries. You want a beer when you’re out with the guys on an ordinary Tuesday night? That’ll be $5.00. During a slightly busier evening that same beer will be $6.00. In fact, some pubs in England are adjusting prices for pints by the hour!

But there’s been an outcry. Some consumers claim that this method of pricing and charging people for things is unfair (just ask Taylor Swift fans) but, as a matter of fact, surge pricing is how business has been done for most of human history. The price tag, which affixed a set price to a set item for every buyer over a long period of time, was not invented and put into widespread use until John Wanamaker and Rowland Macy used them in their stores in the late 1800s. That is, we have Wanamaker’s and Macy’s Department stores to thank for the price tag, believe it or not!

All that aside, despite our disappointment with it all most of us are comfortable with some fluctuations in what things cost. Money that we spend is ours to control, even when it feels unfair. But money that we earn? That’s an entirely a different story! That had better be fair. Surge earning is never allowed. It upsets the whole system when people are paid the same for very different work, or when they’re paid differently for the very same work. That’s essentially what all these ongoing strikes are about, from the auto workers to the actors in Hollywood.

That is the issue of this parable Jesus tells his disciples about the workers in the vineyard. I’m not sure that even the fanciest economic theories can explain what’s going on here. It makes so sense at all in terms of basic human justice and fairness and equity and the landowner might just have a strike on his hands. It really leaves us scratching our heads, especially when Jesus says this is what the reign of God is like, I think most of us, including Jesus’ original disciples would have a very different concept of God’s reign, a concept where things shake out fairly. In this vineyard, no one seems to get what’s coming to them.

When I was a boy and then a teenager and then college student my dad would often wake me up early on Saturday mornings about this time of year and take me off to his parents’ tobacco farm to help with the tobacco harvest. Called “priming tobacco,” this was back breaking work that involved walking, row by row, through a whole field of the crop, and pulling leaves off of the stalks, and then tossing them onto a tractor sled. It was sticky, hot, buggy, and to pick the leaves you had to walk bent over, which made you sore. It was so intense, in fact, that we started in the dark hours of dawn so that we’d be done well before noon and out of the heat.

Once all the crop was in for the day, all the workers would stand around drinking Pepsi and Dr. Pepper out of glass bottles and snacking on nabs my Maw Maw had made the night before. And then my aunt would walk around and give all the laborers a wad of cash for their work in front of everyone else. When I was young enough to drive the tractor through the field she finally doled out some cash to me, but I always wondered what the people picking the tobacco had gotten. It looked like more. I’d try to look over their shoulders and count their bills, even though it was none of my business. A few years later, after my first time walking through those sticky and wet leaves, I realized the pay was more than double what the tractor pay was.

In the parable that Jesus tells, the landowner makes everyone’s pay everyone’s business. The first workers that the landowner hires in the parable stand around drinking their Pepsi and snacking on their nabs as they watch their landowner hand everyone down the line the same exact wad of cash. It would have been one thing if the landowner had gone in some order of longevity. The ones who’d sweated more, gotten dirtier, who’d had a greater chance of getting injured on the job, had reason to think that they’d be rewarded and sent home first.

But instead the landowner starts with those who had most recently arrived. Those who were called in to the vineyard at the eleventh hour, which is where we get that phrase from—kind of meaning “at the last minute”—get their wages first. These are workers who had barely broken a sweat. Although the parable doesn’t say so, we may even assume these are workers who were rumored to have been not quite as skilled, which would explain the fact they were still standing idle late in the day.

What the landowner is doing is arranging his payroll in order to teach the first workers a lesson—a lesson about grace and abundance and generosity. It would have been yet another lesson to the disciples that God kingdom in Jesus flips this world’s schemes and plans on its head in so many ways. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.

So much of what makes our societies function are systems of merit. Broadly-speaking, those who are privileged with intellect or beauty or definitely athletic skill find themselves first in so many ways, to say nothing of those who are privileged by race or gender or ethnic background. And, sad to say, systems of privilege creep their way into communities of faith, as well. We find ourselves listening a little more to certain voices, or certain perspectives that may have seniority or influence, which is not altogether a bad thing until we also let it inform how we value people and how we treat them.

Maybe this is why Jesus tells this controversial parable at this point. Not too long before this Peter makes a point to remind Jesus just how much he and the other eleven had placed on the line to follow him, as if they get first dibs on whatever Jesus will be passing out later, as if Jesus didn’t already know. And just after this parable the mother of James and John, two other disciples, requests that her two sons sit in positions of authority when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Jesus tells them that positions of authority and honor are not his to grant. It’s like this issue of being first and having privilege is really on their mind at the moment, and they want to make sure that when it comes to God’s promises and God’s forgiveness and love their hard work and their commitment and their proximity to him will not be overlooked.

Are these things on our minds? Do we as people of faith instinctively place ourselves first—or if not necessarily first then at least in better places in relation to where others are standing? Politically- or socio-economically-speaking do we favor ourselves and those who’ve responded in faith like we have? What would it look like if we reflected the landowner’s kind of grace in all of our relationships? What if we remembered the last are first, if we viewed our fellow human beings  not as people who’ve somehow earned their worth but in the way the landowner does—that all are equal? That God is creating a system where we all stand on equal ground?

In Jesus, we discover God reverses all of these orders of merit and honor and teaches us the uselessness of constantly comparing ourselves with everyone else. God calls everyone to be a part of his work staff—regardless of who they are or where they’ve been or what they’ve done or what baggage they may be carrying—and receive the riches of the kingdom. And God wants all the workers to see, but especially the most privileged, just how inclusive and radically generous God’s kingdom is designed to be.

And it is all because the One who called us freely puts himself last. Jesus can say this line over and over, which he does, about the first being last and the last being first because he is preparing to wind up last of all. He goes and stands at the very end of the line, mocked and abandoned, the worker left out and never called, so that none of us will ever endure that alone. And then he pushes us forward to receive the surge of God’s unconditional love.

About a month ago it was our 7 year old son’s baptismal anniversary. Over the years Melinda and I have tried to be intentional about reminding our kids of their identity as God’s children on the dates of their baptisms. We’ve not always been as consistent with them as we would have liked to have been, but the dates are always on our family calendar, and on most years Melinda will try to make a cake. We’ll take time to look at a photo or two of that day.

Well, Jasper was really into it this year, so we didn’t have to be. He requested a red velvet cake from Melinda, who had to go out and buy the supplies. He told me he should get his favorite meal, so I had to make chicken curry in the middle of a busy Monday evening. He walked into his gymnastics class and announced at the top of his voice, to a bunch of perplexed faces, “Hey everybody, it’s my baptismal birthday!” There was talk of presents and other gestures of honor and favoritism. He was really milking this for all he could!

At one point that evening after he mentioned that he deserved some other kind of treatment we were standing in the kitchen and I finally asked him, “Jasper, do you know what your baptismal birthday means? Do you know what we’re celebrating and remembering today?” At that point he turned around, walked over to me from across the room, threw his arms around my legs and looked up at me and said, “I have no clue.”

Praise be to the God who always makes a big deal about us, who never bases his love on how long we’ve believed, or how many times we’ve gone to church. or how many lunches for the homeless we’ve packed, or how many Bible stories we’ve memorized. Praise be to the God who showers goodness on us even when we don’t have a clue, when all we can do is turn and come to him. Praise be to the God who sends us Jesus, who believes whole-heartedly in surge loving.

Amen!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] The rise of surge pricing: ‘It will eventually be everywhere’ | Financial Times (ft.com)

a sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 18A/Lectionary 23]

Matthew 18:15-20

If you ever come to our house you will probably notice that our front storm door is broken. It’s been that way since the day we moved in 14 years ago. It’s embarrassing even to admit that out loud, but it just doesn’t close all the way and latch like it’s supposed to. It never was really that much of a problem until we got a dog, and now about once a month she manages to nudge it open with her nose and escape to freedom into the great wide open. I have tried and tried to get it to shut all the way. I have changed out the hydraulic hinge system, I have tightened up the tension on the rod and screwed the bolts in tighter. I have W-D 40’ed the thing to death, but it will not close. In moments of frustration I’ve priced out replacements but the door was stick-built for our house, so I can’t just order one and install it and have it look right. So we just manage with it, muddling along day to day, pulling it hard, if we remember to. To fix that storm door or any of those other things we’d need to call someone who really knew what they were doing.

When things are broken so much of the time we need a specialist—someone trained in the art of looking at a problem and knowing just what to do. Someone like a Russ Johnson or a Mike Dunavant or a Steve Collins. When it comes to broken relationships, however, and especially relationships within our family of faith, Jesus has made us all specialists. Repairing damage that has been caused by hurtful words or action or inaction is something Jesus says we each can do. But too often we choose just to manage, muddling along day to day with things between us not working properly.

That is the lesson we have for today when Jesus has gathered his disciples together for another lesson about life as his followers. Jesus is never very legalistic. Usually in his teachings he speaks in broad terms, giving people the freedom of figuring out how to live their lives faithfully on their own in each circumstance. Of course, legalism is can be tantalizingly comforting, which is probably why we Christians can veer in that direction. In a confusing and intimidating world, it often feels comforting to have someone I respect tell me exactly which moral choices to make. And lots of churches do this—they tell everyone which books to read, which movies to avoid, or even which candidates to vote for.

But Jesus really never does this at all. He doesn’t resort to legalistic approaches to life. Occasionally he has a warning thrown in here or there, but the bulk of his preaching is open-ended and liberating.

That is, except here, when he talks in great detail about fixing broken relationships within the church. In and amongst so many broad-based lessons that leave things general and up to individual interpretation (like “feed the hungry” and “love your enemies”) comes this step-by-step process on dealing with sin in the church. Like a recipe on the back of a cake box or instructions for a piece of furniture from IKEA, Jesus says “This is how you go about it when a brother or sister does or says something against you.”

Isn’t this interesting? It’s like Jesus is more concerned with how we treat one another, especially others in the church, than he is with matters of personal purity. I think many people today would say that Christians spend most of their energy trying to get culture at large to reflect what we say we believe. I can’t think of many places where Jesus talks about policing the morals of society at large but he clearly places a good deal of importance on nurturing the internal life of his community. It is a task and skill he has given to everyone.

Indeed, if we look at the life of the early church as recorded in Acts and in the letters of Paul, we find a group of people ewhose relationships with each other take on a particular dimension that is notably different from society around them. It is a dimension marked by love and kindness and self-sacrifice, humility, and respect for each member of the believers’ community. It is a kind of life where people wash each others’ feet, where they work out their differences and disagreements one-on-one rather than letting them fester and pull them apart.

So many gifts come from this kind of community life, where conflict is dealt with lovingly in a healthy manner, in fact, that we won’t really need to worry about convincing the world of our faith. Others may just observe and admire how we live together and want to be a part of it.

There was an opinion piece in the Washington Post about two weeks ago[1] that an Epiphany member shared with the pastoral staff that actually touched on this very thing. The piece was written by Perry Bacon, Jr., an adult in his late 30s or 40s who grew up in the church but now finds himself among the increasing number of people who describe themselves as unaffiliated with any religion. The common nickname for this group is the “nones,” since they tend to mark the box “none” whenever they are asked their religious affiliation.

Mr. Bacon walks us through the process by which he eventually became distanced from the church and then his faith to become a “none,” but now, in middle adulthood, he feels he is missing out on the many benefits that church community offers. He finds himself craving  not the beliefs that go along with faith or the religious worldviews, but what he calls the “singing, the sermons, and the solidarity.” He even recognizes the need his own young child has to learn about and practice forgiveness—that it’s just as important as the math she learns in school. In the article he advocates for a some kind of a church for the “nones,” as preposterous as that sounds…and he even admits that it is preposterous.

Our possible responses to Mr. Bacon could be many, and I’ve read a couple of good ones, but the main point he makes is that the church’s internal life—that life that Jesus cares for do diligently and almost legalistically in this morning’s gospel lesson— is something to treasure. And we treasure it by taking seriously how we deal when that community is fractured by sin even on a personal level.

And this is all the more important because we seem to be really good at hurting one another. Rather than finding the courage to confront the person who has hurt us, we choose to blab it to someone else. Or we get passive aggressive in our relationship with them. We muddle along.

We forget that Jesus has worked it out so that the first step almost always clears an issue up before we have to take it further down the line and involve more people. What I’ve discovered is that someone who’s hurt me never intended me to take their actions that way. I’ve taken offense for no good reason. Maybe that’s been your experience, as well—when two people sit down and talk about a matter, misperceptions get ironed out and it stops gossip in its tracks.

Occasionally, however, multiple people need to become involved in order to bear the truth out and work out apologies. Churches and communities of faith that have dealt with scandals of sexual or financial abuse, for example, must give more time and energy to listen and share. In fact, it many severe cases all other ministry might to be de-prioritized in order to do the hard but valuable work of healing and restoration. And even when all methods of discussion fail, and one of us refuses to see the damage our actions do to the whole community, Jesus says treat that person like a tax collector or a Gentile. And, well, we know how Jesus treats tax collectors and Gentiles. He eats with them and heals them and loves them.

The good news is that Jesus takes all of this so seriously that he promises to be present every time even two people commit to the hard work of reconciliation. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” A lot of times this particular verse often gets taken out of context to mean that Jesus is present whenever we gather for worship or some other church event. I know that I and others found a lot of comfort in that interpretation during the COVID pandemic when so many of our once vibrant gatherings were reduced to just a few people, often online.

Here, however, Jesus is meaning something far more significant. Jesus is assuring us he is always on the side of people who are working out forgiveness. If we want to know where Jesus’ priorities are, we must look no further, for example, than a couple in therapy working hard to patch things up, even if they still end up separating…or the child who is finding courage to confront an abusive parent. We look no further than the friends who sit down over coffee to work things out after an argument, or the support group who is brainstorming ideas for how to deal with their trauma. If we want to know where Jesus stands in this wide world then we find where people are trying to practice forgiveness and listen to one another honestly. We will find him bringing two or more sides together who have caused pain, who are mired in conflict.

For that, after all, is the whole point of the cross, right? There he stands, so incredibly present in the midst of conflict that he is actually nailed there. Flesh between iron and wood: there in love, between us and God, bringing us together, healing our sins, bridging the gap. He makes healing that relationship his number one priority so that we can then concentrate on our relationships with others, especially the ones who’ve hurt us. It’s God’s Work Our Hands Sunday, a service tradition now in its tenth year that gathers resources and people on the second Sunday in September to pour service into the community. It’s a great way to show one of the things the church does best; that is, sharing Christ’s love with the world through acts of mercy. Today we’ll be assembling 500 personal care kits for Lutheran World Relief, little rolled up towels that contain care items for people to use in war-torn areas or places that have experienced natural disaster or poverty. We do this because God has shown us that these are people we treasure.

And today we are reminded our very common life here is also something to treasure, a life that may draw more people to see what we’re about. We remember that God’s Spirit of forgiveness forms us as a house where—well, would you look at that!—a house the door is never shut! The door of the church should actually never be closed at all, because it’s always open…open for new people, for new adventures in faith, open to new ministries and movings of a God who has given all of us gifts.

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/21/leaving-christianity-religion-church-community/

a sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 17A/Lectionary 22]

Matthew 16:21-28

With all these college students heading back to school over the past few weeks and adjusting to new study habits, new adventures, I’m reminded of the year at NC State when I had to take what was widely considered the most challenging course in my biochemistry major. It was a night class, and for three hours each week we’d sit there and listen to the professor walk us through all biochemistry processes we had to memorize so that we could manipulate them on our own. It was brutal.

Time came for the first test and I studied and studied and studied, and when I got back the exam (because back then everything was still written on paper with a pencil and physically handed in) I was so proud to learn that I had gotten a 96. In fact, the professor actually announced to the whole class that there weren’t many As and that the highest grade had been a 96. I smugly filed my paper away in my notebook and thought to myself, “Well, this isn’t so bad after all. I can’t wait to tell future generations how easy this class was.”

The time came for the second test of the semester and I did all the things I’d done for the first one. I studied and memorized and studied some more. I sauntered in there, took the test, and it felt like a breeze. The next week the professor stood in front of the class again and said, “Many of you took to heart the message of the first exam and did much better. Almost everyone improved significantly. But one or two of you, though, I’m really concerned about. You are now at danger of failing this class, and I want you to come meet me in my office this week.” When I got that paper back I opened it to see a big red “54” at the top, circled, along with the words, “Come see me.”

In this morning’s lesson, Peter has already his first test with Jesus, but bombs second one, and Jesus says, “See me soon.” In actuality, Jesus is not quite that polite. Jesus calls Peter “Satan!” and orders him back out of the way as Jesus heads to Jerusalem to lay down his life. Literally behind Jesus is a good place to be to fully observe how Jesus will be the Christ.

On the first test, Peter had correctly identified Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that was winner, winner, chicken dinner. But when the lesson continues, when Jesus gives more information about his suffering and death, Peter is not able to comprehend it—perhaps Peter’s not able to stomach it—and he stumbles. There is no way in Peter’s view that someone chosen by God to bring in God’s kingdom would go about it this way. Jesus uses Peter’s failure as an opportunity to make a statement for the whole class.

The professor is speaking to us today, too, correcting all of the visions and definitions we often project onto Jesus. We learn that following Jesus is not going to involve a parade of glory and fame, at least not immediately. Serving as his disciple is not going to be about amassing power and influence through the traditional ways of violence or wealth or popularity. Let’s not single out Peter. Truth is: this will always come as a surprise in this world. A new study from Lifeway research indicates that now 76% of American Christians adhere to what is called the prosperity gospel.[1] The prosperity gospel is a distortion of Christianity that says God wants people to be blessed financially and all you have to do to get rich is be more obedient to God’s commandments.

But here Jesus is unequivocally against that mindset. “If any want to become my followers,” he says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The whole picture of who Jesus is for us and what Jesus’ way looks like cannot just be based on our first impressions or assumptions. We must follow the professor to the end of the course.

I was fascinated by a story I came across this week about a village in Albania, the poorest country in Europe, which is rapidly seeing its population immigrate to England. In fact, the tide of people leaving, especially young men, has been so great in recent years that high school girls have no one to take them to prom, there is no one to fix broken cars or farm the fields. They’ve vanished, leaving their old Albanian lives behind, enticed primarily by a version of the ritzy and glamorous life they see in London through the TikTok app on their phone.

As it turns out, they are TikTok videos programed by an algorithm specifically designed to lure them in. What they often don’t realize until too late is that the videos are produced by human smugglers and drug lords who don’t reveal the enormous dark sides to living in England as an economic migrant and the gargantuan amounts of money they will be swindled out of to get there. The false promises intentionally hide the costly reality, and they end up forfeiting their life to gain a whole world.

This morning Jesus is turning from this distant region to head to Jerusalem. But there is no bait and switch with his algorithm. The costly reality is mentioned right up front, and he wants no one under any illusion of what kind of journey it will be. He will be serving as a Messiah who speaks truth to power, a leader who will empty himself fully, a pioneer who will suffer at the hands of those who feel threatened by his kind of love. The disciples won’t really ever be able to comprehend this, no matter how many times they hear it. And they’ll especially miss that ending of the journey. Jimmy Buffett famously sang, “Come Monday, it’ll be alright.” Jesus says “Come Sunday,” as in the third day, and it’ll be alright. Jesus will be humiliated, but in the end he will be raised, and love of God will win.

I wonder how often we end up enticed by lives and futures that promise something up front but then down the road turn out to be damaging or ruinous? I wonder how easily we end up handing our souls over bit by bit to loyalties that end up harming us, or at least making us less than God wants us to be? These decisions may not culminate in a climactic moment like this altercation between Peter and Jesus, where we have to choose this or that. More often they come little by little, unwitting choices we make along the way here and there where keep setting our minds on human things, not divine things, forming patterns that make us less loving, less kind, less Godlike.

And I don’t know about you, but I find this so frustrating, because as Jesus presents this way forward for his followers he doesn’t give a five point strategic plan. He literally just says “Suffer,” “bear burdens,” and keep on and losing and giving, over and over. He invites us to take up the cross, too, and that doesn’t mean dealing with other people’s annoying habits, or annoying things about ourselves, or staying in abusive relationships, which is how it often gets twisted. Denying oneself isn’t about putting ourselves down or finding ways to inflict harm on ourselves. Jesus is teaching us to take up a life modelled on sacrifice, where we fearlessly go forward, aware that we will be responding to human need and seeking the well-being of our neighbor. If Jesus’ gospel is about prosperity at all, it is about nurturing the prosperity of others, especially those most disadvantaged.

As it happens, we began a new year of confirmation this week, and on Wednesday night a bunch of 9^th graders and 10^th graders gathered in Price Hall with their parents or grandparents to hear what the year would bring. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a young person in today’s America. Talk about pressures! At most schools you have to walk through a weapon screening machine just to get to class. Social life and peer pressure plays out on your phone screen, which is, unfortunately, a device necessary for navigating the world these days. And so I was thankful to see so many of them there Wednesday night, poised to think about their faith and how they feel about God and how God feels about them. We pondered together what is at stake when we commit our lives to particular causes and place ourselves at the feet of particular idols. Why does it matter what kinds of things we worship? I’m not sure exactly what kind of response I was looking for, but I wanted us to chew on it. And there was silence for a minute, the questions kind of hovering out there in the air and then one tenth grade girl raised her hand and said with a wisdom I only wish I’d had at that age: “Because what you follow and what you give worth to ends up changing how you view the world and what your perspective is.”

Jesus would say, “Precisely!” and this is what it means to gain your soul even as you lose your life, even as we are forced to let go of the worldly perspectives we hold so dear. Jesus, who suffers and dies for his disciples, who calls us to follow, wants to change our perspectives to see a life is eternal. And no matter how often we fail to see it, Jesus will never kick us out of class.

This is not an invitation that comes just once. This is an invite that comes over and over and over and over, a cascade of grace.

And along the way we find that our egos, our desire to exact revenge, our self-importance is all de-prioritized in favor of the common good. And the quicker we figure out life is “not all about me” the quicker we’ll find our true life, the one that can’t be taken away, the one that on the third day will rise.

This morning we witness someone lose their life and gain a new one. Emma Joan, you are quite the center of a lot of lives: first child, first grandchild on both sides, first great-grandchild, first niece. You embody a new generation for two families. You’re blazing a trail, and you are doing a fantastic job at it, according to your parents.

But as we wiped the baptismal water from your brow and traced the sign of that cross on your head, your new Lord starts his lesson: life is actually not “all about you,” because it’s really all about him. And it will be the best thing you ever learn. Take heart! We’re all still learning it, and none of us is super great at it. But here’s what we’ve figured out: Every time we drop the cross, every time we fail a test, every time we get things wrong, he comes close and, with arms outstretched says, “My child. My beloved child…Come see me.”

Thanks be to God!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

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[1] https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/church/three-out-of-four-christians-believe-in-prosperity-gospel/