Lesson: Matthew 25:14-30

A man entrusts his money to three of his slaves before he leaves on a long journey. Two of them put the money to work and double their master’s money. The third slave takes the one talent given to him and buries it. Depending on what’s going on with Wall Street, we might decide this third slave is the real financial genius. He didn’t lose a penny. But that isn’t how this parable goes. The slaves who took risks with their master’s money are heroes, and the slave who played it safe is in big trouble.

It’s a tough parable. Parables are not simply stories told to reinforce our moral or religious values. As someone observed, no one would have bothered to crucify someone who went around telling stories that encouraged proper moral behavior. Today’s parable is about the kingdom of God, and kingdom parables call us to a new way of life, a way of life in which God is the ruler of our hearts and minds.

A while back, many churches were snapping up boxfuls of a book called The Kingdom Assignment, the story of Denny Bellesi, a pastor who doled out $10,000 in $100 increments to church members one Sunday, with three requirements: 1) The $100 belongs to God; 2) you must invest it in God’s work; 3) report your results in 90 days. The reports were startling: people made money hand over fist to contribute to the church, creative ministries were hatched, lives were transformed, people wept for joy – and it was all covered on TV news. That is NOT what this parable is about. The point of this parable is not, “Invest wisely and you’ll double your money.” The point isn’t even that you’re supposed to use what you have, the gifts God has given you, to do God’s work. That’s important, but it points to one of the problems with Pastor Bellesi’s story: giving someone $100 and saying, “This belongs to God,” implies that the other half million in your investment portfolio does not. But that isn’t the point of this parable, either. One of the commentaries on this passage cautions preachers that if you use this parable during stewardship season, don’t make the mistake of telling the congregation that what Jesus really wants is a four and a half percent increase in their pledge. Something much bigger is at stake here.

Our first clue that this is about something really big is the talent itself. One talent was the equivalent of what a day laborer would make in 15 or even 20 years. If we say, conservatively, that the average day laborer today makes $20,000 per year, one talent would be 15 times that or $300,000; maybe more. The servant entrusted with 5 talents was given, then, one and a half million dollars; the one with two talents was given $600,000. In other words, a talent was a huge sum. Few people would have a clue about how to invest this much money, so burying it really does make sense. But our second clue to the meaning of this parable is that preserving it is not enough. Being careful is not being faithful. Somehow, risk is important here.

I wish there were a fourth slave in this story – a slave who is given one or more talents, who takes the risk of investing the money, but then loses it. That way we’d find out what’s really important: Is it the fact that the first two slaves doubled the master’s money, or that fact that they took the risk? But maybe there’s a reason there’s no fourth slave who risked and then lost. Maybe, whatever this is that we’re to invest, whatever it is we risk, there’s no way to lose.

When you put these clues together – the astonishing value, the fact that you’re supposed to take the risk of investment but maybe there’s no way to lose – it all adds up to life in the kingdom of God – risking to live as God wants us to live, risking to put the life of Christ that is in the midst of us to work so that his life shows in us, so that his life is increased through us.

What does that look like right now? As Christians, we’re commanded to live with our neighbor in love, to pray for our enemies, and to bless those that persecute us. At the same time, a mere, “Why can’t we just be friends?” approach to politics doesn’t change policies and practices that fall short of love of neighbor; it doesn’t heal the systems and patterns that privilege some and exploit others. Yet we know we have to repair the breach in our society; we have to mend what’s broken, or we will continue down this polarized path, with little good being accomplished that isn’t undone when the next party comes into power. Somehow, we’ve got to come back together, undo the chaos, and pay attention to what we’ve learned about justice, compassion, equality, moral responsibility, and freedom.

Somehow. There’s no easy answer, and that means a risky investment on our part; it means striving to do what’s faithful even though we don’t know exactly what that might be, or how things may or may not work out. Fred Craddock said, “The major themes of Christian faith – caring, giving, witnessing, trusting, loving, hoping – cannot be understood or lived without risk.” So when we feel afraid, which we will, and when we are tempted to shrink back, maybe we can remind each other who told this parable. Jesus certainly could have played it safe, burying his mission in a hole in the ground, looking out only for himself. But he did not. Jesus stepped right out there, standing up for all who had no voice. He fed the hungry, befriended the outcast, and healed the sick. He called all people to repentance and new life. Let’s not kid ourselves: taking those risks led Jesus straight to the cross. Jesus was not in life for survival or self-preservation. He was in it for the kingdom, to live the fullness of God’s reign until all people can share it together. Which is worth the risk.

© Joanne Whitt 2023 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Richard J. Henderson, Parables: Stories for Life in God’s World – Resource Book (Pittsburgh, PA: The Kerygma Program, 1998).

Matthew 25:1-13

The last time I preached on this passage, two of my grownup kids asked me the same question. “Why did the bridesmaids have to have their own lamps? If I had a flashlight and you didn’t, we’d just walk together, right?” “Good question,” was the best I could come up with. This parable raises many questions like this. If for some reason they couldn’t share the lamps, then why not share the oil? Why were the young women sent off to buy oil at midnight when the store was probably closed? Can you ever really be too late for the Kingdom of God? Why the closed door? Where’s the hospitality and grace in that? Why is it the bridesmaids who suffer, just because this bridegroom is late? You’d think that having to buy a dress you’re never going to wear again is punishment enough.

We aren’t told why this bridegroom is late, but we know the parable was put in written form fifty or so years after the Resurrection, when the early church was expecting Christ to return at any moment. It was taking much longer than they’d hoped. The early church used this parable to say just that: There’s been a delay. Don’t be surprised, don’t panic, and don’t give up. It doesn’t mean our faith is pointless.

We’re still waiting. The Church still affirms that there will come a time when God’s plans for the world are fulfilled, when all the biblical promises that they shall beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks will come to fruition. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer every week, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth…” We are not there yet. In the meantime, we respond to God’s invitation to be a part of God’s coming kingdom, but it is a slow kingdom coming.

What do these bridesmaids have to say to those who wait? The bridesmaids who were equipped to deal with the long haul were deemed wise. And somehow, even though it’s not a perfect analogy, that oil is supposed to represent something we can’t share. Something we have to do for ourselves.

Some have said that a weakness of the Reformed tradition is that we don’t focus on practices, even though we know that anything we want to do well takes practice. In his book, Slow Kingdom Coming, author Kent Annan sets out five faithful practices that can help sustain us for the marathon of waiting and participating in the coming kingdom. These practices help us to be committed to deep instead of shallow change, and to making a long-term difference instead of settling for quick fixes. Together the five practices add up to “Keep awake!”

The first practice is “attention,” which means awakening to the situations in the world that cry out for justice. People awaken to injustice in all sorts of ways: friends, mission trips, travel to other countries, work with marginalized groups, reading, paying attention to the news, seeing films, maybe even sermons! This kind of waking isn’t easy. One year, the town where a church I served is located put scarecrows on lamp posts as decorations during October and November. These scarecrows became the subject of controversy. Some people thought they were creepy, as in haunted house creepy, and they might scare children. Others thought they were creepy, as in reminiscent of a lynching creepy, and hugely insensitive to people of color. People on the neighborhood social media website, Nextdoor, said, “Look, even if they don’t bother you personally, if any person of color feels less welcome on our streets, we need to rethink our Halloween decorations,” and there were statements from people of color that these scarecrows were, indeed, a problem. Others said, “If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother anybody, and you’re too sensitive. Get over it.” Some people even got ugly about it.

If we pay attention, we might hear the voices of people we’ve never heard before; we might begin to realize how deep and wide the problems are. When we pay attention, we might recognize our own complicity with the way things are. That’s why Annan’s second practice is confession. The third practice is respect. Respect means the ability to see one another across our inevitable differences. The fourth practice, partnering, helps prevent misguided generosity because it keeps us from swooping in to rescue or save. Instead, when we partner with people we assume we all need to learn and receive, and we all have something to give. It also means going upstream, not just applying Band-Aids to problems but addressing the sources and causes of poverty and injustice. That, of course, takes more time, and requires more thought, effort, and patience.

Annan’s fifth practice is what he calls “truthing” – seeing the truth of what’s right in front of our noses. What are the real impacts of our ministry? “Truthing” means asking the question, “What ministries, what actions, actually bear fruit?”

Five practices, all designed to help us to “keep awake” while we wait. The opportunities for waiting on Jesus’ presence are all around us. Each time we work for justice, we testify to Jesus’ presence. Each time we bear each other’s burdens, we testify to Jesus’ presence. Each time we advocate for the poor, or reach out to the friendless, or work to make the world God loves a better place, we testify to the presence of the Risen Christ.

© Joanne Whitt 2023

Resources:

Kent Annan, Slow Kingdom Coming: Practices for Doing Justice, Loving Mercy and Walking Humbly in the World (Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016).

Matthew 23:1-12

Author Brian McLaren tells a story about a man named Jeff who began attending McLaren’s church. After about six months, Jeff told McLaren, “For the first time in my life, I look forward to coming to church. It’s really having a good effect on me and my whole family. My wife says I’m a much better husband, and I know I’m improving as a father, too. I really get a lot out of your sermons. In fact, I agree with everything you say.”

This statement shocked McLaren. He was wasn’t sure even he could say that, given the way he winced when he listened to his old sermon tapes (I can relate). But Jeff continued. “There’s one thing, though. I don’t believe in God.”

McLaren wondered how Jeff could agree with everything he’d heard him preach, and not believe in God. McLaren was thinking, “Man, I must be some preacher if you still don’t believe in God.” But what he said was, “Why don’t you believe in God?” Jeff answered, “It’s my brother. He became a Christian and now nobody can stand him.” McLaren asked, “So you’re afraid if you start believing in God, you’ll become an arrogant hypocrite, or something like that? “Exactly,” said Jeff.

Ouch. Arrogant hypocrites, just like the Pharisees in this Sunday’s passage in Matthew’s Gospel. The Pharisees were a sect of Judaism that existed, alongside many others, in Palestinian Jewish society from about 200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. They sought to preserve Israel’s identity by strict adherence to purity and Sabbath laws. This effort became increasingly important when Palestine was occupied by conquering empires. Apparently, Matthew thought that some of the Pharisees started out with good intentions but became corrupted by self-interest. They used their religion to massage their own egos, to make themselves feel important.

The thing is, religion has always been very susceptible to being corrupted into just another way for us to feed the unhealthy pride that lurks in the corners of our insecurities. As one commentator puts it, “You know, that pride that tempts us to try to make ourselves look more important or more moral or simply better than others. It’s the other side of the temptation to brand others as ‘sinners’ so that we can be ‘righteous.’”

If we’re totally honest, I suspect many church leaders can identify with the Pharisees’ concern with fringes and phylacteries, with titles and respect. It’s less common than it used to be but I have known pastors who insisted on being called “Dr.” or “Reverend,” even though (and I confess this is a quirky pet peeve of mine) “Reverend” is an honorific, not a title, and only grammatically appropriate when used in the third person and with the definite article, as in, “That man over there in the clerical collar is the Rev. John Smith.” And I’ve seen plenty of pastors – no, wait – I have been a pastor who has drooled over a vestment catalog.

We’re not so different from the scribes and Pharisees. In truth, there’s nothing wrong with phylacteries or fringes, or with vestments or titles. They all have their place when kept in perspective. Jesus’ concern, then and now, is the way those things get out of perspective, the way our motivations for doing them become distorted so that they become an end in themselves, the way they become substitutes for what we’re supposed to be about: glorifying God and living as disciples. The passage reminds us how quickly religious practice can move from being God-centered to being self-centered.

Many churches observe All Saints Day on the first Sunday in November. In the Roman Catholic tradition which colors most of what we think we know about saints, saints are people who lived an exceptionally good life and then died, who sometimes performed miracles, and whose memory has stood the test of time. Originally each saint had his or her own saint’s day, but there are around forty thousand saints in the Roman Catholic tradition, so eventually most of them were celebrated on one day: All Saints’ Day. But for Presbyterians, forty thousand is just a start. In his letters, the apostle Paul uses the word “saints” to refer to the church, the whole church on earth, here and now. In the Reformed tradition, all who are united in Christ, whether dead or living, are saints. Saints are not perfect people in either tradition. Being a saint does not mean being flawless. This very recognition, writes the Dali Lama, is the antidote self-centeredness. “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.”

Humility is the antidote to self-centeredness. Back to that story about Jeff, the young man who didn’t want to turn into an arrogant hypocrite. McLaren thought he should give Jeff something to think about rather than argue with him. So he said, “Well, maybe someday you’ll see a way to believe in God and become a better person instead of a worse one.”

Jeff said, “Wow, I never really thought of it that way. I guess that is an option.”

Perhaps that’s the invitation of both this passage and All Saints: to seek a way of believing in God that helps us become a better person instead of a worse one. We stand on the shoulders of saints who show us what that looks like, and on All Saints, we remember and celebrate them. In 1953, a man arrived at the railway station in Chicago to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He stepped off the train, a tall man with bushy hair and a big mustache. As the cameras flashed and city officials approached with hands outstretched to meet him, he thanked them politely. Then he asked to be excused for a minute. He walked through the crowd to the side of an elderly Black woman struggling with two large suitcases. He picked them up, smiled, escorted her to the bus, helped her get on, and wished her a safe journey. Then, Albert Schweitzer – theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary in Africa – turned to the crowd and apologized for keeping them waiting. It is reported that one member of the reception committee told a reporter, “That’s the first time I ever saw a sermon walking.”

Thanks be to God, I have seen many, many sermons walking.

Resources:

Brian D. McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Post-Modern Matrix (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002).
Alyce M. McKenzie, October 23, 2011, http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do-Alyce-McKenzie-10-24-2011
http://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2011/11/doing-as-we-say-mt.html

© Joanne Whitt 2023 all rights reserved.

Lesson: Matthew 22:34-46

Jesus has just “silenced the Sadducees,” and so the Pharisees decide to take him on. They send a lawyer to test him. As you might expect, the lawyer chooses to test Jesus on a point of legal interpretation. In my experience, legal interpretation isn’t just for lawyers. In fact, it seems to come naturally to people, starting at a very early age. Take the rule, “You may not watch TV until your homework is done.” I have seen virtually every word of that rule subjected to intense scrutiny. Is “you” a singular or a plural pronoun? If you are finished with your homework, may you watch TV, even though your sister is still working on hers at the dining room table, a mere eight feet away? Does “homework” mean only the homework due tomorrow, or 2 or 3 days from now? If you’re supposed to finish a novel in three weeks, how much of that is your “homework” tonight? Does it count as “watching” if you didn’t get to choose the program? And perhaps most important, is there a penalty for watching TV before your homework is done?

And so the Pharisee lawyer asks Jesus, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus answers: The greatest and first, from Deuteronomy, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and might.” The second, which he says is like it, is from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then, Jesus challenges the lawyer to re-interpret the whole body of Jewish law. “On these two commandments,” he says, “hang all the law and the prophets.”

Now, Jesus’ words are clear enough. The Reformer, John Knox, is said to have declared, “The Word of God is plain in itself.” With all due respect to John Knox, especially given this coming Sunday is Reformation Sunday, when it comes to both Scripture and the law, I tend to agree with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who said, “The notion that because the words of a statute are plain, its meaning is also plain, is merely pernicious oversimplification.”

When we hear the command to love, what many of us experience is something like, “I know I should love.” But we can’t just decide to love, and we can’t even be persuaded to love with the best, most convincing arguments. Sure, it’s easy enough to love someone who is just naturally lovable. But the problem is that none of us is lovable all the time. And some people, it seems, aren’t ever very lovable. Certainly, we can attempt to treat all people fairly. We can treat people with justice, because as Cornell West put it, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” But Jesus quoted Leviticus, not Micah; he used the word “love,” not “justice.”

On the Sunday before All Saints, it’s helpful for me to remember that many of the heroes of our faith figured out that it’s by allowing ourselves the experience of being deeply and completely and unconditionally loved by God that we are empowered to love others. People like Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King Jr. realized that if God deems someone lovable, including ourselves, then who are we to disagree? Who are we to presume that someone who is worthy of God’s love is not worthy of our love?

It’s also helpful for me to remember a quotation – I don’t know the original source and it’s practically a meme at this point but it’s absolutely true: “People are hard to hate up close. Move closer.”

This past summer, protesters showed up at a church in San Francisco that I often attend when I’m not preaching elsewhere. After posing as visitors and disrupting Bible study before worship, the protesters grouped together outside and began shouting random homophobic epithets with an amplified mic at the people gathering for worship. I was there, and it felt menacing, especially because confrontations in our country too often turn violent. It felt like a violation; a disruption of what should have been preparation for worship. The pastor was on vacation, but the associate pastor handled the situation with grace.

A few weeks later, the pastor met with some of the protestors. She was able to tell them that while she trusted that they came to protest because they love Jesus, they weren’t communicating the love of Jesus to the congregation. They frightened people. She listened to their stories, and it became apparent why they had such a black-and-white, heaven-and-hell based theology. She didn’t agree with it, but she understood why it felt safer to them. She hoped they understood her congregation a bit better, as well. She probably didn’t change their minds. But she communicated the love of Jesus to them. She moved closer.

It’s by allowing ourselves the experience of being deeply and completely and unconditionally loved by God that we are empowered to love others. And then, move closer.

Lesson: Matthew 22:15-22

One of the most iconic moments of the original “Star Wars” movies came to mind when I read this passage. In “Return of the Jedi,” as the rebels realize they’re surrounded by Imperial ships, Admiral Ackbar shouts, “It’s a trap!” That’s what I want to shout to Jesus. We’re told from the outset that the Pharisees, fed up with Jesus, are plotting to entrap him. To do this they join forces with an unlikely ally, the Herodians. This is one of those, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” situations. The Pharisees were highly observant Jews who despised Rome and Roman rule of their homeland. The Herodians supported the Romans. They both want to get rid of Jesus.

The census tax required by Rome was not only an economic burden; it was also a painful reminder that Judea was occupied by foreign powers who worshiped false gods. The tax could only be paid with Roman coins, which were not just legal tender but also pieces of propaganda. Most of the coins had an image of the emperor with inscriptions proclaiming him to be divine or the son of a god, a graven image that was both blasphemous and politically humiliating. So when they ask Jesus whether they should pay taxes to the emperor, they aren’t seeking tax advice. A “Yes” will discredit Jesus with the Jews and show him to be disloyal to God. A “No” will show him to be disloyal to the empire, and he could be arrested for treason.

Jesus asks to see a coin. Someone produces one. This, all by itself, incriminates the questioners. Apparently, they’re happy to do business with Caesar’s coins. “Whose image is on this?” Jesus asks. The coin, of course, bears Caesar’s image. It belongs to Caesar. I picture Jesus saying with a shrug, “So give it back to him.” We don’t disobey or offend God by paying our taxes.

Then the zinger. “And give to God the things that are God’s.”

What belongs to God? The coin bore Caesar’s image and belonged to Caesar. What is it, exactly, that bears God’s image?

We don’t have to hunt in our pockets or purses. Just look at the people you see on the street, at work, at home, at school and you will see the image of God again and again. Human beings may pay taxes to the emperor, but we do not belong to the emperor. We bear the image of God. We belong to God.

What are we to give God? That which is stamped with God’s image. Our very selves. Our very lives. Not just a part of ourselves. Not just a part of our lives. Go ahead, give Caesar the tribute, pay the taxes, but give God what belongs to God: your heart, soul, mind and strength; loving God and your neighbor as yourself.

What does this look like? There’s a theological word for our responsibility for God’s world and its resources, including our very selves, and that word is stewardship. Stewardship is so much more than raising money for the ministries of a church. Stewardship certainly encompasses our spending, the way we use our money, but that’s just a drop in the stewardship bucket. We are to be good stewards of everything, including our time, our talent, and our treasure; including this planet and all its resources. We belong to God. The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it (Psalm 24:1).

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette took this passage and put it to the tune of “God Whose Giving Knows No Ending,” a hymn in the Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God. Gillette’s version includes these verses:

“Find a tax coin in your treasure; see the image that it bears.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. (Give to rulers what is theirs.)”
Yet he pressed on with his message; “Give to God what is God’s own.”
We who bear our Maker’s image worship God and God alone.

Lord of all, in every nation, may your word be understood —
That we have an obligation to support the common good.
May our taxes, all together, fund our working hand in hand
So that life will be made better for all people in this land.

Still, we also hear your teaching: “Give to God what God is due.”
May no ruler — overreaching — try to take the place of you.
May we listen to your message, may we honor what is yours;
May we, living in your image, seek your kingdom that endures.

© Joanne Whitt 2023 all rights reserved.

This past week, I’ve asked my husband and friends, over and over, “What was Hamas thinking?” Why take extreme and murderous action that provokes an equally extreme reaction from Israel, and causes the deaths not only of innocent Israelis, but innocent Palestinians?

The answer that has made the most sense to me appears in the op-ed by Thomas Friedman that appeared in the New York Times two days ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-.html. Friedman has been covering this conflict for over fifty years. I won’t quote his article extensively; I recommend that you read it. He reports his impressions of what is going on and why, and then asks, “So how can America best help Israel now, besides standing behind its right to protect itself, as President Biden so forcefully did in his speech today?”

What grabbed my attention was his first answer to that question: “First, I hope the president is asking Israel to ask itself this question as it considers what to do next in Gaza: What do my worst enemies want me to do — and how can I do just the opposite?” Friedman continues: “What Israel’s worst enemies — Hamas and Iran — want is for Israel to invade Gaza and get enmeshed in a strategic overreach there that would make America’s entanglement in Falluja look like a children’s birthday party. We are talking house-to-house fighting that would undermine whatever sympathy Israel has garnered on the world stage, deflect world attention from the murderous regime in Tehran and force Israel to stretch its forces to permanently occupy Gaza and the West Bank. … Hamas and Iran absolutely do not want Israel to refrain from going into Gaza very deep or long.”

In other words, Israel needs not to react, but to respond. Israel needs not to let anxiety and fear drive their response, but a real desire for peace and justice. As the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship put it, “An eye for an eye leaves the entire Middle East blind to any hope for justice. Absent justice, there is no hope for peace.” https://www.presbypeacefellowship.org/presbyterian-peace-fellowships-statement-on-israel-and-gaza/.

This Sunday’s lectionary includes Exodus 32:1-14, the story of the golden calf. What we see in this story are two very different ways of dealing with anxiety. First, we see the Israelites. With Moses missing in action, they forget everything, because anxiety affects memory. When people are anxious, they forget what’s important, even their values. They lose perspective; they have trouble seeing the big picture. The anxious Israelites forget that God delivered them from slavery. They forget the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna and quail, the commandments that Moses had just given them, and how God has been with them all along. Anxious people often turn to their leaders with unreasonable demands to rescue them, and the Israelites turn to Aaron.

Anxiety is more contagious than COVID. Instead of managing his own anxiety, Aaron is swept into the people’s anxiety. He has them collect earrings, melt them down, and make a calf. Aaron doesn’t tell the people the calf is their god, but when they start worshiping it, he doesn’t correct them, either. Straight off the bat, the people break that first and most important commandment: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt … you shall have no other gods before me.” In their anxiety, they’ve forgotten what was most important about their identity: that they are God’s people.

When we’re anxious, we tend to depend on something other than God, a “something other” that seems immediate and tangible, whereas God is invisible and can feel intangible. We try to fix the anxiety or quell the fear with something other than the truth that every one of us is beloved by God; that all of us are God’s people. Much of the craziness in our own culture, from white supremacy to gangs to addictions to runaway greed, is a response to anxiety, to fear that people don’t know how to manage.

In the meantime, Moses is chatting away with God on Mount Sinai when God says, “You better get down there quick because all hell is breaking loose. And by the way, I’ve had it with these ungrateful people.”

That’s when we get to see a very different approach to anxiety. Moses boldly steps between the forgetful, anxious people and God. It’s an amazing scene. One scholar writes, “Radical trust in God evokes an audacious faith; it not only permits but requires questioning.” “Radical trust in God … not only permits but requires questioning.” Moses must be anxious, but he trusts God and so he manages his anxiety; he stands his ground; he remembers what he was called to do and what God promised to do back at the burning bush, when the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people … and I have come to deliver them … I will be with you.” So, remembering all this, Moses questions, implores, enters into a dialogue with God. And that leads to one of the most striking, even one of the most shocking verses in Scripture: “And the LORD changed his mind.”

Well, that’s a surprise! The bad news is that anxiety is one of the most contagious emotions that we can experience. The good news is that calm is equally contagious. It looks to me as though Moses talked God down. The writer of this passage doesn’t criticize Moses; it seems as though Moses did the right thing. Moses was a non-anxious presence, and God changed God’s mind.

Two ways to deal with anxiety: spreading it or managing it. I will not pretend I know what President Biden or Prime Minister Netanyahu should do. I am convinced, as the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship notes, “The present violence cannot change the past and will not redeem the future. War can never establish justice. War will never result in peace.” I will pray that whatever our world leaders do comes from a true desire for peace with justice, and not from fear and anxiety.

This past weekend I led a women’s retreat for a Sonoma County congregation. I brushed off a topic I’d used as a retreat theme in 2008: “Honoring the Body.” Much of my inspiration came from Stephanie Paulsell’s book by the same name, a book drawing on Christian resources to develop a faith-based practice of honoring the body: cherishing our bodies as the amazing gifts they are, and countering the corrosive cultural messages that make us forget we are created in God’s image.

Since I visited this topic 15 years ago, some things have changed for the better. In 2008, there was no body positivity movement to speak of. Now, in stores from Target to Victoria’s Secret, you can find “plus sized” mannequins as well as the usual size 2 mannequins. Fashion magazines and retail catalogs include models that look more like real women, both in dress size and age. We’ve figured out that BMI – body mass index – is medically meaningless. The recent “Barbie” movie populated Barbie’s world with women of all shapes and colors, and the doll itself has evolved. In 2016, Mattel released a line of dolls called the Barbie Fashionistas that came with various skin tones, eye colors, hair textures, and body types (“original, curvy, petite and tall”), as well as a Barbie in a wheelchair.

But some things have stayed the same or grown worse, and by “worse,” I mean people, and women in particular, are not cherishing their bodies but rather, spending time and money, and even risking their health to alter their bodies to meet a supposed cultural standard. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of cosmetic surgical procedures undergone went up 19%. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of annual Botox injections increased by nearly 459%. Eating disorders are on the rise. While the Center for Disease Control recommends that kids ages 6 through 17 be physically active for at least an hour a day, only about a quarter of U.S. kids achieve that. What are they doing instead? They’re on screens. Studies show that kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day.

And what they see on their screens is terrifyingly toxic beauty advice, advice that normalizes unrealistic and narrowly defined beauty standards, promotes potentially harmful beauty practices, and suggests that the key to building self-esteem is physical “perfection.”

15 years ago, I stumbled onto a short video called “Evolution” made by Dove – yes, the soap company – as part of the Dove Self-Esteem Project, and I showed it at the 2008 retreat. It shows how a model’s appearance changes dramatically with makeup and hair styling, but then photos are edited to achieve so-called “perfection.” In other words, what we see in ads isn’t even real. You can see “Evolution” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCNEIwxkPlc.

Dove has continued to make short videos, and I showed a handful of them at the retreat this past weekend. Some are heartbreaking, while others are hopeful. Some deal with toxic beauty advice. I recommend the following, but there are many more wonderful videos:

• “Reverse Selfie,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHP9YTMHIoU&t=2s
• “Toxic Influence” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF3iRZtkyAQ
• “Injectable Billboard” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXmF6rwj_Bk
• “Beauty Standards of Age Are a Form of Bias” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF3iRZtkyAQ
• “Beauty Standards of Weight Are a Form of Bias” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ05C1o9utg
• “Inner Critic” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPjeelgG9Cg
• “Real Women Redefine Beauty” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD6pv6IbtP4
• “Rain’s Story” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5l-H3fj8Rw
• “Seeing the Beauty in Our Friends and Ourselves” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APgEJoAYh0Y

I encourage you to watch these and other Dove videos, and to let your friends know about them, and if you have sisters, wives, partners, daughters, or granddaughters, let them know about them, too. As a woman at the retreat put it, in her mother’s Cherokee tradition all the women are “aunties” to all the kids, and to each other. Let’s be aunties. Because when 53% of 13-year-old girls report that they are unhappy with their bodies, and by the time they’re 17, it goes up to 78%, something is broken. We are not honoring our bodies. We are not cherishing the glory of God’s diversity. We are not looking in the mirror and seeing a beloved child of God.

Resources:

https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/News/Statistics/2022/cosmetic-procedure-trends-2022.pdf
https://www.elitetampa.com/blog/botox-statistics-you-need-to-know/
https://nutrition.org/eating-disorders-are-on-the-rise/
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/guidelines.htm#:~:text=Children%20and%20adolescents%20ages%206%20through%2017%20years%20should%20do,to%2Dvigorous%20physical%20activity%20daily.
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/facts.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/multimedia/infographics/getmoving.html.
https://now.org/now-foundation/love-your-body/love-your-body-whats-it-all-about/get-the-facts/#:~:text=One%20study%20reports%20that%20at,the%20time%20girls%20reach%20seventeen.

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in 303 Creative Ltd. v. Elenis. The case involves a web designer in Colorado who wants to refuse to make wedding websites for same-sex couples. Wedding websites are the way engaged couples let their friends and family know their wedding and pre-wedding plans, access their registry, and generally celebrate with them as the day of the wedding approaches.

A colleague wondered, “Where’s the money”? A wedding website designer is unlikely to have the resources to fund a lawsuit that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. After some research, he found that the lawsuit is being funded by an organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom. This organization was listed as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016. (https://www.splcenter.org/news/2020/04/10/why-alliance-defending-freedom-hate-group) It was founded by leaders of the “Christian Right” about 30 years ago, and is largely responsible for the invention of the term “gay agenda,” which they claim will destroy society generally and Christianity in particular.

I assume these people turn to the Hebrew Scriptures for support in their condemnation of LGBTQ+ folks. The Old Testament is filled with rules that seemed culturally appropriate two or three thousand years ago. I’m guessing the folks at the Alliance Defending Freedom ignore most of them, and rightly so. They won’t find any support for their hatred in the words of Jesus, who, instead, welcomed all those that his culture treated as outcasts, and who actually violated the rules that were more hurtful than helpful to people.

Nevertheless, the argument is that having to create wedding websites for LGBTQ+ couples violates the website designer’s First Amendment rights. In a New York Times op-ed today, David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, urges us to ask the right questions about this case. “The question is not, as it may seem initially, ‘Can an artist be compelled to create a website with which she disagrees?’” Instead, Cole writes, “The right question is whether someone who chooses to open a business to the public should have a right to turn away gay customers simply because the service provided is ‘expressive’ or ‘artistic.”’ Cole argues that this case is not really about the First Amendment, but instead about public accommodations laws, which ensure that “everyone has equal access to the public marketplace.” He continues, “They don’t trigger serious First Amendment concerns because they apply equally to all businesses, expressive or not, and are focused on the commercial conduct of discriminatorily denying service — not on controlling the content of anyone’s speech.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/opinion/303creative-first-amendment-supreme-court.html)

Before seminary, I practiced law for 15 years, so the details of this argument still fascinate me. But from where I sit now as a spiritual director, retired pastor, and follower of Jesus, what concerns me most is using Christianity and/or Scripture to justify hatred. To claim it violates your freedom if the government stops you from taking actions that discriminate against, hurt, or even destroy LGBTQ+ folks. That is what is destroying Christianity. That is what is driving thinking people, caring people, LGBTQ+ people, and young people away from the Church. It breaks my heart, and I feel pretty comfortable saying in breaks Jesus’ heart, as well.

One of the reasons I love Thanksgiving is because of the classic Thanksgiving hymns that are part of the Presbyterian Hymnal, and I suspect many other Protestant hymnals as well. They are very old hymns, and I’ve been singing them since I was a child. My favorites:
“We Gather Together” (the Netherlands, 1626, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqOXEf-DVkU)
“Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” (English, mid 19th century, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8wCwv4NPU)
“Let All Things Now Living” (American, 1939, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpMCE1G3N7Q)
and “Now Thank We All Our God” (German, 1636, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g0BSC7eNXQ).

I was revisiting these hymns because I’m serving as a guest preacher this Sunday, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I’ll be preaching about gratitude (naturally) and usually I get to select or at least suggest the hymns when I’m a guest preacher. I started with “We Gather Together,” which I genuinely love, but when I looked over the lyrics, I noticed something. This is the first verse:
“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessings.
He chastens and hastens his will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.”

He forgets not his own. Yikes. I asked myself, “Just who is included in ‘God’s own’”?

I don’t think the person who wrote the lyrics of “We Gather Together” way back in 1626 had a clue about the damage done to human life and spirit when we think of ourselves as God’s own, and think of others as somehow not God’s own. When we think in terms of Us and Them. Sadly, this is not ancient history. Political and cultural commentator David Brooks calls the current movement away from a focus on our common humanity a “retreat to tribalism,” and it is tearing our diverse nation apart. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “‘God bless America’ is often heard on the lips of American presidents. But whether God blesses America will become apparent when it emerges whether America is a blessing for the peoples of the world, or their burden and curse; for one is blessed only in order to be a blessing oneself.”

When the blessing stops with “us,” it’s called privilege. Look at it this way: A few autumns ago, we suffered some abysmal air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area because of nearby wildfires. There was one day that San Francisco had an Air Quality Index or “AQI” of 274, which was the worst of any major city in the world that day. But that same day, Delhi had an AQI of 268; Lahore, Pakistan had 251; Kolcotta, India had 215; and Dhaka, Bangladesh was at 203. These cities weren’t downwind of major fires. It’s just what they live with, every day. And that’s just the cities with an AQI over 200, the “very unhealthy” purple zone. There are loads more cities perpetually in the red zone, merely “unhealthy.” When we focus on the calamity of our own air quality without paying attention to the fact that this is routine for other human beings on God’s precious planet every single day, that is privilege; that is a blessing that stops with us.

I heard an interview a while back with Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who’s dedicated his life to working with former gang members in Los Angeles. “I’m lucky,” Father Boyle said. “I won all the lotteries – the parent lottery, the sibling lottery, the zip code lottery, the educational lottery.” It was the word “lucky” that stopped me short. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a person of faith call himself lucky instead of blessed. I’ve even hesitated to wish someone “good luck,” because I was afraid it sounds superstitious and un-Christian.

But the more I think about it, the more I understand Father Boyle’s word choice. Naming our material circumstances – the home we live in, the food on our table, the vacations we enjoy, our health and the health of our family, the status of our bank account – as evidence of our blessedness implies that, at the same time God has chosen to bless us with these gifts, God has chosen not to bless others in the same way. If I say I’m blessed because I own a lovely home in a safe neighborhood, or blessed because I have a good job with health insurance, or blessed because I have a bountiful feast spread out on my dining room table, what does that say about the single mother living in the one room apartment in an unsafe neighborhood, or the man with the change cup on the corner, or the family huddled in a makeshift camp in Tijuana or fleeing missile fire in Ukraine?

Are they not blessed? Has God decided to bless me, but not them?

Jesus describes blessings entirely differently. Jesus defines the blessed as those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who are meek and those who are poor in spirit. I wonder whether some verses were omitted from the Beatitudes. Maybe they deleted the verses where the disciples responded by saying, “Waitest thou for one second, Lord. What about ‘blessed art the comfortable,’ or ‘blessed art thou who havest good jobs, a modest house in the suburbs, and a yearly vacation’? And Jesus said unto them, ‘Apologies, my brothers, but those did not maketh the cut.’”

The truth is, I have no idea why I was born where I was or why I have the opportunities I’ve had. It’s beyond comprehension, and I am profoundly grateful. But I don’t believe God chose me above others because of the veracity of my prayers or the depth of my faith, or the tribe or the denomination or even the faith in which I’ve landed. If I take advantage of the opportunities set before me, a comfortable life may come my way. It’s not guaranteed. But if it does happen, I still don’t believe Jesus will call me blessed.

I believe he will ask, “What will you do with it?”

“Will you use it for yourself?”

“Will you use it to help?”

“Will you share it?”

Tough questions with few easy answers.

This Thursday, when we gather around our tables, of course we will give thanks and pray for our loved ones, even for ourselves, because we must; it is honest; it is coming before God with our hopes and fears. But my prayer for all of us this week is that when we do so, we understand our true blessing. It’s not turkey-laden tables, or our houses, our jobs, or our standard of living. It’s not even that we are Americans, or Christians.

Our blessing is this: We know a God who gives hope to the hopeless. We know a God who loves the unlovable. We know a God who comforts the sorrowful. We know a God who always welcomes the outcast and the stranger. And we know a God who has planted this same power within us. Within every one of us.

And for this blessing, may our prayer always be,

“Use me.”

© Joanne Whitt 2022

November 1 is the day the Christian church observes All Saints’ Day. In the Roman Catholic tradition, which colors most of what we think we know about saints, saints are people who lived a good life, performed a miracle of some kind, and died. They’ve been officially named as a saint (“canonized”), and their memory has stood the test of time. Originally each saint had his or her own saint’s day, but there are around forty thousand saints in the Roman Catholic tradition, so eventually most of them were celebrated on one day, All Saints’ Day.

For Presbyterians, forty thousand is just a start. In his letters, the apostle Paul uses the word “saints” to refer to the church, the church on earth. In my tradition, all who are united in Christ, whether dead or living, are saints. To be a “saint” means to be “sanctified,” to be made holy to serve God by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit. On All Saints’ Day, our focus is not on extraordinary achievements of particular Christians, but on the grace and work of God through ordinary people. People like you and me. Whether or not you are comfortable claiming the title, we are the saints of God.

Even though the communion of saints includes people who are still living, many Protestant churches observe the first Sunday in November (“All Saints’ Sunday”) by remembering our dearly departed. Churches have developed creative and meaningful worship traditions; for example: lighting candles as the names of those who have died are read, bringing photos to place on the communion table, inviting worshipers to lay one fall leaf on the chancel for each person they want remembered, and singing, “For All the Saints,” a rousing hymn that begins with a low, vibrating G on the organ that you can feel almost as much as you can hear, and it gives me chills every time.

One of my Facebook friends, Marcella Auld Glass, the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, reposted a list of prayer prompts for the month of November called, “Rejoicing in God’s Saints: A Daily Prayer Calendar for November.” This list was originally posted by Laura Stephens-Reed, a clergyperson and coach, in 2018. Each prompt for November 1st through the 30th invites us to express gratitude for the now-departed saints who have influenced our lives. I’ve found it to be a valuable prayer practice, not only for All Saints’ but for the month that includes Thanksgiving. It’s inspiring my gratitude, and as pretty much everybody knows by now, gratitude is good for you. I’m convinced it’s good to the world, as well. Research shows that people who keep daily gratitude journals exercise more regularly, complain of fewer illness symptoms, and feel better about their lives overall. They also feel more loving, forgiving, joyful, enthusiastic, and optimistic about their futures, while their family and friends report that they seem happier and are more pleasant to be around. Research further reveals that gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, deal with adversity, be more patient, and build strong relationships. That makes gratitude sound like a self-help wonder drug, and maybe it is, but I believe gratitude could also be healing for our planet and many of the divisions plaguing our polarized world. Imagine if we were so grateful for this good earth that we took care of it. Imagine if we were so grateful for the legacy of democracy we’ve inherited that we all voted. Imagine if we were so grateful for food, clothing, and shelter that we took steps to make sure everyone’s basic needs are met.

Gratitude for the people who have influenced us also helps us remember, as Peter Gomes wrote, “a saint in the early and reformed churches … was one who … was not so much perfect as persevering.” If we remember that the people who mentored us, parented us, inspired us, challenged us, and taught us were not perfect, but still made our lives better, our world better, might we not have more patience, more compassion, more empathy for the people in our lives now who are not perfect? Which is everyone, right? And for ourselves, too?

You can read Stephens-Reed’s list here: https://www.laurastephensreed.com/blog/resource-re-post-rejoicing-in-gods-saints-prayer-calendar.

Mary W. Anderson writes, “When the low G sounds on the organ, announcing the beginning of R. Vaughan Williams’s tune to the hymn ‘For All the Saints,’ I feel as though the rumbling of that low bass note calls us to worship the communion of saints. It is a call to St. Peter and St. Paul, to Mary Magdalene and Mother Teresa, to Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. As we remember these strong shoulders on which we stand, we are challenged to strengthen our own shoulders. We are ancestors in the making after all, saints for a generation yet unborn. It is an awesome opportunity. Rise up, O saints of God!”

“For All the Saints”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21GTTM2TIYA