A Sermon for Proper 27, Year B

 

Let us pray…

 

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might

destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God

and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may

purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again

with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his

eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with

you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

This past week as I read over this morning’s collect, I was reminded of the renewal of baptismal vows we celebrated last Sunday.  Among all the bible-based words that a 17^th century English Bishop gathered into this prayer are these that often show up on Baptismal certificates:  “children of God and heirs of eternal life.”  The collect says that Christ came into the world to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.  Our tradition says that Baptism is the sacramental way God makes that real in our lives, and last week we reclaimed that promise for ourselves.  Baptized by water and the Spirit, we are children of God and heirs of eternal life.  So far, so good.  

 

But in the annoying fashion of people who don’t know when to shut up, today’s Collect goes on to pray about what we should do in response to that gift of God:  “Grant that having this hope we may purify ourselves as [Christ] is pure.”  Well, there the 17^th century Bishop lost me.  Purify ourselves as Christ is pure?  Who is he kidding?  When did any of us ever imagine such a thing was possible?  

 

My theologically-trained mind objected that for centuries, Christians have recognized that we humans are so bound up in our own sinfulness that we are quite incapable of purifying ourselves.  In fact, that is why God sent the Christ to be a sacrifice for our sins, as today’s 2^nd reading from Hebrews reminds us.  My psychologically-formed mind objected that ever since Freud made us aware of the multiple layers of human consciousness and the hidden desires of the heart, the notion that we could purify ourselves of the mixed motivations that bedevil us is laughable.  

 Anyone who thinks that should, if you’ll excuse the expression, have her head examined!  

 

Now, it is also a sign of living in post-Freudian culture that many of us automatically assume that to purify ourselves means getting rid of all the muck in the dark recesses of heart and soul;  that purification of the self is a fundamentally internal endeavor.  Of course that isn’t a notion confined to the post-Freudian world.  Most of the great spiritual traditions of humanity, including ours, are deeply concerned about what goes on within human hearts, souls and minds.

 

But what if the Christ-like purification we are called to, however impossible it seems, is not just a matter of what goes inside us?  What if the purification God desires to flow from our baptisms has at least as much to do with our everyday outer lives as our inner ones?  What if our spiritual lives are as much about we do, day in and day out, as with the disposition of our hearts and souls?

 

Well, if we pay attention to Jesus, who spent at least as much of his time talking about what we do as how we feel, we’d have to conclude that such is the case.  Take today’s Gospel, for instance, in which Jesus talks about his favorite subject: money.  Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus teaches that what we do with and about money is central to our lives with God, and today’s story is no exception.  It is the familiar story of the poor widow, who puts her two pennies – everything she had to live on, Jesus says ­­– into the Temple treasury.  

 

Jesus remarks that in doing that, the widow has given much more than the rich who put in vastly larger sums.  Christians have usually taken this story to mean that the cost of the gift to the giver means more in God’s eyes than how many zeros there are on the check;  that God measures our gifts in proportion to what we have – or don’t, as the case may be – not its absolute monetary value.  Much else in Scripture suggests there is truth in that.  Indeed, drawing on that tradition,

I urged you last week to use the chart on the back of your pledge card as a tool to guide you in a making a financial commitment to the Church in proportion to your income, large or small.  

 

However, there is something else going on in today’s Gospel story, something we often miss, because we don’t notice what Jesus says just before he watches the widow putting her last two coins in the Temple treasury.  Jesus condemns the scribes who like to flaunt their piety and who also receive the Temple donations.  Why?  Because, he says, “they devour widow’s houses” –

that is, the scribes tell poor widows that it is their religious duty to put all of their money into the temple treasury.  

 

Jesus condemns this. He condemns the economic system which benefited the religious establishment because it encouraged a poor widow to give away her last two cents when she really should have kept them to feed herself.  Jesus’ words about the widow’s gift are tinged with ironic bitterness:  “She just put in everything she had to live on!”  Like the Hebrew prophets  before him, Jesus had no patience with an economic system in which the rich thrive, the poor suffer and fiscal priorities trump human need.  

 

What does this have to do with purifying ourselves as Christ is pure?  Just this – that in our own time we also live as part and parcel of an economic system in which the rich thrive, the poor suffer and fiscal priorities trump human need most of the time.  Purifying ourselves of that entanglement would indeed be to make ourselves more Christ-like and help fulfill the baptismal promises we renewed last week.  

 

In the instruction I do with parents & godparents of those to be baptized, this often comes up as we discuss the renunciations of evil in the Baptismal service.  When I ask people to name the “evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God; and the sinful desires that draw you from the love of God,”  they often answer by talking about the ways our lives are twisted by the consumer culture in which we live:  how the desire to have, and to have more, that is constantly blaring at us from our TV’s, malls and computers infects our lives, especially as we approach the holidays in which we are urged to buy all sorts of stuff that neither we nor our loved ones need.  There much in this part of our lives that needs purification.

 

What might it mean to purify ourselves as Christ is pure by renouncing the real evils of the economic world we live in?  Here are a few possibilities>

 

Not to define our well-being by what we earn, own or buy;  not to work insanely long, pressure-packed hours in order to make more money or gain promotions; not to buy the latest electronic, automotive or home-improvement toys that are routinely dangled before us as “necessities.” 

Instead, to buy only what we actually need to live whole and healthy lives.  To ask, before buying anything:

 

Do I need this?

How much will I use it?

How long will it last?

Could I borrow it from a friend or neighbor?

How will I dispose of/recycle it when I'm done with it?

 

As the holiday shopping season approaches, taking a step back from the enticements of consumer culture is especially important.  You could do this for instance, by joining those who observe “Black Friday” – that wild day of shopping after Thanksgiving -- as “Buy Nothing Day” -- a day not to go near a store or an on-line seller's site.

 Or, instead of buying more stuff that you, your family and friends don't need, make a donation to a group like Episcopal Relief and Development in honor of those on your Christmas list.

Even in these challenging economic times, refusing to buy into what the consumer culture, would, for many of us, free up money to give to agencies that work with the billions of the world’s people who live at the edge of survival, often below it.  We could live more simply so that others may simply live.  We also might find ourselves able to pledge more generously to God's work through the Church.  Either of these would be good starts on a Christ-like purification of our economic lives.  

 

Of course, as you think about doing this you’re probably sensing that this kind of purification may pose as many challenges as the purification of the mysterious recesses within I was talking about earlier.  The life-long training and social pressures to act as we do economically are powerful and hard to overcome.  Our economic lives are often as twisted and tangled as our inner ones in ways we have just as much difficulty undoing. In fact, the inner and outer are always woven together;  our spiritual lives are always about both heart and the hand;  about what lives within us and what we do outside of us -- and what we do with money is key. 

 

As Jesus said elsewhere in the Gospels,   “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  To get his point, try this little following exercise.  Look carefully at your checkbook and your credit card statements.  (Looking at your date book, calendar or PDA for how you spend your time is  also helpful – but that’s a whole other sermon.)  Your financial records will reveal with sometimes painful precision what really matters to you;  where you have invested your heart and your treasure.  They will also tell you where the challenging work of economic and spiritual purification needs to begin for you.

 

And that brings me to back to where we started.  Is such purification of our lives, inner and outer, even possible?  Are we so constrained by internal desires and external pressures that we have no choice but to accept the status quo? Well, the ancient theologians & Freud were onto something in pointing to the complexity of and mixedness of our motivations.  Perfect purification is not within our grasp.  But that doesn’t mean nothing can change.

 

I was speaking once with Bishop Councell about an unhealthy pattern of behavior of rooted in our Diocese rooted in decades of our history.   I was struck by his response:  “We can change that.”  I don’t think our good Bishop has naive illusions that perfection is attainable in the Diocese of  NJ – or anywhere else.  But he believes -- rightly -- that with faithful human effort and God’s help, real change can happen.  The same is true of the purification of our lives, including our economic lives, which is to say, much of our spiritual lives.

 

In fact, we promised to do exactly that last week when we renewed our baptismal covenant:  “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?”  

 

We answered, “I will, with God’s help.”   We said, “With God’s help, we can change.”  

 

To live those promises inevitably involves what we do with money; it means, among other things, the purification of our economic lives.  

 

Can purify ourselves to Christ-like perfection?  No.

But is change possible?  Yes.

Indeed, with God’s help and our faithful effort, it is quite amazing what can change.

 

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni

November 8, 2009