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Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity….
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. In our Gospel reading today, Jesus answers the Pharisees’ question about which commandment of the Law is the greatest and he repeats something that we hear each and every Sunday at the beginning of the mass:
“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. What a timely Gospel reading for the moment we find ourselves in, just a few weeks away from an election! Right here, in this brief exchange between Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Herodians, we find a central question that should confront every Christian sooner or later. What does religion have to do with politics? How does our devotion to God relate to our responsibilities as citizens? And even if that question hasn’t occurred to you before, it probably will make itself known in the coming weeks. I’ve entitled this sermon: “Thinking about Thinking.”
As part of our national accreditation as a mental health center, Edwin Fair is required to provide training to our staff members in a variety of areas; from ethics to policy and procedures, from cultural competency to professional development and fire and safety procedures. Let me assure you, this required day-long training is the mother and father of boredom, and staff members groan and complain as the day approaches. You know, kinda like a vestry meeting that lasts all day long. Each year, it is my responsibility to present training on addiction treatment and recovery. And so, to successfully navigate the boredom, the groans and the complaints, I try to find new and creative ways to spice thing up a bit. A few years ago, I decided upon an exercise that would provoke staff interest and participation. I told them I wanted to discuss an addiction that we all struggle with, and no, it wasn’t food or cell phones or reality shoes like Desperate Housewives, Property Brothers or American Choppers… it was about our addiction to thinking. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No matter who we are, we are never free from accountability to something or someone; we’re certainly never free from accountability to God. We are like the “tenants” in Jesus’ parable today; God is like the landowner who’s already set everything up: he’s planted the vineyard, put a fence around it, dug the wine press, and built the watchtower. It’s a picture of creation itself, as the “vineyard” recalls to mind the Garden of Eden. And just as the tenants are placed in the vineyard at the discretion of the landowner, so too are we placed in creation solely at the will of God to bring us into existence. We neither planted the vineyard nor are we in the midst of it by our own choice. We discover that to be in this vineyard is already to be in a particular relationship to the one who planted it. We are like the tenants, and thus we owe the landowner the produce of our labor. “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. The ironic thing about “telling the truth” is that we are often never more certain of the truth than when we are lying. To tell a lie requires that we know what really happened, because it’s our knowledge of what really happened that enables us to concoct a false story that’s convincing enough to fly. Meanwhile, when we’re just going about our business with nothing to hide, have you ever noticed how our memories of what took place can be a little foggy? Honesty is what allows us to live freely, without the burden of having to trace our every step. We don’t have to keep an inventory of everything we do when we’re living honestly. Lying, on the other hand, forces us into morbid introspection; the truth allows us to forget ourselves and focus our attention to where it’s supposed to be: on God and neighbor. |
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