|
 |
Sermon for Sunday, October 12, 2008
Pastor Sara Kay Olson-Smith
Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: Isaiah 25:1-9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14
Grace to you and peace from the Living God and from Christ Jesus, who has blessed us.
When I was living in Moscow, one of my colleagues was a Nigerian man, named Chika. When I greeted him and said, “Hey, Chika, how are you?” he would answer, always, “Blessed.” Even when things were hard and I knew that he was having trouble paying rent and getting food for his kids and wasn’t sure he would be able to get back to Nigeria, he would always say, “Blessed.”
I think about that today, as we continue in our Stewardship Program called: 100% BOLD: Living Abundantly in the Time of Scarcity. It is shaped around the 4 primary actions in the Eucharistic Prayer: take, bless, break and give. We remember Jesus who took bread, gave thanks and blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples. Take, bless, break and give. Today, we talk about this action of blessing.
Blessing, to me, is this action of making something holy, or placing divine favor upon something, of naming God’s presence in the midst of it. As Chika would respond, without fail, that he was blessed, even in times that were so hard, he meant, I believe, that God was there with him, that God continued to shower goodness and grace and mercy upon him. His claim, “I’m blessed,” reminded him - and all of us - of God’s powerful and life-giving presence, even in the midst of hard times.
This message of blessing reminds me of Psalm 23, which we read today. In this psalm we hear about what it means to be blessed by God. Living a blessed life is not necessarily about riches and ease and comfort, but living a blessed life is about God’s presence with us, like a shepherd. Like the psalmist, we know the blessings of God who restores our soul when it is wearied. God blesses us with guidance and by leading us to places of peace and stillness. God blesses us with God’s presence even in the midst of evil and death and worry. The blessing of God’s presence takes away our need to fear. God is with us, to comfort us. God blesses us. God’s goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. God blesses us with a banquet, a feast of goodness and abundance.
This image of a banquet is woven through all of our readings today, and tell about what it means to live as people blessed by God, and how being blessed changes us and our lives.
We hear in Isaiah this reading of the feast which celebrates the power and triumph of God, who is on a mission to bless the whole world and bring it to life. We hear that “God will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of God’s people God will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for God, so that God might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation.”
In the parable today, Jesus tells about a King who was throwing an amazing banquet, and went out to invite the guests to this celebration only to have those slaves killed. So then the King says to his slaves, “Go and invite everyone that you see and invite them to this banquet.” And all sorts of people came to celebrate and be blessed by this banquet.
But what of this one who was thrown out for not wearing the proper garment. What does this mean? There are, of course, many interpretations, but I believe that he was thrown out because he refused to be changed by this celebration, by this meal, by the blessing they received. The guy didn’t put on the new clothes, the new robes of this new life, of this new host and the party to which he was invited. For early Christians, they received new robes after they were baptized. They got rid of their old clothes, their old way of life, so that they could be prepared to feast at holy communion, ready for this meal of blessing and the new life that would come. Their clothing symbolized the ways that the blessing and forgiveness and goodness of God had changed them. This man in our parable received the blessing of the King, but refused to be changed by it. It was like he put up an umbrella so that the rain of the goodness and blessings wouldn’t get him wet!
We, too, are invited to this life of blessings of God. God showers upon us God’s many blessings, and we are called into living lives as people blessed. The blessing has little meaning if it doesn’t change us. God is changing us with God’s goodness and mercy and presence and blessing. We are blessed to be a blessing.
In the Eucharistic prayer we remember that Jesus took bread, and blessed it. Jesus blessed the bread, remembering that it was a gift from God, and named that it would be used for God’s purpose. This is how we are called to live as stewards of all that God has given to us, to take all that we have and all that we are and let that be used for the blessing of the world. We are like that bread which Jesus takes and which through his blessing is changed to become his body. We are, through the blessing and forgiveness we receive in Jesus, changed to live as God’s blessing people in the world. All that we have, all that we are, blessed and changed to be used for God’s purpose. God’s blessings changes us from seeking our own purpose to being people who use all they are and all they have for God’s purpose.
I heard this story about a church in center city Philadelphia full of a lot of urban do-gooders, other residents, and quite a few people from the nearby homeless shelters. One day, a couple came into the Pastor to see if they could get married at the church, and he, of course agreed. He got out his calendar to see when they would schedule it during the following summer. As he did so the couple said, “We would like it to be this coming Sunday.” The pastor asked them what was the big rush, and they said, “Our families are in town this weekend, but mostly, we want this day to not be about us, but about God and about this community. We want our lives to be shaped by the all God's people who God blesses us with, whoever it might be. We want our life together, and our wedding to reflect the blessings of God.”
So the Pastor agreed, and they put the wedding ceremony right into the middle of their regular Sunday worship. She wore a jean skirt and a nice white blouse. He wore some corduroys and a wrinkled button down shirt. The oldest person there and a young school kid stood up as their attendants. Afterwards they served an incredible meal for whoever was there. Their family and friends were there, but the honored guests were the regular worshippers, the homeless and poor, the folks who they saw sleeping outside the door, anyone they could invite.
This story feels to me like this parable, but it gets better, it tells not only the way this couple wanted their lives to be a blessing to anyone they could see, but how it changed them - and the world. You see, the bride worked as a nurse in the ER of the local hospital. One night, just a few days after the wedding, she came into work to find one of her colleagues just exasperated. “There is this guy,” she said. “He’s been her for hours and all he does is scream and shout. We just need to get him some medicine and bandaged up and send him on his way, but he’s not responding to anyone.”
The bride said, “I’ll go in and give it my best.” She could hear the screaming and yelling and complaining, and, ready for whatever might happen, she entered the room. The guy looked up and saw her and was immediately quiet and smiled at her. She looked at him, confused. Then he said her name, and said, “I was at your wedding. You invited me to your wedding.” She smiled and greeted him. He said, “You know, I have never been invited to a wedding before. I’ve made a mess of my life and had some hard times. My own kids didn’t want me at their wedding, but you invited me to yours. It made me want to get back up on my feet again, I’m working on it. You invited me to your wedding and I have never felt so blessed before. Thank you.”
This is the way, I believe, that God’s blessings work. We are blessed and we share that blessing and we are changed. Our relationships with one another and with the world are changed. We see one another and ourselves differently in the light of God’s blessings. We seek to become more like this One, Jesus, who blesses and changes us. As we are all welcomed to this banquet of God’s saving ways, we are all blessed and changed, not only by God, but by one another. As people invited to this banquet, we become new people, with new robes, new eyes, a new welcome, that we might live, not for our own purpose, but for God’s purpose.
We have been blessed, by the goodness and mercy of God which we’ve experienced in this community of people who bless us. We need each other - and the strangers who God blesses us with - to see and hear the blessings and goodness of God. We need to hear one another’s stories and wisdom to know and name how God will bless us and continue to lead us. All of us are part of this blessing. We are changed by one another, as we help each other see, as we encourage one another, as we share our ideas and courageously move forward into the unknown of our future as people blessed.
God has blessed us both as individuals and as a community. We are blessed by a powerful God who by the death and resurrection of Jesus has swallowed up death forever. We are blessed by a living God who will lead us and guide us through whatever valleys we might face. We are blessed by a compassionate God who nourishes and sustains us in the midst of all our challenges. We are blessed by a challenging God who is daily changing us and shaping us to be a people ever more compassionate, generous and welcoming. We are blessed by a loving God, who has invited us to a feast of blessing with all the saints of light. We are blessed... that we might live God’s blessing way for the sake of the world!
Thanks be God.
Amen.
|
