[Propertalk] Proper 20 c rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

I wrote this at the beginning of the week, haven't had a chance to get back to look at it till now, and don't remember whether or not I've posted it yet.

If this is a duplicate, my apologies!

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY    THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
JEREMIAH 8:18 – 9:1	       	    	    					    PROPER 20 C RCL
1TIMOTHY 2:1-7								19th SEPTEMBER, 2010  
LUKE 16:1-13					      				              PSALM 79:1-9

	Some things just don’t make sense. YOU know that. I know that. JESUS knew that – and He still knows that. For that we can be extremely grateful. If Jesus DOES know what confuses and stresses us, then, as He promised, we can expect the Spirit to be with us to open our hearts and minds.
However, there ARE things which we simply do not understand – that we have to take on trust – trust that God loves us, no matter what; trust that, for the most part, we try to live honest and compassionate lives; trust that when things seem to be wrong, God WILL, nevertheless, take all the broken pieces, even the intentional wrongs, and fashion out of them, or through them, another part of the picture of the wonderful reign of God.
	Some accuse us in this as just wishful thinking – and, yes, it IS wishful thinking. But those who seek through faith a relationship, or a deeper relationship, with God, do so out of a longing to find an experience of completeness, of understanding. Whatever is happening in our lives, we look for the best. Sometimes we’re desperate. Sometimes we feel unconnected. We try to find answers when things stress us and confuse us. Any change that disrupts our routines seems to threaten our sense of community.
	This makes it all the more puzzling when Drake University, a well-known, private university in Des Moines, Iowa, did something that seems to me to complicate understanding and choices. The University began to run a new ad campaign which centres around the logo “D+”  1 Somehow the logo seems synonymous with sub-par academic performance. Saying that it stands for excellence at Drake – Plus D, if you will – just adds to the confusion. The agency which came up with the campaign feels that it has accomplished its task when it draws high school students’ attention to Drake and makes it stand out over all the other schools’ literature. However, the news headline seems to sum it up by saying sarcastically: “Great moments in collegiate marketing: Drake University’s ‘D+’ campaign.” 2
	I have to admit my off-the-wall sense of humour finds this amusing, but have to wonder not only if there are some who simply don’t understand, but also if this same kind of logic in advertising extends to the Church, maybe even to this congregation’s attempt to reach out  into the community with the message of God’s love.
	What WAS Jesus on about, then, in that hair-brained story he told? Theological commentators have been wrestling with this from the day Jesus made the comment or something like it.
	In the sixteen century, John Calvin seems to be close to hammering the nail dead centre when he wrote, “How stupid it is to want to interpret (this parable) in every detail! Christ simply meant that the children of this world are more diligent in their concern for their own fleeting interests than the sons of light for their eternal well-being.” 3
	It’s as if Jesus said, “Give me (folk) who will show as much practical sense in God’s business as worldlings do in theirs.” 4
	Two other commentators made the same point. L.H. Mitton wrote, “’Oh, if only my Christians would bring to God’s business some of the resourcefulness that me of the world bring to theirs!’” 5 while “P.T. Forsyth (…) commented on the off-hand way in which a serious (person) will often make up his (or her) mind on the most grave concern of life. Such a (one’s) religious views ‘are of the most casual kind.’ For many church (people), he says, religion is only a refuge and a balm, because ‘jaded with the pursuit of this world’, they come to Church on Sundays fit for no more than “a warm bath or a sacred concert”. And he asks: why don’t people give to the high business of eternity some of the same effort that they give to the grave business of time?” 6
	Now, quoting these may seem a little redundant in front of the faithful of St. Alban’s. Yet WE struggle with Jesus’ remarks as much, possibly, as should the person who, right now, is somewhere in the rough on the second hole at the Golf Club of Oregon or Spring Hill Country Club.
	So where does this leave US? Well, it reminds us that WE within this room stand as much in need of God’s grace as those who’re on the golf course, or under a down comforter, or pulling in a forty-pounder out of the river or the ocean. Sorry, Roger! I couldn’t resist that one!
	And that may be where Jesus’ story points a long finger at me – for making what may seem like a judgement, or at least a joke at another’s expense, when I need to ask myself once again, what I’m doing here if I don’t pay attention to God’s gracious communing with me.
	I should be saying to myself, “Spend your time listening and thinking about how God may bless you this week, and only let another’s attitude filter into the picture if there’s something you can do to help the other enjoy God’s favour.”
	Maybe what Jesus is hinting at in the parable He told is that there are people, good, honest, thinking people, who get somehow drawn into trying to cover the bases as a way to uncomplicate their lives. But they seem to focus a bit too strongly on what they can do for themselves, rather than what God may be able – and willing – to do for them, and through them.
	Clint Eastwood has a new film coming out. It premiered a week or so ago at the “35th Toronto International Film Festival. This is (Eastwood’s) sixth film in less than four years, the production spanned four countries and it … happens to be a startling tale about the afterlife that is spiritual instead of merely supernatural. None of these things suggests that Eastwood will switch to autopilot as he moves into the twilight. …
	“‘Hereafter,’ which opens wide on Oct. 22, is a cinematic triptych with the separate stories of battered souls searching for answers about the afterlife — …
	“In ‘Hereafter’, the characters quickly dismiss the world’s major religions and academia as viable paths on their search for the afterlife.”
This sounds pretty typical of what you might find on campus at LBCC, on in either of the High Schools here or, for that matter, in the parking lots of any of the stores in Albany.
	“‘It’s a spiritual story but there are no real religious connotations to it,’ Eastwood said. ‘The [major religions] are kind of unsatisfying to the kid in our story because he’s looking for something that can answer his questions. He wants a straight answer and he can’t seem to find anything from people who turn out to be either psychics looking for a fast buck or people just talking … you don’t really see movies like this these days that have a spiritual aspect or a romantic aspect. And it is romantic. These days you have a lot of movies about people jumping on each other in the sack but we don't have that. This is more about attraction.’ …
	“Eastwood said he feels a strong sense of satisfaction with this film, and the people around him seem excited and anxious about the movie. Whether it connects with a wide audience (or Academy Award voters) ‘Hereafter’ veers away from soft-glow answers or maudlin moments. Eastwood is no greeting-card messenger nor is he an adamant apostle.
	“‘People ask me what I believe,’ Eastwood said as he watched sheep meander across the rustic hotel’s pasture. ‘I say, “I don’t know yet.” I’m not closed off to it. There are points in my life when I thought I knew all the answers and other times when I was sure I didn’t know any of them. Right now, well, I’m waiting to see. Aren’t we all?’” 7
	I think what resonated with me in the newspaper review is the sentence which I see as a fair example of what we should be about here. “Whether it connects with a wide audience, (or Academy Award voters)” – in other words, whether it’s a popular success or not, “‘Hereafter’ veers away from soft-glow answers or maudlin moments. Eastwood is no greeting-card messenger nor is he an adamant apostle.”
That’s EXACTLY what Jesus was about. He didn’t take a job with Hallmark ® right out of college – even if He had a pretty clever way with words. However, neither did He start off as a curate in any of the local synagogues. His message of love and grace was much too important to trust with either – because He knew that He HAD to be able to make a difference to people going through all sorts of difficulties. And Jesus continues to be aware of how we can be impacted, how our faith can be stretched by all sorts of things.
	Listen to what a great friend wrote from Virginia about her experience on this Sunday some years ago.
	“As you know, (last) month mark(ed) the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It (was) also the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Isabel -- the one that claimed our house. The storm hit the Thursday before Proper 20 Sunday so when I heard the collect for that day prayed in worship, (with the words) ‘while we are placed among things that are passing away, hold fast to those that will endure,’ I was a bit indignant and told God directly that that was simply NOT a prayer I could pray three days after I had lost nearly all my ‘earthly things.’ But, I ‘xeroxed’ the collect from the prayer book onto the center of a piece of paper and stuffed it in my purse saying, ‘maybe someday I will pray this, but NOT today.’
 	“The very next day I went to a (Diocesan Commission on Ministry) meeting, mainly to prove that I could. I needed to get out of the stench and the mold and frankly, I was physically hungry. I knew that they would feed me something besides the (peanut butter and jellies) we had been eating for four days. I sat next to a priest who asked how I was. I told her about the storm’s effect on our house and she asked if we needed a place to stay. She and her husband had a furnished house -- vacated the week before by their renters -- in the same town we lived in. As the meeting began, Debbie wrote the directions and phone numbers to that house on the only piece of ‘scrap paper’ I had in my purse, the Collect for Proper 20. We lived in her house for three years as we rebuilt -- the Collect framed on the wall with Debbie’s handwriting in a spiral around it.
 	“I have wondered if by not praying the collect that Sunday if I did not perhaps pray it more deeply than I ever had before. A priest who heard the story said that that is why it is called a ‘collect’ that the collected prayers of the community prayed when I could not. Regardless, I suspect that God simply smiled.” 8
	The great thing to me about that experience of Barbara’s, the great thing to me about the story of Jesus’, is that God calls us to take what we hear, what we feel, be it confusion, or anger, or hurt or some other emotion; God calls us to take that emotion and to let it work through all the love that God has for us, love that can come wrapped in such strange scraps of paper.
	Cover your bases by all means, then. I know I do it often enough. But I hope that I and you are never content to stop there. All that Jesus asks is that we trust, and that we allow the possibility that our doubt, and our tiredness, and our confusion may take us beyond the routine rituals. Even our dark times, filled with fear, CAN and WILL be used by God – if we allow the miracle to be worked out within ourselves. So Jesus doesn’t send us one of Hallmarks ® best, or someone with glib answers. Instead Jesus asks us to take that little bit of extra effort, to dare to “Walk out with Him toward the Unknown Region,” 9 knowing that Jesus has trod that path before, and waits to lead us to lose all that binds us here, and lift us into the wonderful hereafter that awaits.

NOTES:

1 	http://www.drake.edu/ 
2	http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100903/od_yblog_upshot/great-moments-in-collegiate-marketing-drake-universitys-d-campaign 
3	“Harmony on Matthew, Mark and Luke” II, 177 by John Calvin. Quoted in “Interpreting the Parables”  by A. M. Hunter. S.C.M. Press © 1960. Page 33. 
4	A.M. Hunter op.cit., pp. 67-8 
5	“The Expository Times”, July 1953. Quoted in Hunter, op. cit. pp. 105-6] 
6	Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind” by P.T. Forsyth, pp. 132, 146. Quoted by A.M. Hunter, op. cit. p. 106.
7	“With 'Hereafter,' Clint Eastwood contemplates what's next. The director's 32nd feature film, which will screen at the Toronto film fest, looks at people who have touched the other side of death.” By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times September 9, 2010 geoff.boucher at latimes.com  latimes.com
http://link.latimes.com/r/A1ERMI/494IN/P3FAB9/EYIR3/XHZMQR/ID/h  
8	 Barbara Allison-Bryan
9	 “The Unknown Region” by Walt Whitman. http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/waltwhitman/13337


--
Robert P. Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban,
P.O. Box 1556,
Albany, Oregon, 97321

541-921-1076 (cell)
541-967-7051 (church)