A Sermon Preached in Christ Church Cathedral Montreal
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Pentecost 14
The Rev. Canon Eric B. Beresford
I want to begin with a thank you and a confession. First, I want to say a thank you to your Dean and Rector, Fr. Paul, for the invitation to preach this morning. As for the confession: I have to admit that I feel a bit of a fraud. While I am here on sabbatical it was very much my intention to make this cathedral my spiritual home, but being a “spare priest” means that there are more demands on your time than I expected. I have spent most weekends assisting other congregations or being out of town. This is not good. Not because I am missing church, I am not, but because my church experience has not involved a community experience, and a Christian experience that lacks the dimension and responsibilities of community is always incomplete. I also regret not getting to know this community as well as I would have liked. I would have liked to know you, the people of God in this place, your gifts and your challenges, the riches you bring to your common life, as well as the things that need to be worked on, the aspects of our common life that need to grow.
We all have strengths and weaknesses of course, and while they are different from person to person and from congregation to congregation there are some that seem to be surprisingly common. Some weaknesses are almost constants in the history of the people of God. Two of those constants are highlighted in today’s readings and I am going to speak about them. Of course, I have no idea how these things work out in the life of this congregation, but since they have appeared so often amongst the people of God I suspect they have a place. The two things I want to focus on are related. They are a tendency to grumble (to always see the cloud on every silver lining), and closely linked to this is the fractiousness that comes from our discontent.
Let’s start with the reading from the First Testament. It is of course a part of the cycle of stories about the Exodus and wilderness wanderings. It tells part of the story of the journey by which God brought the people out of slavery in Egypt to a land of their own. This land is still really a land of promise rather than fulfillment because this is a journey to the possibility of shalom, to the true peace that is a gift of God and that is lived in justice. That journey is still ongoing. The journey was and is a long one, but it is one that was marked again and again by God’s graciousness to the people.
At this point one is tempted in reading this cycle of stories to wonder what it is going to take for the people to open their eyes and see that. At the Red Sea they complained, “Were there no graves in Egypt?” (Exodus 14:11) And God delivers them and leads them safely through the sea and away from their enemies. Barely are they through the other side and they complained, “What are we to drink?” (Exodus 15:24) Then God turned the bitter waters of Marah sweet. Finally turning to our reading for today, they complain. “If only we had died at the Lord’s hand in Egypt. Where we sat by the fleshpots and had plenty of bread.” (Exodus 16:3) Every step of the way the people complain. In the midst of all this I want you to notice that there are certain dynamics at work here that are still at work in the lives of all too many congregations today.
First, their complaints arise because of their focus on their needs rather than on their gifts. I mean, seriously, what more does it take? After the escape from Egypt how could the people of Israel really believe that God would let them down? After the Red Sea could the people of Israel really believe that God would forsake them? Yet on each occasion the experience of need blocks out the memory of all that they have experienced, and all that God has done for them, and they complain. We might say that they lived out of a culture of scarcity rather than out of a vision of abundance.
How easy it would be for us to do the same. I have known this diocese for nearly thirty years and I have seen many changes. I have seen the impact of a declining Anglophone population. I know that budgets are tight for the diocese and for many congregations. Yet during this year I have also been to churches that were the last places I would expect to see young francophone families, and there they are. I see not just challenges, but extraordinary opportunities. Who is reaching the growing allophone community of this city?
I still remember the first time I walked down St Catherine and saw this location and thought to myself that St. Paul would give his right arm for the opportunities represented in this location, and that was before the redevelopment! Yes there are challenges. But the history of this diocese, like the history of the church of God everywhere, is a history not of lack but of grace. It is not a story of scarcity but of abundance, and sadly we who enjoy that abundance are often amongst the last to notice it.
The first dynamic then relates to what we might call a culture of scarcity, the second relates to blame. Our experience of scarcity leads to anxiety, and anxiety typically leads to blame. We need to find a scapegoat. It has to be somebody’s fault. In our reading from Exodus it is of course Moses who stands in the cross wires and takes the fall when things do not go as the people hope. Over and over again the complaint is addressed to Moses, “Why have you done this?” And Moses replies, “What are we? It is against the Lord that you bring your complaints not against us.” (Exodus 16:8) Actually that changes the dynamic doesn’t it? When things are not going as we hope it is easy to blame our leaders. I have often thought that part of the ordination rite ought to be the painting of a target on the newly ordained. Those who lead our congregations rarely hear about the good that they do. However, the disappointments, the failings, those they hear about very quickly and clearly. Of course, it is not just clergy; lay leaders too can get their share of grumbling.
But what would happen if instead of blame we chose to recognize our capacities and responsibilities? What if we stepped up to the plate not simply to identify the problem but to participate in the solution? What if instead of complaining that YOU have done something wrong I asked how I might help to create a solution? In my experience problems in churches rarely have a simple cause and their solution is never in the hands of only one person.
A culture of scarcity, a culture of blame, and the last dynamic in this grumbling is what I want to call a culture of entitlement.
This is surely implied in our Exodus narrative where the constant refrain seems to be that since it was better in Egypt, I deserve nothing less on the journey to the Promised Land. Actually this culture of entitlement I think takes us closer to the heart of the problem and to seeing why we need to turn to our other story of grumbling, the gospel reading. Actually the story that Jesus tells is a response to grumbling, the grumbling of Peter. In the verses immediately before our reading Jesus has been teaching on the ways in which wealth and possessions can become something that holds us back from the kingdom of God. The disciples are shocked, probably because they, like all too many faithful people, assumed that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Then Peter says, “What about us? We have left everything to follow you. How shall we fare?” (Matthew 19:27) Will we be rewarded for this wonderful thing we have done? Will we get the extra reward that we deserve for doing this, Lord?
Jesus answers with the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. It begins with what would have been a familiar story, the labourers wait in the market area where the landowners will come and hire for the day. The hiring was done early in the day and the pay was pretty standard, “the usual day’s pay” as the text says. Normally that would be that. The landowner would hire in the morning and if you weren’t hired you might as well go home. There would be no work for you today, and therefore no pay. But this landowner comes out again three hours later. This time the offer is ambiguous. “I will pay you a fair wage”. One might expect it would be less than the amount for a full day, which was already a subsistence wage, not much to live on then, but still it would be better than nothing so they go. This pattern is repeated around noon, around three and again just before the end of the day. We have to suspend some disbelief here because a labourer would have no reason to hang around through the heat of the day if they had not been hired. Yet there they are. What are they hoping for? What could they really expect at that time?
Then at the end of the day the labourers are paid starting with those who had only just arrived who to their amazement get a full day’s pay. But when those hired in the morning also get only a full day’s pay they start to grumble. They believe that they are entitled to more, and lets face it, at one level we might agree with them. But remember this is one of the parables of the kingdom. It begins, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” (20:1). It is a story of what it means for God to rule and God, we know, rules not by entitlement but by grace. This is therefore a parable about grace, and it is important to remember to whom it is addressed.
Another very famous parable of grace is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That parable was addressed to the Pharisees who grumbled because Jesus welcomed sinners (Luke 15:2). The Prodigal Son was addressed outside to those who did not follow him. This parable of the workers in the vineyard is addressed inside to the circle of his followers, to Peter and the disciples. It is addressed to those who believed that they had worked hard for Jesus and they deserved more than those who had not left behind businesses and homes, family and friends. It is a parable that now addresses the church. It speaks to us and it says to us, why do you grumble? Why would you be upset if God seeks to bless those who have not served the church like you have? If God seeks to bring in those who have not served God faithfully? If God calls us to serve those who do not yet even know God? I believe it was Archbishop Temple who once said that the Church is the only institution that exists for the sake of those who are not yet its members. The church exists as the testimony to grace. It exists as the call to know, experience, and respond to the reckless generosity of God who calls not only the righteous and those who deserve to be called, but everyone.
At the back of church after a service a woman once asked Archbishop Ramsey if, when she got to heaven she would meet her loved ones, to which Ramsey replied, “Oh yes my dear, and the others, and the others.” For God calls not only the righteous into God’s kingdom, but the others too. As Christians it is our privilege to see grace at work, to line the pathways to the kingdom and rejoice as the others discover a grace they never imagined could be for them: to celebrate as they go in ahead of us. There is no entitlement in grace only the overwhelming joy and amazement that it can reach places where we could not ask for it or imagine it.
I want to close with a few brief comments on the Reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. For although it is less clear I think we can see some of the things we have been speaking of there too. Part of the problem seems to be those who equate suffering with the loss of God’s favour. This is an odd idea I know for those who follow a crucified messiah but it has proved to be a remarkably resilient idea. It is one that keeps coming back. And so some of the Christians around Paul seem to have been undermining his teaching on the grounds that since he was in prison he no longer enjoyed God’s favour.
This is the flip side of the culture of entitlement. It is the consequence of a perspective that turns grace into something we deserve rather than the unexpected, unlooked for and wondrous sovereign choice and gift of God. And as we can see from this letter, the consequence of this view in the life of the Christian community is grumbling, a culture of blame, dissention, and division. In response to this Paul calls his readers to “Live lives worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27). We are called to show that we have understood grace by being graceful. We are called to reflect the abundance of God’s generosity to us in our generosity and hospitality to others. We are to reflect grace by forming the sort of community reveals grace to others, because the grace filled life is never lived for ourselves alone. “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
The grace filled life is inevitably the Christ like life. To respond to grace is not something we do just with our heads, not even with just our hearts, but with our lives. We like Christ are called to live lives for others. We as church, and as members of Christ’s church are called to offer ourselves for others. We exist for the sake of this community where God has placed us, with all its challenges and all its needs, with its swaggering confidence and sad ignorance of the God who loves it. We are called to offer ourselves in service of this place that God loves, in service to the people around us who Christ loves and to whom we are called to reveal that love.
