September 2002

Homily for September 8, 2002 -Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 33: 7-9    Romans 13: 8-10    Matthew 18: 15-20
When I was a child, religious education included the memorization of many lists of many things. I was reminded of this recently when I saw on an internet bulletin board, a list of the 9 ways of being an accessory to another person's sin.
Does anyone remember them?
You could be an accessory to another person's sin
            - by counseling someone to do wrong
            - by commanding someone to do wrong
            - by consenting to a wrong done
            - by provoking someone to do wrong
            - by praising or flattering the wrong doer, or the wrong done
            - by concealing the wrong doer or the wrongdone
            - by partaking in the results of someone's wrong-doing
            - by keeping silence about a wrong doer or a wrong done
            - or by defending the wrong doer or the wrong done
At least a few of these 9 ways are at the heart of the church's current crisis.
Were there ways in which anyone in the church;
            - concealed the abuse of minors?
            - kept silence about it?
            - defended the wrong done, or the wrong do-er?
In our own lives, on a daily basis, at home, at work, at school and in our community,
we are often faced with the possibility of being an accessory to the wrong doings of others
precisely in the 9 ways on this old list. The scriptures today are getting at this point.
The Lord charges the prophet Ezekiel   (and all of us, too!)
            with the responsibility of dissuading others from doing wrong.
This, as we all know, runs hard against the grain in our own times and culture.
The pro-choice movement may be primarily concerned with the legal right to have an abortion,
but pro-choice thinking -- the notion that no one has the right to tell anyone else
how life is to be lived, that philosophy colors;
            our politics, our entertainment, our school systems,
            our legislative process, our judicial system,
            and what we say, or fail to say, to our families and neighbors.
The scriptures today are NOT calling us
            to be self-righteous, holier-than-thou,
            self-appointed, arrogant loud mouths!
The scriptures ARE, however, calling us
            to speak and act on what we believe and know to be true
            particularly when silence or inaction might threaten
            the spiritual, physical or moral welfare of others.
Key, here, is what St. Paul names as the greatest commandment of all:
            "we nothing to anyone - except to love one another."
Humble love of our neighbor, not arrogant superiority,
            is the ONLY basis on which we -all of us sinners-
            dare counsel our neighbors with regard to their wrong doing.
A wonderful and positive example of this was in the newspapers this week.
A recent study shows that:
Teenagers are less likely to start having sex when their mothers are involved in their lives,
have a close relationship with them, and successfully communicate their values on sex,
this is according to new findings from the largest survey ever conducted with
adolescents in the United States. The study showed that while the vast majority of mothers
strongly disapprove of their teens having sex, large numbers of teens often don't realize
how their moms feel about this. In the context of a close and loving relationship
between parents and their teens, a decision to speak the truth of one's values and
convictions without reluctance or embarrassment has a powerfully good chance
of safeguarding the spiritual, emotional and physical welfare of their children.
The words of Jesus in the gospel today lay out a rather rudimentary process
            for dealing with wrong doers in the church community.
While this plan may not be sophisticated enough
            to deal with the structural and criminal abuse in the church,
we must not fail to note that Jesus places at least initial responsibility
for the correction of faults primarily in the hands of the faithful:
                        first among individual members,
                        and then in the larger church community,
                       with the people of God in assembly and in collaboration with their leaders.
The responsibility laid out here for the church is daunting and will only be carried
successfully if shouldered by all, and not by just a few.
Were you and I standing on a street corner, and saw a stranger next to us
            walking, without looking, into the path of an oncoming car,
we would, without hesitation, reach out pull that person out of harm's way.
The scriptures call us to do the same whenever we see a neighbor walking into the "traffic"
of any physical, moral or spiritual danger. These are hard sayings from the scriptures.
We need strength to hear them - let alone to live by them.
We go, then, to that table where the bread of life and cup of salvation
will feed us and nourish us for the work of dissuading one another from wrong doing,
            empowered by that love which is the only thing we owe one another.
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for September 15, 2002 - Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sirach 27:30-28:7            Romans 14:7-9            Matthew 18:21-35

They brought in a servant who owed the king
            "a huge amount."
Another translation of the scriptures is more specific
            and names that amount as "10,000 talents."
Now, a talent was the equivalent of 6,000 denarius,
            and a denarius was approximately a day's wage.
To pay off the debt of ten thousand talents, then,
            the man would need to work seven days a week
            for more than 164,000 YEARS!
That's a long time without a vacation!
The numbers, here, might compare to what
            some Enron officials would need to do to pay off their debts.
Then comes the second servant who owes the first servant
            "a much smaller amount."
That same, older translation specifies this smaller debt as "100 denarius."
Remembering that a denarius was about a day's wage,
this person would need to work a little over 3 MONTHS to work off the debt.
But the first servant refuses to wait the three months and so,
has the other one thrown in jail.
Since this is a parable about God's mercy,
            the lesson here is oh-so-obvious:
the generosity of our God is awesome, prodigious, and beyond our imagining
and if we hope to benefit from such mercy,
we are called to IMITATE it
and certainly not to parcel out our good will, if at all,
            like the ungrateful, miserly piker the first servant was.
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
            have not taken the time to ponder the wideness of God's mercy
                        because we do not consider ourselves in need of it?
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
            have failed to contemplate the depths of God's mercy
                        because we do not count ourselves as sinners?
Is it possible that many, perhaps most of us,
            have not marveled at the mercy of God
                        because we believe our failings to be only small
                        and not in need of such grace?
It is certainly possible that, in like fashion,
            the first servant in today's gospel passage
                        threw the other servant in jail
                        thinking that such mean-spiritedness was a minor transgression
                        and one that brought with it no small amount of
                        smug satisfaction and control.
Perhaps the first servant, like us,
            thought that his failing wasn't, after all, all that serious...
These scriptures are about two ends of the spectrum.
On the one end we have the inestimable mercy of God
            beyond the reach of which no sin can strand us.
On the other end we have
            our petty wrath and anger,
            our resentments and grudges,
            our hurts, and the chips on our shoulders.
As the first scripture today reminded us,
            "wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight."
The sin is LESS the wrath and the anger
            and MORE the attention and affection we give them -
            attention and affection we owe to God and our neighbor.
When nourish hard feelings within us,
            when we feed our resentments -
                        all of this turns us in on ourselves
                        and diverts our attention away from God,
                        and away from our neighbor.
The curious thing about forgiving someone else is that the first person who benefits
from forgiveness is the one who forgives.
Forgiveness first frees the forGIVER from the burden of the offense,
the grudge, the resentment carried.
If my neighbor offends me I carry about the weight of that offense.
My wrath and anger can add to that weight until I carry two burdens.
Letting go frees me and the one who offended me in the first place.
The "letting go" is sometimes instantaneous,
            as when the beloved is offended, and forgiven, by the lover.
Sometimes, however, the original hurt is so great,
            the pain and the anger so deep,
            that it takes years to let go, years to be set free.
Many people struggle with living the kind of forgiveness
            Jesus preaches here.
Many have been so deeply hurt by others
            that forgiveness seems impossible.
(“I find it impossible to forgive:
            the terrorists, the one who abused me, the one who betrayed me,
            the one who hurt the one I love, the one who lied to me,
            the one who was unfaithful to me, the one who defrauded me.")
Sometimes the greatest thing we can do
            is to hand over the offender to God, in prayer, saying,
                        "Lord, for too long I have carried the burden of this hurt
                                    and the burdens of anger and shame that came with it.
                        I do not know how to forgive in this case,
                        I don't think I can - it seems impossible,
                                    and so I want to place in your hands
                                    the one who offended me, the hurt itself,
                                    and all I have carried on account of it.”
                        “Heal me, Lord!"
Such a prayer pleases God and satisfied the command to forgive as the Lord forgives.
We who follow Jesus must seriously consider this parable on God's mercy when we
consider our response to terrorism and the possibility of a first strike on Iraq.
We must consider this parable when we think of everyone connected to the crisis
of the abuse of the weak and innocent in our church.
We must consider this parable when we ponder our stance on capital punishment.
We must consider this parable in the stories of our families, our neighborhoods,
our friendship circles, our parish and our community.
No part of the human story falls outside this parable.
This parable does NOT provide an easy or simple answer
       to every offense, hurt and conflict, but for Christians,
            it provides the ONLY STARTING PLACE for DISCERNING
                        the resolution of every offense, hurt and conflict.
Now, we turn to that table where Jesus has called us, sinners,
            since the night before he died.
Here he nourishes not our hurt or anger
            but our desire to be healed and to be at peace.
Here, like a mother who so freely forgives
            the child of her womb,
here Jesus forgives us who have been born again
            from the womb of our wounded and healing church.
Here, in the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
   Jesus forgives us so that we might forgive one another
            and that we might find peace.

-Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for September 22, 2002
Isaiah 55:6-9                Philippians 1:20c-24, 27a                  Matthew 20:1-16a

When my sister and I were children and it came to sharing an extra dessert,
or the last cookie in the jar, or a Snickers Bar, my mother would always say,
            "OK - one of you gets to cut the candy bar in two,
            and the other one gets to choose first between the two pieces."
Oh, with what precise care and caution one of us would cut that candy bar in two,
            being oh-so-careful that neither piece was even just a little larger than the other.
In this process, if I'm the one who cuts the candy bar in half I make sure of two things:
                        (1) I get what my fair share, and
                        (2) my sister doesn't get any more than HER fair share.
I got what I believed I deserved and made sure that she didn't' get even a speck more
than what she deserved.
Something like this is at work in the parable Jesus offers in the gospel today.
Of course the stakes are higher when it's not a candy bar but a day's pay that's in question.
And in the illustration from my youth, there is only one candy bar to be had.
while in the parable it's clear that the landowner owns the Candy Factory
            and can pass out Snickers Bars to his heart's content!
And there's the rub in the story.
Suppose my mother had two Snickers Bars and promised me and my sister each one
if we came right home from school. And suppose I get home on time and my sister
is 15 minutes late. And suppose my mother gives her a Snickers Bar just the same.
"WELL, WAIT JUST A MINUTE THERE, MOM!"
"You said you'd give us a candy bar if we came right home from school and Ruthie
came home late. It's just not fair!"
And suppose my mother says,
"Look: I told you I'd give you a Snickers if you came home on time. You came home
on time and I gave you the Snickers. That's what you and I agreed on. Ruthie's a little late,
but I've decided to give her one, too. Can't I be a little forgiving and a little generous
here?" "A LITTLE LATE? She was 15-whole-minutes-late and you got mad at me
last week when I was FIVE minutes late, and now when SHE'S late -
oh, sure - that's OK - because you always liked her more than me, anyway,
and I knew that and now I really know that because she still gets a candy bar!"
Of course, my mother wasn't loving my sister-who-was-late MORE
            than she loved me-who-was-on-time.
She was simply loving my sister-who-was-late AS MUCH
            as she loved me-who-was-on-time.
Because my mother's love for each of us was, in the end,
            not determined by what we did or failed to do,
but rather my mother's love for each of us
            was simply her love for each of us
            in spite of what we did or failed to do.
If we have trouble understanding that God loves us
            at least as much as a vineyard owner
might generously over-pay some day laborers,
perhaps we can more easily understand that God loves us
            as a mother loves her children,
            not on account of how they follow her rules -
            but simply because they are her children.
A loving mother does not dole out her love
            in proportion to how her children behave,
unless, of course, she understands that the child who misbehaves
            may need an extra portion of her forgiving, loving care
            in order to be coaxed onto the right path.
In the same way, the Lord, like a mother,
            does not dole out his love in proportion to how we behave,
unless, of course, he sees that some of us who fail
            may need an extra portion of his forgiving, loving care
            to coax us back onto the right path.
It was not by mistake that Jesus so often ate with sinners.
He knew, and he knows, that some of us need an extra portion
            of the loving, forgiving nourishment he offers at his table.
Of one thing we can be sure,
            he will feed each and all of us just what we need,
and to those whose failures have made them more hungry for his mercy
            he will offer an extra helping,
Let us rejoice that he gives each of us what we need,
            and all of us a little more than we deserve - especially when we need it.
- Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for September 29, 2002 - Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 18: 25-38            Philippians 2:1-11            Matthew 21:28-32
To get at the story of the two sons in the gospel today,
permit me to tell you the story of one daughter.
I have a young cousin who's a freshman in college in Florida. She recently e-mailed me a wonderful story about a little girl, Jenny, who saw a gold colored bracelet at the store and asked her mother if she could have it. Mom told her that she would have to do some extra chores to earn the money to buy it.
Well, Jenny looked for every opportunity
to earn a little money until she had saved up the $1.95 that she needed to buy that bracelet.
At the cost of a couple of bucks, it wasn't real gold,
but Jenny loved that bracelet nonetheless!
And she wore it everywhere: to school, to play, to church, and to bed.
But Mom wouldn't let Jenny wear her bracelet in the bathtub for fear that if it got wet,
it might turn Jenny's wrist green!
One night when Mom was tucking Jenny in bed,
she kissed her good night and asked, "Jenny, do you love me?"
And Jenny said, "Of course, Mommy, you know that I love you."
And Mom said, "Then will you give me your bracelet.
"Oh, Mommy, not my bracelet!
But you can have Princess - the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. She's my favorite."
"That's okay, honey," said Mom. “I love you. Good night."
About a week later, at bedtime,
Jenny's Mom asked again, "Do you love me?"
"Mom, you know I love you."
"Then will you give me your bracelet?"
"Oh, no - but you can have my new doll -- the one I got for my birthday."
"That's okay," said Mom. "Sleep well. I love you."
A few nights later when Jenny's Mom came to tuck her in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed.
As Mom came close, she noticed a silent tear rolling down Jenny's cheek.
"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"
Jenny didn't say anything
but lifted her little hand up to her mother
and when she opened it, there was her bracelet.
Jenny said, "Here, Mommy, it's for you."
With tears in her own eyes,
Jenny's kind Mom reached out with one hand
to take the dime-store bracelet,
and with the other hand she reached into her pocket
and pulled out a blue velvet case with a 24K gold bracelet and gave it to Jenny.
She had it all the time.
She was just waiting for Jenny to give up the dime-store stuff so she could give her a real treasure.
Are we holding onto things which God wants us to let go of? Are we holding on to harmful or unnecessary
partners, relationships, habits and activities
which we have become so attached to
that it seems impossible to let go?
Sometimes it is so hard to see what else there might be,
what else we might find
if we were to let go of what we so tightly grasp.
Remember St. Paul's words to us this morning:
"Jesus, though was in the form of God
did not deem equality with God something to be grasped..."
he did not hold on to that,
rather he let it go, to the point of death,
and in letting it go he found life.
What were the two sons in the story holding on to?
            Did the one son want an extra day off?
            Did he want to safeguard his laziness?
            Did the other say "yes" just to keep his father happy, knowing full well he had not intention of doing the work?
What were they afraid to let go of?
What do we tell ourselves, and others, we're going to do- but fail to do?
What do we tell ourselves, and others, we're going to let go of, but still cling to?
What are we missing my holding on and not letting go?
We go now to the Lord's table
where he gathered his friends on the night before he died, and where he gave them this meal, the eucharist,
that we might never forget how much he let go of, for us, so that we might have life, and have it to the full.
We gather under the outstretched arms of Jesus letting go of everything for us. Nourished by such love, can we do any less?
- Rev. Austin Fleming