Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Isaiah 61:1-12 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Like many colleges and universities, especially on the East coast, Boston University, where I went to seminary, was originally founded in order to train clergy. They were known as the School of the Prophets, and at some point, the passage we heard from Isaiah this morning, or at least the first 2 verses, became the unofficial scripture passage of the school. And so in one of the stained glass windows, which is in the stairway between the first floor of the theology building and the library on the second floor, it says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news.” But, at some point, someone edited the window by taping up a piece of paper that added the words, “to the poor.” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because I have been anointed to preach good news to the poor.

That is the proclamation that Isaiah makes, and then it is also the proclamation that Jesus makes, because when he gives his first sermon in Luke, which happens immediately after the temptation story, when Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will worship Satan, which he refuses, this is the passage that Jesus reads when he picks up the scroll from Isaiah. And I should also note this is the only time that Jesus quotes directly from scripture with it in front of him, it is the only time he gives what we would consider a regular sermon, and he doesn’t do it again because he learns his lesson as the people rise up against him because he says “today this passage has been fulfilled in your hearing” and so they attempt to kill him, but he escapes. I don’t think it is just coincidental that this is the message that Jesus reads, and we should pay special attention to what it means, because it is also in Luke that Jesus says just a few verses later, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God… for I was sent for this purpose.”

Greed Versus Mercy

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 16:19-31:

“Ladies and gentleman, greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.” Most of you probably recognize that speech by Michael Douglas from the 1987 movie Wall Street. What might be less known is that the speech was not really the creation of the screen writer of the film, but instead came from the person on whom Douglas’ character was based, Ivan Boesky. Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the business school at the University of California at Berkley, Boesky said, “Greed is alright, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” That was just a few months before he would be arrested by the SEC for insider trading to which he would plead guilty to one charge and pay a then record individual fine of $100 million. But before all that happened, he turned against his former compatriots and while collecting information against them for the SEC was allowed to continue doing insider trading making millions in profits until the SEC had enough information to also indict Michael Milken who was then forced to pay what is still the record individual penalty of $600 million. In response to the actions of wall street in the 80’s, congress passed a law that called for life in prison for certain financial crimes, and if you are wondering how many bankers or wall street execs have been subject to that penalty, the answer is less than one. What other studies have also found is that the average sentences for financial crimes are half those of other federal crimes. Who says that crime doesn’t pay, and that greed is not good?

And so today we look at the deadly sin of greed. In some of the other seven deadly sins we have looked at, we have talked about different types of sins, or several sins that have been grouped into one idea, but that’s not the case here. Greed is greed, and of the deadly sins this is probably the one that has the most indoctrination and support from the general culture. And of course you can be greedy for lots of things, power, possessions, accomplishments, conquests, but the thing we most often hear about greed surrounds money. And while we often talk about rich people being greedy, greed itself is not dependent upon the amount of money that we actually have. You can be greedy and only have a dollar to your name, and you can be greedy with a million dollars in the bank; the same way as you can be generous as a millionaire and generous with only a dollar, as the widow was with her two mites contributing all she had to the Temple. Money is value neutral, as we heard in that passage from 1 Timothy, which is often misquoted as saying that money is the root of all evil, it actually says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Therefore, greed is about an attitude of the heart, and most often plays itself off at the expense of others who are around them, with a total lack of care for them. which is why greed made the list of the seven deadly sins because remember that they came out of the earliest monastic communities, and these sins were considered to be the things that would destroy community, and so it’s how greed plays itself out in community, in relationship with others, that makes it so problematic.

Save All You Can

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 12:13-21:

A clergy friend of mine told me about a member of his church who was very wealthy, or at least everyone thought he was very wealthy. That was the rumor, although no one was really sure if it was true, and there was much speculation as to his true worth. Well, one day he died, and as the ladies of the church were gathering to prepare a reception at his funeral, one of them said, sort of casually, “I wonder how much he left behind.” There was sort of an awkward pause, and then one of the other women responded, “all of it. He left all of it behind.” Although you don’t see it much anymore, there was a time, and many of you remember it, when you were prone to see the bumper sticker that said, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” What they won was never really clear, and I think part of the reason you don’t see that anymore is because people came to realize that you didn’t really win anything, because, in fact, you did leave it all behind. That you can’t take it with you, and so while it might help here in this life, and we might argue about the true merits of that, it doesn’t matter in the next life. And so perhaps the other bumper sticker that says, “we are spending our children’s inheritance” might be a better way to think about it, and yet we are also called to be good stewards of the resources with which we have been entrusted, and what we hear in Proverbs is that the good leave an inheritance for their children’s children. But simultaneously, Jesus tells us not to save earthly treasurers were moth and rust can eat them, and don’t worry about tomorrow, so which are we to do?

With those questions in mind, we continue in our series on the money rules of John Wesley, which are to earn all you can, which we covered last week, to give all you can, which we will cover next week, and today we discuss his rule to save all you can. As I’ve been saying for the past few weeks, when the Methodist movement began, John Wesley laid down some rules, three of them, that people had to agree to abide by if they were going to become a Methodist. They were to first do no harm, second was to do good and the third was to attend upon all the ordinances of God, which Bishop Job changed to stay in love with God. Among the things that it meant to do no harm, which was not just to others, but also to yourself, was not to buy spiritous liquors, love that phrasing, or to drink them, which sort of closes the loophole of someone else buying it for you. Not buying things on interest, that is not buying anything you can’t afford to pay cash for, and not wearing gold or expensive clothing. What Wesley, and those in the church found, was that when people started doing these things, especially not wasting money on alcohol, which is still an enormous amount of money, that people then had more disposable income which could then be used for other things, like education, which then allowed people to get better jobs, which paid better, and thus more income, and so that was the reason why Wesley then established his rules

Earn All You Can

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Matthew 25:14-30:

Last week Samantha asked me if I would rather have too much or too little? Would you rather have too much or too little? I had to think about it for a moment, and then I said too much, and there are some things we would rather have too much of it, but then it occurred to me that I wouldn’t really like to have too much pain, or sorrow, or illness. On the flip side, we might like to have less of those things, or something else, but we wouldn’t want to have less happiness or joy or laughter. I think sometimes we think the same thing about money. We want to have more money rather than less, right, but at the same time we also know that have too much can bring problems, and there is also a sort of guilt that comes with having too much money, although perhaps we all think we’d like to be a little more guilty than we are. But, it’s that idea that leads us into today’s message continuing in our series looking at Wesley’s rules on Money. As I said last week, as people began to follow some of the expectations that Wesley had set down on how to live your life if you were going to be part of the Methodist movement, people found themselves doing better economically, which we’ll hear about more next week, and so Wesley felt he needed to respond to new economic issues and he laid down three rules, the first was to gain all you can, or as James Harnish said, to earn all you can, the second was to save all you can, and the third rule was to give all you can.

Now today we start with the first rule, and for most people it is the rule that is most surprising and that is being told to make as much money as you can. That’s shocking because of some of the comments that Jesus makes that would seem to contradict such an instruction, like that it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for someone who is rich to get into the kingdom of God. That would seem to say that being rich is a problem, and Wesley would actually agree with that, but it’s dependent upon why we are seeking money and more importantly what are we doing with that money. Wesley says that “the right use of money” is “an excellent branch of Christian wisdom… inculcated by our Lord on all his followers.” And then says of Christians, who don’t normally talk about such things, that they “generally do not consider… the use of this excellent talent. Neither do they understand how to employ it to the greatest advantage; the introduction of which into the world is one admirable instance of the wise and gracious providence of God.”

Sowing and Reaping

Here is my sermon from Sunday.  The text was 2 Corinthians 9:6-15:

The last church we served in Massachusett several acre plots interspersed with still operating farms.  For my fellow sports fans, it was were Babe Ruth lived when he was with the Red Sox, and it is also where Shaquille O’Neill lived when he played for the Celtics.  But ever since Martha Stewart began touting the idea of owning your own chickens, lots of former city dwellers have tried to take on the role of gentlemen, or gentlewomen, chicken farmers.

One of those former Bostonians decided he needed to own some chickens for his property and so went to see one of the local farmers.  The farmer told the man he should start small with only a few chickens, but the man was insistent that he needed 100 chicks.  Knowing the mistakes that would be made but wanting to be neighborly in order to avoid future arguments, the farmer said, “You know, chicken farming isn’t easy, but to help you get started, I’ll give you 100 chicks."

The man was thrilled. Two weeks later the farmer dropped by to see how things were going, and the man said, "Not too well. All 100 chicks died." The farmer said, "Oh, I can’t believe that. I’ve never had any trouble with my chickens. I’ll give you 100 more." Another two weeks went by and the farmer stopped by again. The man said, "You’re not going to believe this, but the second 100 chickens died too." Astounded, the farmer asked, "What went wrong?"

The new farmer said, "Well, I’m not sure whether I’m planting them too deep or too close together."