Beggars Made Worthy

October 15, 2017

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon Series, “Barriers to Generosity” – Entitlement

          I have a keen interest in the British royalty. I love to read both history in general and historical fiction of England. I’m fascinated with the lives royals lead, and with the ritual and tradition that surround them.  Last year, for instance, the two television programs I most enjoyed binge watching were “Victoria” – based on the life of Queen Victoria I, and “The Crown,” based on Elizabeth II, the reigning Queen of England.

          As a result, I find royal weddings kind of exciting. The first royal wedding I very clearly remember was that of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. I recall the excitement of the crowds, straining to get a look at Lady Diana in her royal carriage on the way to St. Paul’s Cathedral; the pageantry; her charming stumble over the order of her husband-to-be’s multiple names. What fun to be invited to such a spectacle and party!

          So, I have to tell you that if I received an invitation to a royal wedding, I would feel enormously honored and grateful to be among those to be included. There is no way I can expect to ever receive such an invitation. Therefore, if I indeed received one, not only would it come as a great surprise but I would do everything in my power to come, prepared to show not only my gratitude and joy, but my utter respect and desire to please and honor the queen or king issuing the invitation.

          So, what’s wrong with the people who were the first to receive the invitation to the king’s son’s wedding in today’s gospel text? The king must have been so pleased to issue the invitation. With great pride and with over-the-top generosity, surely, he looked forward to having the grateful recipients of the invitation come to honor both him and his son by their presence. What a party he was prepared to throw!

What’s wrong with these people who surprisingly declined the invitation? Who simply would not come? Who had better things to do with their time – more important things demanding their time and attention?

          Not only did they decline the initial invitation, but they made light of it – they behaved as if they were entitled to the invitation, and could simply choose to attend only if it were convenient enough for them to do so – only if they had nothing better to do. They behaved as if this invitation and the honor it conveyed was all about them and had nothing to do with the honor, fealty and praise that was the king’s due.

          Now, we all know that rulers can be incredibly thin-skinned. When thwarted they can behave like children having a full-blown and devastating temper tantrum, with devastating and deadly results. After all, kings expect the ultimate respect, honor, and worship of their subjects.

So, when we read what seems to be the over-the-top reaction of the king to the insult that has been dealt him when even a second invitation he issued was rejected, we are shocked.

But the people hearing this parable for the first time would have gotten it. They would have understood the disconnect - the deep disloyalty of these invitees, who have repaid the king’s generous invitation with disregard and insult; they would have understood the tragic ramifications of their rejection.

          But, as the parable goes on, it is not just the outright rejection of those on the king’s first invitation list that is brought under scrutiny. Another group of people is invited.

These are the ones who probably think the likelihood of them ever receiving an invitation from the king is about the same as my ever being invited to the next royal wedding. Null. So, when they do receive an invitation, they are excited. They don’t even care that they weren’t in the first group, they never expected to be. Instead, they are grateful to be thought of at all.

Anyone accepting this invitation would want to put their best foot forward, to be seen as grateful for the generosity of the king, and worthy by the king’s grace to be in the mere presence of the king and his son, let alone to be their honored guests.

          So it is surprising – shocking, even, when this one person behaves in a manner that shows his hosts less than the honor and praise they deserve. He seems to think that all he needs to do is just show up.

While those attending this wedding would be given the appropriate wedding dress provided by the king himself, this person eschews even that tradition. It just doesn’t suit him. He’s happy to come to the party, but seems to take the rest for granted.     

The problem with the first group who were invited and with this single invitee seems to be the same. They lack the proper attitude toward their gracious host and king. They lack the respect to accept the generosity of the king as pure gift and not simply as their due. They forget to respond with the proper sense of gratitude and awe for being included in the party at all.

Their basic sense of entitlement gets in the way of any gratitude at all.

          Each week, we are invited to the greatest feast imaginable. This is the feast, Martin Luther wrote, of the marriage - the union between heaven and earth. We come together in worship as undeserving guests, to praise God and offer our thanksgiving for this marriage, the incarnation of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are invited to the banquet to celebrate God’s love and generosity and our inclusion in the marriage feast.   

On our own, we are not worthy to be here, but by God’s good grace we are among both the good and the bad, saint and sinner both, who have received the invitation. We don’t deserve this honor, in fact there is nothing we could do to be so deserving. We come not because we are great but because God is great and steadfast in love, mercy, and generosity.

The problem with entitlement is, that whenever we allow ourselves to believe that we deserve what we have, or are somehow more worthy than another, we will find ourselves incapable of gratitude. The proper response to the king’s invitation is to run breathless to the banquet, dressed for the marriage of heaven and earth, wondering how we ever got on such a guest list.

When we come to church, we answer God’s gracious invitation to unite around the table. While we find community here, we don’t come for community. While we find lovely music and pleasing surroundings and friendships here, we don’t come for those things.

We find forgiveness of our sins here, but we should not forget that we come as beggars in need of God’s mercy, neither entitled to it nor deserving of it. But, because God loves us so, we come to be surprised, humbled and grateful to be among those Christ serve at the table of life. Such gratitude requires us to sing out for joy, and cry out in thanksgiving and praise of God.

In the traditional eucharistic liturgy still in use in some places is this confession: “I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” We would do well to use these words in our liturgy as well, and to embrace the truth within them.

Our birthright as followers of Jesus Christ is to remember that none of us is worthy – none of us deserves to be here; therefore, we should respond to this invitation with nothing short of humble gratitude and thanksgiving.

Like the guests invited to the wedding feast in our gospel story, we too are provided a garment appropriate for the celebration.

The garment we are provided is the righteousness that comes from God.

This garment, in which we become clothed in baptism, sets us apart as the glad recipients of God’s grace. It is the outward expression of the inward change God performs in us in the sacrament through which God calls us Child of God.

It is no ordinary garment, even by the finest of standards. For this garment is comprised of threads of compassion, generosity, kindness, and forgiveness. The fabric of this garment is knit with concern for social justice, care for the poor and the marginalized. The golden thread that holds together the seams of this garment was spun from the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and it compels us, to welcome other to the feast.

It compels us to be not only guests, but servants. It reminds us that in the eyes of God, whether we came from the stock of the good or the bad, we are forever transformed by God’s grace, united with Jesus Christ and with one another at the table.

Worthy? No, except by the love and mercy of God, which knows no bounds. Deserving to be here? No, but our inclusion compels us not only to come to the party, but to come prepared to give honor and glory to the host with thanksgiving, joy, respect and love. May it be so.

A Little Thing Called Trust

Luke 7:1-10

Trust is something we all yearn for; It is highly valued – both to trust and to be trusted. It is such an essential emotion in both in human development and in our experience of life, that we have found that if a child is not given the ability to know trusting relationship with the primary person or people in her life at a very young age, her personality, and likely her mental health are forever affected. She may never be able to fully trust anyone or anything in her life.

I wonder if you can remember a time, perhaps in some group or another, maybe when you were a child, teen or young adult, that you took part in some sort of “trust game.” They usually go something like this: one person in a group is blindfolded, and crosses his arms over his chest, stiffens his legs, and then falls backward, trusting in the group or appointed members of the group to catch him, preferably before he hits the floor.

Another is follow-the-leader where, once again blindfolded, one person has to depend on a partner to lead her through an obstacle course. It’s interesting that a lot of these games begin with a blindfold on. One has to be able to trust without a “backup plan.” There’s something about the blindfold that inspires – and challenges – the notion of trust.

Three years ago, USA Today published the report of a recent poll that revealed the astonishing results that Americans today don’t trust each other. Based on the kinds of media reporting and the rhetoric that we hear in the public and private spheres, my guess is that the reluctance or inability to trust has only grown in the years since this particular poll was taken, and the problem goes much deeper than what happened in those silly games I mentioned.

Today we know that a good number of people have deep-seated trust issues. We blame the low levels of trust built within our psyche these days to decades of high-profile indiscretions, the disenfranchisement of large segments of society, and the ethical poverty of the landscape.

Experts blame our low levels of trust on declining social capital - that is, the networks of relationships among people who work and live in a society, which enables the successful functioning of that society.

Declining social capital is blamed in part on the increase in technology which in turn leads to fewer opportunities for interpersonal bonding, as well as the decline of organizations and communities where interpersonal, trusting relationships are developed and experienced.

It seems that these days we are if anything, discouraged from trusting – because, do you know what we call people who are too trusting? That’s right, gullible. – Not a positive label by anyone’s standards.

The USA Today article claimed that there is no easy fix to this problem that Americans don’t trust each other:

“….. some studies suggest it's too late for most Americans alive today to become more trusting. That research says the basis for a person's lifetime trust levels is set by his or her mid-twenties and unlikely to change, other than in some unifying crucible such as a world war.
“People do get a little more trusting as they age,” the poll said. “But beginning with the baby boomers, each generation has started off adulthood less trusting than those who came before them.”

As Christians, we turn to God in praise and thanksgiving, we pray to God for help, and we confess Christ crucified and raised from the dead is the Son of God, who, through his incarnation came not only to dwell among us, but to save us from our sins and to heal us from the brokenness of our affliction – the inclination toward greed, disbelief and rebellion.

            And yet, in practice, we see the struggle to trust even within our Christian communities and lifestyles. We experience a struggle even to truly and fundamentally trust God to care for us in the ways that God has promised us he will.

We struggle with our own trust issues which impact our stewardship practices where fear keeps us from trusting that what we have or what we will receive will truly be “enough;” in evangelism practices, where fear keeps us from sharing our faith and inviting others in to our communities of faith; in our spiritual practices where we fear that what we say or do doesn’t really matter, or that we don’t have the right “formula” to pray – have you ever been in a gathering where we invite a volunteer – someone other than the pastor – to lead us in prayer? Everyone suddenly becomes very interested in something taking place on the floor! We even struggle to trust that God’s grace is sufficient, and that it comes to us purely through the love of God and the person of Jesus Christ – and not through or as reward for what we say and do.

            The centurion in our Gospel reading is not a follower of Jesus. He is not a Jew. He is not a member of the community. The centurion is a member of the Roman militia. We don’t know very much about him other than the fact that he seems like he is a nice guy who carries out his duties in what we might call an “ethical” way.

The Jewish elders seem to know him and like him well enough that they are willing to speak on his behalf.  “He is worthy,” they say. “He helped build our synagogue,” they say.

He seems to have a significant relationship with the slave whom we hear about but never see. And yet, the centurion, this member of the enemy coalition and therefore a foreigner, sends word to Jesus asking him to heal his slave.  

This man, this outsider, somehow trusts that Jesus has the power and the goodness to heal this person who has some value to him. He believes that the healing is possible because of who Jesus is, not because of who he is.

This is made clear by the second message he sends along to Jesus: don’t bother physically coming to my home, because really, I am not worthy to receive you. Just say the word, Jesus. just speak it, and I know that my servant will be healed.

In normal circumstances in that time and place, the power and obeisance that this centurion commands might be inconsequential at best and a barrier at worst, when seeking favor from Jesus.

But in this story he does not command this healing on the basis of his status as a Roman authority. He humbly requests that Jesus heal this servant who is important to him based on the goodness and mercy and power he believes Jesus possesses.

He is not Jewish, not even a convert. And yet in his response to the centurion’s words, Jesus says that even within the people of Israel, the chosen People of God, he has not found anyone with more faith that in this centurion.

Growing up in the Catholic church, week after week, as we prepared to receive Holy Communion, we would say these words, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. But only say the word and I shall be healed.”

That confession, echoing the centurion’s words that come to us in our gospel text today are profound. “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”

The centurion’s declaration articulates a unique trust in Jesus’ power and ability to heal. While people in antiquity believed in miraculous healings, they also believed that direct contact with the person mediating divine healing power was necessary. The centurion’s claim is vastly different: Only speak the word, your word, and my servant shall be healed.

The centurion clings unconditionally to Jesus’ word as having the same saving power as his touch or his presence.

Even when we feel unworthy, we too can cling unconditionally to Jesus’ word having the power to forgive our sins, and save us from the powers of evil and death every time we come to the table.

Receiving the sacrament belies a deep relationship of trust. There is no one more worthy of our trust than God. Each time we come to the table, we say by our very presence that even in the moments of our unbelief, we trust that God has the power to forgive us; to heal us; to grow us into disciples of Christ. In the confession and forgiveness that we begin our worship with, make the same confession – on my own, Jesus, I am not worthy – to receive you, to receive your grace and mercy, to have you come to me.

And yet, while we may not see Jesus standing before us we believe he is present, and through his word we are strengthened and empowered to trust. Anchored in trust, given to us as gift, we have faith through the work of the Holy Spirit, that in Jesus, God blesses us in ways beyond our understanding.

I hope that you can see where God has been working in your life, enabling you to trust, being for you that one essential loving and trusting relationship we all need. I hope that through prayer, the trust you have in God and the relationship that is established through God’s love for you and blessed through the word of Jesus Christ may bring you healing, wholeness, and loving gratitude through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.