Entangled States

The Pharisees probably expected the tax-collectors to repent and become their disciples, in essence to become just like the other Pharisees. But that didn’t happen. And so they wouldn’t believe that the “repentance” being claimed was 
“real”

What do you think repentance looks like? Do you expect a penitent life to look just like yours? Is that realistic?

In the sermon below I’ll try to answer that question – or at least try to explain what Scripture says a repentant life looks like. (And how we often judge wrongly when we see one.)

You can view the sermon directly here.

According to gaming theory, any economic activity where both parties fully understand what is happening is a non-zero-sum game. We forget that a lot. We tend to think that buying and selling is a cut throat competition. Which it is if you’re not being honest with each other. But if you are, you both win when you buy or sell something. Think about that.

The key is being honest and transparent.

The Kingdom of Heaven is exactly that. A non-zero-sum game. There can be no tragedy of the commons here. There is no winners and losers. There is simply the body, and when one is exulted, all are exulted. And when one suffers, all suffer.

You can go directly to the sermon here.

https://vimeo.com/episcopalri/proper20a2023

There’s an apparent disconnect between the God Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount and the God imagined in this parable. Or is there?

Notice that once the evil servant enters the social web of revenge and debts and debtors, the evil servant if forced by the system to face the consequences of what his is doing. The King treats him differently, but he is not willing to live into that form of relationship with others afterwards.

Because he treats others badly, the world treats him badly. And then the Lord forces him to live with the consequences of his life and actions.

It is only by living in a relationship of forgiveness with others that we can hope to escape having to live in a world of revenge and blood price. Anyone who’s been together in a relationship with someone else, for any length of time, learns quickly that the hardest thing in a relationship is the fear that you won’t be forgiven for doing something wrong.

The direct link to the video is here.

All three of the readings assigned for this week are about relationship. The Hebrew Scriptures speak of the first Passover and the new covenantal relationship between God and the children of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. The Gospel, read from St. Matthew’s account, tells us about how to live with one another when conflict arises in the community. And the third reading, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, is about the guiding principles of the community and its internal relationships in this present age.

It’s Paul’s writing that I focus on this week, but in the larger context of what he writes just before the text assigned. In the lead up to his admonition to be a loving community that is a witness to the wider world of who Christ is and of what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing, he tells us that it’s important for us to obey the authorities that are persecuting that nascent body of believers. It’s that tension between what our internal and our external life should look like that is the theme of this week’s sermon.

Or actually was the theme of the sermon I preached three years ago on these texts. (I’m just coming to the end of my yearly vacation, and though I’ve been good about violating the terms of my vacation covenant and writing and posting sermons for the past few weeks, this week, I’m going to repost something.) We’re getting to the point where I can do that on occasion.

You can find the direct link to the sermon here.

Unselfish giving is defined as love. Literally it is what we mean we say that Agape is love.

In one of John’s epistles we find the one “is” statement about God. St. John writes that “God is Love.” (Actually it’s: God is AGAPE.) 

We know about God because of God’s choice. And the fact that we as finite creatures have encountered the infinite in a comprehensible way means that the infinite has freely chosen to self-limitation. That limitation is not something that brings gain to God. It’s a totally, for us ultimately incomprehensible, unselfish action. It is only for our own benefit – since we want to be like Gods – now we know how we can do it.

If we want to know what it would be truly like to be gods, we now know where to look. We look to Jesus and we see completely. If we imitate him, we can be a little like him. He is the Christ, we can be the little christs, the Christians.

(You can view the sermon directly at this link.)

There are some startling implications to be drawn from the Gospel passage this week.

Jesus proclaims the nature of the Church and seems to tie it intimately to the recognition of the Creator in the Incarnation which is given to us by the agency of the Holy Spirit. Once again in this theophany, this unveiling of God’s nature, we see the actions of all three Persons of the Trinity.

What you bind will have been bound already

Look carefully at what Jesus promises.

You will act in accordance with God’s will.

What you bind on Earth is being bound in Heaven. What you loose on Earth is being Loosed in Heaven. The greek tense contains a great deal of information here that many translations fail to give the flavor of.

(God will not be bound by what you say to make my point explicitly.)

This is not just a trivial point. It reinforces the truth that God is different than we are, and that God’s freedom cannot be limited by us. (We can’t force God to do something. That would be magic and the Church does not do magic.)

The really, to me, interesting thing here is the way that the Confession of Jesus as God incarnate – and the vehicle for the reconciliation of our human nature with the Divine – is how the narrative immediately turns to the ethical. Binding and Loosing is all about declaring actions “in bounds” or “out of bounds”.

(You can view the sermon directly by using this link.)

I don’t like the idea that Jesus could be defeated.

I think I know why it bothers me exactly. I suppose it has to do with who I believe Jesus to be.

If Jesus can be tricked, or changed by a witty remark, is he still God? Can the person who split the waters be beaten at a game of the dozens? Does salvation come down to who comes up with the most clever remark?

That would work if Noel Coward was writing the story. But he’s not.

Any attempt to protect Jesus though, ties us up in knots

Jesus was defeated in this encounter with a Canaanite woman advocating for her child.

The thing is that any attempt to explain away Jesus’ apparent defeat at the hands of this woman just don’t work.

So I’ll have to get over myself. God who allows us to defeat him. Huh?

The woman’s faith allows her to believe that she can best Jesus. Because she trusts he’s willing to be bested.

God conquers by being conquered…

You can go directly to the video using this link.