November 15th, 2020
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Fairfield County continues to be red for COVID-19. Therefore, our services will be physically distant as a way to lovingly protect one another’s health.
- The community thanksgiving service will be online. Please let Rev. Bruno know if you would like a DvD of it mailed to you.
- Advent Calendars are here! Advent begins in 2 weeks.
- Are you interested in a telephone Bible study? Let Rev. Bruno know and we’ll arrange a time to call on a conference call so all can hear each other and say hi.
- Thank you for remembering the church in your tithes! We will keep it all ready for us to return to as soon as it is safer.
CENTERING
Blessing (inspired by Matthew 25:14-20)
There are blessings
meant for you
to hold onto
clutched
like a lifeline
carried
like a candle
for a dark way
tucked into a pocket
like a smooth stone
reminding you
that you do not
go alone.
This blessing
is not those.
This blessing
will find its form
only as you
give it away
only as you
release it
into the keeping
of another
only as you
let it
leave you
bearing the shape
the imprint
the grace
it will take
only for having
passed through
your two
particular
hands.
~ written by Jan L. Richardson, and posted on The Painted Prayerbook.
Pray with me
Blessing God, we come together across time and space, across counties and states, across media platforms and denominations, to bless you. You bless us with blessings we carry in our dark days and rub in our fearful moments. You bless us with joys. With reassurances. With your presence. And you bless us with each other. Bless us with possessions we can give, love to give, kindness to give, time to give. And in the giving, we are blessed again. Receiving is a blessing. Giving is a blessing. Blessed, we bless you! Amen.
SCRIPTURE
Our scripture today is from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 14-30. Jesus has been speaking about what the Day of the Lord, or his second coming, will be like. He continues today…
Our second reading is from the beginning of the letter to the church is Thessalonica, which today we know as Greece. It is also about waiting for Jesus’ return. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
These are the words about God, for the people of God!
SERMON: Loving God, Vengeful God
A great mystery to me is how two people can some to the same Holy Scripture and find solid justification for two very different gods.
One god is love.
This god desires to be loved, is quick to listen, slow to anger. This God is seen in Jesus, the lamb, the suffering servant. This god forgives seventy time seventy countless times. This god loves us so much, he’ll sacrifice himself for us. The God who is Love wins the world over by refusing violence and turning to love.
That’s god 1. Sometimes called the New Testament God, but really, if you read your Bible, God is just as loving in the Hebrew scriptures too.
And then there’s God 2. Sometimes called the Old Testament God or the Fire and Brimstone God. Again, Bible readers will note there’s plenty of scary stuff is in the Gospels and Letters and Revelations. No part of the Bible has a monopoly on fear or love. Anyways, this second god inspires fear and trembling. Just approaching this god without proper protection scalds and kills a person. They bring weal and woe. God destroys towns with fire and orders genocide. This god wins the world over with sheer power, might, and majesty.
How do we reconcile these different images of God?
Some have suggested, as I mentioned, there’s two gods in the Bible. An Old and a New. Most Christians see this as a heresy because not only does it negate our monotheism – our belief there is only one God, the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all, but is also says that the creator of the world – who is in the oldest scriptures – is actually ‘evil’ and opposed to the redeemer of the Gospels. No. We believe God is good. God created a world that is good. And humans who are good.
So others have wondered… Does God, like humans, have swings of emotions where God is active and impulsive and other times when God is quiet and withdrawn?
Does God change? Does God grow up, out of God’s moody teen years, and into a more stable adulthood … but we all know there’s going to be hell to pay when God reaches cantankerous old age?
It’s okay to wonder these things. To question. To think. The beauty of the United Church of Christ is we hold tightly to the phrase “a priesthood of all believers.” All believers – – you and me and all of us — are theologians, pastors, priests. We have specific talents and understandings to bring to the text. And those are valued. We bring specific questions to the text. And sometimes, that question is: just who are you, God?
Our parable today of the talents makes me wonder about who is God.
A talent is about 15 years’ of wages. So one man is given 75 years of wages. Another is given 30 years. And the last is given 15 years. It’s a lot of money! A long time passes and the owner of the money returns to collect. The first man turned the 75 years worth of wealth into 150 years. The second had turned his 30 years into 60 years. And the last comes forward already asserting that the master is a harsh man, a thief, and someone to fear. So here – here is the 15 years’ worth of money you entrusted to me. Nothing at all is lost.
A generous, forgiving, loving God doesn’t match the description of a harsh man who reaps other people’s fields. It doesn’t match the description of the master in this story who takes everything from the fearful man and tosses him into the outer darkness for weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And yet, a cruel and harsh God, wrecking vengeance and unleashing plagues doesn’t sound like the kind of master who would entrust overwhelming treasure to these servants… and then welcome them into the master’s joy. Welcome them into greater service, greater trust, and greater life WITH their master – sharing the profits.
In this one parable we have the perspectives of God in scripture summed up–
All generous
and
All vengeful.
It reminds me of the Simpson’s episode where Homer has a picture of God that changes as you tilt it. “Vengeful god – loving god – vengeful god – loving god.”
The UCC is pretty heavy into the loving God, if y’all haven’t figured that out yet. But other churches and denominations are really into the vengeful God.
Are one right and one wrong?
Me — personally? Personally I want to argue no, no no no! God is all love. I want to explain away all the horror in the Bible as human additions and not done by God.
Me — pastorally and logically – I’m aware my perspective is no more “right” than any of my other fellow priests in our faith. If someone believes God is all righteousness, then vengeance is necessary to rout out evil.
And it’s just as easy to explain away that whole “love your neighbor” and “pray blessings upon your enemies” thing as it is for me to explain away the violent parts.
… Truly, we come to the Bible… and we find the God we’re looking for.
If we are looking for a stern father figure who is an authoritarian, who draws a blade between right and wrong, then here He is. Since He is God, you can be sure of victory. You can be sure of your correctness. So onward Christian soldiers!
If we are looking for a forgiving mother figure who is a co-sufferer and advocate for the weak, here She is. Like a mother hen, She has a place for the weak and weary. She seeks us, refuses to stop loving us, and tends to us from Her sacred wounded heart.
This really would be fine if that’s all these different theologies did – change how we view God. But theologies are how we arrange our lives. How we order our values and ethics. How we treat others.
People from an authoritarian God church appreciate pastors who speak in solid black and white answers. We appreciate government that is zero-tolerance. Hierarchy. Unquestioning loyalty. Conformity. These are appealing.
People from a wounded God church appreciate pastors who speak of in-betweens. Of not knowing all the answers. We appreciate government that advocates mercy and reconciliation over punishment. We resist hierarchy. Individuality, diversity — these are appealing.
These two ways of being Christian have been in tension with one another for a very, very long time. Emperor Constantine took Christianity — the faith of the outcasts, women, and slaves — and turned it into the official religion of the empire that was enforced with swords, coliseums, and empirical edicts. The same Christianity that gave us Mother Theresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King Jr. also gave us the Children’s Crusade, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Holy Roman Empire.
So just who is God?
Where is God in all of these things?
To me, the parable of the Talents addresses these questions head on.
The master begins by treated all three servants the same way – entrusting them with large sums of money.
Two of them expect their master to want them to put the wealth to work. To risk it by loving, investing, living with it. They are taking a risk – they may fail. Yet, the risk is worth it. They must expect their master to be forgiving if the risk doesn’t pan out. They expect their master to want to see results for all these years. They live like their master, and this doubles their holdings. When their master returns, he is overjoyed. He invites them to continue to live as he does – joyfully.
One of them expect their master to be cruel. They expect their master to be a thief who steals and brings weal and woe. He fears the master and he acts in fear. He doesn’t use the money, and he doesn’t risk a thing. He expects his master to want exactly what was given to him given back. And that’s what he gets. A cruel master who takes everything back.
Everyone gets what they expect. Everyone meets the master they anticipate.
When I take this insight and apply it to my life… I think about those days I wake up expecting a good day. I go out smiling. I meet people smiling. I anticipate blessings and I am more generous. People respond by blessing me with generosity. The day just keeps getting better.
And then there are those days I wake up on the wrong side of the bed and bang my head on the low ceiling. I anticipate trouble. I go out with a frown and I meet grumpy people. I grouch. They grouch back. Sure enough – it’s a rotten, no good, awful day that gets worse.
What I anticipate changes how I act in the present moment. How I act now changes how others around me act. They influence me back in turn.
My cup is surely half full and half empty. I get to choose whether to see the blessing or curse.
My scripture is surely full of vengeance and mercy. I get to choose which I will live in to.
To me, today’s parable is a story of how we are given so many years from God. And those years are to be invested — whether they are a few or a lot — entrusted to bring forth more good. To me, it reads that we are to risk our years, our gift, invest it, and do something. We aren’t to just wait navel gazing and twiddling our thumbs waiting for God. We’re to act. Do justice and mercy and the hard work of forgiveness, now! And the joy of the Lord’s will be our own.
The reverse is to do nothing with the years God gives us. To fear God, to fear judgment. We don’t risk our wealth, our reputations, our money and our lives to radically love others. We lose nothing… and we gain nothing.
So my blessing today for you? Things are rotten right now. Covid and quarantines, political chaos and loneliness and fear. And things are beautiful right now. People going out of their way to share with one another; radical innovation revitalizing our work, our schools, our lives. A time of art and new life. We are so blessed to be in a time like this. And when we expect this time to be a blessing, we will act like it, will bless each other and build each other up, and in turn, be blessed in reply.
Blessings upon blessings upon blessings.
You are blessed!
Amen.
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 