“Smile, It’s Super-Hero Sunday”

By the Reverend Shirley Smith Graham

September 9 2007, St. Martin’s Church, Williamsburg

7:45 & 11AM Service

“Smile, it’s Super-Hero Sunday”!  Cradle Episcopalians will note that there is no “Super-Hero Sunday” on the liturgical calendar.  Holders of the Hallmark Gold-Crown card will find not greeting cards on the shelf to celebrate “Super-Hero” day.  I will confess: Super-Hero Sunday is an invention of my own imagination.  I invented it with a mischievous sense of humor for a serious purpose … to help us digest the daunting set of messages delivered in today’s gospel reading: the cost of being a disciple of Jesus is so high, that we might feel disqualified from such a calling, unless we realize that under this calm Episcopalian demeanor we are, in fact, super-heroes.

Just listen to these tough words from Jesus: “‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.’” (Luke 14:26).  Unless you hate the people dearest to you, you cannot follow Jesus.  Hard message.  How can we take this hard message seriously, while squaring it with other beliefs of Jesus, such as “Honor your father and mother”? (Matthew 19)  As one serious student of the Bible said to me this week, I have trouble with this verse.  As well we all should.

The high demand in today’s gospel is not an isolated remark that would enable us to throw it off as a Jesus’ overstatement.  If you get rid of this one, what do you do with the previous ones? …”Let the dead bury their own dead (Lk. 9:60) … No one who has once grasped the plow yet keeps looking backward is fit for the kingdom of God (Lk. 9:62); and fresh from the beginning of chapter 14: Jesus tells the parable of the banquet guests who regretfully decline the king’s invitation just to find out that they now have greater regrets because “the king vows that “none of those men I first invited will taste my banquet” (Lk. 14.24).  These are among the hard sayings of Jesus.  They boil down to this: Because you want to follow me, you will need to make choices, at times, that mean saying no to good things you would like to say yes to.  Just know, if you’re my disciples, that there will be these hard times, when following me will mean making a choice that has a high price.

This instruction may make more sense in light of the practical advice Jesus gives in the example of verse 28.  Jesus says, “Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?”  If you’re a wise person, you don’t decide to build a tower and simply start running to Home Depot for supplies.  No, you dream dreams; you sketch out plans; you get the advice of some engineers; you estimate building costs; and before you enter into any contracts, you figure out how much that tower is going to cost and you find identify the income to pay for the building costs.  Just in case we didn’t get the message, Jesus tries with a second example: “Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?” (Lk. 14.31).  Jesus is saying, for any goal you have in mind, if you want to be successful, you deliberately plan, count the cost and allocate the resources.  It’s funny that Jesus’ own example sounds like a financial matter.  But I think the example is powerful because Jesus dealt with people who everyday, like we do, thought about putting food on the table for their families and sustain their lives.  We all have to deal with the common sense realities of an income and outgo, so Jesus knows his point will hit home when he talks in practicalities.

The strange thing is that this common-sense task – of setting a goal, making plans to achieve the goal, and finding resources to do it – has become less and less ordinary.  How many of us, when we wish to embark on a new project really do sit down and plan and count the cost?  How many of us do take on new obligations without evaluating what resources they will require or thinking about how we will cover the cost?  How many people are like me, who so much want their child to see his cousins in Kansas, that she forgets in the planning stage what agony four days of driving in the car can feel like?  Or how many people are like the mortgage analyst who, when asked to comment on the collapse of the sub-prime loan market said, “We should have seen it coming.  The signs were all there.  We should have seen it, but we didn’t.”

I’m venturing a guess that, culturally, we have fallen out of the habit of seeing what’s really before us and planning for the future because we think we will fail.  If we sit down and think about it, the factors will seem so intimidating, that we’ll never get the project off the ground.  As one of my friends send recently about juggling her career, family and the care of her aging parents: “I’m o.k. so long as I don’t think about it, but as soon as I sit down and think about it, I get overwhelmed and start crying.  And then I’m no good to anybody.”

I’d like to amend my friend’s statement.  I would suggest that we find our inner super-hero when we do precisely the thing that feels so dangerous: when we count the costs of reaching the goal we have in mind, identify the resources we need to reach the goal and ask God to bless the whole thing – from planning to outcome.  When we become overwhelmed at thinking about the commitments we’ve made, something is out of sync.  Either we’re stretched too thin; or we’re not taking into account all our responsibilities; or we’re not realizing that God is with us in our plans and will bless us to accomplish them; that when we are faced with what looks like an overwhelming obstacle God will supply someone or something we need to make that situation manageable.

Sometimes we are under-confident God does intend good for us and that we will be empowered in the challenging moments of life to make the right decisions.  Tough decisions need not be avoided when you realize you will be blessed to make the right decision.  Certainly, avoiding the decision moment doesn’t help at all: if we are reluctant to plan, then we are not as useful as we could be as disciples.

Think about it this way.  Jesus came to inaugurate the Kingdom of God.  That kingdom making – that realm of justice-making – is something Jesus left us to work on.  For whatever reason, God has chosen to rely on us to bring health to the lame; food for the defenseless, justice and equity to those who do not have justice and equity.  But if we fly through our days just attacking the next task on our calendar, how does God get onto our agendas to get some of His work done?  Serendipity is great so long as we’re not relying on it to appear on our calendars and crowd out other tasks.  I would counsel that we are God’s people with a purpose.  That God has chosen you and me and this congregation of St. Martin’s to engage in the tasks that will enable all God’s children to live more abundantly, be unshackled from the bonds of sin and death, and enable them to lift their voices in joy to God.  I’m convinced that you and I are super-heroes.  I am convinced that, without wearing out our frail human flesh, God has blessed us to be super-heroes – believing in God’s super-purposes for this neighborhood, we should not be afraid to sit down and do the planning steps that will enable to accomplish our goals.  That doing so leads not to discouragement or doubt or defeatism but that, in those conversations, we will find the inspiration of God urging us onward and the resources to accomplish our purpose.

I am convinced that St. Martin’s is full of people for whom God has a purpose, and I’m using this Sunday’s gospel to get us ready, to get us trained up for good work in the Kingdom of God.  I’m pulling together the team, and we’re going over the plays: if we’re building the tower, first we sit down and estimate the cost and find what we need to complete it.

If you have children or grandchildren who are four years old, or if you remember them at age four, you know that children have no trouble assuming the persona of a super-hero.  Our son Evan puts on his Superman pajamas, puts his fists on his hips and, by golly, he is Superman.  He assumes the Spiderman stance, says “psew, psew” and, what do you know, he is Spiderman.  Evan watches Word-Girl, the latest superhero from the PBS pantheon who shouts out a word, and it comes into being.  Evan turns to me and says, “You’re monkey-face; I’m Word-Girl.”  And he is.

Evan and other children his age live close to that passionate energy to be super.  And they haven’t yet developed the self-critical awareness to doubt their super capabilities.  That makes me wonder.  You and I, as children of God and disciples of the Lord Jesus, we live close to the passionate energy of God – energy that we feel in this place; energy that we hear in the music and share at this Table.  Perhaps it’s time for us to put aside some of our super-critical awareness and recapture the child’s ability to believe in the super-powers God has put in us … the power to take full account of the challenges of discipleship and find the resources to overcome those challenges and to faithfully follow.  Amen.

Children’s Sermon for September 9, 2007

9 AM Service

(Jeremiah 18:1-11)

 
[molding clay – 4 pieces]

1.                  To help me with the sermon, we’re going to work with clay.

2.                  4 pieces – everybody take a turn

3.                  Make a ball.

4.                  Now, make a square box (as close as you can)

5.                  No, flatten it like a pancake.

 
We can take clay and form it into whatever we’d like it to be.

There was a wise man named Jeremiah, a long time ago.  He was one of God’s prophets. 

Know what a prophet is?

Like a sign (stop, yield, proceed with caution, do not enter)

God showed Jeremiah that we are like clay.  God gives us the gift of life, so we live.  We are also able to be touched by God and change as a result of that touch.

We can change a lot, but we can’t change our essence.  Who we are is perfect in God’s sight.  But how we act sometimes could stand some improvement.

 We are perfect, yet need some improvement.

 
One way of getting improvement is to think about ourselves as clay.  God is always helping us to become more like Jesus.

How do you think you could improve and become more like Jesus?

 
Getting ready for improving, you’re being like the clay.  God loves you exactly as you are and is inviting you to become more like Jesus.

 
[Give the clay to the adults]

 
Adults:

 
God’s ability to love us deeply as we are and call us to account – to act better toward one another and ourselves

 Looking closely at the verses – much more than what I covered with the children – God can choose to build a people up or tear them down – God’s sovereignty.

 
But God also looks for our responsiveness.  We are not determined to be ruined or to be a success.  God is waiting for our response.  What do we choose?

 
The invitation to cooperate with God is active for us.  But there’s an sub-text to Jeremiah’s message. 

 
If we consistently choose to resist God, our ability to respond positively eventually diminishes.  Theologian Walter Brueggemann: there’s a “pastoral reality that resistance to God practiced so long eventually nullifies the capacity to choose life” (A Commentary of Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming, 169).  If we persist long enough in not accepting God’s invitation to change, to exercise our muscles to do good, then we may lose that muscle ability altogether.

Christianity had a bad rap for hundreds of years for being a religion of predestination.  Your fate is sealed in God’s book of life, and you are destined to be a “good” person or a “bad” person, and there’s not much you can do about it.  Christianity is not that at all.  Christianity, St. Paul, we each have choices, to cooperate with God for the good of our neighbors, the world and the kingdom of God.  In Christ Jesus we are set free from the bondage of sin, to live into the life of grace and ability to respond to God.  There’s always the chance for a new beginning … As a result, we will regularly have in our prayers of the people the prayer for a new beginning for people – could be a change in how you’re living life, a new job, the beginning of a recovery process from addiction, a new medical treatment for cancer … the mark of your hope, founded in Christ, that you are clay, your reality is mold-able, and you are a work in progress, holy and dedicated unto God.  Amen.