First, Be Faithful in a Very Little

The Reverend Shirley Smith Graham, St. Martin’s Church, September 23, 2007

As the parable in today’s gospel demonstrates, life presents challenges.  We sometimes take actions that get us stuck in horrible circumstances.  We may feel as if forces beyond our control are driving our lives.  The dishonest manager in Jesus’ parable is case in point.  Sure he marked up the prices on the oil and grain.  Sure he added his own commission to that already inflated price.  Sure he was charging a more-than-healthy interest rate to people buying on credit.  But never in his wildest nightmare did he imagine these actions would land him in jeopardy of losing his job as the manager of his boss’ company.

But, according to the parable Jesus tells, the manager turns things around.  He remembers the nuts and bolts of life.  The fired manager does what is prudent.  He gets rid of his own commission; he forgives the interest of the debtors; he even reduces the prices back to pre-“Value Card” prices.  The next thing you know, all of his boss’ customers have paid up, and his boss is elated and morally put in the clear.  There are lots of different ways you can interpret this parable, but here’s the one I’m focusing on today: Jesus says to the manager: you’ve been faithful in the little things – in the things that don’t belong to you.  Good for you!  Now you’re ready to be faithful with much.  In the words of Jesus given to us by Luke, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). 

I want to observe and take as a lesson for our own growth something that the manager does.  Despite the threat of losing his job, the man does not lose his head.  He doesn’t panic.  If anything, in the press of this self-induced crisis, his thinking gets clear, shrewd and prudent.  And Jesus commends this example to the Pharisees and his own disciples, saying, “the children of this age are more shrewd … than are the children of light” (Luke 16:8).  Can’t you just hear Jesus saying to his disciples, “I love you all, but if you’re going to walk the gospel way and really make a difference in people’s lives, you’re just going to have to get more prudent, a little more savvy – show that you can be faithful in the small things, and then you’ll be able to be faithful with much”?

What a useful interpretation for us, this day.  I know my own personal weakness is, sometimes, to make things more complicated than they really need to be.  Perhaps it’s a tendency of people who love the Church – that we take the simple things of God and tie them down with complexity.  We take the simple things of God: the outrageous Love that pursues us through human history; the unwarranted Mercy that forgives us without our merit; the gift of Jesus, who brings us to the heart of God as if we were the only lost sheep in the fold.  Sometimes we take these simple things of God and lose sight of their power when we become anxious.  But when we lose sight of the simple things of God, we threaten our ability to know ourselves to be Beloved of God, and we lose our ability to be bearers of that Good News to people who so desperately need to hear it.

            I share this message with you today to exercise my responsibility as your rector to notice with you a significant event in the life of our larger church and to put it in perspective to our mission as St. Martin’s.  All of the bishops who make up the Episcopal Church in the United States are currently meeting in New Orleans, in one of their regular meetings, to pray, discern and respond to the request of other bishops in the global Anglican Communion.  Knowing that only General Convention, which meets next time in 2009, can speak for the Episcopal Church, our bishops have nonetheless been asked to make an early response.  (By the way, this really doesn’t work with the way we share leadership (lay and ordained) in our church, but since most of the rest of the Anglican Communion is heavily directed by clergy, we have something of a culture clash here.)  So, highly valuing our relationship to the Communion, our American bishops are seeking to make a meaningful response as they meet now in New Orleans. They have been asked to do four things: to respond to the proposed Anglican Covenant, which would for the first time in history give definition to the common things that have led us to call ourselves “Anglican”; to promise a moratorium on the consecration of gay or lesbian bishops; to promise a moratorium on the ordination or lesbian priests; and to promise not to authorize any blessing of same-gender partnerships. 

            It is likely that, as most of us are still ouching from General Convention 2003, engaging this subject might cause you pain.  Please know that this is not my intention.  Rather, it is my conviction that God has a mission for St. Martin’s to do and that we will be best able to fulfill this mission if we keep our focus on this mission.  If we let anxiety and controversy seize us, we will lose our ability to be Gospel-bearers, to share God’s love and life within this community and neighborhood.  And that, we must not let happen.  If you hear me sounding protective, that is indeed, how I’m feeling.

            I will also share with you my mind as a person who takes very seriously Jesus’ teaching.  As a person who is theologically trained, who has been in conservative and liberal congregations alike, I can’t help but think that the gospel lesson for today is inviting us to learn something from the manager in the parable Jesus tells.  Are we, in our anxiety over trying to get our religion right, losing sight of how, fundamentally, to be faithful to God and live out of Gospel Commission?   This wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the Church that we had lost sight of the Gospel in our efforts to be deal with theological controversy of the day.

In fact, what a mess it was in the church in 1536, as a matter of fact.  King Henry VIII had just split the Church of England from Rome, and he had dictated some doctrinal policies.  He sent letters to all the bishops, and their clergy, mandating that for no less than 13 successive Sundays, priest would preach not on the gospel, not of the faith of the church, but on that enormously edifying topic: the pope, the Bishop of Rome.  More specifically, the king had mandated that priests would preach against the pope and his “usurped power” for, no kidding, not less than 13 Sundays straight.  Well, this was only the 16^th century, and the poor undereducated priests had a hard time figuring out how to nuance this teaching from the king with the gospel for the day and the needs of their parishioners.   Indeed, the sermons, and parishioners, became so confused that the Archbishop of Canterbury issued The Bishop’s Book, a collection of homilies to help parish priests to know what the teaching of the Church was and aid them in their ministry.  So popular did this little book of homilies become that, when next King Henry decided to decide church doctrine and issued rules, he issued his own book: The King’s Book, which was resplendent with wisdom on the most highly controversial subjects of the day and not only dictated to people what they should believe but made doubt or heresy a felony.  If we feel wrapped around the axel about how to honor all persons and keep the traditional teachings of the church in matters of human sexuality, let us imagine how our 16^th century forebears felt, with controversies on the doctrine of Transubstantiation; the adequacy of Communion in [either bread or wine] only; the necessity of [the celibacy of priests]; the obligation upon the laity to observe vows of chastity; the importance of Private Masses; and the necessity of sacramental confession” (Moorman, A History of the Church in England, 178). 

            This bad experience with kings refining doctrine and implementing rules, influenced us, as a Christian denomination, toward agreeing upon the essentials of the faith and allowing diversity of opinion in the non-essentials.  However, this approach doesn’t save us from all the hard work: as our current discussions over the qualifications or bishops and priests reveal, what is considered an “essential” matter of the faith is a matter of sincere disagreement.  I hope you will join me next Sunday, at 10:10 as I finish this part of the sermon, identifying the historical essentials of our faith and giving an update on what’s going on in the larger Church.

            But back to the sermon for today.  I think we have a lesson to learn from the manager, whom Jesus praises.  Jesus has given us little things – small things to be faithful with.  These things, or more specifically, these people, may not seem to the larger world so important as to capture the CNN’s headlines or warrant an article in the Washington Post.  But these people, these dear ones of God, are exactly the people Jesus came for; they are exactly the people God loves; they are exactly the people whom the Holy Spirit listens to as they groan in their hearts over the pain they might be enduring, praying silent prayers to God that their trouble would be alleviated; they are exactly the people for whom Jesus dances with joy when they celebrate life’s new-life moments and triumphs.

            It is about these “very little” ones that I am concerned.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to continue his good-news proclaiming, his healing, his blessings.  You may remember that St. Francis of Assisi called himself God’s fool.  Friends, you and I also are God’s fools.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to bind up the wounds of persons in recovery from alcoholism by making this facility available to them every day, Monday through Friday.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to accompany people through their cancer journey, praying for them when they have no strength to pray for themselves, rejoicing with them in cure or remission, or giving thanks for their lives when the battle is done.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to receive the gift of Jean Brown, founding member of this very church, who poured her heart and soul into the people of this community, who joined the saints in light recently and who is remembered in our Memorial Garden now.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to make food for the 81 people of the Grove who were fed last week from the kitchen down that hall.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to send the kids of Avalon off to school so well kitted out that they feel no diminishment next to their well-supplied peers.  Jesus has chosen no one better than I to help mentor three men in transitional housing, as they seek another chance to succeed in this work-a-day world.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to support Cristine and her husband Todd, and their family life with son James, as Cristine and Todd were joined yesterday in holy matrimony.  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to fill this sanctuary today with songs of prayer and praise, joining the very Seraphim of God who sing their endless praises: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might.”  Jesus has chosen no one better than you and I to be fools for God.

May God bless us with the resolve to be faithful in a very little that God might grant us the challenge of being faithful in much.  Amen.

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