Taking out the trash

Matthew 18:21-35

Parable of the Unfaithful Servant, Unknown Master, German 1560 (PD)

Packing has always been a complicated task for me. 

I have always embraced the mentality of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. 

When I began backpacking as a teenager, I used to pack the most ridiculous things. 

Hauling pots and pans, radios, cans of food. 

It wasn’t unheard of that my pack would approach the 100 pound mark. 

Then, I became a more proficient packer. 

By the time I began college I had invested in light weight backpacking equipment; 

Tents with fiberglass poles, quick dry clothing that packed into tiny squares, down sleeping bags that could be stuffed into a water bottle, and freeze dried meals that magically burst into full flavored feasts with a mere drop of water!

So, when I began talking with a recruiter about enlisting in the Marine Corps as an infantry rifleman, my recruiter was sure to mention his own love for the outdoors. 

Sitting before me in the coveted dress blues, a uniform that could make Steve Buscemi look like Brad Pitt, he told me how the Marine Corps opened up a whole new world for him, in regards to his outdoor experiences. 

I couldn’t help but picture myself secluded in the middle of a pristine wilderness, preparing to stealthily maneuver behind an enemy objective unnoticed, following a quiet hike through a beautiful landscape. 

After bootcamp, I attended Camp Geiger’s Infantry Training Battalion where I got a real taste of this “outdoor experience”

Hiking along the paved roads of Jacksonville, North Carolina, with Marines reserved as “Road Guards” to keep the rest of us from being struck by the cars and trucks whizzing by that would have been a more logical approach to transportation than walking. 

Eating heavy and unattractive meals named things like “chunked and formed beef patty,” a mystery meat that haunts me to this very day. 

Laying out our sleeping bags in a platoon formation, and sleeping in a tightly packed pattern that was not only a far cry from what I had envisioned but it seemed like an incredibly unwise approach to protecting oneself from an organized attack. 

But what was the most unsettling was the weight of our gear. 

Old metal external frame packs which were bulky and some were even broken. 

Gear which had been used for nearly 4 generations!

I never really thought about this until I was drinking coffee out of a canteen cup one morning and after tipping it back and exposing the date on the bottom of the cup a dear friend exclaimed, 

“Oh, cool! Some doughboy probably used your canteen cup as a latrine in World War One!”

On average, from the time of the Greek hoplite to the Civil War Infantryman, the average weight carried was forty pounds. 

In World War One, that weight increased to about sixty pounds. *Probably due to my canteen cup that offered some welcome relief.*

By World War Two, the average load topped off around 80-100 pounds.

A few years ago, we found ourselves carrying anywhere between 150 - 200 pounds of gear. 

A weight that inhibited our mobility, sapped away our energy, and caused aches and injuries that are still felt today. 

Backpacking in St Mary's Wilderness

When packing anything, especially when packing bags, boxes, or packages that we carry and transport by hand,

we try to limit the bulk and the weight of what is being carried. 

When we travel, we want to carry the luxuries of home with us, without the weight of those luxuries. 

You can buy just about anything in travel sizes today, yet it’s still difficult to whittle things down so they are just right. 

~

The Gospel for today is a parable describing the Kingdom of Heaven, a coveted destination that Jesus’ followers would like to enter into. 

Jesus is not describing things the way they are presently, or the way they have been, but he is giving a explicit packing list, sort of…

It’s actually more like a list of what we should NOT be packing. 

Peter seems to invite this parable when he once again injects himself in the middle of Jesus’ teaching. 

As always, Peter comes off as either a know-it-all or the guy that always puts his foot in his mouth to our 21st century ears, perhaps even to 1st century ears.

But regardless of his tone, Peter actually is quite generous in offering up the number 7 as a good number to forgive. 

Rabbinic teaching in that day offered three acts of forgiveness for one’s brother as the number to shoot for, so Peter is already overshooting traditional rabbinic teaching. 

And everyone gets wrapped around the numbers, 

Claiming that 7 is a sacred number in Judaism, and 7x70 can be traced to stories in Genesis, or that the number Jesus is asking is actually 77, or 490, or if you carry the square root and divide it by the age of the sinner but multiply it times the years of Jesus’ life…

Blah, blah, blah, blah. 

There is one thing for sure in this text, Jesus is asking us to forgive.

Jesus is asking us to forgive A LOT.

In fact, he is asking us to forgive in the same way we receive forgiveness. 

And forgiveness is not a uniquely Christian practice, sisters and brothers, it is a uniquely religious practice. 

It is hard to find a religion that does not claim forgiveness as a central tenet. 

Yet we live in a world full of people who refuse to forgive. 

And while I can only cite personal experience, I have failed to see a greater consistency in the number of Christian -or even generally religious individuals- who can forgive more often than those who consider themselves non-religious or just spiritual. 

It is a central tenet of all religions, and yet the religious don’t seem to stand out in any way, when it comes to forgiveness. 

Benevolence, yes. 

Following the past few hurricanes our generosity as a denomination and as a congregation has been on full display. 

As I have said in the past, the Lutheran Disaster Response and Lutheran World Relief have impeccable records when it comes to benevolence and generosity. 

Photo by July Brenda Gonzales Callapaza on Unsplash

So, we are willing to offer up our money and time but not our forgiveness, and one must wonder why and how this is? 

After all, can anyone truly dispute forgiveness as a call made to us by Christ? 

This word for forgiveness comes up in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the same way, roughly the same amount of times. 

It’s hard to find a biblical or theological way to maneuver around this call, yet…

We don’t seem all that motivated to follow this teaching. 

What exactly is it that we don’t want to unpack? 

What is it that we don’t want to give up?

The sad reality is that when we fail to forgive, we actually aren’t giving up anything, we are taking on far more than we are giving up. 

Forgiveness isn’t the act of condoning a wrong that has been committed. It doesn’t excuse the actions taken by the culprit. It doesn’t even imply that we forget the action. 

Forgiveness also doesn’t grant a legal pardon from the actions taken, because someone who commits a wrong action can still be held accountable by the law in spite of the forgiveness granted. 

It doesn’t even restore the possibility of a relationship or reconciliation. 

It is merely the act of releasing our grasp on the offense made against us. 

Letting the offense go, and unpacking the need for vengeance that we carry around in our already overloaded lives. 

~

Today, one of the largest industries in our nation, a growing and booming business is the industry known as debt buying. 

With the cost of medical treatment, credit cards, mortgages, and student loans, the opportunity to live debt free is nearly impossible. 

Given the massive amount of debt, many creditors sell off their debt to debt buying companies that purchase household debt for mere pennies on the dollar. 

At times, purchasing 100 billion dollars of household debt for a mere 35 million dollars. 

These companies then take that debt and attempt to collect it. 

As you can imagine, some of these companies use any means necessary, threatening those whose debt they hold with legal rulings and foreclosures, oftentimes only accruing further debt among their debtors. 

A debt that many will only sink farther and farther into. 

And so many of these debt buying companies are only creating further debt, in an attempt to profit. 

With current deregulation, the practice has become more profitable and less ethical, even purchasing the debt of the deceased and pressuring surviving families to pay it. 

In reading about this practice, I couldn’t help but wish that the means of their collecting were frozen or revoked, 

So that these companies found themselves holding the debt they've purchased, buried beneath the very same thing as those they hope to profit from. 

After all, THEY bought it!

~

When we refuse to forgive sin, we become debt buying agencies, without any means to collect on those debts. 

Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

And that is the crushing weight that Jesus warns us about. 

Yet we seem to believe that our own debt to God is not all that weighty, nor are we ready to accept that those debts owed to us are all that minor. 

And if that is our mindset, then this parable, this teaching, and the forgiveness offered to us through Jesus Christ doesn’t really end up mattering all that much. 

Because the grace first offered to us is meant to evoke the response of a FRACTION of that grace in our own lives. 

JUST A FRACTION!

It doesn’t mean we forgive EVERY sin committed to us, it means we remember that every sin committed is committed to God first and foremost. 

It is therefore a debt owed first and foremost to God, IF we are willing to let go of it and not be crushed under its USELESS weight!

But this text is hard. 

This past week as I was going through the Greek and reading a variety of scholarly views on this text, I found one consistent word of advice,

DO NOT PREACH ON THIS TEXT!

Even pastors are scared of this text, because for some reason we find this image of an enraged Lord holding us accountable in the same way this servant is held accountable a horrifying prospect. 

We find that image of God terrifying, but the real question is why we are not enraged by the extortion portrayed in this text. 

The extortion we witness inflicted on one another.

The extortion that we ourselves inflict when we daily hold to the debts of others' sins against us. 

Because I will remind you that our most revered prayer contains the plea that God “Forgive our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us”.

This text is clear, no matter how you spin it, so I cannot apologize for what I have said or what it says. 

This text is God’s Word and there is a tremendous word of grace in the law we are given. 

It is a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven and it has some pretty good advice about what to carry with you. 

If you want to carry the trash and filth of other’s debts, that is your choice.

But remember, those bags are filled with other people’s sins against us and at least we have the choice to let the bag go. 

At least we have the choice, He had no choice. 

Because

The only way we could ever fully recognize God’s love for us was on a cross planted in the middle of a landfill of our own sin. 

Amen

Photo by Celestine Ngulube on Unsplash

Sources

"Rubber Stamp Justice." Human Rights Watch. June 06, 2017. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/20/rubber-stamp-justice/us-courts-debt-buying-corporations-and-poor.


"September 17, Ordinary 24A (Matthew 18:21–35)." The Christian Century. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/september-17-ordinary-24a-matthew-1821-35.


"The Overweight Infantryman." Modern War Institute. January 09, 2017. Accessed September 14, 2017. https://mwi.usma.edu/the-overweight-infantryman/.

Finding Our Place in Line

Matthew 16:21-28

Photo by Paul Dufour on Unsplash

An attendant at a busy airline desk was frantically attempting to assist a number of airline passengers who were trying to check in, following a cancelled flight. 

As the attendant was helping the frustrated passengers, one irate customer toward the end of the line began weaving through the line toward the front. 

After storming to the front of the line, dropping his bags, and slamming his palms against the counter, he demanded that the attendant immediately issue him a new boarding pass and transport him directly to the gate. 

In shock, the attendant just stared at him blankly, then after a few moments took a deep breath, looked him in the eye and exclaimed; 

“Sir, as you can see, there are a number of passengers that were waiting ahead of you. I apologize for the inconvenience but if you can just wait patiently like everyone else I will get to you as soon as possible. Please, get back in line.”

Enraged by this response, the irate customer slammed his fist on the counter and shouted; “Do you know who I am!”

Calmly, the attendant leaned forward and pulled the PA microphone toward their face and announced; 

“There is a Delta customer at the outgoing flights check in desk who is unsure of who he is, if there is anyone who can identify this individual, and help him back to his place in line, please step forward. Thank you for flying Delta!”

I don’t like waiting in lines. 

In fact, I have a tendency to avoid lines altogether. 

I tend to eat last during cookouts and church functions. 

Some of you may have noticed this. 

The lines I experienced in the military were so long and frustrating that I vowed I would avoid lines at whatever the cost upon returning home. 

Some lines are unavoidable though, like a Harris Teeter check out line just before cyclone ten strikes Virginia Beach. 

But sometimes you have to consider the up side to those long lines.

It gives you the opportunity to take a few test nibbles of the cookies in your cart, 

Catchup on the latest gossip in the magazine racks, cause it's always nice to know who has given birth to the latest half bat - half child in Arkansas.

You can even test your will power by staring at that half pound Reese cup until your turn to check out comes; it truly is the ultimate test of willpower. 

But why do we despise lines sooo much?

Because, when we look up and down the length of a long line, we always know that somehow or someway, we are more important than everyone else waiting ahead of us. 

This is how we all feel in check out lines, airports, even in lines when we are waiting to board a ride in an amusement park on vacation.

And here in Virginia Beach, we all know how it feels waiting in line whenever we are waiting to pass through that tunnel. 

Always the tunnel, right?

Photo by Nabeel Syed on Unsplash

~

Today’s gospel immediately follows Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession to Christ that we heard last week. 

But the most significant part of that story is the place in line bestowed upon Peter. 

Peter hears the Lord proclaim that upon that ROCK, the Lord will build the church. 

Now, the rock spoken of could signify either the literal rock they are standing on at that given time, the cliff above the shrine where the pagan god Pan was worshipped

Or

It could signify the confession that is made by Peter, declaring Jesus to be the Messiah, and the Son of the living God. 

Or 

It could signify Simon Peter himself, whose name Peter literally means rock. 

It could mean all three, and for Matthew there is significance to all three of these approaches to this text. 

But what is most important about this text is that Peter, and we, forget what is said about this place in line. 

Jesus declares that the church WILL BE built on that rock. 

Jesus declares that the keys to heaven WILL BE given to Peter.

Jesus does not declare that these things have taken place or that they are taking place at that particular time, 

He declares that those things WILL take place. 

But Peter puts the cart before the horse, weaving his way to the front of the pack, assuming that he is a pretty big wheel among the disciples.

But as my father has always warned me, be careful of big wheels because big dogs always pee on big wheels. 

Peter assumes his position a bit prematurely without realizing the threat this assumption poses to Jesus’ own ministry. 

The account of Peter’s confession at Caesarea of Philippi marks a shift in Jesus’ ministry. 

He has completed his ministry in Galilee and he is now beginning the final leg of his journey

TOWARD Jerusalem

TOWARD the Temple

TOWARD courts that will condemn him

TOWARD Golgotha and the cross that will be planted there.

So, while Peter sees an opportunity to inch toward the front of the line, he not only does so a bit prematurely but he goes a bit too far. 

Placing himself between Jesus and Jerusalem both literally and figuratively as a stumbling block. 

Because Jesus cannot be declared the Messiah and face such a demise as this, and Peter knows that there is nothing in scripture that will substantiate a claim of a persecuted Messiah. 

And while I do not want to discredit Peter’s authentic care and love for our Lord, let there be no doubt, this serves as a double edged blade to Peter, 

Not only endangering Jesus’ role as THE Christ, but endangering Peter’s role as THE rock. 

Peter tempts Jesus with a detour

A detour away from Jerusalem and a detour around the cross. 

The same detour that tempts Christ when he is tested in the wilderness, the same detour that tempts Christ in the garden on the eve of his crucifixion. 

~

Jackie Robinson is a national icon. 

And it could be debated as to whether he is a national icon because of his role as a baseball player or because of his role as a civil rights leader. 

I hate to say it but this makes me kind of sad, because I admire Jackie for his role as a Brooklyn Dodger.

I admire Jackie Robinson for his role as part of that team. 

Jackie Robinson said very little about being the first black man in baseball. 

He said very little about much of anything. 

He was relatively soft spoken and went out of his way to draw very little attention to himself. 

Jackie wasn’t really even a flashy ballplayer. 

He didn’t play in a way that drew attention to himself or declared him the leader of that team. 

He solidified his place in baseball by being a member of the team, an integral piece of that group of ballplayers that became the finely tuned, well oiled machine, that won the pennant in '47, '49, '52, and '53 before winning the World Series in 1955. 

He took his place among the other members of his team, not by putting himself in the front of the line but by pushing his fellow ballplayers to the front of the line, all the way to home plate, 

leading the league in sacrifice hits and stolen bases, driving his teammates home for scoring runs 48 times in his first year!

The Dodgers, including (from left) Wayne Terwilliger, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Preacher Roe, Chuck Dressen and Carl Erskine, celebrate in the clubhouse after defeating the Phillies in 14 innings to tie the Giants for first place in the National League on Sept 30, 1951 Charles Payne/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

And he did it all while being called every name in the book, names so vile and offensive that I have spent most of my life believing they would remain a thing of the past, until this year. 

The most beautiful thing about this team was the bond that grew between the other players and Jackie. 

It took time but they became well known as more than just a team, they became a family. 

In the film "42", which depicts the first year of Jackie’s career, Harrison Ford plays Branch Ricky, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who brought Jackie into the Major Leagues in 1947. 

In one scene Ricky and Harold Parrott, the Dodger’s publicity chief, are meeting in the general manager’s office where Parrott has been infuriated by the vile things that are being said publicly about Jackie. 

As Parrott concludes outlining his plans of physical violence against the Phillies dugout in their upcoming game, Ricky just laughs.

To which Parrott questions “Did I say something funny?”

Ricky responds by stating,

“When I first told you about Robinson, Harold, you uh, you were against it. Now all of a sudden, you’re worried about him. I wonder how that happened?”

He then explains exactly how when he states; 

“Sympathy, Harold. It’s a greek word, it means to suffer. 'I sympathize with you’ means ‘I suffer with you’ and that Philadelphia manager, he’s doing me a service, he’s creating sympathy on Jackie’s behalf.”

Then Ricky follows up this observation with another observation of complete irony, explaining that Philadelphia is also a greek word that means “brotherly love”.

In his autobiography, Harold Parrott confessed that the moment when a fellow Dodger, Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Jackie during warmups before his Kentucky hometown crowd in Cincinnati, it was a turning point. 

It was a turning point because no one wanted to cut Jackie in line anymore, no one wanted to send Jackie to the back of the line anymore, and Pee Wee Reese was booed by his hometown crowd because he was willing to take Jackie’s cross onto his own shoulders.

And that was what made the Dodgers the powerhouse team of the 40’s and 50’s. 

No one carried their own cross, they carried one another’s. 

~

Sisters and brothers, I try my best to point to that cross every Sunday. 

This is intentional, because the gospel points to that cross every single time we hear it. 

And today, in most congregations you will hear a call to pickup your own crosses but if that is what we hear we’ve missed the most important call of them all in this text. 

We are called to deny ourselves first. 

We are called to stop standing by and proclaiming “Oh well, that doesn’t effect me!”

We are called to stop looking down the line and finding out how we can inch our way ahead of the next one in line. 

We are called to stop pushing those we feel are pulling us down or are the root of our problems to the back of the line. 

We are called to deny the urge to put ourselves before others, regardless of whether we know them, we like them, or we think we have anything in common with them

Peter and the other disciples are called to deny themselves if they intend to follow Jesus, and this word for deny only comes up in Matthew’s Gospel three more times. 

Matthew Chapter 26 in verses 34, 35, and 75. 

Anybody wanna guess what the context is?

It isn’t Peter’s denial of himself, it is the warning and acknowledgement of Peter’s denial of Jesus as he is sentenced to death. 

The Denial of Saint Peter, by Caravaggio 1610 (PD)

Peter, the disciples, and we are called to deny ourselves the same way that Peter denied Jesus. 

WOW!

Tell me that doesn’t make you want to check the footnotes or hold your nose through the rest of the service

And I’ll be honest with you, I’m not entirely comfortable with it either. 

Don’t think that just because I’m a pastor I don’t want to push others to the back of the line or inch myself up closer to the front. 

But if we value our own lives above all other things and people, can we ever truly know anything that may be of equal or greater beauty than ourselves?

What would this world look like if it looked exactly like what I see in the mirror daily?

In all honesty, it would look pretty useless and bland, because I know that I am not the pinnacle of God’s creative power and in order to fully see that, I may need to find a way to be comfortable in the back of the line… for once. 

Amen

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter (1601) by Caravaggio (PD)

Sources


Helgeland, Brian. 42. Directed by Brian Helgeland Burbank, California: Warner Brothers, 2013. DVD.

Krell, David. "Harold Parrott: The Lord of Baseball Public Relations » The Sports Post." The Sports Post. February 01, 2014. Accessed August 31, 2017. https://thesportspost.com/harold-parrott-the-lord-of-baseball-public-relations/.