SUNDAY SERMON

August 22, 2004
Proper 16, Year C

Church of the Holy Communion
The Rev. Gary D. Jones

Gospel: Luke 13:22-30

A few days ago, I was in the grocery store and a mom was having a hard time getting the attention of her child. She told her small son to put a bag of candy back on the shelf and follow her, they were leaving.

Nothing. The child showed no interest or inclination to put the candy back on the shelf, and he certainly wasn't thinking about leaving.

And that's when the mom started counting. If he didn't come by the time she got to three, there were going to be consequences. "One," she said. The child might as well have been deaf. "Twooooo," she said, stretching it out. I glanced at the child, I saw he was more committed to the candy than ever, and I decided it was time for me to leave. I knew what was coming, and I couldn't bear to hang around and witness it. And sure enough, although I managed to get two aisles over, I still heard it when it happened. It's what the New Testament calls "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

I remember it all too well from the time when our boys were little. I'd ask them to do something. Put away your toys and clean your room. Go get ready for your bath. Put on your pajamas and brush your teeth. … And nothing would happen. So, sometimes I would start the counting routine, just like that mom in the grocery store. Only, when I got to two, if they still weren't moving, I'd add a little commentary to the counting: "I'm getting closer… You don't have much more time …. two and a half, … you better get moving, … two and three quarters, …."

I know my boys remember it well, because they are frequently telling me that when our third child came along, and she was a girl, … "Suddenly, Dad, the rules seemed to change." They accuse me of being an Old Testament dad of wrath and judgment when they were little, and a New Testament dad of grace and forgiveness when Caroline was born.

An underlying theme of this morning's Gospel lesson is this theme of judgment. There will be a time, Jesus seems to say, when God finally says, "That's it! Time's up! I warned you. The door is now shut."

It's as if God is counting; God is going to get to the end one day; the door is going to be shut, and there will be pain and agony for those who are shut out and pleading to be let in. This is a powerful image.

And this experience of being shut out, of having the door closed on us, can seem so cruel and can cause such tremendous pain that we might wonder why Jesus talked about the door to the Kingdom ever being closed under any circumstances. Shouldn't the door to God, the door to the Kingdom, the door to the church, always be left open?

Ideally, I think the answer is yes. But there are times in our lives when only a closed door, or something equally severe, can bring us to our senses and make a radical and necessary change in our lives.

In fact, sometimes the worst thing we can do for someone we love is leave the door open when it really should be shut. A child continues to use drugs, a friend continues to gamble and fritter away his paycheck, or a spouse persists in an extra-marital affair - if this sort of thing continues and we leave the door open, we may in effect be helping this person to destroy himself. Tolerance can kill.

But this is where far too many Christians stop in their thinking about God and sin and salvation, and the results are often disastrous - we become experts at judgment, at closing the door and throwing away the key. We're good at this sort of thing, and it's not too surprising that we project our inclinations onto God.

Maybe it's true that God, like a loving parent, has been coaxing us along, constantly trying to get our attention through prophets and martyrs, through the beauty of creation and the experiences of love and forgiveness. And maybe, as God has noticed our ambivalence to holiness and has warned us about our self-destructive tendencies, maybe God has started counting. There will be consequences if we continue in our destructive ways … One, … Two, ….

So, the question is, what will happen when God finishes counting and says, "That's it. The door is shut." Then what?

Based on a simplistic and literal reading of the Bible, here's what millions of Americans appear to be drawn to believe. The most recent novel in the best-selling "Left Behind" series describes what happens when God finishes counting. Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire. The novel reads:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. In the most recent of these novels, Jesus merely speaks and the bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive carefully, the novel says, to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses." The novel continues:

"The riders [who were] not thrown leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated. … Seconds later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing, before they too rattled to the pavement."

To be honest, what the writers of the Left Behind series reveal to me is that we human beings are very good at imagining retribution and judgment. Somehow, we even seem to relish it at times. But what we have a harder time fathoming is the mystery of the cross. The mystery of love that ultimately forgives, because God realizes Jesus was right when he prayed, "Forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing."

We understand and even relish punishing our adversaries, but we have a hard time fathoming the mystery of turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, and loving our enemies. And when I take into account the whole of Jesus' life and ministry, along with my own experience of God in Christ, I come up with a very different picture from that of the popular Left Behind series.

I believe there is some real pain involved in growing up spiritually. I understand the concept of weeping and gnashing of teeth from personal experience, just as my children understand it. There are times in our lives when a door is shut on us, and we finally realize we just weren't paying attention to all the signs and warnings, and we are left pleading on the other side of a shut door. I know about weeping and gnashing of teeth. But the popular quip speaks an important truth: Religion is for people who are scared to death of hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

One thing my children know deep in their bones is that even though there are going to be times of weeping and gnashing of teeth, even though there will be tears and pain in times of punishment, there will always, always, always be something more. The experience of a door being shut, an opportunity lost, is one of the most devastating of all human experiences. But there is something even more powerful - we call it resurrection.

I think my children know something about this reality that is more powerful than the shut door, because my children know that even though the shut door is painful, they will always eventually snuggle up in my loving arms again. By faith, they know that tears might be the final emotion, but they will be tears that come from love and forgiveness. And here's what Jesus says elsewhere in this same Gospel: If you who are evil know how to give such good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give to his children. (Luke 11:13)

Maybe God is counting: "One, … two, …." And the point of the counting is that he expects us to stop playing God ourselves, because we're not good at it. We're good at judgment and punishment and retribution - these things are like candy to us. But the divine attributes of unlimited love and forgiveness are often beyond us. Two and a quarter, … two and three eighths, … "Stop playing God," Jesus says. "Put that bag of judgment and condemnation back on the shelf, and follow me. Two and a half, … Come on, we're leaving now, … two and three-quarters, …."

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