Simul Justus Et Piccaator

A Reflection for VIII Pentecost                                        All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. July 30, 2017                                                                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Genesis 29:15-28     Psalm 128     Romans 8:26-39    Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

SIMUL JUSTUS ET PECCATOR

There is a 1939 W.C. Fields movie called “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” which has Fields’ character, Larson E. Whipsnade, the owner of a disreputable circus, declare, “As my dear old grandfather Litvak said (just before they swung the trap), he said "You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump."

My father, who was a big Fields’ fan, and worried that I might be too gullible, used to quote the first part of that line as he would warn me “if something seems too good to be true, it is.” The problem with being a Christian is that swindlers assume you are not too bright, and you will fall for anything. The other problem with being a Christian is that we are a combination of saint and sinner at the same time or, as Luther says, “Simul Justus et Peccator”. 

 

In the Hebrew Testament story for today, the Jacob saga continues with Jacob, the swindler, liar, cheat, and all around no good excuse of a human being trying to save himself from the vengeance of those people to whom he lied, cheated, and swindled. He arrives at a cousin’s tent and falls in love with his cousin’s daughter named Rachel. Her father, Laban, sees how Jacob is smitten with Rachel and wonders what to do with this guest and decides a way to get some work out of him. Notice how he starts off: “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Laban knows that Jacob is not an honest man and can be easily cheated. He also knows that Jacob’s love for Rachel has turned Jacob into a potential chump. He knows that if Jacob is a “hired hand” the daughters would be out of reach, and Jacob wants to stay in the running for Rachel’s hand. Laban figures that this way he can free help from Jacob for just room and board. The plan succeeds so well that, when it is time to pay Jacob off with Rachel, Laban knows that there is no need to “smarten the chump” and there is time for one more swindle. The wedding feast takes place as the bride is veiled, as was the custom. The glasses of wine flow freely, and Jacob is three sheets to the wind and wakes up the next morning snuggling next to Rachel’s older sister instead of Rachel. Laban says, “The rules of the house did not specify which daughter, but since I am such a good guy, just work for me for seven more years and we will call it even”. The con man has been conned, the cheater cheated, and the swindler swindled. We don’t know how much Rachel knew about the arrangement, but what will happen later in the Jacob mythic saga is that Rachel will be just as manipulative as her sister, and this manipulative gene will be passed on to all of Jacob’s children. The sins that we do will have consequences.

Yet as lousy as they are, these are the people that God will use to bring God’s love to all the world. Doesn’t that sound too good to be true - that people who are sinners can be people who God uses to give blessings? In the Gospel, Jesus tells of things that seem too good to be true in the Kingdom of the Heavens. Jesus says that the tiny mustard seed grows into a tree in which the birds of the air nest. He marvels at how a little bit of yeast leavens the whole lump. He says that there may be hidden treasures in all of us that God alone sees and treasures.

Many times I have people come to me after they have been beating themselves up, finding fault in their whole being. The more we talk, the more we see that they have done some lousy thing by thought, word, or deed. They are afraid that, if it were found out that they had done or thought these things, people would hate them. Usually, if it is just an offending thought, I pass on the words of a desert father: “You can’t stop the birds of the air from flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your beard.” If it is a deed that concerns them, then I suggest that they go through the process of finding the person who they have harmed and ask forgiveness, making amends and, if possible, working for reconciliation. 

 

This is not an easy process. It’s hard and it hurts and sometimes it involves weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as the Gospel tells us. When Jesus was preaching, he saw himself as participating at the end of the age, the age where we think there is a difference between heaven and earth. If we indeed pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then it begins with us when we participate in the granting of grace to each other and ourselves. Jesus asked, “Do you understand these things?”, and they said “Yes”, and Jesus said, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Life is short and we do not have much time”, as the end of our service remind us. 

 

We always arrive back at Grace and Luther’s “Simul Justus et Peccator”. Luther came up with that phrase to remind us that we are always in the need of Grace, the unearned love of God because we are not always good. Luther had spent all of his life trying to be perfectly “good” - and failing. Then Luther saw God in a different way and kept coming back to the Letter to the Romans where Paul, who had tried to be perfect, found that he was given Grace rather than perfection and proclaims that God’s Spirit groans within us to accept that loving Grace into our lives:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

SIMUL JUSUS ET PECCATOR

God’s breath sweeps through me

Still breaking commands more than once

Yet angels still sing through me.

Reflection and Poem in Celebration of Mary Denaro's Life

A Reflection on the Occasion of a Service To Celebrate Mary Denaro's Life July 24, 2017

All Saints, Southern Shores, NC Thomas E Wilson, Preacher

Psalm 23 John 14:1-6

In My Father's House There Are Many Dwelling Places

We recited the 23^rd Psalm today from the King James Version of the Bible because that was the version that many of us memorized when we were in Sunday school and it stayed in our memory - except sometime as we get older, there are memory lacunae, gaps, holes that open up. I had one last week when Stephen, our Seminary Intern, and I were at Mary's bedside and I entered the Psalm with confidence until, three lines in - my mind went blank and I picked it up a couple lines later. I was humbled because in my arrogance I wanted to portray myself to the Seminarian as a professional on top of my game. I have said that Psalm, that version, thousands of times, but suddenly it was like walking across a floor made out of Swiss cheese. Indeed I am an old man who cannot make it all by myself and need the help of a Shepherd, and the LORD is there to supply that need on a daily basis. The King James Version gives me that assurance for we know that the Psalm is a beautiful poem full of majestic language that uses the metaphor of Shepherd and sheep as a way to describe a daily relationship with God. We know that the metaphor is not to be taken literally but as poetic truth. As we were there with Mary, trying to be a comforting presence for her, I was faced with the deeper truth behind the poetry - that all of us in that room need a table being set for us in the presence of our enemies and a power greater than ourselves to make it through the day. And so it is for all of us in this room.

The King James Version of the Bible came about because there were splits in the Church of England over which version of the Bible was to be used for public worship. The Official Version was the Bishop's Bible which used much of the translation by William Tyndale. However many of the Puritans preferred to use the Geneva Bible which was a translation using the Calvinist tendency, especially in the margin notes. This was the Bible used by King James when he went to church when he was King James VI of Scotland. That particular translation did not look kindly on Kings, and Kings of Scotland were seen as very junior partners in the ruling of the country by the Presbyterian clergy establishment They kept James under a short leash. When Queen Elizabeth died, James VI of Scotland was offered the English throne as James I of England. James took the job because it paid a lot more and he, like Elizabeth, would be freer from clerical oversight and control.

One of the first thing he did was to call for a new version of the Bible which would be helpful for him. The committees he chose were packed more with poets than theologians. James wanted a book that used majestic language which would be helpful for him to reflect the King's majesty. James' view, a view unpopular in Presbyterian Scotland, was of a “Divine Right of Kings” who were God's representatives on Earth. The English translators, knowing which side their bread was buttered on, made choices that would be most pleasing for James. For instance, the word from John's Gospel used for “dwelling places” in the Greek means a place where someone abides, which could mean a house or even a tent. It was translated as “Mansions”. It is a majestic word for a majestic building. Since James saw himself as God's representative on earth, he hoped when the people would look at any of his castles they would know that he and God were close. He hoped his subjects would venerate him as King and accept their station of life, and after death, there would be a chance for an upgrade reward if you were good in this life. The version we used today, the New Revised Standard Version, returns to the more faithful translation.

I don't think that Jesus meant to separate God's dwelling places from this life to the next, but was saying that wherever we are, there also is God. On the occasion of this saying of Jesus, he is asked by his disciples where he is going. He reminds them that his whole life work was to help us remember that God's house is everywhere. Wherever two or three are gathered together, God is in the midst of us. Jesus life, death, and ministry is to prepare a place for us so that will know that God is not somewhere up there above the clouds but here, “on earth as it is in heaven”. There is no God-forsaken place in all of God's creation, even on the cross. The cross is a place where Jesus shows us that we may feel so alone that you cry out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” The resurrection says that being forsaken is a feeling, not a fact.

Mary knew that God was with her. God was there in the space between them whenever Frank and she loved each other. God was there when she grew up with her parents she loved. God was there when she cared for her children and grandchildren. God was there when she went to work or came home. God was there in church and even in the middle of a bridge game. God was there in the middle of the losses of her life as she went through all the valleys of the shadow of death she passed through with friends and family. There were, of course, times she shared when she had a hard time feeling that presence; feelings come and go, but the presence of God is always there. God's presence is in this life and in the next or, as the Psalmist puts it “surely goodness and mercy shall follow her all the days of her life: and she will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever”.

We are to live this life abundantly with the presence of God in every part of our lives and to follow our Lord Jesus through the gate of death where life changes and continues in a whole new dimension of life fully in God's presence.

The obituary suggests different ways to remember Mary, but I ask you to remember Mary by telling stories about her and how she touched you with her life. Share how God was with you both in the space between you as you laughed or cried within the context of love. The presence of God is not a reward given for good behavior but it is a fact of the depth of our very existence.

In My Father's House There Are Many Dwelling Places

The Preacher rotes and drones the familiar words

without the fabled mansions as King James rests

one more time before beginning the prayer requests,

one last time Mary's name enters in parish records.

God's dwelling places were in every moment's sigh

when mourning her beloved husband and parents

or laughing at their joy of finally paying the rents

knowing that all could be gone in blink of an eye.

Mary knew that nothing lasts forever, except love,

for love keeps the name alive to tell again the story

when she has already gone, moving to new territory

where our puny imagination casts away its glove

on that day when our eyes can see that always

God is dwelling in space between us in all ways.

If Jacob's Were My Dream

Again I am not preaching in order to give our Intern the third opportunity for the summer before he returns to Seminary for his Senior Year.  However I wrote a poem which spoke to the Hebrew Testament Lesson about Jacob's dream of angels and descending from Heaven. Jacob was running away after swindling his brother and father. On the way to shelter at his uncle's campsite he sleeps on the ground using a stone for a pillow and has the dream.It is my habit to post a question for the congregation to ponder before the service begins.

Question for 23 July: What has God been saying in your dreams?

If Jacob’s Were My Dream

But this isn’t right; sins call for damnation,

stern look, freezing glance, burning threat;

all are appropriate as chasing of a bad debt

not the soft caresses of seeming adoration.

Now God’s house fills the space between us;

once fleeing from my sins to places unknown

resting on rocks where pillows can be stone

where flowing love brings new blessing thus.

God’s angel arms wrapped round holding tight

until our ragged breaths join in becoming one,

 deep inhaling of the oaths we shared and done

as new dawn’s rosy fingers call an end to night. 

When divine truths shimmer in unbidden dreams

they can show new starts washed in love streams.

Poem for 16 June

The Genesis story for this Sunday  are three conflicts between Jacob and Esau in utero,, then after birth for the affection of their parents and then for the food. It reminded me of the times we all are called to make choices.

Which Way Will I Choose?

Rebekah cried: “If it is this way, why do I live?”

Two forces wrestling within her for dominance.

Who has control; these two gifts of Providence

inside my being to which shall I my hope give?

Like she, within me struggles to make choice

One hints at adventures to find myself anew

breaking me away, free from same old glue

of the familiar routine with that alluring voice.

The other calls me to choose the trodden path

where we have walked together for oh so long

resting in her every familiar curves of her song

echoing down memories like a nice warm bath.

Each choice promises sharing an almost holy gift

to untangle a future that is coming much too swift.

Monday Morning Dismissal

A Reflection for V Pentecost (Proper 9)                             All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC

July 9, 2017                                                                             Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67         Psalm 45: 11-18                   Romans 7:15-25a           Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Monday Morning Dismissal

Over the years, I have observed that there are times when someone comes to a decision about making a change in their life and affirms the need for God's help in making that change at Sunday morning worship. Then comes Monday morning, and fear starts to come into play. We see that God will not magically change that person, place, or thing, but that the real change with God's help has to come from within; we have to change and we are not sure we want to open up that can of worms. On Monday morning we dismiss God and send God back to the bench where the Divine is supposed to wait patiently for the next order. No change means no change.

When we do not change, we become like the children referred to in the passage from Matthew. Jesus observed them playing in the marketplace. They were playing at copying adult behavior, doing pretend weddings and pretend funerals, and they complained that the adults don’t seem to take them seriously and do not join in the dance or the mourning. Jesus suggests that the adults probably don’t look at the deeper reality of the events of their daily lives with the presence of God. For all intents and purposes, they have restricted the presence of God to religious ceremonies where every day seems to be a Monday morning dismissal..

We continue the Abrahamic saga today with another story about Isaac, the son of the promise. You may remember that in the lesson from last week Abraham bound Isaac for sacrifice and pulled a knife on him. I think we can say that this had a traumatic effect on the boy. This week's story begins with Isaac no longer living in his father's tent - surprise, surprise.   He is growing up - if we follow the Biblical chronology, he is about 40 - and it is past time for him to change his life from mourning his mother's death five years before. It is time for him to start his own family in order to keep the promise. He is in deep mourning for his mother so he does not go out looking for himself; indeed Abraham limits his choices and sends his servant to visit the old homestead and find a cousin for Isaac to marry.

The servant is a holy man and he asks for God's help in finding the right woman for Isaac. He is looking for someone who can welcome a stranger and who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. She has to be a tough woman who has compassion, someone who can help Isaac grow up, stand on his own two feet, and move on from his mother's shadow and the fear of his father. He finds her and gives her the freedom to choose instead of leaving it all up to her family, for she knows that God is working in her life to make a change. On the long camel ride back to Isaac's tent, I wonder if she had any moments of hesitation?  Later on in the saga, she will have a Monday Morning Dismissal in collusion with her favorite son, Jacob, to hijack the father’s blessing from Esau..

Tom Ehrich, an Episcopal Priest and church consultant who was here a number of years ago to help us look at our church, did a meditation on the 4^th of July using today’s Gospel passage from Matthew.  He looked at our checkered history as a nation and how we tend not to look at it too closely because it is too painful to comprehend. He mentioned how our ancestors came to this country to find religious freedom and then tried to deny that freedom to others, how they came to find freedom and then enslaved others, how they longed for freedom from a rigid class system and then worked to stack the deck against others in order to maintain their social position.  I would call them Monday Morning Dismissals from the American Dream. Ehrich said: “We are like the people who shouted against John the Baptist because they didn’t like his asceticism, and they shouted against Jesus because they didn’t like his freedom. In the end, they were simply shouters out to preserve their small worlds.”

Monday Morning Dismissals happen when we try to live in our small worlds where there is no place for God. We tend to have a habit of trying to avoid what we do not want to see and, as the euphemism goes, ask the government to use “extreme prejudice” to get rid of them as a way of avoiding the fear- filled need to change, as in the case of John the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth. Sometimes we try to avoid the announcers of the change that we fear. If we have the power, we might try to fire them or, if we don't have that power, we run away and make a geographical change. The problem is that if we take ourselves with us, only the scenery will change. Sometimes in our inability to avoid, we find scapegoats and place our blame – and project our fear - onto them.

Over a half century ago when I finished my sophomore year in college, I had a job working in a play during the summer. Shows were at night followed by a party or two, and the days were free to hang out on the beach with no thought of skin cancers because nothing bad was ever going to happen to me. On the beach my girlfriend and I became friendly with a cartoonist and his family. One of the cartoons he sold to Playboy Magazine was of a South Seas island setting where the natives are gathered before the fearsome huge native idol. The leader of the tribe was saying something like, “Oh Great Calabonga; this will be our last sacrifice, the last time we will be meeting with you, for next week will be joining the Methodists.”

That year was one of the years that I fired God as my Supreme Being because I was dissatisfied with the Divine performance. The whole idea of God was getting in my way, and I figured that God was not a concept of which I needed to be burdened. There had been a part of me that had been considering ordained ministry, but I thought that maybe having a relationship with God might need to be a pre-requisite for ordination. For the next 15 years I would make several attempts at giving God part-time work on my behalf; everybody needs to be kept busy. But there came a time when I realized that while I was so full of myself, I was actually an empty shell, and I really heard the words of this Gospel lesson: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

I also really heard the line from Paul’s letter to the Romans where Paul relates his life: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” I wish I could say that there was one moment when it all made sense and I never returned to the practice of giving God a pink slip, but there are still times when I am made painfully aware of the need for me to change and I don't want to, and the desire for issuing a Monday Morning Dismissal becomes tempting.

 Sometimes the desire for giving God walking papers comes in the form of delusions of how change might be possible if I do a geographic cure and retire to become a beachcomber. Other times I get all worked about something to take my mind off the change because nothing feels better than being “righteously angry” about something over which I have no control - because then I become distracted about things I do not want to control but can with God's help. It is at those late night moments when I am glad I don’t use Twitter and expose myself in all my weakness.  I may the only person in this room to feel like that but I will take a guess that I am not. Those moments are fleeting, and they usually only occur when I am made aware that I am called to take seriously listening to God instead of seeing God as my back-up plan.  Then the comfortable words comes to me: “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are  heavy laden and I will refresh you.” Wretched one that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Monday Morning Dismissal

I'm sorry God but I am going to have to let you go.

You've a habit of wanting to yin when I want yang.

You don't do enough to stop me the whole shebang

from messing up: should have hollered loud “whoa”!

But no you just burdened me with a vague oversight

of doing the loving thing and reaping consequences

as if I should have known about leaning on fences

might end up crossing the line to dumb from bright.

You seem not to understand that I don't want to change

either my habits or myself. Wanting to just get along

without burdens of making transformation for lifelong

commitment when have to my priorities daily rearrange.

I want to be free and you to be my pet advice contributor;

showing a reason words “god” and “dog” are so similar.”