While largely ignored by television news outlets, hundreds of thousands of people overflowed New York City streets during the recent People’s Climate March. Intended to draw public attention ahead of last week’s United Nations Climate Summit conference, this “largest ever” march demonstrated just how important dealing with global climate change is for many people. Yet polls indicate that one in four Americans remain deeply skeptical about how serious a problem global warming is -- though the preponderance of scientific opinion tells us that it’s becoming something of an existential issue for human civilization. Thus, it’s not something we can continue to sweep under the rug or allow our decision-makers to “kick the can down the road” on... even if that would be their preference, since there are no easy solutions. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Leah Lonsbury explores how we might view this issue in light of the parable Jesus tells in this week’s gospel passage. She suggests that we might think of ourselves as the tenants who are being delivered a metaphorical bill for our prosperity in the last few centuries. She asks us to consider if we will respond in a manner that reflects an understanding that we’re merely short-term tenants of a Creation that belongs to God (the landowner), or if we will respond like the tenants in the parable... repeatedly slaying inconvenient messengers as we greedily attempt to keep it all for ourselves. Leah notes that we need to remember that good stewardship of creation is the rent we pay to the landowner for the privilege we have of living on this earth -- and she asks us if we are prepared to fulfill our responsibilities, or if will we face the same fate as the tenants, who Jesus tells us will be put “to a miserable death” and will have “the vineyard [leased] to other tenants.”
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on the theme of how easily we follow the false idols of our secular culture. There’s rarely any shortage of candidates in the headlines, from greedy corporate overlords (and their political puppets) who sacrifice the common good on the altar of the quarterly bottom line, to spoiled celebrities and athletes (and their retinue of enablers) who exemplify the worst in human nature. As Mary points out, Psalm 19 reminds us of where we should look to take our cues in life -- and it’s not from those folks who normally populate our newsfeeds. But as Mary notes, it’s not just celebrities who can become false idols... we also make idols for ourselves out of cherished habits and beliefs. We need to peel away those comfortable layers -- and there’s no better checklist than the Ten Commandments for examining ourselves to see if we are living by God’s laws or if we’re following false idols.
Paying Up
by Leah Lonsbury
Matthew 21:33-46; Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Isaiah 5:1-7
The Earth... you may know it as that blue thing Bruce Willis is always trying to save. Or from its famous collaboration with Wind and Fire. Or just simply as that place where George Clooney lives.
That’s how John Oliver, host of HBO’s satirical news program Last Week Tonight, began a segment in May about a White House report that global warming is affecting us now -- that this is not some problem we can deal with down the road, in the future tense.
Oliver’s initial jokes soon gave way to serious incredulousness about Americans’ denial on the subject of climate change. This is his reaction to a report that one in four Americans still don’t believe it exists...
Who gives a s*&$? That doesn’t matter! You don’t need people’s opinions on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking “Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?” or “Do owls exist?” or “Are there hats?” The debate on climate change should not be whether or not it exists, it’s what we should do about it.
John Oliver knows we’ve been living large in the vineyard and that the rent is coming due.
Do we? Do our leaders? How aware are we as tenants on the earth enjoying God’s good creation that it is high time to return the good that has been given so generously to us? How will we respond? By killing the messenger and keeping the spoils of the earth’s goodness all to ourselves? What will it take for us to understand that careful and sacrificial stewardship of the good creation are the rent we pay to the Landowner for the privilege and gift of living on this earth? When and how will we pay up? And if we don’t, if we keep living as if 5 were really bigger than 15 and ignoring the Landowner’s requirements, are we prepared to pay the price the selfish and violent tenants pay in Jesus’ parable?
This week we’ll take a look at our position as tenants and our bill that has come due.
How will we respond? How should we respond?
We’ll sift through Jesus’ teaching in this parable for wisdom and look to the Ten Commandments and the prophet Isaiah for direction.
How are we commanded to pay our bill toward the benefit of all of God’s people, ourselves included?
What knocks us off track?
What leads us astray?
How must we fight that kind of deception and misdirection?
How can we begin paying up?
In the News
The turnout for the recent People’s Climate March in New York City was just as it was intended to be -- overwhelming. Hundreds of thousands of concerned world citizens filled the streets of the planned route. The next day, a smaller group confronted Wall Street by nonviolently occupying the steps of the New York Stock Exchange and blocking Broadway to send a message about “the system that both causes and profits from the crisis that is threatening humanity.”
The sheer size of the protest and the commitment of the marchers were intended to draw attention to the week’s United Nations Climate Summit, a purpose most of the mainstream media missed. Many outlets skipped the story altogether. Here’s the Huffington Post’s indictment of this media miss on the protest’s political intentions.
Well, so much for that idea. It seems climate change remains one potentially world-shattering issue that just can’t get any respect on television. No Sunday morning show except MSNBC’s Up so much as mentioned climate change, or the march, save for one stray reference on This Week by The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel. She pointed out that the march was actually gathering right outside the ABC studios in Lincoln Center where the show is taped.
NBC Nightly News was the only evening news show to do any segment on the march. (ABC devoted about 23 seconds to the topic in its evening show, and CBS spent exactly zero seconds on it.) Cable news, with the exception of Al Jazeera America, mostly looked the other way, besides a couple of segments on CNN and MSNBC.
Perhaps this “miss” is really more a revelation of American political, business, and media elites’ discomfort with a worldwide problem that has few clear or non-sacrificial solutions. After all, those who hold the reins in places of power in New York City and throughout the world have much to lose should someone start making them act like responsible tenants of the earth. It’s so much easier, so much more profitable to pretend not to notice and shirk responsibility when there are costs to pay for the gifts of the earth and the privileges the land affords.
Perhaps that’s why nothing much of note happened at the UN summit, and no one was really surprised. National Geographic puts it this way.
This week’s United Nations Climate Summit didn’t forge a new global strategy to stave off the most alarming effects of climate change, such as dramatic sea-level rise and extreme weather. But no one was expecting such a sweeping development from the Tuesday event.
National Geographic did concede that this summit was meant more as a warmup to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change that will happen 15 months from now in Paris. It’s there that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon intends to produce “a new global strategy on the issue.”
The effects of climate change are being felt now, but a commitment to real solutions keeps getting pushed down the road, around the corner, and into somebody else’s lap.
Even National Geographic’s “Three Key Takeaways” from the summit revealed the failure of those in positions of power and who benefit the most from the world’s riches to pay up when the bills for the success come due in the form of climate change and crisis. The first key takeaway wasn’t even about the summit meeting itself, it was about the People’s Climate March in the streets: “Our citizens keep marching,” President Barack Obama said in reference to the march during his weekly address. “We cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call.”
But it’s hard to hear that answer in another of National Geographic’s summit takeaways. It lauds the growing pressure the summit and the march put on rich nations to contribute to the Green Climate Fund, a pot of money meant to help poor countries invest in clean energy and mitigate the effects of climate change within their borders. France offered $1 billion. South Korea upped its pledge to $100 million. Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Luxembourg, and Indonesia also made pledges. The United States did not. Despite claiming the U.S.’s responsibility for climate change harm done in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries and saying this in his speech -- “We recognize our role in creating this problem. We embrace our responsibility to combat it.” -- Obama made no pledge for the U.S. to the Green Climate Fund.
The other takeaway from the summit reported by National Geographic was that more companies are recognizing that halting deforestation makes for good PR. Asia Pulp and Paper, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart, and Procter & Gamble along with 32 countries pledged to do their part to stop deforestation by 2030. National Geographic writes of this pledge: “This was largely an aspirational goal without consequences for failing to reach it. And one key country was missing from the list: Brazil, home to the Amazon rain forest.”
Not a very convincing argument for your “takeaway,” National Geographic. And this pledge doesn’t grow out of their sense of responsibility or their commitment to the well-being of the masses: “ ‘Consumers have sent companies a clear signal that they do not want their purchasing habits to drive deforestation, and companies are responding,’ said Paul Polman, chief executive officer of Unilever, a consumer products company.”
Consumers may have an emerging conscience and sense of what it takes to be better tenants of the earth, but it’s not clear the pledging companies do. Consumers mean profit, after all, and profit drives business.
And how about us, the people in the streets, many of us in our emission-producing cars and in our air-conditioned homes? What are we doing to recognize and protect the gift that is the vineyard? How are we returning at least a portion of the produce to the Landowner and those the Landowner loves?
Not enough, apparently. A synthesis report released this on Monday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society says that the heat wave in Australia last year was “largely attributable” to human-caused climate change. Heat waves in Japan, Korea, China, and Europe were also “substantially influenced” by human-caused global warming, according to the report. In fact, our impact on the earth and its health has become such a factor in meteorological studies that a new branch of climate-change study is emerging. Detection and attribution studies explores what experts know about extreme weather events and their link to climate change.
Online resource Science Pope writes about our culpability this way (and provides alarming photographic documentation):
The culprit? Economic growth and human consumption. Every year our economy grows, our population grows, and our standard of living increases. We consume more and more resources at a faster and faster rate, outstripping the earth’s ability to sustain us. We’re talking all kinds of resources here... fossil fuels, precious metals, but also fish in the sea, water for drinking, and arable land. Right now we’re in a period of overshoot... think Wile E. Coyote when he runs off a cliff. For a few comical moments he blinks and curiously scratches his head... right before realizing his predicament and crashing down to terra firma. Don’t look now, but we’re running in midair.
How might we claim our personal responsibility for the part we play in climate change and live differently so as to check the effects of economic growth and human consumption? Science Pope also provides resources and suggestions for “Easy -- At Your Leisure,” “Medium,” and “Heavy” engagement options. Be warned -- the language can be a little colorful at times.
In the Scriptures
How might our engagement be linked to the scriptures and our faithfulness to the One we claim to follow? Here are some thoughts...
1. Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah’s love song to the vineyard reminds us of God’s deep love and reverence for the vineyard -- the goodness and the gift of the earth and the beloved people who call it home. God lovingly cultivates and cares for the vineyard, and is devastated and enraged when those meant to direct its growth and thriving treat it poorly and cause it to issue in wild grapes. God expects our life together and the raw materials God has given us -- the earth and its riches -- to issue in justice and righteousness. Instead, the earth and its most vulnerable citizens are crying out and experiencing repeated devastation. God has done what God can do. (“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” Isaiah 5:4) Now we must act or continue to experience increasing devastation, brokenness, waste, choking overgrowth, and drought (vv. 5-6).
2. The tenants (religious leaders) in Jesus’ parable have no respect for the relationship of love, reverence, gratitude, and well-being that God is cultivating in our text from Matthew. They don’t cherish the land and its people, the Landowner, or the relationship between the two enough (or even at all), so they can’t or won’t uphold the cultural norms of this kind of lease. Emerson Powery writes of this for workingpreacher.org:
Culturally, the leasing of land to tenant farmers was a common experience in the first century. Landowners could expect tenants to turn over (a portion of) the crop (cf. 21:34). Those who failed to meet the landowner’s standards would be removed from the land and landowning elite could usually pay others to remove them forcefully if necessary.
In reality, many in Jesus’ audience would have understood the experience of the farmers all too well. If they chose not to “pay” the landowner, as was the case in Jesus’ parable, the landowner would find new tenants (cf. 21:41) without doubt.
Now is the time to honor what we know to be true -- that we are but tenants of this good earth, and we owe all the riches, advantages, and comforts we have gained from it to the One from whom all good flows. We know that continuing not to do so will cause us to be removed from the richness of the vineyard and cut off from its produce. Our inaction is already causing this to be true for those who live closer to the edge -- metaphorically and literally, in terms of economics and location.
3. Jesus speaks more clearly than he typically does about his own part in the chief priests’ and Pharisees’ (the tenants) rejection by referencing the landowner’s son and the cornerstone. He wants the religious leaders to be clear about whose directions they are failing to heed and the relationship they are refusing to honor. Jesus is also clear in talking about the son’s inheritance, that he knows that the leaders/tenants are acting out of their own hunger for power, privilege, and the benefits power and privilege provide. When we reject calls to live differently to honor the earth and its people (God’s earth and God’s people), we are disregarding God’s direct instructions in scripture and the example of the Son sent by God. We are also revealing our own hunger for power, privilege, and unearned riches, and valuing what fleeting gains we can grab over the inheritance God offers through the Son.
4. If we let the Son’s inheritance remain the Son’s inheritance and play our part in the vineyard, it will bless generations to come. If we grab it, guard it selfishly, exploit it for our own benefit, and bend it toward our own devious intents, then we produce only wild grapes instead of the sweetness and salvific nature of God’s intended harvest. This is true of our treatment of God’s land and God’s people. Like the grapes of the vineyard, God’s generous blessings rot in the hands of the tight-fisted few. Their tyranny spoils the gifts they act so rashly and violently to claim as solely theirs. Honoring and reflecting God’s careful generosity will grow the fruits of the whole kin-dom (v. 43) instead of causing ourselves and others to be stripped of the earth’s gifts, broken to pieces, and crushed (vv. 43-44).
5. The commandments given to us in our passage from Exodus model a good, healthy, and reverent posture when tending the earth, dealing with the distribution and care of its resources, and honoring the Landowner and those the landowner loves...
* Remain loyal and grateful to God, and show God honor through your living and care of God’s gifts.
* Keep Sabbath to help you do the above. Grant Sabbath to God’s entire creation.
* Honor those who went before by the way you take care of what they have built in cooperation with God. That will set you up to leave these gifts in good shape for those who are to come.
* Don’t kill, violate, steal, lie, or covet. Instead cherish the gifts of God -- the earth and God’s people. Know and honor them as just that -- gift.
In the Sermon
This week the preacher might consider...
* the kind of tenants we are, and the kind of tenants we are called to be. What must we change to move from one to another?
* how faithfulness and care of the earth are one and the same. And how following Jesus requires us to live differently, protect the earth, and its citizens.
* how we say one thing and do another about climate change (the example of the U.S. and President Obama in the first section could model this) and so many other aspects of our life and faithfulness.
* what we stand to lose if we act sacrificially and change our lives to put the brakes on climate change... and what we stand to lose if we don’t. How does this relate to a life of faith -- how does living for God mean trading our individualism, comfort, and privilege for what is right and good for the whole of God’s people and the earth God has given us for that common life?
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19
In middle school, we decorate our walls with posters of movie stars and pop musicians. In high school, we want the sneakers that sports stars promote. In college, we wait all night to buy tickets to a concert by our favorite band. At work, certain superstar performers catch our eye and we want to have the career they have.
There’s always someone who evokes our admiration, even loyalty, from afar. Not knowing them, we can make assumptions about their lives. We find them worthy of our devotion.
Things change fast, though. We like our idols simple. We assume that talent in sports makes someone an admirable human being, and then we’re surprised -- over and over -- to learn of our heroes’ flaws. We think that physical beauty translates into moral character, and are disappointed when our movie stars turn out to be selfish or shallow or boring. A popular weekly magazine offers a feature called “Stars -- They’re Just Like Us.” The pages feature pictures of celebrities pumping gas, buying vegetables, or walking dogs. Really, they’re not just like us, and we don’t want them to be. We like them distant and perfect.
People are easy idols for us, but ideas and habits can become idols for us too.
Our less tangible idols may come in the form of ideas, political views, a certain way of life, or even a sense of security. Church people easily slip from worshiping God to worshiping a particular way of serving communion, or a gift given by a long-gone church member, or a certain version of the hymnal or prayer book.
As John C. Holbert writes for Patheos.com, there are different ways to number the commandments, and “I choose the traditional Jewish way that makes Exodus 20:2 the first commandment. This, on the face of it, is decidedly odd, since Exodus 20:2 is not a commandment at all; it is a statement, a foundational theological claim. But because it is that, it anchors the other nine in a most significant way.” That anchor in God is meant to be enough for us. Anchored in God, we can make our own choices about how we live. We don’t need the idols.
And yet that turns out to be harder than emulating someone else. Holbert adds that this very foundation is meant to keep us from finding our way toward anything that distracts us from the God who sets us free: “You want to make an idol of this God, an image of bird or snake or tree or pole or money or fame or pleasure? This God will have none of that, because this is the God who brought you out of slavery. You want to trivialize the name of this God by slapping the name on to any fool thing you already want to do, thereby baptizing your idiocy with a divine seal of approval (politicians beware!)? This YHWH will have none of that and will not acquit anyone who uses YHWH’s name for nothing, thereby enslaving oneself in the bondage of self-satisfied power. You want to steal some things from others, either their goods, their good name, their desires for a better life? This YHWH will not have it, for that is also a kind of slavery from which you need to be free.”
And yet we still long for gods we can see and hear and emulate in real life, and we keep finding our way toward idols of our own making. Our idols offer guidance when God seems to be silent. They seem to have something that we lack -- the money, confidence, or adventure that we want to pull into our own lives. We forget that, as the psalmist says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple.” The law of the Lord should be enough to guide our behavior, and still we find ourselves turning to our own idols for guidance on what to wear, how to behave, and what to care about.
With our idols, we live in a constant process of setting up the idol and having it knocked down. Following God, finding the way of faith, is both easier and harder. On one hand, as the psalmist says, “the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” The wisdom of God is an eternal compass. We lose the ups and downs of our shifting idols. On the other hand, that requires us to come face to face with God, and to follow what God asks of us. Sometimes the idols are easier and less demanding as we travel together over the surface.
The hardest part is knowing when we’ve made an idol for ourselves.
When the posters of singers and athletes start to peel off the walls, we know it’s time to move on. But with the idol of a belief or a cherished prejudice, it’s hard to know when it has replaced God in our hearts. We have to keep turning again and again to the God who insists that there can be nothing in our lives before the divine voice, and that that dose of holy wisdom is all the guide we need. To follow, we need to trust God, and also ourselves, that God’s voice and ours together are enough to guide us.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
Matthew 21:33-46
The Pittsburgh Steelers have brought linebacker James Harrison out of retirement, due to an injury crisis in the team’s linebacking corps with two starters injured in a recent game against the Carolina Panthers. But in the wake of the Ray Rice incident there was some controversy surrounding this decision, as Harrison had also once been involved in a domestic violence case with some parallels to Rice’s. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin defended his decision, saying, “It’s been seven years and it is a different climate.” He also noted how Harrison had grown over time and redeemed himself through counseling.
Application: The Pharisees listening to the parable of Jesus did not realize there was the opportunity for redemption.
*****
Matthew 21:33-46
Retired pediatrician Alan Jamison of Morristown, Tennessee, spent most of July in Liberia combating the Ebola virus for the nonprofit Medical Teams International. His wife said he ought to stay home with his family, but Jamison replied, “I feel like I have another calling.”
Application: Those who listened to the parable of Jesus did not realize they had another calling.
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Though league officials continue to deny that they saw the video until TMZ made it public in August, a New Jersey law enforcement official has said that he sent and NFL headquarters received in April the video of Ray Rice beating his fiancée in an Atlantic City elevator. The sender attached a note saying, “Ray Rice video. You have to see it. It’s terrible.” He received a phone message reply from someone at the NFL front office saying, “You’re right. It’s terrible.”
Application: Like the NFL did with the video, we do with the Ten Commandments. It is easy to discard that which we do not want to see.
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
The FBI has now identified the Muslim in the video who beheaded two Americans. They refer to him as “Jihadi John” so his name will not be revealed to the public. Jihadi John speaks with a British accent, and voice recognition was a major factor in establishing him as the executioner.
Application: When we violate the Law of God there will be judgment.
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
The motion picture Gone with the Wind, which debuted in 1939, received ten Academy Awards and is still considered one of the best productions of all time. The movie’s set was eventually moved from Hollywood to Atlanta -- the city whose ravages in the Civil War the film depicted. There is a movement now to re-create the film set in Atlanta with an accompanying museum. Tara, the façade of the plantation house, now lies dismantled in a barn.
Application: How easy it is for us to discard that which was once important to us.
***************
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Matthew 21:33-46
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
The phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” is said to have come from the American west c. 1860. Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain both report seeing it written on walls or signs in their tours of the west. But the sentiment can be traced all the way back to Plutarch’s Lives, which contains this line: “The first messenger that gave notice of Lucullus’ coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes that he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man daring to bring further information, without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him...”
Also expressed as “killing the messenger” or “attacking the messenger” or the more courtly “blaming the bearer of bad tidings,” these phrases all point to a breach of military and/or diplomatic protocol when messengers who took communications into the enemy camp were expected to be treated fairly and with immunity by both sides of a conflict.
The practical reason for heeding this trope is that if you kill people who bring you bad news, then those who are left will tell you only what they believe you wish to hear and you will remain uninformed of valuable information.
Still, the role of messenger is always a dangerous job. As Sophocles said in Antigone: “No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.”
*****
Matthew 21:33-46
The Pied Piper
Like the tenants in the parable, the people of Hamelin were reluctant to pay when the “rent came due.”
You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
“Go,” cried the Mayor, “and get long poles,
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!” -- when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the marketplace,
With a, “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”
A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gipsy coat of red and yellow!
“Beside,” quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
“Our business was done at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something to drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!”
-- from “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” by Robert Browning
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
You Shall Not Make for Yourself an Idol
St. Augustine once said that idolatry is worshiping a thing that is supposed to be used, or using a thing that is supposed to be worshiped.
I suppose that even applies to the Bible.
When I was in my early teens I went to church camp, and there was a boy in our cabin who had a Bible that had been handed down to him by his grandfather. It was a big thing with lots of ribbons and index tabs, red letters, and a leather cover with his grandfather’s name embossed in the lower right-hand corner. He carried that Bible with him wherever he went, and at night he placed it on the nightstand next to his cot and bowed before it to pray.
One evening, for our bedtime devotional our cabin counselor went around the room and invited us to share our favorite Bible verse or story. When he came to the boy with the heirloom Bible the boy’s face turned red and he just shook his head. He had never read the Bible that allegedly meant so much to him.
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
The Fallen Idol
The movie The Fallen Idol was one of the most popular British films of 1948. Based on Graham Greene’s short story “The Basement Room” and adapted for the screen by the author, it follows the trials of an ambassador’s young son whose best friend is the butler Richardson.
Thrown together for long periods, Richardson entertains the boy by making up stories about his adventures in Africa and India, stories which Philippe accepts as true. Even when the boy discovers that his idol is having an affair with a younger woman, he accepts Richardson’s stories and agrees to help keep the affair a secret.
Eventually Richardson’s shrewish wife discovers his infidelity and confronts her unfaithful husband in an explosive scene that is witnessed by the boy. Later, when the angry wife is killed in an accidental fall, he believes that she was killed by Richardson but lies to protect his friend.
Between the boy’s lies and Richardson’s own lies, which he tells to protect his mistress, the police suspicion of Richardson grows stronger and stronger until finally the boy realizes that what he knows will not condemn but exonerate his friend. But by that time the police have discovered the wife’s footprints on the windowsill and have determined that her death was in fact an accident.
By the end of the film, Philippe realizes that the stories Richardson has told him are all fiction and that no one is interested in the truth that he himself has to tell. He goes to his mother, vowing to never again believe anything an adult says.
Sic transit ad idolatarium. (Thus passes idolatry.)
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Seven Fallen Idols in Sports
In a culture where athletic competition is raised to religious significance and athletes are worshiped as both role models and idols, one must be careful that when the idols fall they don’t crush the hopes and dreams of the worshipers. Here are just a few that have recently fallen:
* Lance Armstrong -- Used performance-enhancing drugs and destroyed the careers of anyone who called him on it. He was eventually stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
* Barry Bonds -- Used performance enhancing drugs during his quest to break Hank Aaron’s homerun record, and was convicted of obstruction of justice for lying and covering up the drug scandal.
* Michael Vick -- The NFL quarterback was convicted of involvement in a dogfighting ring; his guilty verdict, prison time, and loss of sponsors sent him into bankruptcy. Upon his release from prison he admitted making “immature” mistakes and was picked up by the Philadelphia Eagles.
* Tiger Woods -- The golf phenom was outed by his wife and the press as a serial adulterer. He lost several sponsors and his career suffered a huge setback, which combined with recurring injuries have put him off the pace to beat Jack Nicklaus’ record number of 18 wins in golf’s “major” tournaments.
* Pete Rose -- The baseball legend finally confessed to gambling on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds, an infraction which led him to be banned from major league baseball for life.
* O.J. Simpson -- His football career was already over but he was still a sports personality and movie star when he was accused of murdering his wife and her friend. Acquitted of that crime, he was later convicted of stealing sports memorabilia and is now serving a 33-year prison sentence.
* Joe Paterno -- Long considered the “real deal” among college coaches, a holder of a Ph.D. himself, he was known for putting the good of his players before winning... but it was discovered that one of his assistant coaches was molesting children and, knowing, Joe Pa did nothing to stop him. He was fired from Penn State and his commemorative statue removed from the campus, and he died of cancer within a year.
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Gotta Serve Somebody
(by Bob Dylan)
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
(Refrain)
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
You might be a rock ’n roll addict, prancin’ on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief
They may call you doctor or they may call you chief
(Refrain)
You may be a state trooper, you might be a young turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be livin’ in another country under another name
(Refrain)
You may be a construction worker workin’ on a home
You might be livin’ in a mansion, you might live in a dome
You might own guns and you might even own tanks
You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
(Refrain)
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman takin’ bribes on the side
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
(Refrain)
Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleepin’ on the floor, sleepin’ in a king-sized bed
(Refrain)
You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything, no matter what you say
(Refrain)
***************
From team member Chris Keating:
Matthew 21:33-46
Listening for the Wakeup Call
On the day composer John Luther Adams was notified his latest composition had won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music, he was taking a nap. “I heard the word and asked the person on the other end, ‘You know, could I call you back?’ ” Adams remembers. “Talk about your wakeup call.”
Adams says that his piece -- titled Become Ocean -- is also a bit of a wakeup call. Adams is noted for rooting his work in the natural world. The composer sees Become Ocean, which was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, as an attempt to call attention to global warming.
According to Adams, “what I want to experience as a listener, and what I hope for you as a listener, is to discover a strange and beautiful and maybe somewhat frightening new place, and invite you into that place to find your way and have your own experience.”
Critics note that Become Ocean invites listeners to imagine they are becoming part of the ocean. Adams says this was his intention. “As I composed Become Ocean, I had in my mind and my heart this image of the melting of polar ice and the rising of the seas. All life on this Earth emerged from the ocean. If we don't wake up and pay attention here pretty soon, we human animals may find ourselves once again becoming ocean sooner than we imagine.”
*****
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Clashing Commandments: The Case of Forbidden Fruit
The lectionary’s focus on the Decalogue provides preachers with a ripe moment for exploring the commandments and God’s call to obedience. Yet sometimes doing “all that the Lord has commanded” may clash with everyday 21st-century life. For example, an Israeli television station reports that Israel Defense Forces would not buy produce from Jewish farmers until March 2015 because Jewish law demands farms lie fallow every seven years. The new Jewish year that began last week is a Sabbath year -- but farmers are concerned that other customers could follow suit and not purchase Jewish-grown produce for the first part of the sabbatical year.
In return, the Israel Farmers Association has threatened to stop all sales to the IDF. Yet the army is holding firm, according to the The Times of Israel: “The population of the IDF is diverse, including over 5,000 ultra-Orthodox soldiers, who do not recognize the heter mehira [lenient loophole allowing farming] during the sabbatical year. In order to preserve the unity of the camp, and to allow the entire IDF population to eat in a single kitchen, and in order to attain the national goal of drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF... the army rabbinate has decided to avoid procuring vegetables... for the first half of the sabbatical year, until the end of February 2015.”
*****
Psalm 19
The Hidden Glory of God
The heavens may be telling the glory of God, yet God’s glory may be fading from our sight. Astronomer Tyler Nordgren warns us that because of global light pollution, we may soon be unable to view stars from our backyards.
“We’re losing the stars,” the 45-year-old astronomer told journalist Todd Pitcock in the September/October issue of the Saturday Evening Post. “Think about it this way: For 4.5 billion years, Earth has been a planet with a day and a night. Since the electric light bulb was invented, we’ve progressively lit up the night, and have gotten rid of it. Now 99 percent of the [continental U.S.] population lives under skies filled with light pollution.” Nordgren’s claims are backed up by stunning graphics, including a map from NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: The heavens are telling the glory of God.
People: The firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.
Leader: The law of God is perfect, reviving the soul.
People: The decrees of God are sure, making wise the simple;
Leader: The precepts of God are right, rejoicing the heart.
People: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O God, my rock and my redeemer.
OR
Leader: Let us worship the God of all creation!
People: We raise our voices in praise of our God.
Leader: God has given us the earth for us to care for it.
People: We are honored and humbled by God’s gift.
Leader: Let us commit ourselves to being better stewards.
People: With God’s help we will care for the earth in God’s name.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“All Creatures of Our God and King”
found in:
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELA: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
“Many and Great, O God”
found in:
UMH: 148
H82: 385
PH: 271
NCH: 3
CH: 58
ELA: 837
W&P: 26
“For the Beauty of the Earth”
found in:
UMH: 92
H82: 416
PH: 473
NNBH: 8
NCH: 28
CH: 56
LBW: 561
ELA: 879
W&P: 40
AMEC: 578
STLT: 21
“You Satisfy the Hungry Heart”
found in:
UMH: 629
PH: 521
CH: 429
ELA: 484
W&P: 705
“I Surrender All”
found in:
UMH: 354
AAHH: 396
NNBH: 198
W&P: 474
AMEC: 251
“Breathe on Me, Breath of God”
found in:
UMH: 420
H82: 508
PH: 316
AAHH: 317
NNBH: 126
NCH: 292
CH: 254
LBW: 488
W&P: 461
AMEC: 192
“Now Thank We All Our God”
found in:
UMH: 102
H82: 396, 397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533, 534
ELA: 839, 840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
“We Believe in One True God”
found in:
UMH: 85
“As the Deer”
found in:
CCB: 83
Renew: 9
“For the Gift of Creation”
found in:
CCB: 67
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who created all that is and called it good: Grant to us the will and courage to be good stewards so that we may honor both Creator and creation; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, Creator of all. We are in awe of the wonders of the universe and are humbled that you have given it into our care. Give us hearts of true stewards, that we may honor your creation properly as we take care of it in your name. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our careless attitude about God’s giving creation into our care.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have given the earth into our care, and we have selfishly used and abused it. We have taken more than we need and we have misused much of what we have taken. We have been arrogant and proud of “our” resources, forgetting that they all belong to you. Forgive us, and empower us with your Spirit that we may become better stewards, gratefully sharing your resources with all your children. Amen.
Leader: God gave us creation for our use and for our care. Receive God’s grace and forgiveness to become better stewards of all God has given us.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We worship you, God of Creation, for the wonders of your good works. We are in awe of the beauty and wonders of the universe.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have given the earth into our care, and we have selfishly used and abused it. We have taken more than we need and we have misused much of what we have taken. We have been arrogant and proud of “our” resources, forgetting that they all belong to you. Forgive us, and empower us with your Spirit that we may become better stewards, gratefully sharing your resources with all your children.
We give you thanks for all of your gifts to us. We thank you for the earth and the way it supplies all of our needs. We thank you that you have entrusted it into our care.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you the needs of your people and of your earth. We know that we have contributed to the stress the earth is under, and we ask for your guidance in becoming better stewards of creation.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Ask the children if they ever make art, pictures, or drawings that their parents put up on the refrigerator. How does it feel to have their creation put on display? Would it feel differently if their parents wadded up the picture and threw it out? (Of course.) We want people to like and take care of what we make. So does God. God gives us this wonderful earth for us to take care of. It makes God glad when we appreciate God’s work and take good care of it. This week let us try to notice some of the beautiful things God has created and take time to say thanks.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Good Tenants Pay What Is Due
Matthew 21:33-46
Object: an apple
What do I have here? (Show the apple and let the children answer.) Yes, this is an apple, and it came from an apple orchard. Now, let’s pretend that you want to go into business raising apples, but you don’t own an orchard and you don’t own any land on which to plant apple trees. How are you going to get into the apple business? (Let them try to answer. They probably won’t have any idea.) One way you could do it is to be a sharecropper. You would agree to take care of somebody else’s orchard and do all the work of raising the apples in that orchard. Then, when the apples were harvested, you would give the owner a share of the apples and sell the rest. Do you think that would be fair? (Let them answer.)
Jesus once told a story about some sharecroppers who agreed to do that, but when it came time to give the owner his share they wouldn’t do it. Instead, they beat up the guy who came to collect the owner’s share and threw him out of the orchard. When the owner sent his own son to collect his share, these sharecroppers killed the son! What do you think the owner ought to do with those people? (Let them answer.) When Jesus told this story, he was really talking about Israel. The people there were God’s chosen people, and He had given them their land. But the people beat up the prophets that God sent to them, and when Jesus came to them they killed him. Because they rejected God and didn’t give Him what they should, they were no longer God’s special people. God made all the people who believed in Jesus His special people, and He expects them to do what He wants them to do.
Who are God’s special people today? (Let them answer.) Yes, we are God’s special people because we believe in His Son and we try to give God what we should. We all try to obey God and remember that all that we have is really His. We treat His messengers with respect and we love His Son, Jesus. Let’s thank God for making us His special people.
Prayer: Dear God: Thank You for making us Your special people. Help us to be good tenants that always pay what is due to You, the real owner of all that we have. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 5, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
