What Did The Turkey Say? (Or Contentious Communities)
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle A
Object:
Here is a story that has been told for many years. Some of you may have heard it.
Jenny had been living alone since her husband died several years earlier. One particular evening, Pastor Alice had scheduled a visit to Jenny's home. Jenny still had a parrot that was her husband's pride and joy. Knowing that the parrot was prone to repeat the profanity it heard form her husband's retired Navy buddies, Jenny cautioned the parrot to be silent during the pastor's visit.
"I promise you, that if you start cursing and swearing when Pastor Alice is here, I will put you in the freezer until she leaves," warned Jenny.
"Okay, okay, I'll be quiet; I'll be good, I promise," pledged the parrot.
Pastor Alice did not even sit down before the parrot began spewing forth foul language.
With a loud sigh, Jenny grabbed the parrot and tossed it into the freezer beside the frozen turkey she was saving for Thanksgiving dinner.
Meanwhile, Pastor Alice stayed much longer than Jenny expected. When the pastor finally left, Jenny rushed to the freezer to free the parrot. When she grasped the parrot, Jenny asked, "Have you learned your lesson now?" The shivering parrot stuttered, "Y-y-yess. B-b-but I have j-j-just one q-q-question. What did that t-t-turkey say?"
There's a lesson here, somewhere, for us and for all God's people. It's not about the turkey, it's about the parrot. It's about hypocrisy; promising one thing and doing the opposite; it's about hypocrisy; putting on an outward appearance of goodness as if we were just as righteous on the inside. Like the parrot, we are all guilty.
What do you think the most common accusation of church members might be? You are absolutely correct if you guessed "hypocrisy."
This hypocritical attitude and behavior is not new for God's people. Isaiah addresses it in our Old Testament text. Just before our lesson begins, God accuses the people of being contentious and rebellious in their actions while putting on a good, religious front with their words.
Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me ... as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
-- Isaiah 58:1-2— Isaiah 58:1-2
Let's look at what was happening here, approximately 500 years before the birth of Christ. The religious and political leaders of Judah had been living in exile in Babylon, taken as captives by the conquering army of King Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was a defeated city. Its temple destroyed; its walls crumbled. The exiles had lost all hope of returning.
Perhaps many of them remembered that Isaiah also declared God's promise of deliverance, a new exodus. "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid ..." (Isaiah 40:1-2).
They would return home at last! Thanks be to God! Praise the Lord! Just like Moses led the people from Egyptian bondage, so would God lead them out of Babylonian captivity. Soon, God's promise would come true. "Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together ..." (Isaiah 40:5).
Then the exiles arrived back home. They were really surprised by what they found. Rubble was everywhere. Nobody had even tried to rebuild the temple, let alone the city walls. Worse yet, no one seemed to care! How could these wretched people live in this mess for fifty years and not do anything at all to improve things? If anything, the city was in worse shape now than when the exiles were carted off to Babylon.
Now, remember the returning people had been the "crème dé lá crème" of society. They, or their parents and grandparents, had been cream of the crop, the top of the heap. They were wealthy nobles and landowners in Judah before the exile. Since they were forbidden to own property in Babylon, many became bankers, and business people in one of the world's most powerful empires.
It was this group of "haves" who expected to be welcomed home by a rejoicing city of "have nots" as they marched triumphantly through the streets of Jerusalem. Not! Instead the exiles returned to rubble, rubble, toil, and trouble.
They observed new people in leadership positions; new people occupying their vineyards and farms; new people living in their old houses.
So, they tried everything from appeals to guilt and duty to new organizational structures and planning models. Nothing seemed to arouse the "wretched ones" to change the present state of affairs.
Finally, they became even more rigid and demanding in their practices. This would surely show God how serious they were. This would surely convince the lazy among them to begin their rebuilding task. They put on sackcloth and smeared their bodies with ashes. They practiced fasting with strict intensity.
Sadly, the returning "haves" still maintained a wide breach between themselves and the "have nots," the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak. In their own minds, the returning exiles were still the heroes. Those who remained in Jerusalem were still the chumps.
Just like the parrot, the exiles, in those days, were demonstrating the depths of hypocrisy. Just like the parrot, we, too, have become examples of what hypocrisy looks like. We, too, see a breach between rich and poor, powerful and vulnerable, haves and have nots. It's easy for us to speak and act as if God favors us "heroes" just a little bit more than those "chumps" who never darken the church doors. After all, we keep the fast by our worship and committees and offerings. They do not, and they probably don't even care.
Listen to Isaiah's denunciation of these hypocritical attitudes and religious practices:
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight ... Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose ... is it to bow down the head like a bulrush?
-- Isaiah 58:3-5
We, too, stand accused. We, too, speak holy words and perform holy actions during worship. Then, in the parking lots and emails and living rooms we resume the contentious quarrels of Christians throughout history. Christians fight, and make no mistake about it, we fight dirty -- even, and often especially -- among ourselves. It is a rare congregation that has not experienced the bitter divisiveness of a church conflict.
So then, where is our hope? Where is God's promise? Why doesn't God just thrust us into the freezer before popping us into an eternal oven? Why didn't God just obliterate the returning exiles for their hypocritical, sinful behavior?
God's answer is simple. God chose to deliver his children from the bondage of Egypt and Babylon. God named them and claimed them as his own people. God made them his precious and honored people.
In the waters of baptism, God has named and claimed us as his own children. In the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, God nourishes and sustains us with the living presence of God's own Son.
Because the returning exiles were God's precious children, God could expect them to show his gifts to others. In Christ, God has gathered us hypocrites into his arms; God gives us the ability to show his gifts to others, and he expects that from us.
Today's text is intended to be received and demonstrated by God's delivered, splashed, and nourished people.
Here is another story ... an airline was having trouble with large flocks of shore birds on runways near the ocean. Frequently the roar of incoming engines would startle the birds and they would fly up, only to crash into and often shatter the windshields of the approaching planes.
After many failed experiments, the company engineers developed a formula for windshields that would both keep the windshields intact as well as causing no harm to the birds. They tested this by using turkeys that were the same size and weight as the shore birds. The engineers then placed a turkey into an air cannon and fired it at a windshield. They repeated this over and over with no harm to either the turkey or the windshield. Success!
Another airline was experiencing the same problem and requested the formula and the method for testing. Unfortunately, when these engineers tested their new windshields, the glass didn't just shatter, the turkey landed in the pilot's seat.
These engineers complained angrily that they had been deliberately given the wrong formula, and demanded an explanation.
"Send us your formula and testing methods!" demanded the original chief engineer.
After reading through the failed method, the chief engineer responded with this brief reply: "First thaw the turkey!"
Friends in Jesus Christ, God has already thawed us frozen turkeys. Because of God's forever love, the exiles could stop their hypocritical, frozen fasting and show others what it looks like to be God's children.
The fast that God chooses looks like this:
... share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin.
-- Isaiah 58:7
The exiles could do this because God had chosen them as his own children. They could stop finger pointing and evil speaking (Isaiah 58:9) because God had redeemed them.
They could not do this by their own religious fasts and rites. Neither can we. Because God had redeemed us frozen turkeys, God therefore, sends us to show others what it looks like to be thawed, named, and claimed by the Lord.
Listen to God's promise to the returning exiles and to us:
... Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually … and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
-- Isaiah 58:10-11
This is the Lord's promise to us hypocritical parrots and frozen turkeys. In Christ, God's promised "then" has become God's thawing embrace "now and forever."
Because God has named us his people, therefore let us show we belong to him. Amen.
Jenny had been living alone since her husband died several years earlier. One particular evening, Pastor Alice had scheduled a visit to Jenny's home. Jenny still had a parrot that was her husband's pride and joy. Knowing that the parrot was prone to repeat the profanity it heard form her husband's retired Navy buddies, Jenny cautioned the parrot to be silent during the pastor's visit.
"I promise you, that if you start cursing and swearing when Pastor Alice is here, I will put you in the freezer until she leaves," warned Jenny.
"Okay, okay, I'll be quiet; I'll be good, I promise," pledged the parrot.
Pastor Alice did not even sit down before the parrot began spewing forth foul language.
With a loud sigh, Jenny grabbed the parrot and tossed it into the freezer beside the frozen turkey she was saving for Thanksgiving dinner.
Meanwhile, Pastor Alice stayed much longer than Jenny expected. When the pastor finally left, Jenny rushed to the freezer to free the parrot. When she grasped the parrot, Jenny asked, "Have you learned your lesson now?" The shivering parrot stuttered, "Y-y-yess. B-b-but I have j-j-just one q-q-question. What did that t-t-turkey say?"
There's a lesson here, somewhere, for us and for all God's people. It's not about the turkey, it's about the parrot. It's about hypocrisy; promising one thing and doing the opposite; it's about hypocrisy; putting on an outward appearance of goodness as if we were just as righteous on the inside. Like the parrot, we are all guilty.
What do you think the most common accusation of church members might be? You are absolutely correct if you guessed "hypocrisy."
This hypocritical attitude and behavior is not new for God's people. Isaiah addresses it in our Old Testament text. Just before our lesson begins, God accuses the people of being contentious and rebellious in their actions while putting on a good, religious front with their words.
Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me ... as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.
-- Isaiah 58:1-2— Isaiah 58:1-2
Let's look at what was happening here, approximately 500 years before the birth of Christ. The religious and political leaders of Judah had been living in exile in Babylon, taken as captives by the conquering army of King Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was a defeated city. Its temple destroyed; its walls crumbled. The exiles had lost all hope of returning.
Perhaps many of them remembered that Isaiah also declared God's promise of deliverance, a new exodus. "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid ..." (Isaiah 40:1-2).
They would return home at last! Thanks be to God! Praise the Lord! Just like Moses led the people from Egyptian bondage, so would God lead them out of Babylonian captivity. Soon, God's promise would come true. "Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together ..." (Isaiah 40:5).
Then the exiles arrived back home. They were really surprised by what they found. Rubble was everywhere. Nobody had even tried to rebuild the temple, let alone the city walls. Worse yet, no one seemed to care! How could these wretched people live in this mess for fifty years and not do anything at all to improve things? If anything, the city was in worse shape now than when the exiles were carted off to Babylon.
Now, remember the returning people had been the "crème dé lá crème" of society. They, or their parents and grandparents, had been cream of the crop, the top of the heap. They were wealthy nobles and landowners in Judah before the exile. Since they were forbidden to own property in Babylon, many became bankers, and business people in one of the world's most powerful empires.
It was this group of "haves" who expected to be welcomed home by a rejoicing city of "have nots" as they marched triumphantly through the streets of Jerusalem. Not! Instead the exiles returned to rubble, rubble, toil, and trouble.
They observed new people in leadership positions; new people occupying their vineyards and farms; new people living in their old houses.
So, they tried everything from appeals to guilt and duty to new organizational structures and planning models. Nothing seemed to arouse the "wretched ones" to change the present state of affairs.
Finally, they became even more rigid and demanding in their practices. This would surely show God how serious they were. This would surely convince the lazy among them to begin their rebuilding task. They put on sackcloth and smeared their bodies with ashes. They practiced fasting with strict intensity.
Sadly, the returning "haves" still maintained a wide breach between themselves and the "have nots," the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak. In their own minds, the returning exiles were still the heroes. Those who remained in Jerusalem were still the chumps.
Just like the parrot, the exiles, in those days, were demonstrating the depths of hypocrisy. Just like the parrot, we, too, have become examples of what hypocrisy looks like. We, too, see a breach between rich and poor, powerful and vulnerable, haves and have nots. It's easy for us to speak and act as if God favors us "heroes" just a little bit more than those "chumps" who never darken the church doors. After all, we keep the fast by our worship and committees and offerings. They do not, and they probably don't even care.
Listen to Isaiah's denunciation of these hypocritical attitudes and religious practices:
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight ... Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose ... is it to bow down the head like a bulrush?
-- Isaiah 58:3-5
We, too, stand accused. We, too, speak holy words and perform holy actions during worship. Then, in the parking lots and emails and living rooms we resume the contentious quarrels of Christians throughout history. Christians fight, and make no mistake about it, we fight dirty -- even, and often especially -- among ourselves. It is a rare congregation that has not experienced the bitter divisiveness of a church conflict.
So then, where is our hope? Where is God's promise? Why doesn't God just thrust us into the freezer before popping us into an eternal oven? Why didn't God just obliterate the returning exiles for their hypocritical, sinful behavior?
God's answer is simple. God chose to deliver his children from the bondage of Egypt and Babylon. God named them and claimed them as his own people. God made them his precious and honored people.
In the waters of baptism, God has named and claimed us as his own children. In the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, God nourishes and sustains us with the living presence of God's own Son.
Because the returning exiles were God's precious children, God could expect them to show his gifts to others. In Christ, God has gathered us hypocrites into his arms; God gives us the ability to show his gifts to others, and he expects that from us.
Today's text is intended to be received and demonstrated by God's delivered, splashed, and nourished people.
Here is another story ... an airline was having trouble with large flocks of shore birds on runways near the ocean. Frequently the roar of incoming engines would startle the birds and they would fly up, only to crash into and often shatter the windshields of the approaching planes.
After many failed experiments, the company engineers developed a formula for windshields that would both keep the windshields intact as well as causing no harm to the birds. They tested this by using turkeys that were the same size and weight as the shore birds. The engineers then placed a turkey into an air cannon and fired it at a windshield. They repeated this over and over with no harm to either the turkey or the windshield. Success!
Another airline was experiencing the same problem and requested the formula and the method for testing. Unfortunately, when these engineers tested their new windshields, the glass didn't just shatter, the turkey landed in the pilot's seat.
These engineers complained angrily that they had been deliberately given the wrong formula, and demanded an explanation.
"Send us your formula and testing methods!" demanded the original chief engineer.
After reading through the failed method, the chief engineer responded with this brief reply: "First thaw the turkey!"
Friends in Jesus Christ, God has already thawed us frozen turkeys. Because of God's forever love, the exiles could stop their hypocritical, frozen fasting and show others what it looks like to be God's children.
The fast that God chooses looks like this:
... share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin.
-- Isaiah 58:7
The exiles could do this because God had chosen them as his own children. They could stop finger pointing and evil speaking (Isaiah 58:9) because God had redeemed them.
They could not do this by their own religious fasts and rites. Neither can we. Because God had redeemed us frozen turkeys, God therefore, sends us to show others what it looks like to be thawed, named, and claimed by the Lord.
Listen to God's promise to the returning exiles and to us:
... Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually … and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
-- Isaiah 58:10-11
This is the Lord's promise to us hypocritical parrots and frozen turkeys. In Christ, God's promised "then" has become God's thawing embrace "now and forever."
Because God has named us his people, therefore let us show we belong to him. Amen.
