Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 3, 2002
Matthew 23: 1-12
Fritz Kreisler, the celebrated violinist who devoted his life to creating wonderful music, had one small, playful hobby. He loved magic and card tricks. The story is told that one evening at a party, he dazzled the guests with a display of some card tricks. Later, one of the guests approached him and asked, “Would you care to perform at a party I’m giving next week?” “See my agent,” said Kreisler, “He makes all the financial arrangements.” The agent was consulted, the contract signed. The following week, when Kreisler arrived at the party, he took his violin out of its case, set it on a chair, and began to rub his hands together to get the evening chill out of them. The host, who had made all the arrangements, entered the room, took in the scene, and said, “Well, you play the violin too?”
He thought he was getting a magician. Instead he got a world-famous violinist. Sometimes it’s easy to miss the point. I believe this is the heart of the dispute between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees in our text this morning. And understand that it really is a kind of family dispute. Never forget that Jesus was a Jew. So he critiques the Jewish religious leaders as a follower of Judaism. It is a critique from within.
And what does he say? Well, the Scribes and Pharisees certainly preach and teach well enough – they know the law. Their clothing is certainly correct – they know all the outward symbols of piety. They look and sound great. Jesus really has no argument with what they say or wear. But something crucial is missing. “Do whatever they teach you and follow it,” says Jesus. Again, their teaching is just fine. “But do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.”
“Do as I say, not as I do,” goes the old saying. Well, Jesus turns it around. He suggests that if you do not back up your words with action, if you do not do as you say, then what you say really doesn’t mean much at all. He has no patience with their moral bean counting, with their small nitpicking rules and regulations. He wants to know where in the midst of all this, one can find love of God and neighbor. He wants to know just what are you doing with your faith.
We’re back to that old phrase once again, “When all is said and done, there is usually a lot more said than done.” True in the world of business; true in the world of government; and it can be equally true in the life of faith. I don’t care if I never see another Gallup Poll telling me how many people in this country still believe in God. Talk about meaningless statistics. It is so easy to tell a pollster, “Sure I believe I God.” Living out that faith, that affirmation, is something else entirely. That is where the rubber meets the road.
John Wesley, the 18th century English reformer and founder of the Methodist Church, had two questions he regularly asked groups of Christians: “What is the Spirit of God doing?” and “How shall we meet the needs of this hour.” What great questions! I think we should start every church meeting from now on asking, “What is the Spirit of God doing?” and “How shall we meet the needs of this hour?” These questions raise our vision, move us beyond simply in-house concerns to larger issues of what God is up to in my life and what God might be expecting of me today.
I once read of a woman who in a job application listed four personal references, all of whom were clergy. The personnel manager was not impressed. He said, “We are not open on Sundays. Don’t you have a reference from someone who sees you some other day of the week?” I’m not sure, but I think I resent his question! I happen to be of the opinion that a minister can have a quite comprehensive view of someone. But the question does hint at the point Jesus makes in our text, namely that religious faith is not a one-day-a-week affair; not something to be left behind in the sanctuary on Sunday morning. It is rather for those who are serious – serious about who they are, about other persons, and about their relationship with God. Read through the Gospels. From the very beginning Jesus challenged his disciples to be the dreamers, to have a certain recklessness about seeking a better world, to run a risk or two, and to keep on caring and keep on trying.
It was Mark Twain, who else, who once said, “It’s good to be a Christian, especially when you are holding four aces in your hand.” It is so easy to become like a Pharisee, not a bad person, really, just a painfully cautious one, holding on to those aces, hiding behind rules and regulations, playing it safe, taking comfort in church structures and the way we have always done things around here.
Then there was Soren Kierkegaard who wrote, “Order the parsons to be silent on Sundays. What is there left? The essential things remain: their lives, the daily life with which the parsons preach. Would you, then, get the impression by watching them that it was Christianity they were preaching?” Not a bad critique of pastors, not a bad critique of Christians. Are we just kind of playing at this religion thing, or can people, by observing the lives we lead, see that it is the Christian faith we are living? What are we preaching in our daily lives?
One of my mentors in ministry, Bill Nelson, (we’re not related), told this story: “In my first congregation there was a quite remarkable man. He left me I legacy I have never fully spent…himself. Andy was a small businessman who one day found himself bankrupt. Deep in debt, his children yet to be educated, in the middle years of his life, he had to start all over again. But he refused to declare bankruptcy. ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘It is a legal remedy for an impossible situation.’”
“He replied, ‘I just can’t do it. I have to live with myself for the rest of my life. People who loaned me money or gave me a charge account for materials, were not investing in my business; they were investing in me. Somehow I just must give them a return on their investment.’”
Says Nelson, “He did just that. It took a decade right out of the heart of his best years. But, in a way, I suppose that’s exactly what they were – his best years. The truth of the matter was what he did, what he was, what he is!” The world asks, what is faith? And someone like Andy, in response, offers himself.
As I walked into the sanctuary today I noticed that once again some shingles have fallen off our roof. “Oh great, how much is that going to cost?” Then I had a financial report from Denelle, our bookkeeper, sitting on my desk telling me that we finished the month of October significantly in the red in our operating fund, not a good thing with just two months of the year left. Then I quickly looked over some stewardship materials on my desk, because soon we will be asking each of you to make a financial commitment to our church for 2003. So there was just a lot of stuff waiting for me before worship even started. All important stuff, to be sure. Like it or not, the church needs money for its ministry and the church needs roofs that don’t leak. And I don’t apologize for that. But it occurs to me how easily I could become a Pharisee of stuff, focusing only on that. Again, the Pharisees weren’t bad people, it’s just that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Nitpicking about religious laws and the proper way to live the religious life, the right clothes to wear, they missed the big picture, they missed the point. And sometimes I fear, so do I. So do we. And so Jesus said to them and us that the life of faith is more than religious laws and proper religious clothing and customs; believe or not, it is even more than budgets and roofs. It is what we are fashioning in our souls, the kind of persons we are becoming, the values we cherish, the reach of our minds, the courage by which we face the complicated issues of each day; which is to say the life of faith is all the ways, each and every day, by which we live out these words of the Apostle Paul: “You are a letter of Christ… written to the world not with ink but with the spirit of the living God.”