Sermon preached on Sunday, September 28, 2008 at Christ & Saint Stephen's Church. Lectionary readings for this sermon can be found here.
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have worked in restaurants waiting tables or tending bar, and those who haven’t. Restaurant work is hard work. In terms of job stress, it is ranked second only to the medical profession. There are late nights, long hours rushing about, crises in the kitchen, rude unruly customers, plenty of alcohol... It is a great environment in which to rack up what our psalm calls “sins of youth and transgressions.” It’s a crucible that brings to the surface all aspects of one’s personality -- good and bad. You really get to know people when you learn how they handle stress. Often life long friendships are formed in restaurant trenches, and sometimes bitter enmities are sworn.
I worked at a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen when I first moved to New York. And it was staffed by a fun, if slightly odd, group of people. There was a little cell of people from Boston that worked there. And the kitchen staff were all cousins from Cuernavaca, Mexico. I became roommates with one of the waiters there, and the Boston contingent shared apartments all over the west side.
We were, for the most part, all good friends, but occasionally there would be tensions between one or the other of the waiters. One of the Boston contingent took a particularly dislike to my roommate Barney. Barney was a Texan and a musician, and Angela, the girl from Boston thought he was a hayseed -- and a bit too much of a charmer. And truth be told, he was a hayseed, and he never seemed to lack for young women who were interested in him.
Barney, for his part, seemed baffled by Angela’s irksomeness. And it did seem to be that the tension was mostly on her side. But the animosity between the two was pretty low grade. There would be occasional snarkiness if they were scheduled together. And they seemed to avoid each other when we all got to sit down for a last call beer at the end of the night.
Sometime later, it seemed to me that Barney was sort of missing in action. I didn’t see him around the apartment that often. And he kept shifting his schedule around at work. One early evening at the restaurant we were hanging out at the end of the bar waiting for the rush to start when someone asked about Barney. “I’m not sure what Barney is up to tonight. I haven’t seen much of him lately. And by the way, where’s Angela? Isn’t she supposed to be on duty tonight?”
Megan the Boston bartender and Angela’s roommate gave me a sideways glance and said, “I think you and I are about to become roommates-in-law, because Barney is out with Angela tonight. And they’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other these last couple of weeks.” I was kind of taken aback. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought Angela pretty much hated Barney. All she ever does is find fault with him.” Megan leveled a world-weary eye at me and said, “Mark, don’t you know anything at all about girls????”
We can all be -- girls and boys -- a bit contradictory, and paradoxical, at times. In Romans, chapter 7, the Apostle Paul says “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Paradox was something well known to Paul. Paul’s entire life was a paradox. Paul was a Pharisee who believed that adherence to the strict letter of the law was going to restore Israel to its former glory. It might even help precipitate the arrival of the Messiah. Paul spent his early life defending the faith and purifying it of all heresies and heretics, especially Christians.
Then on a road to Damascus, Paul was struck blind, and finally began to see. Paul witnessed the risen Christ, the one who was crucified and yet lived again. Soon thereafter, Paul changed profoundly. His whole life and everything that he had believed pivoted on its axis. The dead had been raised. The God who had ransomed the Jews from captivity had come to earth to redeem all humanity. And the persecutor of Christians became Christianity’s greatest missionary.
Paradox became part of Paul’s theology. In 2nd Corinthians, chapter 12, Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses… for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Why would he claim to be strong when weak? Why would Paul or anyone do what it is that they hate? It’s counterintuitive, it defies logic; it’s a paradox.
Paul understood himself better than most, he understood his own sinfulness, his own brokenness. He understood that he was but flesh and that the flesh is weak. And I would guess that all of us know what it’s like to do what we wish we hadn’t, and to shy away from doing what we know we should.
We, like Paul and like Angela and Barney, are well able to act in contradictory ways.
In the parable Jesus gives us in our gospel today we have two sons whose behavior proves to be somewhat paradoxical. The two sons are told to work in the vineyard by their father. One readily complies, but then flakes off. Maybe it was hot that day, maybe he got distracted on the way to work. Maybe he told himself, “I’ll take a mental health day today and tomorrow I’ll catch up.” He did not do what he said he would do; what he knew he should do.
But the other son isn’t having it from the beginning. Maybe he’d already covered for his slacker brother often enough. Maybe he was miffed that the old man was sending him into the vineyard again. “Geez, don’t I do enough around here? Not like some people say they’re going to work and never get there. Well, no more. I am NOT going to work in that vineyard today and THAT’S FINAL!”
Earlier, Matthew has told us that all Judea, Pharisees like Paul among them, have followed John the Baptist to the banks of the River Jordan, heard his scathing preaching, repented and been baptized. But it seems those we’d expect to take this repentance to heart -- those Pharisees and the Sadducees; the temple priests -- haven’t proven quite so repentant.
They don’t seem to have take John seriously, or seriously enough. But the sinners, the tax collectors and prostitutes, those with much more to repent, have heeded John. The most grievous sinners, who we might have expected to spurn John’s call to righteousness, have done just the opposite.
In our reading from Philippians today,we have what may be one of the oldest Christian texts. The “Christ Hymn” as it’s become known is believed by some scholars to be an already well know hymn that Paul is quoting to the church at Philippi. It breaks down into two sections. First, Jesus’ humility and obedience are highlighted, and the second section is about God’s exaltation of Jesus.
The hymn contrasts Jesus with Adam, who was made in the image of God, and who sought to exploit that fact and become like God by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Jesus who was also in the form of God, instead of filling himself with forbidden fruit, emptied himself of all his glory, and subjected himself to the most ignominious of deaths, a punishment reserved not for the obedient, but for rebels and disobedient slaves: death by crucifixion.
And because of this utmost humility and obedience, Jesus is not cast out as was Adam, but is exalted by God, and shares God’s unutterable holy name – and becomes Lord of all that is on the earth, above and below it; not just Israel but the Lord that all nations shall confess.
What a paradox. What a contradiction.
That the long hoped-for messiah who was going to reunite Israel and Judea should end up not on the throne of David, but would suffer a traitor’s death, hung from a wooden cross by the side of the road out of town. Sort of strange, isn’t it? That Jesus, the Son of God, should yield the glory that was of right his own, and come to us in lowliness of thought. And that by him the outcast and the poor were sought, and by his death God’s salvation was wrought. It seems like the last thing that we could have expected, and yet so it came to pass.
Through Jesus’ death comes our eternal life. And through God’s mercy, not our own righteousness, comes our salvation. Well, I find great hope for such as us in our paradoxical God. We are promised that we sinners will be first in the Kingdom of heaven. The broken will be healed. The dead shall rise again.
Lucky for us, eh? We who are such profound mysteries, so often contradictory, we who are paradoxes within paradoxes, who so often do what it is that we hate, and don’t do what it is that we know we should, we sinners are loved by a mysterious Creator, and saved by a glorious God who, for love’s sake, abandoned all his glory and became human, died and rose again, to gain for us the glory that no one among us could have merited on our own.
+Amen
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have worked in restaurants waiting tables or tending bar, and those who haven’t. Restaurant work is hard work. In terms of job stress, it is ranked second only to the medical profession. There are late nights, long hours rushing about, crises in the kitchen, rude unruly customers, plenty of alcohol... It is a great environment in which to rack up what our psalm calls “sins of youth and transgressions.” It’s a crucible that brings to the surface all aspects of one’s personality -- good and bad. You really get to know people when you learn how they handle stress. Often life long friendships are formed in restaurant trenches, and sometimes bitter enmities are sworn.
I worked at a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen when I first moved to New York. And it was staffed by a fun, if slightly odd, group of people. There was a little cell of people from Boston that worked there. And the kitchen staff were all cousins from Cuernavaca, Mexico. I became roommates with one of the waiters there, and the Boston contingent shared apartments all over the west side.
We were, for the most part, all good friends, but occasionally there would be tensions between one or the other of the waiters. One of the Boston contingent took a particularly dislike to my roommate Barney. Barney was a Texan and a musician, and Angela, the girl from Boston thought he was a hayseed -- and a bit too much of a charmer. And truth be told, he was a hayseed, and he never seemed to lack for young women who were interested in him.
Barney, for his part, seemed baffled by Angela’s irksomeness. And it did seem to be that the tension was mostly on her side. But the animosity between the two was pretty low grade. There would be occasional snarkiness if they were scheduled together. And they seemed to avoid each other when we all got to sit down for a last call beer at the end of the night.
Sometime later, it seemed to me that Barney was sort of missing in action. I didn’t see him around the apartment that often. And he kept shifting his schedule around at work. One early evening at the restaurant we were hanging out at the end of the bar waiting for the rush to start when someone asked about Barney. “I’m not sure what Barney is up to tonight. I haven’t seen much of him lately. And by the way, where’s Angela? Isn’t she supposed to be on duty tonight?”
Megan the Boston bartender and Angela’s roommate gave me a sideways glance and said, “I think you and I are about to become roommates-in-law, because Barney is out with Angela tonight. And they’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other these last couple of weeks.” I was kind of taken aback. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought Angela pretty much hated Barney. All she ever does is find fault with him.” Megan leveled a world-weary eye at me and said, “Mark, don’t you know anything at all about girls????”
We can all be -- girls and boys -- a bit contradictory, and paradoxical, at times. In Romans, chapter 7, the Apostle Paul says “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Paradox was something well known to Paul. Paul’s entire life was a paradox. Paul was a Pharisee who believed that adherence to the strict letter of the law was going to restore Israel to its former glory. It might even help precipitate the arrival of the Messiah. Paul spent his early life defending the faith and purifying it of all heresies and heretics, especially Christians.
Then on a road to Damascus, Paul was struck blind, and finally began to see. Paul witnessed the risen Christ, the one who was crucified and yet lived again. Soon thereafter, Paul changed profoundly. His whole life and everything that he had believed pivoted on its axis. The dead had been raised. The God who had ransomed the Jews from captivity had come to earth to redeem all humanity. And the persecutor of Christians became Christianity’s greatest missionary.
Paradox became part of Paul’s theology. In 2nd Corinthians, chapter 12, Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses… for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Why would he claim to be strong when weak? Why would Paul or anyone do what it is that they hate? It’s counterintuitive, it defies logic; it’s a paradox.
Paul understood himself better than most, he understood his own sinfulness, his own brokenness. He understood that he was but flesh and that the flesh is weak. And I would guess that all of us know what it’s like to do what we wish we hadn’t, and to shy away from doing what we know we should.
We, like Paul and like Angela and Barney, are well able to act in contradictory ways.
In the parable Jesus gives us in our gospel today we have two sons whose behavior proves to be somewhat paradoxical. The two sons are told to work in the vineyard by their father. One readily complies, but then flakes off. Maybe it was hot that day, maybe he got distracted on the way to work. Maybe he told himself, “I’ll take a mental health day today and tomorrow I’ll catch up.” He did not do what he said he would do; what he knew he should do.
But the other son isn’t having it from the beginning. Maybe he’d already covered for his slacker brother often enough. Maybe he was miffed that the old man was sending him into the vineyard again. “Geez, don’t I do enough around here? Not like some people say they’re going to work and never get there. Well, no more. I am NOT going to work in that vineyard today and THAT’S FINAL!”
Earlier, Matthew has told us that all Judea, Pharisees like Paul among them, have followed John the Baptist to the banks of the River Jordan, heard his scathing preaching, repented and been baptized. But it seems those we’d expect to take this repentance to heart -- those Pharisees and the Sadducees; the temple priests -- haven’t proven quite so repentant.
They don’t seem to have take John seriously, or seriously enough. But the sinners, the tax collectors and prostitutes, those with much more to repent, have heeded John. The most grievous sinners, who we might have expected to spurn John’s call to righteousness, have done just the opposite.
In our reading from Philippians today,we have what may be one of the oldest Christian texts. The “Christ Hymn” as it’s become known is believed by some scholars to be an already well know hymn that Paul is quoting to the church at Philippi. It breaks down into two sections. First, Jesus’ humility and obedience are highlighted, and the second section is about God’s exaltation of Jesus.
The hymn contrasts Jesus with Adam, who was made in the image of God, and who sought to exploit that fact and become like God by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Jesus who was also in the form of God, instead of filling himself with forbidden fruit, emptied himself of all his glory, and subjected himself to the most ignominious of deaths, a punishment reserved not for the obedient, but for rebels and disobedient slaves: death by crucifixion.
And because of this utmost humility and obedience, Jesus is not cast out as was Adam, but is exalted by God, and shares God’s unutterable holy name – and becomes Lord of all that is on the earth, above and below it; not just Israel but the Lord that all nations shall confess.
What a paradox. What a contradiction.
That the long hoped-for messiah who was going to reunite Israel and Judea should end up not on the throne of David, but would suffer a traitor’s death, hung from a wooden cross by the side of the road out of town. Sort of strange, isn’t it? That Jesus, the Son of God, should yield the glory that was of right his own, and come to us in lowliness of thought. And that by him the outcast and the poor were sought, and by his death God’s salvation was wrought. It seems like the last thing that we could have expected, and yet so it came to pass.
Through Jesus’ death comes our eternal life. And through God’s mercy, not our own righteousness, comes our salvation. Well, I find great hope for such as us in our paradoxical God. We are promised that we sinners will be first in the Kingdom of heaven. The broken will be healed. The dead shall rise again.
Lucky for us, eh? We who are such profound mysteries, so often contradictory, we who are paradoxes within paradoxes, who so often do what it is that we hate, and don’t do what it is that we know we should, we sinners are loved by a mysterious Creator, and saved by a glorious God who, for love’s sake, abandoned all his glory and became human, died and rose again, to gain for us the glory that no one among us could have merited on our own.
+Amen
© The Rev. Mark Robin Collins
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