092313 - The Koch Brothers - limiting Life to the young, while they can afford anything

A follow-up on my sermon illustration of last Sunday:

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/sabotaging-health-care-one-lie-at-a-time/?emc=eta1&_r=0

Sermon: Proper 20 C - 18th Sunday after Pentecost RCL Sept 22, 2013

Proper 20 C - 18th Sunday after Pentecost RCL

Sept 22, 2013;  Good Shepherd, Silver City NM

Brian H. O. A. McHugh=

[Jer 8: 18-9:1
;   Psalm 79:1-9;  I Tim 2:1-7;  
Luke 16:1-13 ]

A man arrived at the Pearly Gates with a large box. St. Peter asked, “What’s in the box?” The man answered, “All the news clippings about all the good things I’ve done.” Peter replied, “Just show me your chequebook and your time calendar; that will tell me everything I need to know.”

‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ “

What is the message to us today, as we gather to worship God … as we practice our “religion”, religion being those thoughts and words and deeds which bind us to the path of unconditional Love which defines the essence of God and of our understanding of our potential as human beings?

The message is this, simply put:  If we do not properly tend the root, the plant and its fruit  will be sick and deformed.

Did you know that Jesus was a Canadian? The national humour of Canadians is sarcasm … and the editor of Luke’s Gospel portrays a superbly sarcastic Jesus: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” There’s only one response to that:  “Yeah, right!”

The parable from Luke today seems to me a particularly apt one for our World and for our land today. It’s a good story! Like all parables, it contains a test. What do we think when we first hear it? If we are distracted by self-righteous feelings at the dishonest manager being commended, then we aren’t ready to hear the saving message. The message is the same to each of us as Nathan’s was to King David over his murderous lust for Bathsheba:  The man, the woman is you.”

My perspective tells me that the human community is profoundly in an age of the Dishonest Manager. Let’s look at a contemporary example of the Dishonest Manager. I could pick Bill Clinton or Barack Obama; Condolezza Rice or George W. Bush; David Axlerod or Haley Barbour; Goldman Sacks or Microsoft or Phillip Morris … since these latter, according to our Supreme Court, qualify as “persons”. Or … myself, or Deacon Sarah, so we include the so-called 99%along with the 1%. There’s a Dishonest Manager in us all. But I’ll focus on David and Charles Koch. Billionaires; owners of Koch Industries, the second largest company in America. Through their various foundations and political PACs, the have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars per year to organizations and foundations with so-called patriotic but misleading names like The Institute for Justice, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, to defeat health care for all Americans, the elimination of unions, prevent regulation of banks, deny climate change, and prevent  government supervision of the food industry. Their family funds many so-called “charitable” foundations. They give millions to conservative political parties and candidates. David Koch even supports PBS, the Public Broadcasting System, and sits on the Board of WGBH Boston. But my sense is that the underlying intention of their charity, like that of the Dishonest Manager, is control and power and intimidation in support of their business profit and ideas  -  as is true today of many very rich people and corporations worldwide. By threatening to withdraw financial support to PBS, he intimidated them from airing a documentary that had been done on the Koch brothers exposing their wide range of power and control of vast areas of American business and politics.

I would say that they and many like them throughout the World have leaned the lesson of the Dishonest Manager well. They, like the Dishonest Manager in the parable today, know that power and money can easily corrupt even the best intended; that “charity” can be used to deflect criticism and to deceive.

I have searched for any example where the Koch brothers political, financial, or political activities are to help the poor, the underpaid, the welfare of children, the sick, the poorly educated, the elderly, the victims of discrimination. I would be happy to be proved wrong; I found none. Just self-interest. I see nothing that resembles the Gospel, and nothing that demonstrates a passion or concern for the welfare of the whole American people. There are Koch brothers in every land.

If the prophet Jeremiah were here today, his words, speaking for God, would fit perfectly:

I drown in grief.
 I’m heartsick. 
Oh, listen! Please listen! It’s the cry of my dear people
 reverberating through the country.
 Is God no longer in Zion? Can you tell me why they flaunt their plaything-gods,
 their silly, imported no-gods before me?
 For my dear broken people, I’m heartbroken.
 I weep, seized by grief.
 Are there no healing ointments in Gilead? So why can’t something be done
 to heal and save my dear, dear people?

or Amos:  Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
 you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
 
Who give little and take much; 
You exploit the poor, using them—
 and then, when they’re used up, you discard them. God swears  ‘I’m keeping track of their every last sin.’ 
God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,
 dissolve the whole world into tears.
 God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,
 flooding houses and lands,
 and then recedes,
 leaving behind a sea of mud.

The Koch brothers are of course symbols. Symbols of what can happen to any of us when our roots are planted in toxic soil. The apostle Paul elegantly describes the good soil in which we need to be rooted in order to produce the kind of plant that God desires:  whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. [1] Paul’s words are, of course, rooted in the Gospel preached by Jesus; in the nature of the God of unconditional love, Justice and Compassion as revealed by Jesus; in God’s desire that every person – because we are one with God and with each other -  share in the divine abundance of life.

Prophets, as Jesus often did, speak forcefully and without much concern for politeness. As to the Koch brothers and those they symbolize, how do I know what is in their hearts; they may feel they are acting in love, even if I see it differently. Do I think that we here at Good Shepherd can change the World? No. Do I think that we can change our local environment? Yes. How? By being, as Jesus says in the Gospel reading today, “faithful in a very little” which makes us “faithful also in much”. We reach out to the young people in the After School Programme. We support the young folk at the University. We try to help young women in Palomas. We welcome the Gayfolk to our place to celebrate Thanksgiving and, as part of the Episcopal Church, affirm their equal rights as God’s children and citizens of America. We invite the Hispanic community to teach us and deepen our understanding of their ancient traditions. And God alone knows what many acts of love and kindness and generosity we each of us extend to our sisters and brothers.

If we are honest about ourselves, we know the lengths to which people will go to protect their material well-being. The wiliness of a Dishonest Manager is in us all. It would be easy to be unfaithful in small things and so in large. That is the warning of today’s parable. We are here to anchor ourselves in the soil of divine Compassion; to remember that our salvation, and the health of the World, rests in our unity with each other and all Existence; to bear the fruit of Christ crucified.

There is an old Jewish story about a rabbi who gave up his family and all other “worldly” concerns in order to study Torah and achieve heaven. When he died and appeared before God, God had only one question: “Where are the others?”

---

[1] Phil 4: 8 NRSV

Sermon on the XI Sunday of Pentecost - July 21, 2013

Proper 11 C_9th Sunday after Pentecost, RCL

July 21, 2013

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Silver City NM; 

Brian H. O. A. McHugh

[Amos 8: 1-12
;   Psalm 52;  
Col 1: 15-28;  
Luke 10: 38-42 ]

In over 45 years, I have never used the same sermon twice, and never intend to. However, it is nice to be in a new place, because I can use illustrations that you haven’t heard before! In the summer of 1989, I went to Oslo to officiate at the wedding of the son of a friend and his Norwegian fiancé. Afterwards, I spent 3 weeks in Italy. A friend helped me get a place to stay at a Benedictine monastery; the monks welcomed me even though I was not a Roman Catholic. Hospitality is one of the greatest principles of the monastic life; we know it mostly in the 5^th C. Rule of St. Benedict, which says: “Welcome all guests as Christ”. One day, I hiked five hours to another monastery, planning to arrive for lunch which the abbot told me was at noon, but as there was no telephone he couldn’t confirm. My hike took longer. I arrived almost half an hour late! I was ushered into the refectory by the guestmaster … and all the monks were sitting … waiting, listening to the Lector. I was seated, the abbot rapped the table, and lunch began in silence. The guestmaster, who spoke some English and who has permission to talk, leaned over and whispered, “We were expecting you”. How they knew I was coming, I never discovered  -  though don’t get distracted by that little mystery. My point is that they subscribed to Christian Hospitality which required that they await my arrival.

The Gospel story today is primarily about two issues in Christian practice:  Hospitality, and dealing with Anxiety or Worry. Jesus visits Martha and Mary. Mary sits and listens to Jesus. Martha is doing all the work to offer hospitality to Jesus … but she is stressed and cranky. That worry and distraction, Jesus points out to her, is getting in the way of being hospitable. Of course there is nothing essentially wrong with serving; Jesus “came to serve”. This story is, as is almost always the case, about us as persons baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. It speaks to one of the central themes of Jesus’ teaching:  that our relationship with Him and with God is meant to transform us, bring us into the fullness of our Being. We all resist this in various ways throughout our lives  -  which we all know if we are honest. Transformation, change, growing, evolving: these are our greatest inner challenges. Worship and community and “religion”, if effective, bind us on the path towards transformation into fullness of Being as a component of the profound Mystery of Life. To be transformed, God, as the “ground of Being”, must be at the center, breathing Life into us as God does into Adam and Eve. Jesus is not chastising Martha for serving; we are all called to serve. Rather, He is gently chastising her for letting her chores displace Him in her heart. To be one with God, we must not be distracted by worry and anxiety or anything else from offering hospitality in our hearts to God and to the powerful transforming message of Jesus’ Gospel.

“Hospitality” derives from the Latin root, meaning either a place of healing – a hospital  -  or a person who welcomes another into their home – a host. Offering hospitality is to invite others into our loving hearts, where Life and wholeness can be found. It is not surprising that the Eucharistic bread we eat is called The Host. When we receive it, we receive God into our lives who brings healing and wholeness and peace. We offer hospitality to God, as Mary did, and we receive God’s hospitality in the form of God’s gift of Life and unconditional love.

It is not surprising that Jesus so often says, “Do not be afraid”, or, “Do not be anxious”. Fear and anxiety profoundly hinder the process of evolving into “the full stature of Christ”.[1] Jesus understood fear. He wrestled with that fear in Gethsemane. He went to Jerusalem to face it down. And when Peter tried to dissuade Him, He firmly rebuked him. Read again the words of the Epistle. It is a stirring call to remember Mary’s choice  -  to listen to God first above all things, to be transformed into His likeness, to act with His uncompromising love.

Sound scary? I think it is … if we forget that we are now living in the full embrace of God’s love;  if we conform to the standards of culture and society and economics which demean us and others;  if we buy into spiritual paths which lie to us.

In our World, we are highly susceptible to all these. I see and feel the anxiety and worry and fear in the World and in our land  -  and I experience the effects of it in my Life. Rampant militarism and glorification of force; pervasive  violence on every social level; the power of vast wealth to deprive millions of the basics for life; hate for and fear of “the other” barely hidden under a veneer of politeness … a veneer being stripped away in the media these days as politicians and supposedly religious people spew vitriol; “Stand your Ground” laws; unconfronted bullying of young people for various reasons, including NM gay teenager Carlos Vigil who killed himself in Los Lunas this week. The list goes sadly on.

I would worry more … but then I remember “Think globally, Act Locally”. Most of us are going to contribute to the transformation of the World in small ways. I recall this little story from the Desert Mothers and Fathers: “A brother came to visit a hermit. As he was talking his leave, he said: ‘Pardon me, father, for I have caused you to violate your rule.’ But the hermit answered: "My rule is to refresh you and send you back in peace."  I think that’s what worship should be for us.

I think we need to remember the lesson of Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet. God, God’s compassion, must define us. We need to ask ourselves daily, “Is how I am behaving, acting, thinking, believing consonant with the person and ethic of Jesus? Am I open to transformation?

We come to this altar to be transformed into the image of God, to accept God’s hospitality, to offer God the hospitality of our hearts, to support each other on this Journey of being Christ-like. And more importantly, to go and help break down all barriers which would separate us or any person from the love of God and from each other. If we are faithful in “small things”, God will transform the World.

Sermons are not, in my mind, for telling anyone what to believe. They are to encourage a conversation. I look forward, at Coffee or any other time, to hear your thoughts.

---

[1] Ephesians 4: 13

Sermon for Lent IV, Year C, RCL

Lent V C_RCL _March 17, 2013        

Good Shepherd, Silver City NM        

The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh +

I’ve been rereading the series of six novels about the Church of England that English author Susan Howatch began in the late 80’s. They seem a little dated now; many of the political and ecclesiastical issues she deals with of a quarter of a century ago have shifted. But the theological and devotional issues are eternal: Delusion & Truth; Sin and Love; Death and Life. Counseling the Archdeacon Neville Aysgarth, whose life has become a mess, Abbot Aidan voices the Gospel path to wholeness:  “You sin. You go down into hell. You’re under judgment. You face the pain. You acknowledge your sins. You repent. You’re led out of hell. You’re shown the way forward— and the way forward signifies forgiveness as well as the chance to begin a new life, by the grace of God, in faith and in hope and in charity.”
[1] Necessary stuff to be pondering anytime, and especially during Lent.

Particularly powerful is the challenge of self-delusion. Miss Howatch’s focus is laser sharp and, as I followed the Archdeacon’s descent into a hell of his own making and the Abbot’s lovingly ruthless stripping away of the mask of the lies we tell ourselves, I thought of Jesus, of His own words and those of others, about truth and His fearless commitment to it: [2] “the Word became flesh and lived among us … full of grace and truth”;  The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”;  “the hour is coming, is here now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”;  “You teach the way of God in accordance with truth”;  “I came into the world to testify to the truth”;  Pilate asked, What is truth?”;  Paul says about the Gospel way of Life, “let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”;  “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”.

The apostle Paul was a seeker after truth. Where did he ultimately find it? Did he find it in an intellectual belief system? Did he find it in the Jewish Law? Did he find it in his own righteousness as a blameless Pharisee? As a zealot in opposing the Christian challenge to his Jewish faith? No, he didn’t. And what truth was Paul seeking? Simply put:  he was … perhaps unawares until the Damascus road … seeking himself, his true identity. Just like the rest of us. And in seeking his true identity, he was looking for the power that sets us free, the power that shatters all the delusions and the falsehoods that the World entices us with, those “ultimate prizes” that the Archdeacon set his heart on only to find, with the help of a wise and fearless counselor, they were lies and self-delusion.

When Lent began, we saw Jesus reject all those false ”ultimate prizes” that Satan offered Him in the Wilderness as the path of self-definition … and every Lent He continues to reject them until we stand with the women at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday and see the great cost of choosing the truth. I think the message of the Gospel is clear:  we find our true self, our true identity, in our union with  the mystery of Divine Love, known in Jesus. I respectfully disagree with Paul about some things, but I absolutely resonate with his experience of meeting the mystical Christ on the Damascus road:

 .. whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [3]

As our Rector has preached, it’s all about death and resurrection. The journey of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday strip away all self-delusion. Only by embracing Love, and by being willing to die to everything else … by “embracing the pain”, as Abbot Aidan tells the Archdeacon … does the light of God’s love blaze out in our heart as the indestructible core of our self-identity. It was and is Jesus’ deepest Self, and for those of us who follow Him, it is ours. Being fallible mortals, it is critical to remember what Paul says: I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”. We will never be perfect. Perfection is one of those false “ultimate prizes”. We can only try our best to follow Abbot Aidan’s wise words about the cycle of death and resurrection.

The Gospel story today is a beautiful image of our true identity to carry in our hearts. It is an icon of our soul made one with Jesus. The Word of Love made Flesh comes to dwell in our hearts, the True Bread that comes down from Heaven and gives Life. Lazarus … the symbol of our being called, over and over, from death into Life … is there. Martha is there to remind us that to love is to serve. Importantly, Judas the Betrayer is there, to remind us of our capacity for self-delusion. And Mary is there, pouring her priceless perfume over Jesus’ feet … reminding us that we are worth the extravagant unconditional love that God pours over us, permitting us, as Paul says, to “press on toward the goal” of knowing our true identity.

Why are we here Sunday by Sunday? To know who we are. We are one with God in Christ. “We shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free”.

---

[1] Howatch, Susan (2011-03-02). Ultimate Prizes (Church of England) (Kindle Locations 4267-4269). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] John 1:14;  17;  John 4: 23;  Matt 22:16;  John 15:26;  John 18:37; 38;  I Cor 5:8

[3] Philippians 4