Sunday, October 20, 2013


Proper 25C October 27, 2013

          There’s a big difference between good advice and good news. When we listen to God’s word to us in the bible we can hear good advice, or we can hear good news.  Good advice helps with the outside of life – with our relations with other people, with the use of our money, our things, even our time. But good news deals with the inside of life – where the blood flows through the heart and mind.

We can hear today’s gospel as good advice or as good news. The reading ends with Jesus’ words, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." At first this sounds like the good advice we learned early in life – don’t be pushy, don’t brag too much about yourself, be modest, let others take a turn, and so on.

But of the man who “beat his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' Jesus says, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified.” The man repented his sins, trusted in God’s mercy, and received God’s mercy. He went home reconciled with God, and with himself.

We receive by faith God’s gifts of mercy and grace, and as we receive these gifts we are set free from the power of sin and set right with God - by God’s mercy and grace received by faith. The man who “beat his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' went down to his home justified.”

The other man, the one who “standing by himself, prayed ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income,’ that man was not justified. He was not reconciled with God; he was not really reconciled with himself.

Why not? He did more than the Law required. Good people in Jesus time were to fast once a week; he fasted two. They were to give a tenth of their income; he gave the full tenth of everything, even of what he grew in his kitchen garden. He was a good man; it is good to eat less food and to be able to give to those who need help.

There are three reasons why the good man was not reconciled with God or with himself.

First, the man’s good behavior was intended to show off his goodness to God and everyone who watched him. He was not serving God; he was drawing attention to himself.

Second, the man despised other people. He said “I thank you, God that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” God does not want us to compare ourselves to others. That leads to envy and hatred. God made each one of us unique, different from every other person who has ever lived. We are to compare ourselves to God, to God’s son Jesus Christ. When we do compare ourselves to God, to God’s son Jesus Christ, we see when we are honest how far we fall short of God’s goodness and God’s will for our lives.

And third, the man refused to admit his own sin. We all know in the secret places of our hearts when we have sinned, when we have done things we know God does not want us to do, and when we have not done the good things God wants us to do. God lets us refuse to admit what we know is true, but there is a price. When we deny the truth, we eventually lose the ability to know truth. When we deny we tell lies to other people, and to ourselves. Eventually we can no longer tell the difference between the truth and a lie. We are lost in deceit.

The man who “beat his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' went down to his home justified.” Jesus tells us in St. John’s gospel, “the truth will set you free.” We know ourselves to be sinners, we know we have done things we know God does not want us to do, and we know we have not done the good things God wants us to do. When we admit our sin, as St. John tells us, “God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So in every service of worship we say together a confession, and we receive absolution.

We learn in confession to do all that we do for God, for his honor and glory, not our own. We learn to compare ourselves to God, to God’s son Jesus Christ, and not to other people. We learn to give up envy and hatred and malice. And so we no longer lie to ourselves or to other people. We learn to live life free of lies and deceit. We are set free from the power of sin and set right with God by God’s mercy and grace received by faith. We go to our homes justified.  And that my friends, is not good advice, but good news. Amen.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Proper 22C St. Mary's Asheville

(Before mass)
          I’m Tom Rightmyer, the priest Fr. Norris promised “will be here at 11:00 am to offer Mass for those who cannot participate in the ecumenical service.” I am honored by this opportunity to serve.  When I was ordained in 1966 I promised God that I would take every opportunity offered to preach the gospel and to offer the sacrifice of the mass. I have served in Maryland, in Asheboro and Shelby, NC, and with the national church General Board of Examining Chaplains before I retired in 2002.  We live at Deerfield, and I’m working on a directory of the colonial clergy.

          This morning Fr. Norris and many from St. Mary’s are worshipping with our Methodist and Lutheran ecumenical partners. Let me offer some background.  

          In the Middle Ages parish churches celebrated the mass every Sunday and many also joined with monks and nuns in services of bible readings and prayer, but few received communion except at Easter. From the late 1500’s the usual Sunday morning service combined Morning Prayer, the Litany and Antecommunion – the mass through the prayers of the people. Generally 4 times a year the service continued with the Prayer of Consecration and communion – winter, spring, early summer, and fall - Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday or Pentecost, and the Sunday near St. Michael and All Angels day.

          After 300 years - in the mid-1800’s - the combined services were separated. The mass was central for Anglo-Catholic parishes and Morning Prayer and sermon were the usual Sunday service in other churches. Only from the 1950’s has everyone expected to receive at every mass, and in the 1980’s  the Eucharist replaced Morning Prayer as the principal Sunday service.  


          In colonial America the norm for Anglicans and dissenters alike was communion 4 times a year. The Protestant churches continued that pattern. In the late 19th century many churches moved from conflict to cooperation and in the 1930’s Protestant churches agreed to a common fall World Wide Communion. God is at work in all his churches, and a sign of his work in an increasing appreciation of the spiritual presence of our Lord in the Holy Communion. I’ve watched this  develop for over 47 years, and I thank God for it.

(As Sermon)
           Today ‘s Gospel ends with one of Jesus’ hard sayings, “. . . when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

          We don’t like to hear “we are worthless slaves.” We are brought up to think well of ourselves. As one preacher said, “We are self-made men, worshipping our creator.” We have no good reason for this inordinate pride. We are not “good people.” That’s a lie. We are sinners saved by grace, forgiven sinners washed in the blood of the lamb. Our Catholic faith witnessed in Holy Scripture is that we are sinners, and only by Our Lord’s sacrifice, by his death and resurrection, are we reconciled with the Father and made able to receive the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, empowered to do Our Lord’s will in the world he has redeemed. 

I recently heard a meditation on Micah 6:8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”  The church in our time has these confused. We do mercy – churches do a lot to help the poor and needy. We love justice – we love to talk about justice. We are keenly aware of injustice in our society and freely gather to complain when we think injustice is being done. But as the speaker continued, the last part is hard. We don’t do very well walking humbly with God.

           Like many of you I have lots of awards given me for various things. Volunteer organizations give paperweights, and coffee cups, and badges, and lots of other things. I suspect we could paper our walls with the certificates of appreciation. At diocesan convention in mid-November we’ll have lots of such awards for worthy recipients and many well-crafted courtesy resolutions of commendation.

           It is natural for those of us with responsibilities for organizational maintenance to want to give these things, and all of us are on some level glad to be recognized and given a token of appreciation. My 4 year old granddaughter, like her mother and her uncle, and her grandmother, and me – and likely you, sometimes notices that we’re not paying what she considers sufficient attention and says, “Look at me!” We’ve all got that in us, “Look at me!”

But as the hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.”

The reality of the Christian life is that we are raised from death in sin to new life in Christ Jesus. The task of the Christian life is to grow in Christ – to place him at the center of our lives that he may increase and our sinful selfishness may decrease.

          Life in Jesus is profoundly counter-cultural. He teaches his disciples, “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”  He calls us continually to consider in every action, “Who am I doing this for?”

The Ash Wednesday gospel from St. Matthew 6 reminds us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

We are all more or less motivated by what we get from what we do. Since Disney’s 1937 Snow White the dwarfs and others have sung, “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go.” We work partly because we need the money. But there is more. Work is a generally productive way to spend time. We are defined by our work. Even at Deerfield we ask new people, “What did you do when you were working?”

And we seek opportunities to be productive.  This Tuesday from 6 am to after 7:30 pm I will work at the primary election for Asheville city mayor. Vote for one of three and then Tuesday November 5 vote again for one of two and for 3 of 5 candidates for city council. The decisions will be made by a small percentage of city voters. I encourage you to be one of them. I’ll be paid – about $10 an hour.  I appreciate the money, but I appreciate more knowing that at least at that precinct the election will be as free and fair as I and others can make it. We will share the internal satisfaction of a job well done.  “We have done what we ought to have done.”

As on Tuesday, so with the rest of life. We live and serve in gratitude for God’s gift of new life in Jesus Christ. A Ugandan bishop, exiled by Idi Amin, once  quoted to me First Peter 2:10, “Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.”  “. . . when we have done all that we were ordered to do, we say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”  Thanks be to God!