Getting in Trouble

Matthew 23:1-12

This sermon is pretty much guaranteed to get the preacher in trouble.

Every word out of Jesus’ mouth is uncomfortable, radical and political. Just listen to him this morning, sitting in the Temple in Jerusalem and talking trash about the Pharisees, complaining about their flag pins and claims to know what God wants for America, their phylacteries and their fringes.
Listen to him talk about hypocrisy, creating burdens for Main Street that no one on K Street or Wall Street carries, and about failing to practice what they preach.

Jesus says the same things about the Pharisees that the folks Occupying Wall Street and the Tea Partiers say about corporate and political leaders.
Half of this sermon could go right on Facebook and Twitter, and you’d never know it’s about two thousand years old.

Even when Jesus gets to his instructions to the disciples, and the community that becomes Christian, he’s still saying radical things about rejecting the norms of tradition, and reorganizing the religious community.

He’s right of course. It’s a terrible thing to create burdens for everyone else that you don’t have any real intention of carrying yourself. And concern for respect and your “image” can get in the way of your real relationships.
And it definitely gets him in trouble.

But it’s also pretty normal.
I do that stuff.
Many of you might, too.

Most of the time, we don’t do it on purpose. We probably don’t go to the store looking for an opportunity to push industrial waste and below-subsistence wages on other people. More likely, we go to the store looking to do the best we can for our families.
Many of us like to make a good impression, just on general principle. We like to be treated with respect by waiters, co-workers, family, and especially the customer service people on the other end of the phone line.
And, well, many of us get pretty attached to “our” seat in the church. Which is perfectly normal and mostly harmless – until it freezes out someone else, even just by accident.

Which is another place this sermon has a good chance of getting the preacher in trouble. After all, here I am with the fanciest seat in the house, blatantly religious clothes, and a title. And, since I’m preaching the gospel to the best of my ability, and the gospel is a tremendous, life-altering, world-changing and demanding experience, I’m pretty much guaranteed to fail regularly at practicing what I preach.
It’s tempting to take this sermon a little personally.

And yes, it’s about me. But it’s also not about me, or about you,
because fundamentally, it’s about us.
About our community, not about individuals.

It’s about how the outward forms of organization and holiness make us comfortable. It’s about how recognition and self-esteem are things we need emotionally the same way we physically need food. These things provide security, strength, and continuity.

And Jesus wants us to let go of all that.

Because security, strength, comfort, and continuity are totally irrelevant at the foot of the cross and the doorway of the empty tomb.  Comfort, security, and recognition conspire to keep us away from the frightening, embarrassing, or vulnerable places that God might lead us. Organization, continuity, strength might tempt us to avoid a place that calls all our most basic truths into question.

Jesus actually wants us to be vulnerable. To experience our relationship with God and one another not as assurance and comfort, not as work to be done, not even as “normal,”
but as an immense trust fall,
an experience of giving over all our illusions of control,
and being embraced and held up when we absolutely cannot save ourselves.

When we let go of security and reputation, and risk embarrassment and pain, we find ourselves at the foot of the cross, face to face with how much we love and are loved. 
When we let go of the things that promise strength and continuity, we show up at the tomb because there is nowhere left to go, and are brought face to face with hope beyond our imagining.

That’s what Jesus means about humility. It’s not a question of convincing ourselves that we’re worthless, but rather of willingness to live our faith unprotected by the structures of authority, the traditions of respect and reputation, risking strangeness and surprise at every turn.

So think with me for a minute about what that might mean.
When Jesus tells his disciples not to have rabbis, or teachers, or leaders called “Father,” he’s telling them to let go of all the ways religious communities get respect, and security, comfort and self-esteem at the time.
He might talk to us about our building, or prayer book, or even Sunday morning worship – or about other things I’m too involved myself to see.
It’s not an instruction to quit church, but instead a challenge to be church in ways that aren’t secure, or comfortable, or respected by the community.

It might mean taking church out of this building, like we do on Ash Wednesday at the train station.
If so, where else is God calling us to take the church?
Or it might mean inviting into our building those we don’t think of as church.
If so, is that people of other races and nations – or is it Wall Street executives and politicians?

It might mean changing the way we worship.
If so, do we change the music and the prayers?
Or does every one of you take a turn to write the prayers and preach the sermon?

It could be other things, too. Things that could really get the preacher in trouble.
Which is good news, still, because this whole troubling sermon of Jesus’ is about letting go of the things that make us comfortable, giving up predictability and security in favor of trust, and falling – metaphorically and literally – into the hands of God.

Because trust is what humility and vulnerability are really about,
and trust is what lets God surprise us: with love at the foot of the cross, and hope at the empty tomb.