Loading...Sermon March 4, 2018
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, LSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s, Newport, PA
Third Sunday in Lent, Year B
‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ John 2:16
Last week, I enjoyed services at The Washington National Cathedral. As most of you probably know, the Cathedral was my church when I lived and worked in DC. I happened to be there just as a congregation was being formed. Yes, the Cathedral was built in the early 1900s, but for most of its first 100 years, there was no plan for a congregation to be there. Plans and approval occurred in 2006-2007.
One of the challenges was how to put a congregation structure in place because cathedrals are governed in a different way. For instance, a Cathedral has a Chapter rather than a Vestry. At The National Cathedral, the Chapter not only oversees the Cathedral, but also many of the ministries on the Close – the schools, for instance. These are ministries that are separate from the worshiping congregation.
Also, the Cathedral has always had to raise all of its operating money. It does not get money from the Diocese of Washington nor from The Episcopal Church. So the Cathedral had a pretty typical fundraising plan in place, reaching out across the country for support for its ministry and programs.
If you gave at a certain level, you received certain perks, for instance maybe a special dinner with the Dean or the occasional Cathedral Age magazine. Transitioning people from the typical donor structure to one of spiritual stewardship was interesting.
The typical fundraising structure – the nonprofit economy, if you will – has different perks or gifts for different levels. If you give $10,000, for instance, you might get your name on something.
But God’s economy doesn’t work in the same way. In God’s economy, all we have comes from God and we are encouraged to give a generous portion back to God. Let’s take the tithe for instance.
A person earning the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks per year earns $15,080. If they tithed to the church, they would give $1,508 per year. Now the Median Household Income for Perry County is $58, 585, so a tithe of that would be $5,858. So, yes, one person gave more actual dollars than another, but each one is giving 10%. That’s what counts in God’s economy. In a God’s economy fundraising scheme, both of these people would get the same perks for giving, even though the amounts are different.
So what upset Jesus so much? The Temple had become a place operating on the less than perfect economies we set up as humans. People coming for Passover were supposed to buy animals for sacrifice. The more money you had, the larger animal you could buy and by inference, the more bargaining power you had with God!
Yes… you see…that was the rub – The whole idea that we can bargain with God….that if we give more to God, we get more back from God. It’s an economy that creates a hierarchy of value. If you can afford the larger, more expensive animal to sacrifice, then you must be of more value than those who can only buy the doves.
We still buy in to this today in so many ways. Don’t we hold on tightly to the idea that people who are poor must have done something or must not be doing what they need to do to not be in poverty? We blame the individuals for the most part, instead of looking at the many factors that cause poverty. Don’t we often secretly believe that God blesses us materially because we are better Christians and if we don’t have as many blessings, we must not be as good of a Christian???
We truly don’t understand God’s economy….
I mean, today we observe Women’s History Month. In looking into some figures for Perry County, I learned that in our region there is disparity in income by gender. Men still earn more than women, even in the same industries and with like jobs.
More women tend to live in poverty than men. If we use the economy of the world as I’ll call it, we might say that women do not have as much value as men – that we value women less than we value men.
God’s economy says otherwise….
This past week I read an article about how Roman Catholic nuns reported on their economic exploitation at the hands of the church. Sister Paule said:
“Behind all this is still the unfortunate idea that women are worth less than men, and above all that the priest is everything while sisters are nothing in the church.”
In a May 2016 audience with female leaders of the church, Pope Francis distinguished the difference between service and servitude. He said:
“When a consecrated woman is asked to perform a work of servitude, the life and dignity of that woman are demeaned,” the pope said. “Her vocation is service: service to the church. But not servitude!”
Now, we can say in The Episcopal Church, at least we ordain women as priests; however, studies show that there are still disparities based upon gender. The point is, that we are talking about Christian churches where God’s economy should reign and we are still caught in the human economy and the way we as humans tend to judge each other….
That’s why Jesus was so angry. That’s why Jesus was saying that something wasn’t right in the very place where God’s economy should reign. Jesus taught us that every person is created in the image of God and therefore, every single person is valued and loved by God. God’s favor is not measured by how many material goods we have…how much money we have. That’s an aberration from the human economy. God’s economy asks us why there are these disparities and asks us to make them right.
That’s what Jesus was trying to teach and to do that day in the Temple. He was saying the people had set up things all wrong and change was needed.
God loves each one of us because God created us. We are of equal value and it is up to us to meet the challenge of how we live God’s economy rather than the less than perfect economies we humans have set up.
Amen
In Vatican Magazine Exposé, Nuns Reveal Their Economic Exploitation: https://nyti.ms/2FJLEhA
