Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Questions, Questions
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; Matthew 22:34-46
Last Friday I trucked on down to the county courthouse and cast my absentee ballot in person for the upcoming general election. (I much prefer walking two blocks to my neighborhood polling place and kibitzing with fellow citizens in the longish line-up there as we patiently, patriotically, wait our turn to decide the fate of the world one vote at a time. But this time I have to be out of town on election day.)
Sunday morning I preached on Jesus' simple, profound, answer to one more trick question thrown at him in a public dialogue that made the McCain-Obama debates look like child's play. Matthew's story lines up one after another official opponent to pose a tough theological problem for Jesus to solve -- Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and now a "scribe." This man is a scholar in the Law of God, devoted to copying the sacred text and interpreting its nuances for righteousness in everyday life.
He asks Jesus, "Which of all the commandments is the greatest, most important, most valuable one?"
Can't you just hear the commentary this guy hoped to hear on that evening's news? Something like...
"Jesus of Nazareth today did not deny advocating a sliding scale of morality, after he singled out just one of God's laws over all the hundreds of other statutes and commandments long held to be every person's sacred duty. In fact, some scholars observe that he virtually turned the Ten Commandments into a multiple choice test."
What he did do, of course, was appeal to every devout Jew's daily morning prayer (Deuteronomy 6:5) -- "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength." In short, Love God with everything you've got!
Then he added a corrolary (Leviticus 19:18) -- "Love your neighbor as yourself." In short, treat other people the same way you'd want to be treated.
There you go: Love God, love people, and everything else works out from there!
Now, imagine what a different world this would be if people voted on all the candidates, the propositions, the measures and initiatives using that one fundamental principle...
Imagine what a different world we'd live in if every politician, civic leader, business executive, worker, teacher, parent, child, neighbor, friend, pastor, and garden variety Christian tried to make every decision on that one fundamental basis...
Love God, love people, and everything else works out from there!
Imagine that. I hope someday you will join us.
No apologies to John Lennon. Or Jesus, either.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:14 AM
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
All Due Respect
Psalm 99; Matthew 22:15-22
Through no strategy of my own, this week's sermon fit right in with the heightened political pulse of the day -- which was Day 16 in our national countdown to Election Day. It was really a divine coincidence that the assigned Gospel story was about politics in general and taxes in particular.
Two Jewish parties with no love lost between them, Pharisees and Herodians, came together to ask Jesus a trick question -- one that would get him in trouble no matter how he answered it. "Does God's Law allow us to pay the taxes required by Rome's laws?"
And they had the gall to preface it all with some weaselly words of flattery. "We know," they said, "that you are absolutely sincere, honest, and evenhanded in the ways you teach and treat your disciples." Yadda yadda yadda. "With all due respect." And blech.
Jesus called them out on their hypocrisy and refused to give a yes or no answer to their oily question. Instead, he got them to produce one of the Roman-minted tax coins and asked a question of his own.
Ace teacher that he was, he moved the question away from abstract ideas into a tangible object lesson. "Look, touch," he said. "Hold this coin. Feel the metal, study the picture, read the label."
Then he asked, "Whose face is that? Who is that man?"
"Caesar," they said. And "Caesar" once again.
Bingo! And so it's Caesar's coin, no?
Well, yes.
"So," said Jesus, "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And never forget to give to God what belongs to God." In other words, always give to God the due respect that God deserves.
And his inquisitors walked away without another word. Weaselly or otherwise.
But, you may ask, what does belong to God? Maybe everything? Then isn't Caesar's coin also really God's property?
Hmmm. Suddenly what looks like one simple little stumper unfolds to reveal a host of other, more complicated, questions. What's a thoughtful person to do?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:52 PM
Thursday, October 16, 2008
101 Excuses
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus' story in last Sunday's Gospel reading was simultaneously one of the most inviting and most off-putting of all his teachings.
In the midst of a beautiful metaphor -- God's "kingdom" as an eternal wedding party! -- he twice throws in angry language about punishment, destruction, and damnation.
I wrestled long and hard with the two judgmental details, feeling for a way to preach the story positively come Sunday morning.
Here are the problem passages...
1. When the king's invitation to his son's wedding goes out, everybody has some kind of excuse why it won't work for them -- Things to do; places to go; people to see. Sorry 'bout that. And then they kill the king's messengers! The king, of course, is not pleased. He in turn sends an army out to kill those wicked people and totally destroy their city! (Verse 7)
2. Next, the king sends out a no-strings invitation to absolutely anybody who's willing to accept it. "Come to my son's wedding. Celebrate his happiness, share our joy!" And they do come, scads of them. Then, working the room during the reception dinner, the king comes upon one man who isn't wearing the official wedding robe. "How did this happen?" he asks. He then has the man thrown out of the party -- and thrown into "outer darkness" complete with weeping and gnashing of teeth! (Verse 13)
Can you say "Argh! Yikes!! and #$%^*!!!"?
How do you preach the gospel after that?
Fortunately, I was still levitating a little in the afterglow of my son Robert's wedding (see my 10/4 post) and I thought I might have a way out of this homiletical dilemma.
How did I do it? Did it work?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:41 PM
Saturday, October 04, 2008
My Boy Is Married!
It was as close as I've ever been to a bride and groom when I wasn't officiating at the wedding.
Joanne and I sat just six feet away from our son Robert and his beautiful bride Dorothy. My sole responsibilities were to be suitably proud and to stay more or less composed until the recessional. And it worked!
The wedding took place on the lovely lawn of a ranch in the hills above the Napa Valley. The place was featured recently in House Beautiful magazine, the handiwork of Robert and Dorothy's employer. Now the decor was enhanced by Dot's elegant gifts for interior design and flower arranging.
The bride and groom's physical glory -- handmade gown and suit, natural good looks, slender bodies thanks to pre-wedding adrenaline -- was far outshone by the beauty of their home-grown vows. At that point I had no problem at all maintaining pride, plus appreciation, for their mutual love and respect and absolute commitment. Where I did struggle a tad was in the composure department. Fortunately, the best man had distributed monogrammed hankies beforehand.
At the rehearsal the young woman officiating said she hoped I would approve of her work, since she had just a one-day license to perform this wedding. I assured her I would only cheer her on and probably learn something new to use in future weddings myself. She wasn't so sure about that, but yes indeed, I discovered more than one pleasant "aha" in her simple, eloquent, graceful performance.
I tell you this not only as a proud father, but also as a grateful pastor. The Bible calls the church "the bride of Christ." How lovely. And I am repeatedly taught, by church members in our life together, as at my son's wedding, something wonderfully new -- an insight, a method, an apt turn of phrase -- that I could never imagine or discover on my own.
Thanks be to God. And to God's church.
posted by Jack Buckley at
12:47 PM
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