"God is in the Doing"
September 25, 2005: 19th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, co-pastor
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.newlights.org

Scripture:
Matthew 21:23-31
When [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By that authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, 'Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' [The son] answered, 'I will not' but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, 'I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."

Sermon:
Today's sermon was meant to be a surprise. It was to be my surprise gift to you: a firsthand report from yesterday's "United for Peace" march on Washington D.C. I was going to head down there on the train at the crack of dawn, spend the day protesting our country's unjust war in Iraq, then hop back on the 10 p.m. train in order to be back here by 5 o'clock this morning. It was my intention to work the whole night through on the train, weaving my experiences with that great cloud of diverse witnesses for peace and justice into sermon for you.

I got as far as Penn Station. There, after a brief, giddy cheer and a briefer trip of about 100 yards, we sat on the train for three and a half hours, waiting for repairs to be made to the downed power lines in the tunnel so we could proceed. That never happened. And so I got off, got my refund, and got on the next MetroNorth bound back to New Haven. What I didn't get was the food for thought for the sermon I'd planned.

Surprise...!

Fortunately, we've got the Gospel passage before us and the beautiful music of the choir to help open it for our reflection.

So Jesus is teaching in the temple in Jerusalem, and he's not just asking questions or floating ideas. As the gospel writer remarked earlier, back in chapter 7, "the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes" (Mt 7:29). Understandably, this didn't go over well with those very same scribes, chief priests, and elders in the audience; after all, they were the "proper" religious authorities of the day, and this Jesus was a loose cannon.

So they formed a committee to quiz Jesus and establish his credentials. Now me, I'm reminded here of that scene in the 70's John Denver-George Burns vehicle, "Oh, God!" when John Denver's grocery store manager-come-reluctant prophet is put to the test by a high powered panel of disbelieving bishops, ministers, and televangelists who are trying to ferret out just how crazy he really is. Or, if that doesn't work for you, think about the barbershop-singing school board in Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man," who chase Harold Hill all over town saying, "Wait just a minute, Professor. We need to see your credentials!" Just so the chief priests and elders come at Jesus, demanding to know by whose authority he's preaching and teaching, because they know it's not theirs. And according to the rules—which they wrote—they're the religion police, and you can't be a certified card-carrying clean-living, God-fearing Jew, much less a rabbi, in Jerusalem without their say-so.

But Jesus isn't having any of it. He knows that true authority comes from the blessing of the Holy Spirit, not the by-laws of any particular religious bureaucracy. Such authority flows through communities of faith, it's true, but just because you have a badge doesn't make you sheriff. And so he turns the question back on his inquisitors. "Tell you what: I'll answer your question if you answer one of mine. John the Baptizer—you remember him? tall guy: camel hair, locusts, hugely popular? You stood by as he was killed by Herod's government. That's the one—So, John... was what he did divinely inspired or merely another example of fiendish secular humanism at work? Answer me that, and I'll tell you by what authority I am doing the things I do."

Don't you just want to yell at the movie screen at this point? You know, warn the chief priests and elders? "No, don't do it! It's a trap! He's the messiah! Run away!" But do they listen? Nooo. They blunder blithely on, trying to be all sly, but managing to step... right... in it. "Let's see: The baptism of John, was it (a) from God or (b) not from God? Um, (c) none of the above?"

<Enhhh!> Wrong answer, but thank you for playing. "Then neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing the work I do," Jesus says. And then he goes on, trying to open their opens and broaden their perspective. He tells them a quick story to make his point. "What matters more," he asks, "saying a thing or doing a thing?" And of course they answer, "Doing it." "Exactly," Jesus says. "A lot of people say they're true believers. A lot of people talk a good game. But God is in the doing."

How quickly we seem to forget that! And yes, I mean "we." This isn't just a matter of conservative versus liberal. No matter where we come from on the religio-politcal spectrum, we 21st Century North American Christians seem to obsess about right credentials and right doctrine and right belief more than right action. We "inquisit" nearly everyone we come into contact with, judging them early and often. Does he believe the right things? Does she disbelieve the right things? In other words, do they believe like I do? Because if they don't measure up, they can be discounted and denied and disrespected. It's the HardBall approach to faith, and to life.

Here are a couple of favorite fairly recent examples:

In 2002, Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor David Benke was charged in church courts with committing the heresies of "syncretism," that is, polluting the truth faith through contact with pagans, i.e. people of other faiths, and "unionism," that is, polluting the true faith through contact with other, i.e. wrong-believing Christians (!)—all for participating in an ecumenical prayer service in New York City after the September 11 attacks on that city. He was suspended from work for nearly a year while the investigation proceeded, though he was exonerated finally in 2003.

And on the other side of the fence, so to speak: Back in the spring of 2001, I was helping pull together a loose coalition of open-and-affirming-esque congregations in the New Haven area to organize a worship service here celebrating gay pride month. We had UCCers, of course, but also Episcopalians and Presbyterians and Lutherans and the Metropolitan Community Church... and Unitarians and Pentecostals. That's right: we had pro-gay Pentecostals. A rare breed, indeed, but we had them. I say "had." because it turns out that upon further reflection, these folks—who went out of their way to welcome gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender folks into their fairly unique fellowship—they couldn't see their way clear to worshiping with the Unitarians. They sacrificed their participation in a historic affirmation of God's extravagant welcome for all people because... well, because the Unitarians didn't believe the right things about the divinity of Christ.

When are we going to get it? When are we going to learn the lesson that Jesus set before the pigeon-holing religious authorities of his own day? God is in the doing.

That's where this morning's anthem comes in. Ubi Caritas is an ancient hymn. It likely dates to sometime in the 9th Century. And, if the stories are to be believed, it was written by Bishop Paulinus of Aquileia, Italy, for a contentious church synod in 796 or 797. That conference debated the filioque clause, an arcane bit of text in the Nicene Creed—the phrase that says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and the Son" and not the Father only—but nevertheless the issue that would eventually become the last straw that split the Church from East to West, from the 11th century right down to today. In preparation for that excruciating bit of hair-splitting, the good bishop, clearly trying to remind the gathered church officials that acting like a Christian is more important than talking like one, penned these words:

Where there is charity and love, there God is.
The love of Christ has united us.
Let us rejoice and find our delight in him.
Let us hold and love the living God,
And let us cherish each other.

This was the lesson I had hope to illustrate for you this morning with scenes from the march for peace in Washington—images of all kinds of people, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, agnostics and outright atheists and Christian folk of all kinds, women and men, older and younger, richer and poorer, Republican and Democrat and Green and independent, straight and gay, of every race and ethnicity, all gathered do the work of peace, love, and justice, doing the work of God, wittingly or un-. We do what we do because we follow the example of Jesus and seek his guiding resurrection spirit, but as Jesus reminds us back in Matthew's chapter 7 again, "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Mt 7:21). The proof is in the pudding, in the good fruit the tree bears. "Where there is charity and love, there is God."

But I didn't have to go all the way to Washington to see the love of God, which transcends all boundaries, to see that love at work in the world. Because God will be there—we believe Christ will be there—among us tonight just up the road in Hamden as we gather with Jewish and Muslim friends to laugh again in hope in the face of overwhelming national tragedy, to pray for justice for those seeking to rebuild their tattered lives, and to bring the sweet relief of God—Ha-shem—Allah's mercy to our neighbors in the Gulf Coast region. We recognize that regardless of the particular traditions of those doing it, hope, justice, and mercy are the work of love, the work of God.

Jesus put it this way on the night before he was handed over to false arrest, torture, and wrongful execution at the hands of those very same chief priests and elders for his own unorthodox beliefs: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this," and not by your doctrines or your dogma or your polity or your politics, "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:34-5). God is love, and God is made known in the work of love in the world, no matter where, no matter who. God is in the doing.