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And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’
There was a day when Tulsa was the world’s oil capital. But then there was the oil bust of the 1980s. A glut of world oil sank prices from $40 to $9 a barrel, decimating the industry. The low price of oil made it not even worth producing. The effect was catastrophic on Tulsa and other oil centers like Houston, Dallas, Calgary, and Midland. Bankruptcy judges were swamped with cases. Jobs disappeared. Homes foreclosed, and real estate values plummeted. Legendary tales of destitution grew—stories of former millionaires selling shoes. But I’m not telling you anything new. Many of you know this all to well.
But those days of bust are past. Tulsa may no longer be the world’s oil capital, but the oil industry is thriving again. The energy industry is now waiting for oil prices to break the $100 a barrel mark. Never before has oil been such a valuable commodity. Never before has oil been so lucrative. Never before has oil been so powerful. And, of course, oil continues to make people remarkably rich. The oil industry is in an unprecedented boom because of the simple economic principle of supply and demand. The supply of oil is limited; and it is difficult to obtain. But the demand is there. So we pay higher prices. Our economy and our cars require oil, we cannot do without it. And so we pay what we pay.
In the Holy Gospel, we find that there is oil more valuable even than the good old black gold. This oil makes one truly rich. This oil is truly powerful. And this oil can change the lives of people forever. It is absolutely necessary and essential to possess this oil; and it is worth everything.
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
Tonight, thanksgiving has nothing to do with Pilgrims, Indians, and Pumpkin Pie. Rather, our thanksgiving is all wrapped up in the gifts of our God. After all, true thanksgiving is nothing more than sincere gratitude for a gift. A gift, of course, is something that has been given to you. A gift is not earned or deserved. A gift does not have strings attached. Nor is a gift an entitlement. Rather, a gift is a gift. It is unmerited and unearned. Only when we understand the completely free and gracious nature of a gift will we truly be thankful.
But Thanksgiving involves so much labor and hard work that the idea of gift is lost on us. Thus, our thankfulness threatens to be shallow and misguided. Consider how hectic the day is. We work to get to where we are going; packing up the kids and the food and the whatever. Or we labor to prepare for guests; raking, sweeping, cleaning, and setting up. And then there is the toil of the feast: cooking and baking; overeating, and doing dishes. Now we may pause briefly at some point in the day to reflect on how we are blessed to be with family and friends; to live in a nice home; to have money; to have good health; to live in this country; and, maybe, to know the salvation of Christ Jesus. But rarely do we acknowledge all such things to be true and pure gifts from God.
Pr. Weedon has an interesting post on the elevation of the host. What a wonderful reality that our Lord deigns to be in our midst and give us His Holy Body and Blood for our forgiveness and salvation.
Here is the sermon that I will preach this morning. Thanks to my friend Reverend Christopher Esget for some wording on the “object of faith” section. Of course any mistakes or such belong to me! Luther, preaching on this text, commented, “The Gospel does not make good people, it makes Christians.” I didn’t use the quote, but it is both true and profound.
And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.
If the woman in this morning’s Gospel only had access to the internet and television, then she would not have had to sneak up on Jesus. The TV and internet could have provided community for her. She could have emailed friends and blogged about herself. Her Facebook page could give her a social network. Nobody would have to know how long she had suffered with this bleeding. Nobody would have to know that she was unclean. It could be kept a secret. She would no longer be isolated from human contact. She might have even have had an online boyfriend. The internet would have allowed her to create a social community that would accept her. For spiritual nourishment she could have watched Temple from the comfort of her own home and, if she had a TIVO, could worship at a time convenient to her schedule. Her defilement would not have been such a catastrophe, only a minor inconvenience. And she certainly would not have needed to seek out Jesus.
But Al Gore and the internet were some years away and this poor woman was desperate. She had suffered for twelve years with bleeding, most likely connected to her womb. And, according to the Levitical regulations, she would have been deemed unclean. Thus, she could not enter the Temple to worship; she could not participate in normal marital relationships; and she could not even touch someone else. She was isolated from the community. She actually defiled others by her presence. And her condition could not be kept secret. So she was shunned. People could not stand to look at her. People did not want her around. She was sick. She was lonely. She was alienated. She was alone in the world. She was hopeless. Nobody would come near her… except God.
Interesting discussion of Rob Bell http://www.dennyburk.com/?p=948
I have little patience for the creativity of the “emerging” movement, or the “mainline” movement for that matter. So here is my indulgent rant…
The heretical impulse is hard to overcome in sinful man. And the Christian “Chicken Littles” continue their cry: “The church is dying, the church is dying!” So from John Spong to Bill Hybels to Rob Bell, the church and its message is recreated and repackaged to be palatable to modern man. “If the church doesn’t change, then it will die!” Of course the underlying assumption is that the problem is with the catholic faith. The catholic faith responds that the problem resides in the depravity and idolatry of modern man. The problem is not with the church, its confession of faith, its liturgy, its sacraments, etc. The problem is our own arrogance and hubris accompanied with our narcissistic consumerism. Bell, Spong, Hybels, and company are short-sighted and will soon fade away. True catholic faith is directed toward the eschaton, now present in Word and Sacrament and yet future at Christ’s Second Advent, and will not be swayed by the weak-mindedness of such pundits. But many will be swayed by their pious and impious emoting because we have been taught to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Ichabod on the North American “church”.
This is the sermon that I will preach this morning. Special thanks to Willimon for getting me started and Hauerwas for his commentary on Matthew. I hope that the Duke influence isn’t too evident!
And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.
I wish that Jesus had had a coin on him that day, when they asked the question about paying taxes to Caesar. But His pockets were empty. The things of Caesar were apparently not a concern to Jesus. Our pockets, however, are not empty.
“Whose likeness and inscription is this?” Jesus asks. “George Washington’s,” we reply.“Let him have it then,” Jesus tells us. “If he likes it so much that he is going to stamp his picture on it and inscribe it in honor of himself, then give it all to him. But you had better be careful. Do not give to him that which belongs to God.” Now are we really brave enough to ask “What belongs to God?” To even ask the question would indicate either ignorance or dishonesty when it comes to the things of God.
The Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel lesson were ignorant. They weren’t stupid, but their religious and political commitments effectively blinded them when it came to Jesus of Nazareth. And to be blind when it comes to Jesus means to be ignorant about God. Of course, such blindness results from the destructive force of sin on the image of God, although they would have been ignorant about such things as well. Their failure to recognize Jesus as the Messiah leads them to the conviction that Jesus is the enemy. Jesus is an irritant to both the Pharisees, a religious party of the Jews who desired the overthrow of Herod, and the Herodians, a largely political party of Jews who supported the Roman government. The only thing these people had in common was their dislike of Jesus. So they concoct a plan to trap Jesus in His words, to humiliate Him.
This is the sermon I preached for our observation of All Saints’ on November 4. I hope that this is the last time I transfer a festival for the sake of convenience. The Christian faith and life is meant to be somewhat inconvenient and our observation of festivals is a reminder to us that our lives are oriented in a different manner. But the ease of convenience is hard to overcome! (The “utopian” idea and some phrasing was taken from a completely unrelated article in the latest Touchstone. I just thought it was appropriate to describe how we strive to create our own heavens on earth.)
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Humanity continually strives to create a heaven on earth. The people on the plains of Shinar desired to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves, so they began building a structure that would accomplish their end. They wanted earth to reach the heavens. But God came down to their silly building and foiled their plans at Babel, confusing their languages and scattering them to the ends of the earth. God’s judgment, of course, did not stop the human desire to achieve heaven. The desire remains. Only the vision of heaven has changed. Rarely do humans try to reach up into the heavens from earth anymore, but they try to create heaven right here on earth.
Humans possess a utopian impulse, believing that heaven on earth is only a powerful leader or idea away. We suspect that we can achieve salvation through an ideology; a discovery; or a demigod. The Marxists slaughtered over 100 million people in their desire to create heaven on earth. The Fascists annihilated tens of millions, drawing the entire world into war, in their search of the perfect society. Even today, Communists, Jihadists, Zionists, Socialists, Scientists, Capitalists, Fundamentalists—right and left and everything in-between—believe their way is the way to establish heaven on earth. These utopian apostles call for the end of everything that opposes their concept and construct of heaven. And then, and only then, will humans enjoy true peace, freedom, equality, and true joy. We can abort babies or euthanize the incapacitated because they infringe on our utopian ideals. We can hate, demean or slaughter others because they do not align with our construct of heaven. It is alright, of course, because we know best. Unfortunately, human history is filled with one foolish attempt after the next to create heaven on earth.
