Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 1, 2002, by Michael L. C. Henderson, pastor.Exodus 3:1-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:24-26 What will it profit them?
-Matthew 16:26
I think it's only fitting that in the Gospel for this Labor Day weekend we find Jesus talking about profitability. That's what the labor movement is all about, isn't it? If there are profits being made and wealth being generated, who is to get what share of them? Or maybe I should put that in the past tense: It's what the labor movement was all about, since American labor as a social-economic-political movement is widely considered to have been dead for a couple of decades now, except of course in major league baseball.
But even if that's true, you still have the question of who gets what part of the wealth. And if American workers are no longer in a position to offer an answer, who is? As people of faith we have to wonder if there's a Christian answer to that question.
I don't mean to make you nervous, really I don't. The last thing you need on Labor Day is some kind of political rant from the pulpit. Summer's ending, you're wondering where it went and why you aren't feeling more refreshed than you are, I should give you a break.
So I'll tell you something interesting we discovered this summer when we were living in you guessed it the north country of New York State, a place so remote from American civilization that the nearest city is the capital of Canada, Ottawa. It's a busy city, full of architecture and monuments and culture and shops and restaurants and sophistication and style, and Jane needs regular infusions of all the above, so we make the trip often.
The most agreeable way to drive into Ottawa from the south includes a five-mile stretch along a parkway known as the Colonel By Drive. It meanders from the outskirts to downtown alongside the lovely and scenic Rideau Canal, also known as the world's longest skating rink, which was dug at colossal cost in cash and labor by the British early in the 19th century to provide a route where by a boat could get from Lake Ontario to the ocean without seeing or being seen by any Americans. (This was after their unpleasant experience with us in the War of 1812.)
There are pleasure boats and kayaks on the canal these days, and cyclists and joggers and rollerbladers and walkers using the paths alongside it, and much green lawn and ornamental shrubs and trees and stunning flowerbeds, plus of course the cars on the drive. And beavers.
Yes, beavers. Don't ask me what they're doing there. Maybe the government stocks the place with them. They are the national animal of Canada. It would be like our government populating the Potomac with bald eagles. Whatever, these beavers clearly feel entitled to be where they are. Usually they're just grazing on the lawn or lazing in the sun.
This has given rise to a family tradition which I initiated As we approach the entrance ramp to this parkway, one of us hollers out, Beaver count! and for the next file miles everybody in the car is scanning the landscape on both sides of the road for the critters. The record so far is twelve.
You may think it's odd, counting beaver, but I'm like that character on Sesame Street, the Count. I count everything. There were sixteen steps in one staircase from the first floor to the second floor of the farmhouse where I lived when I was a kid. Fourteen in the parsonage here, eleven to the cellar. Twenty-two in the grand staircase from the Vestry to where you're sitting, but twenty-three if you use the back stairs over here. (Think about that.) The center aisle here is thirty-six inches wide. It's ten point two miles from Jane's place on the river to the supermarket in Ogdensburg. A hundred and four miles from here to White River Junction. My brother is 360 days older than I am. I can go on like this indefinitely.
You may consider this a silly and meaningless predilection at best, evidence of a serious mental illness at worst, but it's possible to find great and profound truth in numbers. Numbers can get you into the nitty-gritty of things. For example, there are thirty moral imperatives in today's reading from Paul's letter to the Romans, starting with Let love be genuine and Hate what is evil and ending with If your enemies are thirsty, give them something to drink and Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Thirty ways for us to judge how faithful we are and are not.
Thirty is an impressive number of commandments to come from a guy who is famous for inventing the theology which says that God's people are justified by faith alone, and not by works. It kind of suggests that faith as he understood it, if it's the real thing, does entail certain concrete and detailed attitudes and behaviors, without which he would say your faith is bogus.
And to get back to where we started, profitability is certainly about numbers, isn't it? Profit and loss statements, sales figures, dividends and interest, capital gains, productivity, net worth and all that. Is that what Jesus was talking about when he said, What will it profit them if they gain the whole world?
I can hear you thinking, No, but don't be too sure. The numbers suggest that some folks are closing in on gaining the whole world, literally. Are you sure these aren't the kind of numbers that Jesus was talking about? We make up three percent of the world's population but we use more than a quarter of its energy production. We have the best health care in the world but thirty- seven million of us have no way of paying for it, and the coverage that a lot of the rest of us have stinks. The ratio between the pay of major corporate CEO's and the pay of their ordinary workers is something unbelievable and getting more so every year.
You enjoyed it when I was counting beavers, but now it's getting old fast, isn't it? Okay, I'll stop with the numbers, much as I love them.
If you want to be my follower, deny yourself and take up your cross. Deny what part of ourselves? Not our generosity, that's for sure. Not our conscience. Not our compassion. But our greed, our phobia about people who aren't just like us, our persistent presumption that not everyone is entitled to the same goodies as we are entitled to, our refusal to clean up after ourselves, that's what he wants us to deny, isn't it? Is there any debate about that? Isn't it obvious?
Take up your cross. People talk about the crosses they bear, and usually they're referring to their ungrateful offspring or their loutish in-laws, their arthritis or their migraines. All of these are genuine afflictions, to be sure, but they have nothing to do with bearing the cross, because we do not choose them, they choose us. Bearing the cross is making a choice. You bear the cross when you choose to do the right thing instead of the convenient or easy or greedy or profitable thing. You bear the cross when you make a choice that costs you something. That is precisely what the cross means. That's why we have it hanging up here on the wall.
And it has everything to do with profit. You don't have to identify the cross with some political ideology or economic system, that's beside the point. But whatever your politics or your economics, bearing the cross means choosing not to prosper through anyone else's poverty or deprivation, it means cleaning up the messes you make, it means knowing when you have enough wealth, it means understanding how your behavior affects other people and it means recognizing that they are people, no less than we are people. What is controversial about this? What is difficult to grasp?
Moses met God at the burning bush and he listened to what God had to say to him, and he had two questions to ask God. Who am I? and Who are you? And God answered, You are the one whom I choose to fix the mess my people are in. And I am the one who will be with you every inch of the way and make it possible. That's all you need to know.
That's all we need to know to follow Christ. It will profit us greatly.
Amen