Walk the
Walk

Sunday, October 30, 2011,

the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary
Time (Year A)

Reformation Day and All Saints’ Day
observed

Joshua 3:7-17, Psalm 107:1-7,
33-37,  1 Thessalonians 2:9-13, Matthew
23:1-12

Introduction

Camille Jones and I have just returned yesterday
from attending the meeting of Mission Presbytery in Victoria.  We sat in the beautiful sanctuary at First
Presbyterian Church, worshiping and doing the work of Presbytery.

We delayed adopting a new manual of operations
for General Council, but accepted additional questions that sessions and
Presbyteries might ask people who want to be put forward as inquirers or
candidates for ministry.  We adopted a
manual of operations for the Committee on Preparation for Ministry.  We advanced two young women to become
candidates.  We celebrated the retirement
of two ministers, Fred Morgan and Bill …
Fred is the minister who has the longest history, 40 years in Mission
Presbytery.  Bill might be the oldest
minister to serve.  He graduated seminary
at 68, served the Sinton church for twelve years, and is now retiring at
eighty.  We celebrated New Church
Developments and saw a presentation by one of my good friends, Helen
Bursier.  She was also featured in a
PCUSA new announcement this week.  We
were derailed on Friday and a bit confused, but all the wonderful events with
the retirements and the streamlined business on Saturday made up for it.  We even finished before noon.  Rob Mueller did what I could not do in the
year I was Moderator.  He got us out on
time every single meeting.  And, I
learned about another wonderful project that the Presbyterian Church is
doing.

Many of you know about the Presbyterian Coffee
Project – which is a fair trade organization to try to get farmers fair
wages.  They sell coffee, craisins,  and chocolate out of Central America.  There is yet another project that is working
with Mexican farmers in order for them to get fair wages.  You know the reason that many Mexicans risk
their lives is to come to the US in order to work and earn money to support
their families.  This project, Juste
Coffee, pays the farmers just prices in Mexico.
They sell green and roasted beans, as well as ground coffee.  I bought one bag to bring back and try.  My husband bought some beans to take home and
grind.  I will get the information so
that if you are interested, you can help by buying coffee that helps our neighbors
South of the border.  This might be a
good time to also mention something that a clergy friend of mine is excited
about.  She loved the series with Diane
Sawyer entitled ‘Made in America.’  If
you love your neighbor and are concerned about the unemployment in the US, then
begin watching what you are buying and try to buy things that are made in
America.  If we do this, we can put our
friends and relatives and even strangers back to work.  If we each buy $69.00 more a year of things
that are made in America, we will create 200,000 new jobs.  And, I’m thinking many of us could do that
much a month — that would result in over 2 million jobs.  When Melissa and JoNett ordered our reuseable
tote bags and water bottles, they made sure they were made in America.  Loving our neighbor can be a very practical
thing.  Putting someone back to work,
creating jobs, creating good communities is a loving thing.

The commands Jesus gave us are:  Love God; love our neighbor.  Remember that what we do, counts.

Gospel

Let’s turn to the Gospel.  We see that Jesus is again criticizing
religious people, this time, it is not just the scribes and pharisees, but
anyone who is a hypocrite.  He says they
say the right things, but do not do them.
So, as a friend says, they talk the talk but do not walk the walk.

Our faith is shown in walking the walk.  Just as the religious in Jesus day would pray
in public, wearing the phylacteries, in which were scrolls with the laws on
them, and wearing their prayer shawls, like those we made this summer in Camp
Creativity, there was something wrong.
He says two things could go wrong:
one is that the person says one thing and does another.  The other is that the person does the right
thing for the wrong reason — just to be seen doing the right thing.

I am suspicious of overly pious people who carry
around Bibles and look so innocent.  You
may have seen them.  And, perhaps some
are completely dedicated and honest.
Others, I’ve found to be utterly false, like a wolf wearing  sheep’s clothing.

An example of an excellent novel that explores
the hypocrisy in the clergy – where someone creates a persona for the public
but is something else underneath is Glittering
Images by Susan Howatch.  Beware for yourself the tendency to appear
better than you are, to project a false and glittering self.

Reformation

Today we celebrate Reformation Sunday.  On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, an
Augustinian monk who took his faith seriously, nailed 95 theses to the door of
the Wittenburg Cathedral.  This was a
traditional way to begin discussions, but this time, it began a war and split
the Roman Empire as well as the church.
The German princes wanted out from under the emperor.

One of the history changing events was that the
printing press and translations allowed the Bible to be translated into the
tongue of local people.  This put the
Bible into ordinary people’s hands.  It
was no longer for just the priests to read in Latin.  Today, we are again going through a
tumultuous time in the life of the church.
Again, more and more information is being put into the hands of anyone
who wants it and has access to the internet.
The church is changing again.

One interesting thing worth noting is that what caused Martin Luther a crisis of faith is no longer a tenet of the Catholic church – the selling of indulgences and the excess goodness of saints is no longer done – at least in my knowledge.
The Catholic Church has undergone its own reformation.  We still differ in a few doctrines – I used
to know exactly how many and what they are – but I’ve aged.  I think it is four – so not so many tenets of
faith.  We do differ in our church
government and structure.

Regardless of our differences, the majority of
the faith we agree on and today we honor and remember those who died in the
faith.  It was Queen Elizabeth who called
John Calvin and his followers “more reformed” than Luther.  So, today we spiritual descendants of John
Calvin are proponents of the Reformed Faith — reformed and always
reforming.  We strive for the truth, but
know that we fall short.

The five solas emerged as doctrines during the
Reformation:

1 Sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”)

2 Sola fide (“by faith alone”)

3 Sola gratia (“by grace alone”)

4 Solus Christus or Solo Christo (“Christ
alone” or “through Christ alone”)

5 Soli Deo gloria (“glory to God alone”)

Every week as we read and study and find
guidance in the Holy Scriptures, we acknowledge that all we need for salvation
in the Word of God.  Today, as we examine
the very human problem of being a hypocrite, we know that in order to be the
people God wants us to be, we need God’s help.
It is by grace alone that we are save.
And, we lean on the saving grace of Christ alone.

All Saints Day

Today, we also remember all those who have died
in the faith and live now eternally with God.
Their example of faith and love of God and other people is a light to
our paths.  We give thanks for the grace
of God that surrounded them and keeps them eternally with God.

Conclusion

We only have a few more weeks in this year of
Matthew.  On the last Sunday in November
we will move to the Gospel according to Mark and stay there for a year.  It’s a good time to think about the core
messages in Matthew.  For Matthew, it
seems Jesus’ teaching about loving God and loving our neighbor is the central
teaching – after all, Jesus did say it was the most important commandment.  It is through this lens of love that Matthew
looks and reminds us with Jesus’ teachings and parables that our actions
matter.  It is not enough to say we
believe — we must live our beliefs.

The teaching is important, but if you are a
Christian, a follower of Christ, be sure you “Walk the
Walk.”  And, always
remember that the only way you can do this is with God’s help.  It is by the grace of God that we live, that
we believe, and that we reach out in love to others.

Revised Common Lectionary Readings for
Sunday, October 30, 2011,

the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary
Time (Year A)

First Reading Joshua
3:7-17

⁷The
LORD said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all
Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.⁸You
are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant,
‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still
in the Jordan.’”⁹Joshua then said to the Israelites, “Draw near and
hear the words of the LORD your God.” ¹⁰Joshua said, “By this you
shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out
from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites,
Amorites, and Jebusites: ¹¹the ark of the covenant of the Lord of
all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. ¹²So now
select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. ¹³When
the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of
all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan
flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.”

¹⁴When
the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests
bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. ¹⁵Now
the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when
those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests
bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, ¹⁶the waters
flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the
city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah,
the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite
Jericho. ¹⁷While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the
priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood on dry ground in the
middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the
Jordan.

Psalm Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37

¹   O
give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for
his steadfast love endures for ever.

²   Let
the redeemed of the LORD say so,

those
he redeemed from trouble

³   and
gathered in from the lands,

from
the east and from the west,

from
the north and from the south.

⁴   Some
wandered in desert wastes,

finding
no way to an inhabited town;

⁵   hungry
and thirsty,

their
soul fainted within them.

⁶   Then
they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and
he delivered them from their distress;

⁷   he
led them by a straight way,

until
they reached an inhabited town.

³³  He
turns rivers into a desert,

springs
of water into thirsty ground,

³⁴
fruitful land into a salty waste,

because
of the wickedness of its inhabitants.

³⁵  He
turns a desert into pools of water,

a
parched land into springs of water.

³⁶  And
there he lets the hungry live,

and
they establish a town to live in;

³⁷  they
sow fields, and plant vineyards,

and
get a fruitful yield.

Second Reading 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

⁹You
remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so
that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of
God. ¹⁰You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and
blameless our conduct was toward you believers. ¹¹As you know, we
dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, ¹²urging
and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls
you into his own kingdom and glory.

¹³We
also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of
God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it
really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.

Gospel Matthew 23:1-12

¹Then
Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ²“The scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; ³therefore, do whatever they teach you
and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they
teach. ⁴They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the
shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move
them. ⁵They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make
their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶They love to have
the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷and
to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them
rabbi. ⁸But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one
teacher, and you are all students. ⁹And call no one your father on
earth, for you have one Father — the one in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to
be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.¹¹The
greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²All who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.