Here's the sermon that I preached at St John's Seven Kings this morning:
Bob Dylan wrote, in ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’, that ‘even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.’ Now, you may well have an understandable aversion to picturing the Donald in the altogether (you might prefer to picture him as Diaper Donald, the blimp that was flown during his visit to the UK), but the point that Dylan makes is that we are all fundamentally the same despite the position, prestige, wealth or power accorded to some.
The Church is, of course, not immune to the temptations of position and prestige. At St Martin-in-the-Fields last week the sermon began with a story about a minor canon in a Cathedral and the position she occupied in the processions that began and ended services. Woe betide her were she to stray from her allotted position. The story came with a wry acknowledgement that, at St Martin’s, we do not always avoid such issues ourselves.
Churches are formed of fallible human beings and so the seeking of and holding onto position and prestige is something that features in every Christian community, while being something which the example and teaching of Jesus’ leads us to try to eschew.
Jesus’ teaching that all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted (Luke 14. 1 - 14) connects with his regular use of the phrase the first shall be last and the last first. He also taught that anyone wishing to be great should be the servant of all and provided a visual example of this in washing the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper. There he said that his disciples were to follow his example of serving others. St Paul notes that Jesus provided the ultimate example of humble service which has no personal benefit, by becoming a human being and, as a human being, becoming obedient to death on a cross.
The connection between all of this teaching about humble service is the call for us to act in ways that are not transactional, but instead are about gift. As human beings, we generally act on the basis of transactions, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. We generally charge for products and services and when we do volunteer often expect to receive some benefit for our contribution, generally in the form of recognition, kudos or thanks.
At the end of the final parable in today’s Gospel, Jesus says you will be blessed if those you invite to meals or banquets cannot repay you. In other words, if you receive no benefit yourself from your invitation, then it is a genuine gift. Among the benefits he thinks we should aim to eschew is that of recognition and kudos. That is why in the Sermon on the Mount he consistently teaches that our giving, our fasting and our prayers should all be in secret so that God alone sees. If we receive the acclaim of others for our giving or serving, then we have already received our reward. Jesus encourages us, as Christians, to go beyond transactions into acts of service that generate no benefit for us in order that they are simply acts of love and generosity because that is how God relates to us.
This is what is called the Gift economy. Lewis Hyde writing about the gift economy says that ‘a gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift’ and ‘the spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation’: ‘a cardinal property of the gift: whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move on in its stead … You may keep your Christmas present, but it ceases to be a gift in the true sense unless you have given something else away.’
Hyde explains that our ego is bound up with transactional exchanges: ‘In the ego-of-one we speak of self-gratification, and whether it's forced or chosen, a virtue or a vice, the mark of self-gratification is its isolation. Reciprocal giving, the ego-of-two, is a little more social. We think mostly of lovers. Each of these circles is exhilarating as it expands, and the little gifts that pass between lovers touch us because each is stepping into a larger circuit. But again, if the exchange goes on and on to the exclusion of others, it soon goes stale.’
Hyde goes on to say that, when giving is reciprocal: ‘The gift moves in a circle, and two people do not make much of a circle. Two points establish a line, but a circle lies in a plane and needs at least three points.’ It is only ‘When the gift moves in a circle [that] its motion is beyond the control of the personal ego, and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each donation is an act of social faith.’
Hyde suggests ‘we think of the gift as a constantly flowing river’ and allow ourselves ‘to become a channel for its current.’ When we try to ‘dam the river’, ‘thinking what counts is ownership and size,’ ‘one of two things will happen: either it will stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts.’
This is why Jesus wants us to give in ways that don’t involve our ego being flattered or satisfied. He is prepared to be the dinner party guest from Hell criticising all the other guests in these stories in order to get across the point that true greatness consists of service offered as part of the gift economy where we gain no reward for our actions other than that of God seeing what we have done in secret.
So, when we want everyone to know how much time we've given to the church or how much money we have raised or how many people we have visited, Jesus says to us that we have already received our reward. When we expect others to do things our way because of our many years of service or because of the role we play, Jesus questions our motivations for wanting those things and playing that role. When we hold onto our roles or our titles because of what these things mean to us, Jesus asks us to lay them down for the sake of our own souls.
Jesus, in these stories, acts a little like one of those full body scanners at the airport used to detect objects on a person's body for security screening purposes, without physically removing clothes or making physical contact. He can see through the masks that we hold up to prevent others seeing our true motivations. Before God, we are seen as we truly are, with all our underlying motivations made clear. As Bob Dylan reminds us, ‘even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.’ His underlying motivations, like those of us all, are fully revealed in the sight of God.
This is why confession is so important as a regular part of our services. We can easily gloss over that part of the service and think to ourselves that we have done nothing that was significantly wrong in the course of the past week. Jesus, however, is calling us to look more deeply at ourselves than we are often willing to do, because he wants us to examine the motivations that underpin the things we do and these are often more selfish or self-centred than we are willing to admit.
Such self-examination, however, is not an act of beating ourselves up and forcing ourselves to find something to confess. Instead, it is a challenge to move beyond our human love of rewards – whether those are to do with money or with approval – and become more godlike in our exchanges by genuinely gifting our contributions in ways which mean we receive no reward.
Jesus says to us, when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite those who cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
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Carleen Anderson - Leopards In The Temple.
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