Nate and I just celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary last week, which is amazing to me. One of the things I’ve learned in marriage, or I think I’ve learned, is that only have a small handful of fights that we recycle over and over in various forms. Have you noticed this? We all have sticky patterns that we hopefully outgrow, but it’s not generally quick.

One of those patterns for us is what happens when I’m upset about something. When this happens, Nate tends to assume that he’s the problem and he just doesn’t know what he did. So, that’s how he responds to me. Funny thing is, I’m mostly upset about other stuff that has nothing to do with him. BUT, it does irritate me when he responds to me as if it’s his fault and so the whole conversation becomes about that instead of the thing I’m actually upset about. So pretty soon, I’m upset at whatever thing I was upset about and I’m upset with him. It’s silly and after 25 years, we are much better at escaping the tractor beam of this particular pattern … mostly.

Silly as it is, we humans have a tendency of making hard words, hard feelings, or hard situations about ourselves when it’s not necessarily true. The problem is, when we do this, we are less able to understand what’s really happening and then respond appropriately.  

I’d say there is danger of this happening with this gospel today. It’s easy to hear these words of condemnation and assume that our souls, our bodies, our actions are being scrutinized and potentially condemned. However, this just may not be about you. Unless it is. Let’s take a closer look.

In this gospel reading, Jesus is facing off with the political and religious elites of his people in Jerusalem. These are the folks in the fancy robes who rub elbows with the Roman Empire, who participate in and sustain unjust systems of oppressive taxation, indiscriminate violence, and economic suffering while they represent God’s voice and direction for the very ones they are hurting. These are people with power and authority who refuse to use that power for the sake of normal or lowly people. In this text, Jesus is not calling out normal folks for being ungrateful, greedy, violent, and opposed to God’s commandments to love and care for the neighbor.

In this scene, Jesus wasn’t sitting around with his usual, stigmatized crowd when he delivered this parable. To those folks, who he spent most of his time with, he’d give them the parables like the lost sheep or the prodigal son. He told stories of grace, upon grace, upon grace. These folks, on the other hand, were flagrant abusers of the ones they should have been caring for.

When I look at our world, it is clear it is not us who are polluting the planet on industrial scales while actively undermining any means of accountability. We are not committing egregious acts of corruption. We are not personally signing our names on the bombs destined for civilians. The world is full of power politicians, corrupt business executives, harmful religious leaders, and devious power brokers of various kinds who do not attend to the needs of normal folks and much less so to the needs of destitute and disempowered people. If the Epstein files taught me anything it’s that a lot of powerful people in this world do not worry at all about the wellbeing of normal humans who they do not see as equal to them.

This sort of behavior deserves Jesus’ righteous and holy anger. It deserves our righteous and holy anger. So to be clear, this kind of anger is not pointed at you. It’s pointed at the ones who have the power to help and protect but choose to harm and expose. That’s where this anger is pointed and there is a lot of room in this world for Jesus’ righteous anger and condemnation.

That said, however, there are times and places in our lives where we do have power. We have power in our homes, at work, in how we spend money, how we vote, how we give, and how we show up in relationships with family, friends, and strangers. We have power in how we choose even to drive our cars, whether we choose safety for the sake of us all or if we choose to break the laws here and there to get ahead.  

So, how do we exercise the power that we have? What kind of leaders are we in the spaces where we are leaders, even if that is simply in our relationships? Are we the kind of leaders who use what power we have for our own comfort or agendas? Or do we use the power we have for the sake of others? Or do we commit the particular sin of not recognizing the power that is ours to use and therefore fail to use it?

In the Isaiah, Psalm 23, and the gospel texts we read today, God creates a feast for all people. That is what God does with God’s power. Service is God’s form of leadership. Jesus is not playing power politics or navigating the system for optimal outcomes of wealth, comfort, and influence for himself. The leadership that Jesus models is the use of power that is grounded in God for the love and care of the most vulnerable.

While none of us in this room are comparable to the great villains of Jesus’ parable, we do have power and we are asked to look at how we use our power, however limited it may be. One example from my life is I buy organic and humanely raised and slaughtered meat. Yes, the world is expensive and I hate how meat prices have gone up. But I’m also aware of the sins of industrial animal husbandry and so I try to not let my money flow in that direction. It’s a small action that hurts at the checkout counter, but it is a commitment I made years ago for the love of animals, the environment, and the workers in the meat industry. This is a power that I have. I don’t use it perfectly, but I do what I can. I’m sure you have examples you can think of as well.

With these texts, we are being challenged to be the sort of leader that Jesus was and is on our human scales. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who knows how to use a rod and a staff to protect his sheep, after all. We are being asked to see the power that is in our hands and to use it in alignment with God’s will to the best of our ability to discern and do, not to harm but protect and serve. Too often I hear admonitions of power, as if power itself is a bad thing. Not true. Power is what allows us to create change for the sake of goodness and love in the world. We need power to do good things. What we don’t want is the abuse of power for selfish ends. That is what Jesus is condemning here. In the parable, the one who is condemned is the one pretending to be a full participant in the wedding feast but is actually working their own agenda separate from God’s kingdom. They are the ones wearing their own clothes, instead of the wedding garment.

While we may not be the mastermind criminals of our world who are explicitly using and abusing others, we may be committing our own kind of abuse of power when we don’t see the power we have or we don’t put the power we know we have to good use in the service of others. We are called to good, holy exercisers of our powers.

If you’re like me in this moment, these words may make you feel a little tired. Afterall, we live in a hard world and we may rightly feel the needs of the world far outstrip our capacity to be the good shepherds we are called to be. But fear not, loved ones. This is why we are part of communities. This is why we are at church. This is why we give money and time together here and with other organizations. This is why we vote our conscience. This is why we pick the things we can do and do them, but not any more than that.

Last I checked, none of us are Jesus so that means we don’t have to carry the sins of the world on our shoulders. We do this work together. We just need to show up, see the power we do have and do what can but no more than that. We are not called to be Christ by our own power, standing alone but together as a congregation, as communities, a nation, and as a world. Together with Christ, we can and do move mountains.  

It seems to me this path requires radical humility, meaning Jesus calls on us to know and honor our limits while we are also called to serve beyond ourselves. This takes humility and honesty to do what we best discern is in alignment with God’s will for us all, including ourselves. That may mean for you to rest and do less, while for others it might mean getting out the door to give and do more. This is what it is to be rightly dressed and prepared for the kingdom of heaven. We need to show up in community with humility and honesty and listen for God’s guidance in how to use the power in our hands. This is easier said than done, so may God guide us in his right pathways towards these still, yet mighty waters all the days of our lives.

AMEN