Dirty Dishes and Lost Keys

The Rotary Club wanted to recognize its anniversary with a large donation. $50,000. We knew the amount, but we were not sure what the project was. Hard problem. Too much money and not sure where to spend it. As a supporter of the local Zoo, I wanted the gift to help fund an exhibit. Another member of the club wanted it to help develop a garden if I remember right. A third option was a splash pad in the park.

I remember hearing the name splash pad and thinking, ridiculous. And when someone explained to me what a splash pad was, I thought, ridiculous. As a child in southern California a part of everyone's summer was running through lawn sprinklers. It's fun and less dangerous than a slippery slide. Hence, I thought, we don't need to spend $50,000 on sprinklers, a concrete pad. Just tell the kids to run around when you water the lawn. 

          After months of debate and deliberations, the club voted for the splash pad.  Although not my first choice, I was the president of the club so it was my job to communicate the gift with the city and seek to find a suitable place for this rather pricey sprinkler pad, or splash pad, or whatever it was. 

          Three years later, after the formation of a non-profit group, and countless emails, meetings, public forums, newspaper articles with a budget of nearly $500,000 the splash pad was complete.  Part of the three years was working with a city.  The city agreed to match donations to the project and when tax dollars become part of a project, let's just say, things move slower.  And it just so happened that the best place for the splash pad was next to a public pool in a public park so any plans for the pad had to factor in the pool and its desperate need for renovations.

          Yet the biggest time factor was design.  Not the design of the pad or the water features as I learned to call the colorful sprinklers, the biggest time factor was what to do with the water.  Collect it and recycle it or let it drain away.  This was an engineering issue.  Once you add tax dollars to public space and then invite engineers to offer opinions you need to have some stamina and staying power and most of all patience.

          On more than one occasion I was frustrated by the glacial speed of the project.  Why is a concrete slab where tubes squirt water in need of so much discussion, consultants, planning?  How did this modest project of $50,000 get multiplied by 10?

          The answer to each of these questions is found in one component, one aspect, or feature I did not include, could not have foreseen, never anticipated.  It was just a concrete pad and sprinklers for Pete's sake.  But it wasn't.  What I could not see is how the project needed this amount of time, planning, discernment so to be remarkable, something lasting for a generation or two.  What is more, I had not really understood how a community doing something remarkable is complicated and wily and a great challenge.

          As a pastor I worked with the city on many projects.  Usually the projects were problems the city couldn't fix or help because of laws, restrictions.  Towns and cities and boroughs are restricted in a lot of ways, but a church has freedom, a Rotary club could just pay for something, build something, renovate homes where a city could not.  And this is true here in our food pantry.  Week after week we work with social services to help people in ways the county just can't.  I am used to that, enjoy that.  Feels good to solve a problem beyond bureaucracy.  It was quite a shock to work within the restrictions of public funds and public space as opposed to creating the solutions local government could not.

          Once a month for three years a group of a dozen citizens met and discussed the splash pad project.  Along the way our scope became larger and in the end we were able to create a comprehensive plan for the large park, form a non-profit "friends of the park" organization, and then raise the money to complete the now large project. On the cover of your bulletin is the moment in August of 2018 after all the meetings and memos, where Brian, Phil and I stood beneath a large water feature.  In most cases you and I would call this a big bucket.  The big bucket slowly fills and then tips to empty a large wave of water.  Folks planning the opening of the splash pad thought rather than cut a ribbon, why not wait for the three of us to get drenched as the ceremonial opening. 

          This picture means a lot to me.  Not because of the accomplishment or the completion.  It means a lot because it was in this moment I encountered the remarkable.  Waiting for the bucket to tip and drench us, I became eight-years-old again.  I was not a pastor or civic leader, I was not a husband or father or grandfather.  I was a kid like all the rest waiting for the joy of getting drenched on a hot summer day.  That was the moment where I could feel and recognize what was remarkable. I was more of a human being in the happiness.

          In the not happy or harsh words of Jesus, in the dinner party gone terrible awry, this idea of what is remarkable is hard to see.  Jesus' diatribe or woe is rough.  He says terrible things to the Pharisees and then says terrible things to the lawyers.

          Our reading today is fascinating and is in many ways a unique voice in the gospel.  Jesus usually speaks in parables; he speaks in metaphors and adages; he asks rhetorical questions, or often he just doesn't speak, won't answer, "you tell me," he will say.  But in our reading today he speaks directly: "you are a hypocrite" "you oppress people" "you are filled with greed." The direct quality of the woes is unique, but so is the condemnation.  There is no call for change here; there is no repent and believe; there is no opportunity for amendment of life.  Jesus is offering a verdict not a challenge.  This is rare in the gospels, this direct condemnation.

          If you read the gospels carefully it is easy to say, good, the Pharisees had it coming.  Finally Jesus just told them off.  And what is more, we love this sort of speech.  Our culture holds such an exchange as a mark of character.  We want the bold truth teller.  We like the idea of condemnation, holding of leaders' feet to the flames.  Yet, if you read the gospels with a bit more care, we should be struck by how the woes are an outlier, not the norm, and certainly not the confidence of Jesus.

          Even more the woes of Jesus don't have good effect.  His condemnation falls as flat as ours.  We love the idea of a prophetic voice of condemnation.  But our love of the prophetic is blind to the lack of consequence, powerlessness of such claims.  Jesus insulted the Pharisees and the lawyers.  In their anger and offence they did not change for the better.  No Pharisee said, well, if you put it that way, I am terrible leader.  No.  The only result is they resorted to violence.

          Here is where we need to remember the remarkable.  If we read the woes with the remarkable in mind, what Jesus did here, what he said here, has power and potential.  Jesus condemns the Pharisees, true; but when we read this passage it need not be our condemnation.  It could be, but it need not. 

          The first four woes are best understood by recasting them as questions and not as verdicts.  Are you? as opposed to You are!  The woe of the dirty dishes is this question: are you overcoming greed with the power of generosity?  Are you living unto the freedom of generosity by resisting the power of greed?  Good question. The second woe, the mint and herb offering is this question: have you put aside the delusion of control and found the freedom of trust?  Do you trust in mercy and grace and compassion or are you trying to determine your life?  Another good question.  And the robes and places of honor: are you living a life trusting meekness, not as a mask of cowardice, but meekness as the deep peace of humility?

          Can you see how the recasting of the woes as questions is a good place of reflection?  Generosity, faith, humility.  Jesus is saying to the Pharisees at some time, at some point, power ruined you.  You became greedy, controlling, vain.  If we read them for ourselves the same way, as a verdict, not much power, but as questions, they can and should illumine our heart.

          The fourth woe to the Pharisees is the key to the whole passage.  It is the harshest thing Jesus says, and it is the hardest question.  The woe of the unmarked grave as a question is this: are you living a remarkable life?  Are you striving to see and find what is remarkable in life?  As a verdict to the Pharisees this is their worst nightmare.  Their life is supposed to make people better, make the world better, but what if they have polluted the world, made people worse? 

          The woes to the lawyers are in many ways an echo, or a recasting of the first four woes.  It would be another sermon to explore those.  Suffice it to say, Jesus condemns the lawyers as hurting people and thus destroying what is remarkable in life.  They perpetuate injustice, take away freedom, make their generation guilty of oppression.  Again, we could consider each of these woes as a community, as a church, as a people.  The woes to the Pharisees is about being a good human.  The woes to the lawyers is series of questions about being a good church a good community.

          I could be wrong, but what jumps out, what demands attention is the woe of the unmarked grave.  Of all the woes, this is the one that stung the most, would have offended the most, but also has the power, as a question, to reveal the most in us and if it is answered correctly, this has the power to shape our life together.

          Overcome greed with generosity; overcome the delusion of control with faith; rise above vanity with humility.  You all know this.  This is not breaking news.  But what about the question of a remarkable life?  Are we striving for a remarkable life? 

          Underneath that bucket on the hot August day where I was transformed and transported to be once again a boy of eight, I felt the power of the remarkable.  And the impact of the moment was not shame or challenge.  I didn't think, man, what an unremarkable life I have lived up to this point.  No.  The moment of transformation had the opposite effect.  Suddenly I could see how much of my life was remarkable. Marriage, kids, grandkids, friends, community, a life of ministry.  There was so much that was remarkable.  So much was revealed as the water rained down.

          Can you see it?  

          The harsh words of Jesus condemning the Pharisees and the lawyers have no good consequence.  To goad someone to violence is not a smart move.  But his condemnation, his woes, can have good consequence for us.  Of all the challenges, the key is found in the unmarked grave.  Are we making the world better; are we striving for what is remarkable; are we making a way of justice for generations to come?  Are we living a remarkable life of joy? 

          Look to your heart, to your life, to your church and find what is remarkable.  Amen.