Frederick Buechner's Blog, page 41

What the Kingdom Is

Life is extraordinary, and the extraordinariness of it is what Jesus calls the Kingdom of God. The extraordinariness of it is that in the Kingdom of God we all belong to each other the way families do. We are all of us brothers and sisters in it. We are all of us mothers and fathers and children of each other in it because that is what we are called together as the church to be. That is what being the church means. We are called by God to love each other the way Jesus says that God has loved us. That is the good news about God--the gospel--which he came to proclaim. Loving each other and loving God and being loved by God is what the Kingdom is. No scientific truth or philosophic truth, no truth of art or music or literature is as important as that Kingdom truth.

-from Secrets in the Dark

Weekly Sermon Illustration: The Fruit of the Spirit

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In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On June 26, 2016 we will celebrate the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the book of Galatians:

Galatians 5:18-23
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

The following excerpt comes from :

You did not have to make yourself righteous first in order to qualify for admission ' in fact by their very effort to fulfill the letter of the Law, the Pharisees were continually missing its spirit ' but if you would only accept the gift of God's love in humility and faith, God himself would make you loving which was, Jesus said, the fulfillment of all the Law and the prophets.

Thus it was not by being good that man was to be saved, because by himself that was just what man could not be. And when the rich young ruler called Jesus ""good teacher,"" Jesus himself bridled under the epithet saying, ""Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."" It was not by good works that man had to win his way into the Kingdom, but like the Prodigal Son all he had to do was set his face for home and God would be there to welcome him with open arms before he even had a chance to ask forgiveness for all the years of his prodigality.

But if good works are not the cause of salvation, they are nonetheless the mark and effect of it. If the forgiven man does not become forgiving, the loved man loving, then he is only deceiving himself. ""You shall know them by their fruits,"" Jesus says, and here Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild becomes Christ the Tiger, becomes both at once, this stern and loving man. 'Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,' he says, and Saint Paul is only echoing him when he writes to the Galatians, 'The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.""

This then is the gospel that Jesus seems both to have proclaimed with his lips and lived with his life, not just preaching to the dispossessed of his day from a high pulpit, but coming down and acting it out by giving himself to them body and soul as if he actually enjoyed it ' horrifying all Jericho by spending the night there not with the local rabbi, say, or some prominent Pharisee but with Zaccheus of all people, the crooked tax collector. When Simon the Pharisee laid into him for letting a streetwalker dry his feet with her hair, Jesus said, ""I tell you her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much."" It is no wonder that from the very start of his ministry the forces of Jewish morality and of Roman law were both out to get him because to him the only morality that mattered was the one that sprang from the forgiven heart like fruit from the well-watered tree, and the only law he acknowledged as ultimate was the law of love.

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Father's Day

For Father's Day, here is an article originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words.

When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born too, of course, but at least for her it's a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what's happening. She becomes what's happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of the plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time. Even if he should decide to abandon it forever ten minutes later, the memory will nag him to the grave. He has seen the creation of the world. It has his mark upon it. He has its mark upon him. Both marks are, for better or worse, indelible. All sons, like all daughters, are prodigals if they're smart. Assuming the old man doesn't run out on them first, they will run out on him if they are to survive, and if he's smart he won't put up too much of a fuss. A wise father sees all this coming, and maybe that's why he keeps his distance from the start. He must survive too. Whether they ever find their way home again, none can say for sure, but it's the risk he must take if they're ever to find their way at all. In the meantime, the world tends to have a soft spot in its heart for lost children. Lost fathers have to fend for themselves.

Even as the father lays down the law, he knows that someday his children will break it as they need to break it if ever they're to find something better than law to replace it. Until and unless that happens, there's no telling the scrapes they will get into trying to lose him and find themselves. Terrible blunders will be made'disappointments and failures, hurts and losses of every kind. And they'll keep making them even after they've found themselves too, of course, because growing up is a process that goes on and on. And every hard knock they ever get knocks the father even harder still, if that's possible, and if and when they finally come through more or less in one piece at the end, there's maybe no rejoicing greater than his in all creation.

It has become so commonplace to speak of God as "our Father" that we forget what an extraordinary metaphor it once was.

To Individuals and to Nations Both

To individuals and to nations both, Jesus says the same thing. Turn away from madness, cruelty, shallowness, blindness. Turn toward that tolerance, compassion, sanity, hope, justice that we all have in us at our best. We cannot make the Kingdom of God happen, but we can put out leaves as it draws near. We can be kind to each other. We can be kind to ourselves. We can drive back the darkness a little. We can make green places within ourselves and among ourselves where God can make his Kingdom happen.

-from Secrets in the Dark

The Bible is About You and Me

Finally I think it is possible to say that in spite of all its extraordinary variety, the Bible is held together by having a single plot. It is one that can be simply stated: God creates the world, the world gets lost; God seeks to restore the world to the glory for which he created it. That means that the Bible is a book about you and me, whom he also made and lost and continually seeks, so you might say that what holds it together more than anything else is us. You might add to that, of course, that of all the books that humanity has produced, it is the one that more than any other ' and in more senses than one ' also holds us together.

-Originally published in Secrets in the Dark

Weekly Sermon Illustration: Female

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In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On June 19, 2016 we will celebrate the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the book of Galatians:

Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

This excerpt entitled 'Female' was originally published in 1988 in :

'GOD CREATED HUMANKIND in God's own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them"" (Genesis 1:27). In other words, the female as much as the male is a reflection of the Creator. They are created at the same time, and they are created equals. God blesses them and charges them together and gives the female, along with the male, dominion over the earth. In the next chapter, however, a different story is told. There God creates Adam first and only afterward, realizing that ""it is not good that the man should be alone;' decides to make a helper for him, fashioning Eve out of one of Adam's ribs and calling her ""Woman, because she was taken out of Man"" (2:18-22).

These two conflicting views of the female's role in the order of things scarcely need to be spelled out further, nor is it necessary to point out that, generally speaking, it is the second of them that has prevailed down through the centuries.

Little by little women have turned things pretty much around. They vote. They get elected heads of state. They excel in arts and professions that were once for men only. Some of the stuffiest men's clubs accept them, as do virtually all of the most venerable men's colleges. They are increasingly successful in getting equal pay for equal jobs. Major denominations ordain them. It has been a long, slow exodus, but finally it seems to be paying off.

Feminism can become another form of sexism. Knee-jerk feminists can match their macho counterparts in pig-headedness, aggressiveness, humorlessness, and bigotry. Their shrill voices can make the head ache. When they refuse to read King Lear because it's full of sexist language and bar males from their lectures and demonstrations because they're males, their efforts are apt to be counterproductive. But no matter.

Prophets have always been strident and a little crazy. They've needed to be. The prophet Deborah wouldn't have beaten the tar out of the Canaanites by issuing directives from her living room any more than Moses would have gotten his people out of Egypt by writing letters to the New York Times.

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Sermon at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Chattanooga, TN

Click here to see the video of Buechner giving a sermon at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, TN.

Becoming Yourself

To pray for your enemies, to worry about the poor when you have worries enough of your own, to start becoming yourself fully by giving of yourself prodigally to whoever needs you, to love your neighbors when an intelligent fourth-grader could tell you that the way to get ahead in the world is to beat your neighbors to the draw every chance you get-that was what this God asked, Paul wrote. That was who this God was. That was who Jesus was. Paul is passionate in his assertion, of course, that in the long run it is such worldly wisdom as the intelligent fourth-grader's that is foolish and the sublime foolishness of God that is ultimately wise.

-Originally published in Secrets in the Dark

Weekly Sermon Illustration: Ahab, Naboth, and Jezebel

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In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On June 16, 2013 we will celebrate the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from the book of 1 Kings:

1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a
Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, ""Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money."" But Naboth said to Ahab, ""The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance."" Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, ""I will not give you my ancestral inheritance."" He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat. His wife Jezebel came to him and said, ""Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?"" He said to her, ""Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, 'Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it'; but he answered, 'I will not give you my vineyard.'"" His wife Jezebel said to him, ""Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."" So she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. She wrote in the letters, ""Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, 'You have cursed God and the king.' Then take him out, and stone him to death."" The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, ""Naboth cursed God and the king."" So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, ""Naboth has been stoned; he is dead."" As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, ""Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead."" As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. You shall say to him, ""Thus says the LORD: Have you killed, and also taken possession?"" You shall say to him, ""Thus says the LORD: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood."" Ahab said to Elijah, ""Have you found me, O my enemy?"" He answered, ""I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you.

Here is an excerpt about Ahab et al. originally published in and later in :

Whereas just about everybody has a cross to bear, King Ahab had two. One cross was the prophet Elijah. If, generally speaking, a prophet to a king was like ants at a picnic, Elijah was like a swarm of bees. The other cross was his foreign-born wife, Jezebel, who had gotten religion in a big way back in the old country and was forever trying to palm it off on the Israelites, who had a perfectly good one of their own. Unfortunately for Ahab, the two of them sometimes got to working on him at the same time, one from one side, the other from the other. A case in point was the Naboth affair.

To make a sordid story short, Naboth had a vineyard that Ahab wanted so much he could taste it, and when Naboth refused either to sell or to swap, Ahab went into a sulk. ""He laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food"" (1 Kings 21 :4). It was the kind of opening Jezebel was always on the look-out for. Was he a king or a cup custard? she asked, and proceeded to take charge. Found guilty of a trumped up charge, Naboth got stoned to death, and Ahab got the vineyard. He also, needless to say, got a visit from Elijah.

Down through the years they'd kept meeting like that, usually in secluded places, always at critical moments. Ahab arrived incognito-the dark glasses, the Panama hat, the business suit-and Elijah with a ten day growth of beard. Ahab addressed him in his usual informal way as a royal pain in the neck (1 Kings 21:20), and then Elijah let him have it with both barrels. When God got through with him, Elijah said, there wouldn't be enough left of Ahab to scrape off the sidewalk, and what there was the dogs would take care of. As for Jezebel, not only because of Naboth but because of all her imported witchdoctors and totem poles, she would end up the same way.

Ahab at least said he was sorry, and as a result was allowed to die honorably in battle, the part about the dogs coming true only in the sense that they got to lap the water up that his bloody chariot was hosed off with afterwards. Jezebel, on the other hand, continued unrepentant to the end. When the time finally came, they threw her out of the window, and when the dogs got finished, all that was left for the undertaker was ""the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands"" (II Kings 9:35).

God is merciful, and if she and Ahab and Elijah all eventually met up again in Paradise, you can only assume that Ahab said if it weren't for the honor of the thing, he'd as soon take his chances in a warmer climate, and immediately put in for a transfer.

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The Joy We Are So Apt to be Missing

We are above all things loved--that is the good news of the gospel--and loved not just the way we turn up on Sundays in our best clothes and on our best behavior and with our best feet forward, but loved as we alone know ourselves to be, the weakest and shabbiest of what we are along with the strongest and gladdest. To come together as people who believe that just maybe this gospel is actually true should be to come together like people who have just won the Irish Sweepstakes. It should have us throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman in those pews is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face but is our long-lost brother and our long-lost sister because despite the fact that we have all walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all, humanly speaking, come from the same place and are heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits us all. This is the joy that is so apt to be missing, and missing not just from church but from our own lives--the joy of not just managing to believe at least part of the time that it is true that life is holy, but of actually running into that holiness head-on.

-Originally published in Secrets in the Dark