Hot & Cold

Sermon preached Monday, June 19, 2006
Year 2, Proper 6, Monday, Mass: Psalm 5:1-6, 1 Kings 21:1-16, Matthew 5:38-42

Its got to be 100 degrees in here tonight; I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about that. Saint Mary's is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. There are a few days where its just right, but even then, those days where I think its a perfect temperature in the church are days where others thinks its still too cool or still too hot.

It seems to me that worshipping at Saint Mary's throughout the year is like being a Christian in a world full of churches and denominations that can't agree about anything. Somebody is always too hot and complaining about it. Somebody is always too cold and grumbling about it. There are people who are always trying to adjust the temperature to suit their own desires. And of course the are people who find it hard to figure out why the weather is the only thing anyone ever talks about in church when its the worship, not the temperature that we are here for.

In the readings today we saw two responses to a disagreements. The first was to use any means necessary to win the dispute. In this case we heard how King Ahab lied about Nabboth and had him stoned, just to get his vineyard. That reminds me of a man who once demanded that the temperature be exactly as he wanted it in the church, assuming we kept it hot on purpose and not because we don't have AC. In the second we read the difficult words that Jesus offers on the subject. Turn the other cheek when someone strikes you. Give someone your coat if they want it. Go an extra mile with someone who forces you to go somehwere you don't want to go.

Its also possible to interpret these words as weakness and indifference to the reality of life. Afterall, nobody wants to get walked all over, just like nobody wants to be in a building thats 100 degrees just because a handful of people prefer it that hot. But I am not sure that's what Jesus is talking about. I beleive that he is offering us a great gift to remember that what is important to the world need not be our concern.

To return to the heat example, instead of rushing over to the thermostat every time I get uncomfortable or yelling out in the middle of the service that I'm too hot, I can do what most Christians have been doing in the church since the day it opened: set my heart firmly on Jesus. It may sound overly simplistic, but when when someone does something I don't like I find that the more I set my heart on Christ, the less important my original concerns seem to be. Ive noticed that there is always something to complain about. Always something to correct. Always something to get mad about. But I've also noticed that when I concentrate on those things I concentrate less on Jesus. I spend more time trying to figure out how to pay back the person who slapped me and less time trying to do what I can to spread the love of God to others.