Sermon for 16 Pentecost

September 28, 2003

St. Luke’s Church, Jamestown, NY

Eric M. Williams

This text was somewhat modified during the actual preaching of the sermon. I am indebted to Prof. William Willimon for the basic concept, which I found in his sermon on these texts in “Pulpit Resource”.

Each week, on Wednesday night, I engage in a simple ritual;

one which is familiar to all of you—

I take out the garbage.

In our green Rubbermaid garbage can

go bags full of stuff—used up, consumed, broken or out of date.

This is stuff which no longer has any use to us or to anyone.

According to an organization called “Zero Waste America,”

each year every American produces on average about one ton of garbage—

one ton…two thousand pounds.

That’s a lot of garbage.

In 1997 it added up to 340 million tons.[1]

340 million tons of used up, broken, out of date, useless stuff--

stuff that is only worthy of being thrown away and forgotten forever.

Stuff that ends up in landfills here and throughout the region.

In the time of Jesus there was a famous garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.

It was called “Gehenna” which means the “Valley of Hinnom”.

Once a place where ancient Israelites had worshiped false gods,

by the 1^st century it was the place

where the residents of Jerusalem took their garbage.

A place of worms and fire,

a constantly smoldering decomposing mess--

it was a perfect image for hell.

Hell is not a concept we like to dwell on these days.

I would venture a guess that very few “hellfire and brimstone sermons”

have been preached from this pulpit,

or in any Episcopal church for that matter.

Hell seems out of place these days,

a holdover from a past full of myths and miracles,

kind of an embarrassment really for polite modern Christians.

Yet Jesus actually talked quite a lot about hell,

at least as much as he did about heaven.

If heaven is wedding feast, celebration and light,

hell is the empty darkness outside.

If heaven is where God is eternally present in glory,

hell can be described as the absence of God.

To be sure, Jesus did not talk about circles of hell,

or devils with pitchforks tormenting the lost souls.

Those images didn’t come along until Dante.

The dominant image of hell according to Jesus is Gehenna.

Hell is the place where the garbage goes,

everything which is used up, broken or useless.

And it is interesting to note that in his entire ministry

Jesus never ever sent anyone to hell,

figuratively or literally.

His whole purpose was to keep them out of hell.

That is his dramatic message in the Gospel for today.

If there is something rotten in you, get rid of it.

He uses vivid, exaggerated language to get his point across.

I do not believe he actually wanted us to maim ourselves.

But his point remains.

Whether it is your eye or your hand that is causing you to sin,

or whether it is your habits of envy, pride and anger,

find the problem and root it out,

or your bad parts may take over and drag you down with them.

In a way, Jesus is offering us an alternative to Gehenna, other options than garbage.

Each week I put out my green garbage can,

but alongside it I also put a yellow plastic container,

and it is also full of stuff I am getting rid of.

But this stuff is not going to the landfill—at least I hope not.

This paper, plastic, metal and glass is recyclable.

It can be transformed and reused.

In fact more of my garbage can be redeemed as well.

I can create a compost pile in my backyard

and use my table scraps and grass clippings

to create beautiful rich fertile compost for my garden.

If that is true for garbage, it is all the more true of human beings.

If there is one message that Jesus taught, lived and even died to get across

it was this: People are worthy of redemption.

People can be recycled too.

God does not make garbage.

No matter how far their sins take them away from God,

every person has the capacity for repentance, forgiveness and new life.

The sad fact is that we so often treat one another like garbage.

Throw away children, throw away marriages, throw away friendships,

human beings in this world, this country and even this city,

living in conditions we cannot or will not imagine.

Jesus knew what it felt like to be treated like garbage.

He came to offer a message of hope and salvation

and he was willing to pay the price for it—

to be cast aside by his friends, his people and his society.

He was willing to suffer for it and even die for it.

And as he hung upon the cross outside Jerusalem

ironically, he had a perfect view of what he came to save people from,

a perfect, close-up view of Gehenna

the burning, decaying garbage dump

that was his vision of hell.

There is a wonderful tradition in the Orthodox Church about time.

Because Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah,

his life, death and resurrection did not just happen a long time ago.

They happen in eternity, past, present and future simultaneously.

So in the liturgy when we say the words over the bread and wine,

we are actually with Jesus mystically at the Last Supper

as he breaks the bread and shares the cup.

Jesus is eternally breaking the bread,

eternally dying on the cross,

eternally rising from the dead.

And eternally descending into hell.

According to the tradition,

Jesus on Holy Saturday descends into hell

to liberate all those who reside there.

Jesus walks into Gehenna to see what can be salvaged, recycled, reborn.

He goes into hell eternally seeking the lost

and bringing them to new life, new hope, new birth.

When I lived in California we couldn’t bring

our bottles and cans to the grocery store.

Instead there were special places set aside—

they were called Redemption Centers.

Like our grocery stores they had those nifty machines.

You put in your empty used up cans and bottles

and after pressing a button they are magically transformed into a receipt

which you can take to the cashier and turn into money.

I remind you that this too is a Redemption Center.

This is a place to bring whatever in you

is broken, used up and seemingly worthless.

Here each week it is recycled into something valuable

Here each week this imperfect group of people

is transformed into something precious—

the Body of Christ.

And as the Body of Christ we who have been redeemed ourselves

must always seek to offer that redemption to others.

We must remember that no one is

beyond the reach of God’s redeeming love.

We must strive individually and as a community

to respect the dignity of every human being,

reminding ourselves and others that

no one is worthless, hopeless or useless.

Zero Waste America is striving for a society with no garbage,

where everything is recycled, reused, and transformed

into something valuable.

I think that is a goal Jesus would support,

especially when applied to the spiritual life.

Let’s call it Zero Waste Humanity

and work for a world where everyone is valuable,

where no one is beyond God’s saving help.

[1] http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/