Pentecost 14A

14th Sunday of Pentecost

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is a lot to talk about in today’s text, and much that we can use to help us look at what’s happening in the world. So much, in fact, that it’s kind of hard to narrow it down to just what to talk about in a sermon of reasonable length. We can talk later about how long “reasonable” is.

But as I was thinking about what we should focus on today, I was drawn to an article about masks. There’s not a much more timely subject than the wear of masks, is there? It’s a very polarizing issue. Some people are vehemently opposed to the mandatory wear of masks. Others will scream and verbally assault anyone who is not wearing a mask. Have you seen the video of the grocery store in New York City when someone tried to walk in without a mask, and everyone in the store started yelling at them? They almost turned into a mob. It wasn’t physically violent, but it was absolutely an ugly scene.

I’m not going to address the science of mask wear as it pertains to the Wuhan virus. I’m not a scientist or a medical professional. It’s not my place. But what I *do* need to talk about are the effects on our society and culture as it pertains to the constant, wide-spread wearing of masks, and the theological implications of hiding our faces. That, I’m not only qualified to address, it is my mandate.

The article I mentioned about masks is called “Stealing our Faces: the Deeper Effects of the Mask Movement” by Mo Waltering. The author writes this:

On a recent visit to Charleston, South Carolina, I had an experience that led to a disturbing realization. Since then, I have been reflecting on the deeper consequences, and perhaps nefarious motives, of mask-mandates.

The Historic City Market of Charleston required patrons to wear a mask just like every public place in America at this point. So I put on a disposable mask as I entered the collection of shops. As I was passing by a store, a female shop attendant, who also was wearing a mask, greeted me in a charming southern accent. In response, I smiled at her and returned her greeting. But I realized that she could not see me smiling and that I could not see her smiling. In that instant, I said to myself, “Dang, they have stolen our faces!”

The battle-lines over masks have drawn up largely according to political lines now. However, most of the controversy does not really address the true meaning of what is happening. Whatever the motives are, the effects of mask-mandates transcend health and safety.

Waltering then discusses the change in terminology from “mask” to “facial covering”: In moving to the precise term “facial covering,” instead of “mask,” it becomes clearer that the effect is to blot out the human face and ultimately blot out God from our sight. … The connection between God and man becomes fully concrete in the Incarnation. God becomes man and bears a human face.

That’s quite a statement. What that means is that when we look upon the face of another human being we are looking at another child of God. Another creature who was made in the image of their Creator. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’”, in Genesis 1:26. Our own faces already reflect the God Who created us. But then the Heavenly Father sent His Only Son to take on flesh, which is what “incarnate” means. God-in-flesh. God has a human face in Jesus of Nazareth. The incarnation, the Son of God in flesh, connects God to humanity fully and completely. As if the love of the Creator wasn’t enough! In this son of a carpenter, the Messiah foretold by the prophets is the perfect human being - the kind of human that all of us were created to be. God bears a human face is exactly right.

The author goes on, describing writings by the Church Father Saint Cyril of Alexandria: Christ makes it possible for the human face to reflect God’s face. Christ elevates the human face and gives it its dignity. At the same time, the face of the Word made flesh is truly the face of God. What we see day to day in the human face bears Divinity.

This next part is, I think, the highlight of the article:

There is a deep theological foundation for the importance of the human face. My unsettling experience with the shopkeeper in Charleston was really about the inability to connect through a smile. The human smile has profound significance for human relations. Han Urs von Balthasar reflects upon the mother and a newborn child in Unless You Become Like This Child. “Here is where the miracle occurs that one day the child will recognize in his mother’s face her protective love and will reciprocate this love with a first smile… This understanding opens up in the child the dormant bud of self-awareness.” The smile from a child is the first small act of love. It is only brought about by the smile from the mother. The human smile is the basic symbol of man’s capacity to love. It is also the basic vehicle for human relations.

Think about that! The smile from a child - a baby - is the first small act of love. Any of you who have had children know that as a newborn baby is first learning to see, the first thing the baby will recognize is the face of the mother and father. The newborn’s eyesight is incredibly limited in the early days of his or her life. As the eyesight develops, it begins to focus on things close up - the adults who hold their bundle of joy. The baby instinctively then will begin to mimic the facial expressions of the adult whose face is only inches away. This is SO important in the baby’s development.

But there’s another sentence in this section that I think is something we all must consider: “The human smile is the basic symbol of man’s capacity to love.” And we have effectively eliminated that from our day-to-day interactions by covering them up with “facial coverings”. This is not good. If you’ve spent any time on social media, you know how ugly and toxic that environment can sometimes get. Part of that toxicity comes from breakdown in communication, and that is many times a result of not being able to see the facial expressions of the people on the other end of the chat. You can’t see facial expression. You can’t hear tone of voice. You can’t read body language. So you can’t detect the nuances between sarcasm and sincerity, between outrage and deep sadness.

As if we don’t have enough problems communicating in our world today, now we’ve placed a barrier in front of our faces, making verbal communication that much more difficult. I wish I could tell you how many interpersonal problems I’ve witnessed that ultimately boiled down to poor communication. One person just didn’t understand what the other person was saying. Wearing masks ALL THE TIME is going to make this worse. That is exactly what the author of this article experienced on the trip to Charleston. Our perception of each other is changing.

Listen again to what Jesus tells us today in verse 10: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” There’s God’s face again. In this passage, the closeness of the angels to the Father is clear when Jesus says that they “always see the face of my Father...” These angels have been charged with watching over the children of the world.

So what does it mean when we put a cover over that which reflects the very image of God? Do we lose the ability to see God in each other? Do we stop thinking of each other as children of God? Do we, yet again, de-humanize each other, as we’ve been doing slowly over time?

Again, let me be very clear: I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be wearing masks as we fight this virus. I am asking us to think deeply about and be cautious about the 2nd and 3rd order effects of wearing masks all the time. I think it is doing unseen damage to our society and to the Spirit of the Body of Christ. I think we need to be very careful about these safety measures. I think we need to be cognizant of whether the cure is worse than the disease. I think we need to only wear these masks when necessary, and only for as long as we must. We must look forward to the day when the masks and face coverings will come off, so that we can see the image of God in each other once more.

There is so much that Jesus teaches us in this Gospel lesson today. In general, Jesus is trying to teach us the right way to think about what it means to be his follower. His disciples showed him in this passage that they are not thinking heavenly things. They are thinking earthly things. We see that right in verse 1, when they ask him about status.

Remember, Jesus is saying this in response to the question: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” His response: “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” In Jesus’ day, children were not treated with any level of respect; they were often overlooked and ignored. They had no status in society. Jesus never spoke of status, or if he did, he spoke to its irrelevance; unfortunately, it appears that his disciples were still thinking of status.

They hear Jesus talking about a kingdom (where Jesus is King), and they want to know where they fall in the pecking order. More specifically, Jesus has been telling them that he is soon going to die… and so what will happen in this Kingdom that is now “at hand”? Jesus has brought his Kingdom and now he will die? So who will lead us? Or who is next in line? They are thinking like they have always thought. They are thinking like the world thinks. They are not thinking like Jesus wants them to think. They are not thinking like Jesus.

Jesus has charged the disciples to “become like children”. Often we think of this as a reference to the innocence of children, but scholars think that’s not what Jesus means. Jesus means that children are completely dependent on their parents for just about everything in their lives: food, shelter, clothing, education, … it’s quite an exhaustive list. And if we are to be the children of God we were created to be, then we must “turn and become like children.” We must depend on God.

Think about how counter-cultural this is. We are told all the time that “you’re enough”, right? Believe in yourself. You can do anything you put your mind to. I still chuckle at that old Saturday Night Live skit, where Stuart Smalley tells himself in the mirror: “I’m good enough, and smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” We are constantly told by motivational speakers and self-help gurus that positive thinking and a can-do attitude will get you far in this world. Don’t be dependent, be INDEPENDENT. We’ve all heard these lines before, right?

Jesus is telling us, “stop thinking like that.” Jesus wants us to know that to be with God means to depend on Him. We have to let go of our worldly thinking and give ourselves up to God. As I watch my own sons growing up and how most of what Wendy and I have taught them is how to be less and less dependent on us…it really makes me think deeply about this passage. How do you learn to be dependent on God?

I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s not a simple answer. This is the faith journey. It’s the sum total of everything the Scriptures teach us. As we learn more about God, we grow closer to God. As we learn more about God, we learn about what He has done for us - especially what He has done for us on the cross - and what He continues to do for us. As we gather to hear His Word, as we come to His Holy Supper, we grow closer to Him. As we grow closer to Him, our hearts are drawn nearer to Him, and we seek to please Him more. As we grow closer to Him, we are able to give more and more of ourselves to God. All along this journey, we are growing dependent on Him. This is the relationship He has wanted to have with us all along. This is the relationship we were CREATED TO HAVE with Him. And this is the relationship that we WILL have with Him at the end of the Age.

It’s not simple, but it’s something we can get better at, with the Holy Spirit’s help. Let’s all set that as our goal this week, that we will find something in our daily life that we can give to God, so that part of us is dependent on Him. Maybe that’s spending a little more time in prayer. Maybe that’s spending a little more time in the Bible. Maybe that’s taking something that you’ve been struggling with in your life and just praying “God, I can’t seem to work this out, and I recognize that I can’t do that without you. Please intervene here, guide me, teach me.” Let’s all find something this week that we can turn over to God and become dependent on Him for. And let’s pray for His Holy Spirit to work on us to make it happen!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.