I love to go to the beach Matthew 23:1-12

I love to go to the beach. I don’t care whether it is Lake Michigan or the ocean, there is something about big water and beaches that sensorily help me to know God’s work in the world, of experiencing the limits beyond which the sea cannot go; to hear the waves rolling in; to listen to that rhythmic action of attack and retreat, of encounter and withdrawal; to feel the wind on my face; to taste the spray as a storm comes in; and to feel the sucking of the sand from under my feet.

Beyond the noise, the smell, the touch, the taste of God’s border patrol work, is that mystical ebb and flow of the tide. Okay, I know Lake Michigan only has a tide of about six inches, but it is measurable. Of course, the tide is much more apparent at the ocean, and I love walking along the shoreline during the changing time. I love that feeling of walking along finding myself either running toward the water trying to keep my feet in the water or running away from the water trying to keep from being washed away.

Several years ago, I was sitting at the water’s edge playing in the sand. As I was building my sand castle with its moats and parapets, the tide started to come in. I knew that the castle was not long for the world, but I wanted to finish it before the ravages of the tide would take it away. So, I stayed.

When the waves finally washed my handiwork away, I turned and sat there letting the water rise around me until I finally had to get up or be drowned. I was neck deep in the water, and then suddenly a wave would come in and completely cover me. At the same time, as I was being covered, my body was lifted up and pushed toward the shore. As the water again withdrew, I could feel my body being pulled out into the ocean. By the time I got up, it took real concentration. First, I was being pushed forward and then being pulled back. Just as I thought I was beyond danger, a wave hit me in the backs of my legs, and I was put down on my knees. It was like gentle reminder from God’s creation of who was or wasn’t in control.

Today, we come to this All Saints Sunday in the midst of Holy Week tides. Perhaps we are coming in the tides of death’s grief and life’s joy. Perhaps, we come feeling like the sand is being washed out from under our feet and that we will be drowned in seas of chaos. We may only feel the forces of change between autumn breezes and winter blasts, but I’m guessing that each of us has a tidal push and pull in our lives today.

Well in the midst of the tidal changes in the book of Matthew, today we see the tide coming in. The Chief Priests, the Scribes, the Pharisees and their disciples, even the Herodians, have taken their shot at trying to pull Jesus out into those seas of chaos, but he has maintained his place throughout. Jesus’ debate with the Chief Priests and the Elders and the rest have not gone un-noticed, and now, at the end of the testing, Jesus turns to the crowd and his disciples and begins his critiquing judgment on those who have been testing him. Yes, the tide is coming in, and the people are learning what servant leadership is.

In a world of honor and shame, it is Jesus’ victorious right to judge those who have judged him, and yet, he does not try to discredit what they know and teach, he only promises danger if they continue in their disconnected ways. In the following verses of Matthew Jesus demonstrates how hypocrisy, that disconnect between teaching and doing, leads to empty-faith living and wrong-minded, oppressive behavior. He warns the crowd and his disciples particularly, but for those others who have lagged behind, Jesus says it is important to practice what you teach. As a pastor friend of mine says, “If you say it, you need to pray it. If you pray it, you need to walk it. If you are going to walk it, talk it. If you are going to talk it, teach it. If you are going to teach it, preach it. And when you preach it, say it clear.” However you say it, Jesus is telling us today that there needs to be a connection between what we teach and what we do.

--------
Who doesn’t like to be honored and recognized in the midst of the crowd? Who doesn’t like to be thought of as wise and powerful? Jesus does not say that we shouldn’t want or receive these things. He only states that our actions need to be in accord with words and our position; we need to continue to be part of the community, sharing the load. In the words of a song, “We all need somebody to lean on.”

That leaning time is recognized in this passage and in this day. Jesus has proven through his words and actions throughout the Gospel of Matthew that he will be there when we need someone to lean on, not like a surging tide that threatens to knock you over, but as a neighbor who reaches out a hand in a time of need to give extra support.

So as the tide now shifts in Matthew, we hear that we need to remember who and whose we are, but first we are reminded of who we are not. We are not the teacher of God’s word; we are all students. We are not the Father who created the heavens and the earth; we are God’s children. We are not even instructors of God’s ways in the world, that one is the Messiah, the Christ, the one who is able to turn aside the hatred of those who would entrap, arrest, and kill him. The one who is able to speak good of those who have disparaged him and his followers for the sake of the world.

So, if we are not the teacher, the father, or the instructor, who are we? We are the mirrors of God’s loving judgment to the world. We are the people who have hope in times of despair. We are the people who grieve with hope because of God’s Word, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the one who continues to point us to the kingdom relationship of everlasting life.

We know that there will always be tides that threaten to pull us away from the shore of God’s loving embrace, but we continue to walk on the shores knowing that beyond this point the waves of chaos cannot go. In the mysteries of our world, God continues to act, to bring life in a world of death, to bring hope in a world of despair, to bring healing to a broken world, to bring forgiveness in a world of sin, to find ways of continued goodness in God’s own handiwork, to remember that in the tidal waters that can drown us comes a source of life and many gifts to support life.

On this All Saints Sunday, we remember many of the words of those who have gone before us, but, more than that, we remember their actions of love and caring that have helped to make us who we are for, in our faith living, we are all affected in some way by those with whom we have been in relationship. We are also affected by the loss of relationships and the grieving holes of loss in our lives that occur when loved ones die. Today we especially remember Virginia King, Charles Stubby, and David Bowden.

There is a temptation to say the tidal pull is between grief and joy, but today I would suggest that the tidal shift is between grief and peace, that peace that comes from the promise and hope of Christ’s own resurrection, the peace that comes from Jesus’ standing firm in the changing relationships with those who would even dare to pull him into power politics of that time, the peace that comes from continuing in relationship with Jesus through the rest of the story, to the cross and to the Easter tomb. This is not to say that we should not grieve, but that grief is one of the tides that pulls on us. Yet there is another tide coming, a tide that brings peace. That tide of peace is always coming and waits on the other side of grief.

Today, we come to the shores of heaven’s kingdom, building castles of relationship, of love and hope, knowing that what we build will be swept away in the loving baptismal tidal sea of God’s eternal living love, no longer tossed about by the push and pull of the world, but sustained in the promise of a final surging wave that will wash us up onto the shores of God’s eternal kingdom.

In the meantime, let us live fully in the kingdom of heaven we know, reflecting God’s promise and hope to all we know. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Proclaim the gospel in all that you do. If necessary, use words.”