Sermon: "Motivation that Matters"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

[This sermon by Bishop vonRosenberg was delivered using the following notes.]

Years ago, I served on another diocesan staff. The church camp for that diocese was located near Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Golf Tournament. Now, Masters Week in August is known for several things - for instance, the short supply of places to stay, the great demand for rooms to rent, and the high prices that can be charged for those rooms. We were therefore pleased that some visitors to Augusta discovered our camp and rented rooms there. After all, like most church camps, we needed the income from special events and non-church groups, and the Masters was a wonderful example. Therefore, this custom of renting rooms to fans at the Masters became a welcomed annual opportunity.

However, as we examined the various camp expenses one year, we noticed a spike in long distance phone calls during Masters Week. And, in fact, almost all the calls were made to one particular city - Las Vegas. After a bit more checking, we determined that we had hosted a bookie at the Episcopal camp that year! After all, the bookie had to make lots of calls back to Las Vegas, to keep his information current and his bookkeeping, accurate.

The fact of the matter is that many people understand God in similar terms - the great Bookkeeper in the sky. That is, God somehow keeps a tally of the good things we do in this life and balances them against the bad things. This kind of theology restricts God's judgment to a tally sheet, and it presents a strong encouragement to do good, simply to impress God.

Theology of this sort is not new. Indeed, Jesus provides one such example in today's Gospel, and he probably intends to poke a bit of fun at the idea besides.

Slaves, of course, were common in Jesus' day. Jesus calls attention to the relationship between a slave and his master, by presenting a rather preposterous situation. By the way, Jesus is speaking to people who might have been slave masters themselves. In the story Jesus tells, he suggests that a slave had been out working hard in the fields all day. And Jesus asks a rhetorical question in this parable. Would the slave master say to his slave, after a hard day's work, "Come here at once and take your place at the table?"(Lk 17:7). Then Jesus quickly points out how preposterous such an invitation would be, in the context of those circumstances. Rather, Jesus says, the slave would be expected to wait on the master and then do whatever other tasks there were to do. No thanks would be expected, nor would any expression of gratitude, for the slave had no right to such a response.

In the parable, then, Jesus is saying that the slave could not earn enough credits to get ahead in his master's log of accounts. By doing what was expected of him, the slave could not earn his way into his master's favor. That kind of reward - the result of a tally sheet understanding - simply does not apply in the master-slave relationship. It makes no sense.

Jesus offers the parable, in part so that we can make connections to it. For instance, God has not rented a room at Grace Point, in order to make book on us, either. We cannot earn our way into a better place or a more exalted position in God's eyes, simply by doing what is expected of us. Even if we could be perfect, even if we beat the spread on all the bets against us, we could not expect God to owe us something on his tally sheet in the sky. We simply cannot work our way into God's graces by doing good. That's the bad news.

However, the good news really is good news. God gives us what we cannot earn ourselves. We have a place at God's table, even though we do not deserve it. God is as preposterous as was first suggested in Jesus' unlikely parable of the master and the slave. But God actually does invite us in.

St. Paul presented this preposterous invitation to his friend Timothy in our Second Reading. St. Paul invites Timothy to "join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace"(II Tim 1:8-9). With these words, the apostle makes the point quite clearly that God does not act "according to our works", but rather, God acts "according to his own purpose and grace."

Referring back to Jesus' parable, then, grace cannot be earned any more than a slave can earn a place at the master's table. However, grace - preposterous, undeserved grace - is the gift of the master, who does indeed invite the slave to have dinner with him - not in the parable, but in our lives.

You see, my friends, Jesus addresses for us today the most effective motivation for doing what is right and good. The motivation does not involve an attempt to earn points on some divine tally sheet. Rather, in this regard, the relationship of slave to master is a sign of other relationships as well - a child to a parent, for instance, or ourselves to God the Father.

If the slave, the child, or the Christian is trying to earn the favor of the other in those relationships, then their motivation will always be colored with manipulation and with resentment. After all, we can always find reasons that our scores should be better than someone else's, can we not? We are experts at self justification and at self aggrandizement. We can be tireless in our efforts to impress someone who is in the position of score-keeper.

However, think of those relationships mentioned earlier and, in particular, of the master, the parent, and God in those situations. If the master, the parent, and God are not keeping score but, rather, offer the gifts of acceptance and approval ahead of time, then an entirely new dynamic emerges. Indeed, the slave, the child, and the Christian have a very different motivation to act in such a circumstance. That motivation, I submit, is far more effective than trying to earn recognition or to score points … for the motivation, now, becomes respect and love.

Jesus knows - and I think we know, too - that respect and love are far better motivations to do what is right and good. Therefore, God our Father offers us the grace of acceptance, to which we may respond in love. Amen.

Copyright © 2007 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee