Proper 21, C

1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

“At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus.”

Thirty-seven parables (give or take) over the course of the 4 canonical gospels, comprising about a third of the recorded teachings of Jesus. Parables about the Kingdom. Parables about forgiveness. Parables about redemption. Parables about prayer. Parables about, well there are a couple that we haven’t quite figured out what they are about. Thirty-seven parables. One name. Lazarus. In 37 parables, one person gets a name. Why?

The theme in this story is familiar. The Gospel of Luke in particular is replete with references to God’s compassion for the poor, and references to the reversal of earthly fortunes in the Kingdom of God. From Mary’s Song “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” to the beatitudes in the sermon on the plain, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” to today’s parable, Luke emphasizes God’s compassion for the poor, the crippled, the lame.

“A parable is a short tale that illustrates universal truth, one of the simplest of narratives.” (Wikipedia) Telling truths within stories allows those truths to be more easily absorbed, digested. A story captures imagination and engages a listener in a way no dry discourse can. A master story teller, Jesus drew from the familiar. Most of his parables arose from everyday life in Palestine. This more fanciful tale he adapted to his purposes from an Egyptian folk tale of the afterlife. It is not meant to be a theological expository on the nature of Heaven and Hell – the story is not really about heaven and hell at all. It’s about seeing. It’s about relationship – with God, with neighbor. This is, in a way, Christendom’s original Pearly Gates joke.

You may have heard this more modern Pearly Gates story. In our changing climate, floods are becoming ever more common. The flood waters rose in the community of a devout Christian man. He went to his roof and he prayed, “Heavenly Father, help me.” A family in a rowboat came by and offered him room in their boat. “No. Thank you, kind neighbor, but my faith will save me.” The flood waters rose, and he climbed to the peak of his roof. “Heavenly Father, the flood waters are rising, help me.” Just as it seemed he would be washed away a rescue boat noticed him and offered him safety. “No. Thank you, kind neighbor, but my faith will save me.” Finally he was washed away, but he managed to grab a tree as the waters rushed by. A helicopter spotted him and came to pick him up. Again, the faithful man clung to his prayer and his faith. “No. Thank you, kind neighbor, but my faith will save me.” He died. When he came to the Pearly Gates he approached St. Peter – Maybe it was Father Abraham? – and said, “I was a good Christian man. I gave to the church. I said my prayers. I clung to my faith. Why did God not save me?” Said Father Abraham, “He sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

God sent us Moses, the prophets, sent us his Son. He daily sends us opportunities to see, to listen, to act, but all we see is the floodwater of poverty. We cling to what we know. We hide our eyes.

In the U.S., the wealthiest nation in the world, 14.5 percent – some 49 million people – struggle to put food on the table. And 15.9 million of these hungry ones are children. (Bread for the World.) Among the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are: 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3), 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5), and 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7) (State of the World’s Children, 2005, UNICEF) The numbers are absolutely overwhelming. The immensity of the issue of poverty and associated hunger and disease is almost beyond imagining. We become inured to tragedy, to poverty, to hunger. We don’t see anymore.

Jesus gives Lazarus a name. Lazarus is not one in 3 or one in 7 or one of 49 million people. Lazarus is Lazarus. Neighbor to the rich man. Jesus describes no malevolence in the rich man. He lived in his fine house with his fine clothes and ate his fine food. Jesus convicts him of nothing worse than living the American dream 1700 years before there was an America to live it in. We don’t know that he abused Lazarus. He didn’t see Lazarus. The rich man built the chasm between them, a chasm constructed of indifference.

A first century Palestinian would not have been inclined to see the rich man as evil. Their culture taught them that reward follows virtue. If you are rich, you must be virtuous. If a person is poverty stricken or diseased, they must have sinned, or their parents did. We are not so different. Jesus doesn’t tell us if Lazarus drank his last pay. He doesn’t tell us if Lazarus got sacked for showing up to work late. He doesn’t tell us if Lazarus lived too long on his parents’ good will or gambled away the family livestock. He doesn’t say. It doesn’t matter. He is suffering. He is our neighbor.

Although our culture tells us that we cannot have enough – enough money, enough power, enough security, enough stuff – for the most part, we are rich. Some have more monetary wealth than others to be sure, but by virtue of the fact that we have clean water and heat in the winter and food on our tables, we are rich. And yet, we do not have to be the rich man. We can open our eyes and see the need outside our gates. We can painstakingly demolish the chasm. We can set our hopes not on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God. We can be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. We can take hold of the life that really is life. The poor, the suffering, the marginalized – they have names. They are our neighbors.

Timothy Haut offers this prayer…
Lord, Source of all that is good,
Creator and Sustainer of the universe,
Giver of awesome gifts and undeserved blessings,
Help me to be rich.
Shower me with enough
That I will no longer worry my way through each day,
But instead live in gratitude.
Cherishing my utter abundance.
Help me to have enough of this world’s treasures
That I may know the joy of sharing what I have,
Spreading it around instead of holding on tight.
Let me feel rich with wonder at the great mysteries,
Receiving each day with anticipation
Of the surprises you have in store for me.
Remind me that my wealth is best measured
In the love that I give and the love that I receive,
And that what I own are small things compared to
The splendor of the stars, the brightness of sunlight,
The joy of music, the sweetness of food,
And the glory of this amazingly beautiful world.
Teach me, Lord, to be content,
So that my heart may know peace even in lean times,
And so that my laughter and my joy
May add to the richness of those around me.
And when it is time to leave this world,
Let me go with a thankful heart, my Lord,
Knowing that, through you,
I have been rich indeed. AMEN

Proper 20, C

Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13

As we join our Gospel action today, Jesus is sketching another parable for the disciples. He’s been on a run of them – the lost sheep, the lost coin, and He has just completed what was to become the best known of all his parables, the story of the Prodigal Son – that beautiful story of forgiveness and all-encompassing love. He moves from that pinnacle of story weaving to spin today’s offering.

Accused of dishonesty and facing dismissal, too old for manual labor and too proud to beg, a rich man’s manager devises a new scheme. Hoping to guarantee friends for himself in his upcoming indigence, he arranges hefty unauthorized discounts on the debts owed to his master, ensuring that the debtors know who to thank for their unexpected windfall. So far a pretty typical self-interested villain story. The master returns. Instead of sacking him, the master commends the steward for his cleverness. Lest we think the master somehow had the wool pulled over his eyes, Jesus confirms the affirmation, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

So sorry the kids aren’t up here for the sermon today, ‘cause “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth” is just exactly the take home message I’d like them to leave church with.

If you read a half a dozen commentaries on this parable, you will find at least a dozen interpretations of it. It’s that baffling. For the moment, we are going to resist the temptation to assume that Jesus sprained a parable spinning muscle with the Prodigal Son and simply went wildly astray with this story. We are going to further, for the moment, put aside the attractive idea that the meticulous Luke got his notes out of order somehow. Finally, we are going to reject the simple and entirely plausible notion that some scribe some time in history overindulged in mead before he got to this page and in an alcoholic haze inadvertently altered the sacred word forever. Eliminating these explanations leaves us with one simple question…“Huh?” Is Jesus really telling us to cheat and steal our way into eternal life?

If all else fails, take a look at the context. Back we go to Jewish first century Palestine. The torah forbids charging interest. It is understood to be exploitative. Respectable people (like the manager’s rich master, for example) must abide by the letter of that law. Abiding by the letter of the law is what respectable people do. Ah, but a person’s got to make a living, right? Witness the attitude Amos illustrates in our first lesson today: Can’t work on the Sabbath? When will worship end so we can get back to selling? Not making a profit? Change the value of the ephah and the shekel, the currency. Torah says you can’t charge interest? You get around the law about charging interest by rolling the number into the total debt. No itemized bill, no interest – sort of like adding the gratuity to the bill for large parties in a restaurant. And while it wasn’t technically interest, it was a standardized rate – higher for the more risky commodities, lower for more stable things. Olive oil, which can spill or go rancid, fetched 50%. Take your hundred jug bill and make it 50. The more stable wheat fetched 20%. You owe 100 containers of wheat? Make it 80. (source: Alyce McKenzie, The Dishonest Steward: Reflections on Luke 16:2-8a) While the steward’s motives are far from philanthropic, he gives back to the debtors only what they should never have owed. Rather than bemoaning his losses, the master commends the manager – possibly for finally showing the cleverness the master thought he was hiring in the first place.

But still we wait for Jesus to tell us why the manager was wrong, how the master was duped. We are respectable Christians following respectable rules doing our respectable Christian thing. Surreptitiously redistributing the wealth of others doesn’t fit into our notion of What Would Jesus Do.

Fr. Robert Capon (Kingdom, Grace, Judgement: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus) makes the case that although we – and by “we” I mean the church; the fine, upstanding, respectable church – that although we cannot resist the urge to gussy up Jesus, to make him respectable and clean and pretty, Jesus tells this parable precisely to illustrate that He most definitively, deliberately, decidedly is not respectable. He broke the sabbath and ate with sinners. He disrupted worship and overturned the money tables. He was executed as a criminal. He’s not respectable. He’s down and dirty and real.

According to Fr. Capon, “The unique contribution of this parable to our understanding of Jesus is its insistence that grace cannot come to the world through respectability. Respectability regards only life, success, winning; it will have no truck with the grace that works by death and losing–which is the only grace there is.”

“For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human” Jesus came. To live. To die. One of us. With us. Like us. Sometimes, we forget the living part. The psalmist says, “He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap.” We might be willing to help God’s purpose, but we want to look around and make sure nobody gets the wrong idea if we should jump down in that ash heap.

I don’t believe that Jesus intends us to steal. He was pretty insistent a number of times about that whole 10 Commandments thing. But he does expect us to throw off the yoke of respectable, predictable behavior, to creatively challenge the status quo of power and wealth differential, to jump into that ash heap and lift up the needy so that so “that we [all] may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” – no matter who might be looking or what they might think. As Mother Theresa reminded her nuns, “In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

“You cannot serve God and wealth”. You cannot serve Christ and respectability.

To paraphrase William Purkey:

You’ve gotta serve like there’s nobody watching,
Forgive like you’ve never been hurt,
Pray like God’s always listening,
And live to bring heaven on earth.

Amen.

PROPER 19, C, Exodus 32:7-14 Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

Sometimes the magic works and all three lessons speak together, when we take the time to look closely. I thank the folks in my Bible Study at the Villa for helping me to see some connections this week.

The Old Testament story is familiar to us, or at least is associated with a familiar event. While camped in the wilderness, Moses went up on the mountain to meet God and while he was gone the people urged Aaron to make for them an idol to worship – and he did. This was the infamous golden calf.

In the confrontation we heard today between God and Moses, we see a very angry God who is planning to consume the Hebrews with his wrath against them for turning away from the God who saved them. He is taking the oath he swore to Abraham and going to place it on Moses instead, so that the descendants of Moses will become God’s people.

Instead of being pleased by this, Moses pleads for the people, arguing that it doesn’t make sense to destroy the people God has just saved. The Egyptians will make good propaganda of it. Moses reminds God of his covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

And God changes his mind. Isn’t this amazing? As Brian Jones noted in his commentary this week, this is a passionate God, full of wrath and hurt feelings; not remote, but deeply involved in human behavior, much like a human father would be. Clearly, too, this is not a perfect God. Moses is the one who pleads for mercy. Might this suggest something about the power of prayer?

When we look at the opening lines of 1st Timothy, one of the pastoral letters written later than Paul, but in his voice, we see that while the purpose of these lines is to proclaim Paul’s history and authority to speak, it is focused very directly on God’s mercy.

“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that” . . . I might be an example.

Luke’s Gospel story begins with the Pharisees and the scribes grumbling (nothing new there!). They are indignant that Jesus not only welcomes sinners but also eats with them. As you’ll remember this was a big deal, because according to Jewish law, eating with someone who is unclean renders you unclean as well. It just wasn’t done! Way worse than eating with the wrong fork!

It is in response to their grumbling that Jesus tells the two parables, one of the lost sheep and one of the lost coin. As you listened to them did they remind you of another parable? Indeed, this passage is followed immediately by the parable of the Prodigal Son – or might we say the lost son?

So, in the first two parable what is lost is a sheep and a coin, but in the last one it is a person. In all three cases the finding of that which had been lost is cause for great joy and rejoicing.

Clearly, the grumbling Pharisees and scribes do not see any value in the sinners that Jesus has gathered around him. They are blinded, perhaps, by their rules about righteousness, as we often are too. Certainly, if we think of ourselves as righteous, or at least more righteous than a known sinner, we might also be offended by what Jesus says: I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” We might be inclined to respond, “But that’s not fair!”

This week David Lose asked a very provocative question? “Can you be righteous and still be lost? Well, doesn’t that describe the Pharisees? Could it not also describe most of us, at least at some times in our lives, even if we’ve never felt lost? How often do we do the wrong thing for all the right reasons?

For example, what about the Dad who works so hard to provide for his family that he has no time for them? What about a Mom who wants her children to be all that they can be so badly that she pushes them beyond their ability to handle it? What about the volunteer who does so much that other volunteers feel they’re not needed? What about using criticism as a way of “helping” people? The list goes on.

The main point of these parables, according to David Lose, is about a God who is so crazy, so passionate about us, that God will do anything to find us when we are lost. That passion is available to all of us, not just to notorious sinners. And God will rejoice over finding us just as much as any others.

In my own experience I’ve noticed, sadly, that I have had to repent over and over again. There always seem to be new lessons to learn about living righteously, and besides, sometimes I have to learn the same lesson several times before it sticks (OK so most of the time that’s true!). These stories tell me that God rejoices every time I repent and return to the Way, even if I can’t stay there very long.

Notice that as Jesus begins he says to the Pharisees and scribes, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”

The irony is that most of us would NOT do as the shepherd and the woman do in these stories. Oh we might look for what is lost, but call in the neighbors for a party? The other implied insult here is that the Pharisees and scribes are being put in the place of a shepherd and a woman, the lowest of the low in their society, and the lowest of the low actually do the right thing, a sort of double twist.

Even in the parable of the Prodigal son, while the man is a respectable Jewish farmer, he behaves in ways that are not, especially in rejoicing over the lost son who comes home. He runs down the path with his robes flapping, he embraces his son who has been tending pigs, unclean, unclean, unclean.

What I hope you’ll remember today is the rejoicing of God over anyone who repents. That kind of over-the-top mercy is available to everyone, and it should be a model for us in our dealings with others. God is just like the father of the prodigal son, passionate and caring and so full of mercy and compassion that he doesn’t care about the normal rules of behavior. Isn’t that awesome? AMEN

PROPER 18, C

Luke 14:25-33

What? Hate your family? Don’t I remember something about “Honor your father and mother?”

It seems impossible, but in today’s gospel Jesus lays down these requirements for discipleship:

• Hate your family.
• Hate your life.
• Carry the cross and follow me.
• Give up all your possessions.

Is that all? How do we reconcile this with the two great commandments Jesus gave us: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves? How are we to love our neighbor and hate our family?

As is so often the case, we can’t arrive at understanding without looking at the context. The reading begins, “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus.” Oh, so it wasn’t just the disciples traveling with him. Crowds of people were following him as he traveled toward Jerusalem. Remember that Jesus had said the crowds were like a flock of sheep without a shepherd.

So he warns them about the cost of discipleship. As in many other instances, Jesus speaks in hyperbole to make a point. He speaks harshly to get their attention. One commentator even wondered if he was just trying to reduce the size of the crowd?

Maybe, but he also speaks the truth. John Pilch, a commentator I often use, says that the word translated here as hate, is more closely related to prefer, or the negative of that. So Jesus is saying that if you prefer your family to me, then you cannot be a disciple. This softens the tone, but does not make the reality any easier. And what do you think Peter’s wife would have to say to this – or any of the other disciples wives, left behind to fend for themselves in a culture where a woman alone is powerless and unable to make a living.

What about the brothers who left their father to fish alone on the Sea of Galilee? What about the things he could not do without help? What happened to him? Talk about Jesus bringing division!!

Do you know about a book called The Message? It is a paraphrase of the Bible in contemporary language by Eugene Peterson. He sums up this passage: “Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye, you can’t be my disciple.”

This may be a gentler rendering of the statement, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to do. It does help clarify what Jesus means. If you are to be my disciple you must love me more than anyone or anything else (or to love God more than anything or anyone else). You must love enough and trust enough that you do not fear death. If you run away to save your life, you will loose it. If you have the confidence to risk your life for my sake, you will gain it.

There is life and there is life. The first is merely breathing, while the second is life lived abundantly and richly, one lived in faith and without fear.

To carry the cross and follow Jesus means to live a life of service and sacrifice for others, to see yourself as servant and disciple and to bear suffering in trust and hope, without bitterness.

To give up all your possessions is to free yourself from all desire for “stuff”. As Emilie Towne notes, “we must . . . learn to give up all of our possessions—our need to acquire, our yearning for success, our petty jealousies, our denigrating stereotypes of others, our prejudices and hatreds, and more—and follow the way of Jesus.” (Feasting on the Word) In other words, not just external stuff, but the internal stuff that keeps us apart from God. It also means that your self-esteem and confidence must come from who you are and/or who you serve, rather than from what you have, — not easy in our culture.

Do I think Jesus meant what he said? Absolutely. Do I think we are likely to attain it in our lifetimes? Not likely, or not entirely, but I do think we can go a long way in that direction. To be fair to us, the disciples didn’t do too well in the beginning either. They also scattered in fear when the trouble came, but they did regroup after the resurrection and lived out the lives of disciples, even to death.

Saying all this is easy. Even interpreting the text is easy compared to living it out in our daily lives. I still struggle with all of these injunctions. When a family member says something offensive to you, that seems unchristian or contrary to your understanding of the Gospel, what do you do? Keep quiet to keep the peace? Speak up and bring division? Lecture them? Cut that family member off? The various choices aren’t very pleasant, are they?

What if a member of your family believes it’s OK to cheat people who are different – poor or black or uneducated? Do you let them do it without comment? This actually happened to me. The scheme being proposed was to loan money, which my relative knew the people borrowing would default on, and then repossess the goods. Come to think of it, this was an early version of the mortgage business that helped create our last recession. He did not understand why I didn’t want to be involved, but he didn’t press it after I looked him in the eye and said very calmly, “I just couldn’t do that.”

Part of the problem as I see it is not just about whether to speak up, but how to speak up without putting the other person down. I have found that even though I don’t change someone’s mind, I feel much better speaking up than if I let it go by.

If nothing else, it has helped me realize I can say something other than “Isn’t that fraud?” or “Do you actually go to church every Sunday?” Or any of the other ranting sarcastic things I’d like to say but try not to.

As for living a life of service and sacrifice, how do we walk that line either? How do you serve and sacrifice yourself for others and still stay healthy? How do you do that and not become a doormat? While all others may deserve our help and care, we can’t help everyone. How do we choose? Where do we draw the line?

And what does it mean to give up all our possessions? Jesus did indeed ask his disciples to do this. How else can you live on the road? And Jesus wanted them to depend on the hospitality of strangers, as he did, rather than depending on their extended families. How does this translate for us?

I know that it means we must not be slaves to our possessions. It means that we must not love our possessions more than we love God or our neighbor. I know that having a lot tends to make us forget these priorities, because the more we have the more we have to worry about keeping it.

Does it also mean we must literally give it all away and throw ourselves on the mercy of the county or of strangers to feed and clothe us? That’s so contrary to the way most of us were raised that it’s hard to fathom, but it does require our serious consideration.

As human beings, none of us is perfect, and all of us have to struggle with doing what we know is right. We aren’t going to get it right over night, but becoming a disciple is a process that continues throughout our lives. Jesus holds up to us the ideal, that which we should be striving for, but we are already forgiven for our failure to attain perfection. The important thing is that we go on trying, that we consider the Gospel imperatives and try to incorporate them into our lives as best we can. God loves us whether we succeed or not, but that doesn’t let us off the hook of working toward being the disciples he calls us to be. Every one of us. AMEN

PROPER 17, C

Sirach 10:12-18, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:1, 7-14

Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Six of the so-called seven deadly sins. Not an appealing list – easy enough to see why we would generally like to avoid those particular characteristics. In ruminating about our children’s or grandchildren’s futures nobody ever muses, “Oh, but I do hope she’ll be slothful.” or “If only he has plenty of wrath in his life, he’ll do just fine…”

What about that seventh deadly sin? What about pride? Traditionally, it is seen as the deadliest of all the deadly sins. Pride is touted in some sources as the wellspring of all the other sins. Really? Pride is the worst of all badness?

I asked my daughter the other day what she associates with the word “pride”. “A kind of happy feeling,” she said, “like you did a good thing.” Doesn’t sound so very bad, as sins go. We talk about national pride, ethnic pride, personal pride. We’re proud of our accomplishments, proud of our kids. A fairly recent study suggested that telling your children you are proud of them is one of the most positive things the parent of a sports playing child can say. How bad can it be?

“…the beginning of pride is sin, and the one who clings to it pours out abominations. Therefore the Lord brings upon them unheard-of calamities, and destroys them completely.” Ok, that does sound bad. The key, however, is found in the preceding verse, “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” It’s all about connection, or rather, loss of connection. According to C.S. Lewis, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.” Pride – the destructive, crippling pride, hubris – is not a healthy sense of self-confidence and self-worth, but rather a sense of needing to prove superiority, over others, over groups, ultimately over God. We cannot be connected with God if we are trying to out-do God, or take God’s job.

Jesus seems to have made a most unlikely connection today. He’s been invited to hang out with his critics the pharisees, at a banquet, no less. A big fancy meal, with strict rules of conduct and decorum. The conventions governing a formal meal in 1st century Palestine span far beyond the “which fork do I use when?” dilemma. Strict protocols govern who reclines at the prestigious central couch, near the host. Luke tells us that the pharisees are watching Jesus closely, with the implication that they are watching for some outrageous or offensive behavior. Jesus does not disappoint. He begins the party by insulting the guests with his blunt observation of social climbing, of pride. In case that doesn’t make things sufficiently awkward, He moves on to insulting the host’s hospitality, making clear that the pharisee has not offered true hospitality, as he has offered only what can be repaid at a later date. Jesus offers instead a vision of a radical hospitality, born in humility.

Dorothy Day was a co-founder of Catholic Worker movement. She dedicated almost all of her adult life to social justice and to serving the poor. She worked among the people she served, living the life that they lived, complete with cockroaches and cold rooms. Author and psychiatrist Robert Coles describes his first meeting with Dorothy Day. At that time she was living and working in the slums of New York City, and Robert Coles was attending Harvard Medical School. He was proud of his profession, proud of his status, proud that he had chosen to work with the famously benevolent Ms. Day. When he arrived for his first meeting, he found Dorothy Day sitting at a table, deep in conversation with a disheveled street person. Ms. Day didn’t notice Coles had come into the room until they had finished their conversation. When she finally noticed him she asked, “Do you want to speak to one of us?” Mr. Coles was stunned by Ms. Day’s unequivocal humility. She had identified so completely with the people she served that she did not recognize a distinction between herself, and the woman whom society would deem a “nobody”. Mr. Cole later claimed that he learned more in those few moments than in all his time at Harvard. (anecdote paraphrased from REV. DR. JOSEPH S. PAGANO, Awaken the Servant Within, Sermons that Work)

Theologian Frederick Buechner describes this genuine humility in this way, “True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else.” Orthodox bishop Nicholai Velimirovic said more succinctly, “Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you.”

From within this call to humility (not humiliation, not shame, not self-deprecation, but humility), Jesus calls his followers to a radical hospitality. “…when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” The author of Hebrews echoes that call, “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” When true humility guides our attention to God and God’s creation, outward rather than inward, dividing lines are erased and radical hospitality becomes almost inevitable.

Henri J. M. Nouwen describes hospitality in this way, “Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

This past week, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Great March on Washington at which the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Martin Luther King called for radical hospitality – he called for an end to the dividing lines. He dreamed of a time when sons of slaves and sons of slave owners could sit down together in the spirit of brotherhood, of a time when children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. He called for revolutionary hospitality.

Some dividing lines have diminished. Mixed race couples can legally marry, racial discrimination is nominally illegal, (although certainly not abolished), a black man was elected to the presidency. But the dividing lines persist – separating us by race, but also by gender, by social class, economic class, sexual orientation, health status, mental health status, educational status – the list goes on.

The world can change. Dorothy Day changed the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. changed the world. God calls us to change the world. One unsuspected angel at a time.

Amen.

PROPER 16, C

Luke 13:10-17

Last week Jesus told us he came to bring to division to the world, and this week we see him in action, doing just that.

Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, when a woman arrives who is all bent over, so that she is always looking at the ground. We learn that she has been this way for 18 years. Jesus stops teaching in order to heal her. Notice that she didn’t ask for healing, but when it happens she stands up straight and praises God.

The leader of the synagogue is shocked, shocked and dismayed. Work is not allowed on the Sabbath. Why couldn’t Jesus have waited one day to heal her? When he voices his complaint, Jesus is quick to reply, “You Hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

The congregation rejoices at his response. But what does that mean for the leader? He is shamed in front of the congregation and they rejoice. What do you suppose life will be like in that congregation in the coming weeks? We know what sort of strife arises when a congregation is divided in this way.

What we see is new life for the woman who is healed, but at the cost of division in the body of worshippers. Will the leader also be healed? Will he realize that he had gotten “caught up in the all-too-common trap of placing form before substance” (Emilie Towne, Feasting)?

Charles E. Raynal notes that “Jesus elicits rage because the Pharisees control the Sabbath with their work of cumbersome requirements that imprison or enslave people with longstanding bondage. A religious observance that is to remember and honor the liberation of God’s people thus becomes in the hands of the Pharisees a means of social control and oppression. A spirit of bondage lives in the woman and restricts her independence and freedom to live in strength and fullness.”

The juxtaposition of bringing division and bringing healing may be what we are supposed to focus on. Can healing come about without causing any division? Does causing division always bring about some sort of healing? I’m not sure about the use of ‘always’, but I know from experience that division of some sort often precedes healing and some kind of new life.

At the personal level, I can certainly see how the division of divorce brought me new life and a new direction. Like the woman in this story, I felt I had been freed from bondage.

Last week Sam addressed the communal experience of division when she said, “Jesus recognizes that division, disturbing and destructive, is the midwife of new life, life in faith, life in God. Slavery would never have ended in Great Britain, or in America without division, without William Wilberforce and countless others to follow their consciences, to be willing to disturb the status quo. In this country, would women have gained a right to vote (or to serve as clergy) without division? Would workers have a right to a living wage? Would children have a right to schooling? Would South African apartheid ever have ended? Would any partner gather the courage to leave an abusive spouse?”

If both sides of any divide refuse to engage the opposition, and merely insist they are right, they are both like this bent over woman, and as such can only see the part of the world that is directly beneath their gaze. Sounds rather like Congress, doesn’t it?

Besides looking at the personal and communal meanings of this story, let’s also consider the metaphorical possibilities. When you think about this woman and her plight, what does it bring to mind. What would it be like to live like that?

She can’t see the sun except its reflection on the dirt around her feet. She can’t look people in the eye when she speaks to them. When someone approaches her she has no way of identifying them except by looking at their shoes or lower body or listening to their voice.

She is so weighed down by her condition that she doesn’t even think to ask Jesus to heal her. She has given up. For me, this brings to mind two kinds of metaphorical meanings, either of which could be applied to your personal life or to our communal life together.

One, this woman is in a rut! She has accepted the limitations her condition has imposed upon her and just goes about the business of daily living without hope, without joy, maybe without meaningful relationships. I suspect that all of us have had this experience at some point – letting the business of life take over our lives to the point where we’re just plodding on. Sometimes this can happen without our even noticing it.

Clearly this same condition can affect churches and other institutions. We just keep on keeping on. And when Jesus or the Spirit jumps into the situation, division results. Remember what it was like for us when we first considered becoming a Total Ministry church? Yes, there was division of opinion for quite a while, but change did come and I hope that healing was a part of that. It certainly feels to me like there is a new life and spirit in this church.

The other metaphorical sort of meaning I can see in this story is that this woman is exhibiting all the symptoms of depression. She seems so weighted down, as though she has a heavy albatross hung around her neck that has bent her over. She can’t see the possibilities around her. All she can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other. One of the commentators thought she was burdened by sin, and I’m sure that sin can become a burden, but it seems to me that depression is a better metaphor, because it also rolls in without any warning and often without apparent reason.

Jesus jumps into the middle of this and releases the woman. “Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” In our time, that is the job of the Holy Spirit – to yank us out of our rut, to break into our depression, to break into our doing the same old thing over and over, so that new life can emerge. Divisions are often part of this, so we have to confront them and attempt to heal them. We cannot let them stop the new life emerging.

We don’t always want new life, we don’t always welcome change, but at some level it is inevitable, so we’d best be involved in discerning the way forward. We might even be able to partner with the Holy Spirit to bring new life and healing to ourselves and to those around us. Like the bent-over woman, we too can stand up straight and praise God.

AMEN

Proper 15, C

Hebrews 11:29-12:2, Luke 12:49-56

“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’” Oh. No. Wait. That was last week. Hang on. Ah. Here we go.

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized”

Wait a minute. Fire, baptism, this whole doomsday feel, did I get the wrong spot again? Who is this speaking, John the Baptist? No, it says “Jesus said.” Can this possibly be the same Jesus who was calming our fears and promising us God’s kingdom last week?

This is Jesus. And not only Jesus, but the Jesus of Luke’s gospel – not the more strident voice of Jesus revealed in Matthew. Luke’s gospel opens with the promise that Jesus will “guide our feet into the way of peace.” (1:79). It moves through the stories of healing and love and compassion with the repeated admonition, “Go in peace.” As the gospel ends, the gentle Luke tells us of the resurrected Jesus appearing among his followers and offering a final benediction, “Peace be with you” (24:36).

But today, “I came to bring fire to the earth!… Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

I’m going to let you in on what may be the worst kept secret ever. I’m not much of a hellfire and brimstone preacher. Not that it doesn’t have its place now and again. It certainly can get people motivated and fired up. I just don’t really have the knack for it. And honestly (although possibly blasphemously), I simply don’t like the fiery, angry (no matter how righteously angry), vengeful picture of God. I don’t like it. I don’t believe it. I resist following it with everything in me. Whether that is because I fear judgement, because I avoid confrontation, or because it just doesn’t touch my heart as truth, I guess I’ll have to let God judge. But I’m drawn to the quiet, peaceful, loving, healing, prayerful Jesus; author of peace and lover of concord.

In his short lifetime, Jesus reached out to all God’s children, all his brothers and sisters, tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners of all stripes. He healed and he loved and he taught. Yet, even as he modeled love and inclusion, Jesus’s path engendered division. As Dan Clandenin points out, “Jesus was rejected by his home town of Nazareth. His family tried to apprehend him as insane. His brothers didn’t believe in him. The people of Capernaum ran him out of town. A Samaritan village wouldn’t even let him enter their town. His detractors said he was demon-possessed and “raving mad.” The religious elite “opposed him fiercely.” (Dan Clendenin Not Peace But Division: The Embarrassing Words of Jesus) And yet, he loved on.

Today’s lesson is a reality check; a reminder to those of us who would rest within the promise of peace. A reminder that God’s peace is not the peace of this world. A reminder that external calm does not always reflect the deep abiding peace of God. A reminder that following God, truly following God, comes with some cost. It did for Jesus – it will for us.

One commentator points out, “The harsh sayings and indictments resounding in this text remind us that Jesus has not come to validate the social realities and values we have constructed. Such social realities and values have a propensity to seek a harmony that favors those who hold positions of power at the expense of those who are powerless and expendable. Jesus’ missional agenda of compassion, mercy, and justice shatters such a status quo.” (Richard P. Carlson, Feasting on the Word) But I am one. What can I do about social realities, missional agendas and the almighty status quo? According to Marian Wright Edelman, “You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”

William Wilberforce introduced legislation in the British Parliament to end the slave trade in 1779, largely impelled to do so by his own religious conversion. While profession of some religion was the norm in Wilberforce’s day, religious enthusiasm was considered rather gauche and socially unacceptable. At the time he introduced the bill, Wilberforce was shouted down and laughed at. He was ridiculed and ostracized from polite society. He continued to fight for his cause for the next 28 years, when the Slave Trade Act of 1807 effectively ended the slave trade in England. Having gained that long-fought victory, he could have rested peacefully – a job well done. His dedication to following his Christian faith would not allow him to do so. He continued to fight for the end of slavery itself–not just the slave trade, but the end of slavery itself. Wilberforce died 3 days after he received notification that passage of the Slavery Abolition Act was assured.

Jesus seeks the fire of justice, not of destruction, the cleansing flame from which springs new growth. Jesus accepts the baptismal waters of new birth. Jesus recognizes that division, disturbing and destructive, is the midwife of new life, life in faith, life in God. Slavery would never have ended in Great Britain, or in America without division, without William Wilberforce and countless others to follow their consciences, to be willing to disturb the status quo. In this country, would women have gained a right to vote (or to serve as clergy) without division? Would workers have a right to a living wage? Would children have a right to schooling? Would South African apartheid ever have ended? Would any partner gather the courage to leave an abusive spouse?

Jesus’s words today are disturbing, frightening. We would do well to recognize and admit that – Jesus Himself was disturbed, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” How do we really feel about joining the list of faithful penned by the author of Hebrews? A life of faith sounds appealing enough when one is conquering kingdoms, quenching fires, and administering justice; suddenly less so when one is being flogged, or tortured, or stoned, or sawn in two, or crucified, or even being ridiculed. May I not simply let the laws of the nation and the institutions we have built keep the peace?

Author and theologian Verna Dozier had this to say about faith and risk and institutions: “Faith implies risk. The faith view of reality is frightening in its openness, so institutions are always trying to control reality with doctrines and laws and creeds. Kingdom of God thinking calls us to risk. We always see through a glass darkly, and that is what faith is about. I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out that I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong. The God revealed in Jesus, whom I call the Christ, is a God whose forgiveness goes ahead of me, and whose love sustains me and the whole created world. That God bursts all the definition of our small minds, all the limitations of our tired efforts, all the boundaries of our institutions.”

Let us pray:
Cast the fire among us, O Lord;
Baptize us with Christ’s baptism.
Open our hearts to your vision.
Let us be the fleas on the dog of injustice and oppression,
encouraged by the great cloud of fleas who have gone before,
fixing our eyes on Jesus and on his cross. (adapted from Ron McCreary, Midrash)

PROPER 14, C

Genesis 15:1-6, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, Luke 12:32-40

Last fall, David and I traveled by boat from Romania to Budapest on the Danube River. On that trip we met a very interesting couple from England named Arno and Gwen. Arno seemed to be very knowledgeable in multiple areas, so much so that one of the other English men at the table finally said, “ Well, I just have to ask you, what do you do?”

I was shocked by this, because the English do not ask that sort of question.

Turns out Arno was a therapist, but also had a successful consulting business of some sort, but he clearly was a sort of Renaissance man. We shared several meals with Arno and Gwen, including breakfast on the last day. Everyone else had left the table when Arno and I got into quite a discussion.

Finally I leaned over and said to him, “If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll confess to you that I’m an Episcopal priest.”

And he came right back with, “If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll confess that I’m a humanist.” “

“Oh, that’s OK,” I said, “I consider myself a humanist too.” The look on his face would be hard to describe and I must admit it puzzled me. He went on to tell me about the Humanist organization to which he belongs, and something about their burial practices, which quite astonished me.

Since then I’ve looked up the web sites of several English Humanist groups and I now understand the look on Arno’s face. The goals and objectives of these groups reads like an Episcopal manifesto, except that they do not believe in God. But they do believe in the same sort of values that we do, working for justice, working to make a better neighborhood, promoting peace, etc. They put their faith in science.

Whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews 2000 years ago says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This conviction of things not seen is what sets us apart from the Humanists.

“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” Thus we live in the expectation that there is a spiritual world beyond the one we can access with out senses.

Let me remind you again what the word faith means. According to John Dominic Crossan, faith is more about faithfulness and trust than it is about belief, especially as the word belief has come to be used in our time. The Nicene Creed says “I believe . . .” The statement of faith we will say today in its place says, “I trust. . .”

This is important for several reasons, but one of them is that I trust allows doubt to be part of the equation. I believe is a black and white sort of statement. Why does this matter? Well, I ask you, can anyone here prove the existence of God? Can anyone here prove that God does not exist?

Bingo! To live in faith is to trust our own experiences and instincts rather than science on this point. Or it is to trust the traditions and the documents that have been passed down to us – the experiences of others.

Look at the story of Abram. The word of the Lord came to him in a vision, promising him heirs, more numerous than the stars in heaven, even though he was very old and his wife Sarah was barren. There was no evidence, no proof that this would happen. But Abram trusted the vision and the promise that God made to him. And God counted that trust as righteousness.

Did you notice what else the author of Hebrews says about the stories of Abraham and his descendants? This author realized that all of them lived in the light of the promises made to Abraham, even thought the promise was not fulfilled in their lifetimes. Couldn’t we say the same thing about Moses? “All of these died in faith without having received the promises. . .”

The Gospel today is addressing a similar problem. The first generation of Jesus followers lived in the conviction that Jesus would return in their lifetime, but it didn’t happen.

What were the 2nd and 3rd generations to do? Luke tells them to live in expectation, essentially to live in faith, that the promises of God will be kept eventually. “You also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

For our generation, so many years later, the issue of the 2nd coming has lost its power, except, perhaps for the televangelists who use it for their own purposes. What speaks to me much more forcefully is the promise of the Kingdom coming on earth.

Jesus often said that the Kingdom of God is here. Now he says to his disciples, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. This is a promise that it is God’s desire to establish God’s Kingdom on earth. And the teachings we have from Jesus tell us what that Kingdom would be like.

It would be the opposite of the Empire. It would be a new way of the world as it ought to be. It would be a Kingdom without violence where everyone has enough and no one is exploited. It would be a place where neighbors and friends help one another, where fear and greed no longer rule, where concern for the common good is at least as important as the concern for the individual.

After two thousand more years of Empires and wars, after 150 years of industrial pollution and the ravages of over use on the planet, it should be easier for us to see the importance of the Kingdom than it was for the people of the first century, except that they were trampled by Empire in ways that we can’t appreciate, and we so often don’t notice the ways in which the workings of Empire still affect our own lives.

We don’t see how our food is raised. We don’t see the exploitation of workers that allows us to buy things so cheaply. We often ignore the ways in which our own government sometimes acts like an empire would act. We have outlawed child labor and don’t see how many children labor in factories abroad. We don’t see the women and children being sold into the sex trade. We may not experience the many isms that still distort our society – racism, classism, ageism, etc.

Do you trust the teachings of Jesus? I do. And I can see the promise of the Kingdom when I look out at your faces on Sunday morning. None of us is perfect but we trust the promise of God that the Kingdom is possible and that we can help make it a reality.

I can see the Kingdom in your acts of kindness to one another. I can see the Kingdom in your work for the benefit of those you do not know. I can see the Kingdom in your generosity of time, talent, and money to further the work of the Kingdom in the world around us. I can see the Kingdom in the work of the Humanist Society! And I can see the Kingdom in the work of many other groups and religions.

As Bishop Steve Charleston once said, “We’re all in this together, and we’ll all be saved or there ain’t none of us gonna be saved.” We’re all in this together. Willy Nilly, like it or not, we’re all in this together. AMEN

Proper 13, C
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23, Colossians 3:1-11, Psalm 49,
Luke 12:13-21

The gospel lesson today touches on some very sensitive, very difficult topics: Greed. Sudden death. Worst of all, money. One simply does not discuss these awkward subjects in polite company, certainly not in church. So. (pause, allowed to get a little bit awkward)

Ecclesiastes. Let’s talk about Ecclesiastes. Nothing short of a miracle that this book ever made it into canon. I’ve seen it described as the bungee jump of Hebrew Scripture’s wisdom literature. (Shauna Hannan) It’s a dramatic leap away from the canonical company it keeps. It’s tone is frustrated, it’s themes are those of the uselessness of human activity, denial of faith and doubt in the basic goodness of God. It’s an odd little gem of a book, ostensibly narrated by the agnostic, honest, skeptical and might I say downright cranky Qoheleth, translated as “the Gatherer” or “the Teacher”. The book of Ecclesiastes is the story of the faith journey of this cantankerous old cynic. This is a man who has dedicated his life to the search for and study of wisdom. He feels he has found it, understands it, and yet, after all that, he still hasn’t found meaning. People labor and sweat and worry and save and in the end they die, and none of it matters. Vanity, all is vanity. The hebrew word translated as vanity is “hevel”, meaning “transitory”, “fleeting,” or “mere breath”.

Blunt in its approach, stark in its realism, refreshing in it’s honesty, Qoheleth’s world view is nonetheless discouraging, bereft of hope. It is the world of the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” In the Red Queen’s race, Alice is running, running fast, but her position never changes. Alice takes issue with the Red Queen,

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Qoheleth’s world, the Red Queen’s world – any resemblance to our world? Do you ever feel, have you ever felt, that you work and save and work some more and you still feel that you haven’t worked enough, saved enough, done enough, bought enough? It’s not just money – it’s insurance, it’s social position, it’s achievements, it’s STUFF. It’s security. It’s my future. And I never quite know for sure, for absolute sure, that it will be ok.

The rich fool lives in that world. He has run for a long time. Now the earth has produced abundantly and he’s getting so close. He has so much STUFF. Now all he needs is someplace to keep it all. Bigger barns, that’s it. Then he has assured his own future. Then he can say to himself, “Self,” he will say. “Self, now…now you can eat, drink and be merry. Now that you have more than you can possibly ever use, you can relax.”

If you pull out a dollar bill and read it, you will see the inscription, “In God we trust.” It’s so very ironic, because so often, not always, I hope, but so very often, it is not God we trust. It is the money we trust. Money dominates our culture, our politics, our decisions. In a recent study of self reported happiness, the countries that reported the highest rates of happiness were Panama and Paraguay. El Salvador and Venezuela were next. The bustling, wealthy, economically booming Singapore was at the absolute bottom of the list. The very wealthy U.S. didn’t make the top 30. Nonetheless, we are bombarded daily with the idea that money, or what it can buy, or what it ensures, will bring us happiness.

Douglas Adams illustrated this pervasive belief in all its folly this way in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, “This planet … had a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

Jesus’s parable does not condemn the man for working, for saving, for having. Money is not evil in and of itself. Money is a tool. Jesus condemns the rich fool for what Peter Rhea Jones terms “practical atheism”. The rich fool appears in the middle of a story by a jewish rabbi to a jewish audience. We have every reason to assume he did all the pious things a Jew must do and said all the pious words a Jew must say in a position of wealth and its subsequent power and social prominence. But God is absent from his thoughts, absent from his consideration. In fact, all of God’s creation is absent from the rich man’s thoughts and consideration. “I will do this: I will pull down my barns…I will store all my grain and my goods.” And I will say to my self, ‘Self.” Even his conversation included only himself. Himself and his STUFF. Jesus reminds those listening to the story of Qoheleth’s truth. The accumulation, the security, the wealth, the toil; it is hevel, it is the wind.

Jesus is not about money at all and suggests that we shouldn’t be either. Jesus reveals the insatiable nature of greed, its inevitable corollary of isolating self-centeredness. Jesus reveals the truth that Qoheleth did not discover. He offers an alternative to the hevel, the vanity, the meaninglessness of endless search for STUFF. He offers a life rich with God. He offers a life of relationship, of loving, of interaction with God and all of God’s creation, of giving – giving not just of STUFF but of self. “St. Augustine once said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and sin, in short, is the confusion of these two things.” (quoted from David Lose in Working Preacher)

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Jesus pushes us towards a faith that goes beyond merely showing up and saying the right words at church. (although that’s important, too) “…you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” Jesus exemplifies a way of living, of loving, of being, of interacting with all of God’s creation. Perhaps, if we can live this way, love this way, we will know the hope that escaped Qoheleth. Perhaps we will never feel the need to build bigger and bigger barns for more and more STUFF. (concept Rick Morley)

God, (not STUFF) is our refuge. God (not STUFF) is our strength. Praise be to God. AMEN.