Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The overarching theme of this section is how to be ready for the coming judgment. The prior section dealt with confessing Jesus, now we hear how people who confess Jesus put their trust not in material goods, but in God.
• The laws of inheritance stipulate that the goods are to be divided between the sons, with the oldest receiving a double portion (Deut 21:17). Jesus refused to arbitrate inheritance discussions, even though Moses had handled such requests (Exod 2:14; Num 27:1-11).
• Regardless of the law, Jesus rejected the request to arbitrate, sensing that the problem was not the inheritance itself that was the problem, but the greed that drove the request.
• Wealth in the Old Testament is often used as a sign of blessing, but there are also many cautions about the appropriate use of wealth. Likewise, the Gospels caution about the dangers of wealth and God’s challenges to the rich. Receiving wealth may be a blessing, but such blessings are to be paid back by supporting the whole community. Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream demonstrates this.
• The repetition of the possessive pronoun (my, my, my), emphasizes the man’s self-centeredness and greed.
• The last word in the man’s speech, “be merry,” is euphraino in the Greek. God’s speech starts with “fool,” in Greek, aphron, an alliteration of “be merry” to emphasize the reversal. Similarly, “this night” is in contrast to the man’s “many years.”
• The verb in v. 20, “demand,” is in a third person future plural, with the subject unstated. Often God has been read as the subject, but the subject could also be the possessions themselves demand the man’s life.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Bonus Thought: Read the next section, Luke 12:22-34. How does this section change or confirm your thoughts about this parable?
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Our Father in Heaven: A Sermon on the Lord's Prayer and Luke 11:1-13
Today in our Gospel text, Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer. A prayer we are still, two thousand years later, praying every Sunday. While there are as many ways to pray as there are people, and any way that helps you have a conversation with God is good, there is, I think something uniquely special about these words. Not because of the words themselves, but because of how well we know them. The fact that the church has been praying these specific words for so many years has given them a solidity that helps us connect to God when we cannot on our own.
I realized the power of this sort of repetition while I was doing a chaplaincy internship at a retirement home the summer after my first year of seminary. I spent a lot of time that summer in the memory care unit, working with people with mid to late stage Alzheimer’s and dementia. Every Thursday, my supervisor, an Episcopal priest, would come to lead worship. We would sit around the living room on couches, sing old, beloved hymns, read scripture, and take communion. Before the priest would distribute communion, we would all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer together. And everyone could say the words of the prayer. Alzheimer’s and dementia had taken so much of the minds of the residents, that they often could not remember the names or faces of loved ones, or even their own names. But they could remember the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer was held not in their minds somehow, but in their souls. The constant repetition of the same words, day after day, year after year, for a lifetime, had moved this prayer from head knowledge to heart knowledge. Even as disease wreaked havoc on their memory, the promise that God’s name was hallowed, that God’s kingdom would come, was a promise that transcended intellectual ability. When our minds can no longer remember God’s promises, God has created us so that our bodies can hold this truth for us.
The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for us when we do not have words to pray. When we have forgotten how to pray, maybe from dementia or memory loss, but also when grief or hurt, depression or pain, doubt, or fear, or heartbreak has left us feeling so separate, so alone, so far from God’s grace and love, that we cannot on our own find words to say, we can say the words of the Lord’s Prayer and know that even if those words feel hollow in our mouths, they are words that Jesus promised would connect us to the Father.
This prayer connects us not just to God but to one another and to the whole church across time and space, because there is a communal nature to this prayer. We pray “Our Father,” not my Father, but “our.” “Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our sins.” We pray this prayer not just on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of the whole world. And similarly, the whole world prays this prayer on behalf of us. So when you are mouthing the words, not believing what you are saying, not trusting that God’s forgiveness is for you, you can do so with the promise that the person next to you is praying this prayer on your behalf. The person next to you is praying for you, praying you back into the kingdom of God. And when you are filled with the promise of God, when your heart is so full and your soul is so light with the hope of God’s grace, you can know that you are praying this prayer on behalf of someone else. That there is someone else in the room or in the world, someone who needs to know that God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will will be done, and you are praying that promise for them.
Another thing that’s great about the Lord’s Prayer is its completeness. Writer Ann Lamott says that all prayers can be simplified down to three words; help, thanks, and wow. The Lord’s Prayer, in a slightly different order, can be simplified to that. “Our Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,” is thanks. When we say these words, we are stating a promise we know to be true. That God’s name is holy, that God’s kingdom comes. It comes to us in Jesus, in the water and word, in the bread and the wine, and in a community that prays for us, and that we can pray for. The communal nature of this prayer is in fact the experience of God’s kingdom come to us. In affirming that this promise is true, we thank God for all that God has done for us.
Then we get to the help part. “Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” The Greek more closely translates, give us each day the bread that we need. This is a physical need, it reminds us of the Israelites in the wilderness, who every day could gather exactly enough manna for the one day. No more, no less, because on the next day there would be more. It is plea to have enough, not too little, but also not too much, enough to keep us satisfied, enough to remember our need for God.
“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” This is a really cool one in the Greek. Bear with me; I’m going to get a little grammar nerdy on you here. English teachers in the room, feel free to correct me if I get some of this wrong. My Greek grammar is decent, my English not as much. The first part of this line, “forgive us our sins,” is in the aorist tense. Now the aorist in Greek means a thing that happened once, that has ongoing effects. Like dropping a stone in a pond and watching the ripples spread out, there is one action that has on-going ramifications. So when we pray, “forgive us our sins,” the event that causes that to be true is the death and resurrection of Christ. Because of the Christ event, the experience of forgiveness flows on and on. We are forgiven, it’s already done, but we continue to receive the promise of that forgiveness on and on into eternity. The second part of this line, “for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us,” is a little different. That “forgive” is in the present, or my Greek professor called it the continuous tense. It means it is a thing that happens again and again. So again and again we forgive one another. God’s forgiveness is eternal, because of the death and resurrection of Christ. And because we have been forgiven, and continue to receive the experience of that forgiveness, we are then free to forgive one another again and again.
And finally, the wow. It’s not in the Luke reading, but it has come to be the way the church closes this prayer. “For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Everything is God’s, all places, all power, all glory, is there anything more wow then that.
There are, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, a million ways to pray. Way more, actually, more ways to pray then there are people. And any of the ways that help you talk to God are great ways. But the Lord’s Prayer is God’s gift to us for the times when we do not know how to pray. It is a prayer to keep us grounded, to help us stay balanced in asking, seeking, and knocking, to open our eyes to God’s kingdom come among us. And because we pray this prayer so often, it becomes lodged in our souls, so that like Paul wrote to the Romans, when we do not know how to pray, the Spirit can intercede for us with sighs to deep for words. Thanks be to God, who taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed by your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
Now and forever. Amen.
I realized the power of this sort of repetition while I was doing a chaplaincy internship at a retirement home the summer after my first year of seminary. I spent a lot of time that summer in the memory care unit, working with people with mid to late stage Alzheimer’s and dementia. Every Thursday, my supervisor, an Episcopal priest, would come to lead worship. We would sit around the living room on couches, sing old, beloved hymns, read scripture, and take communion. Before the priest would distribute communion, we would all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer together. And everyone could say the words of the prayer. Alzheimer’s and dementia had taken so much of the minds of the residents, that they often could not remember the names or faces of loved ones, or even their own names. But they could remember the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer was held not in their minds somehow, but in their souls. The constant repetition of the same words, day after day, year after year, for a lifetime, had moved this prayer from head knowledge to heart knowledge. Even as disease wreaked havoc on their memory, the promise that God’s name was hallowed, that God’s kingdom would come, was a promise that transcended intellectual ability. When our minds can no longer remember God’s promises, God has created us so that our bodies can hold this truth for us.
The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for us when we do not have words to pray. When we have forgotten how to pray, maybe from dementia or memory loss, but also when grief or hurt, depression or pain, doubt, or fear, or heartbreak has left us feeling so separate, so alone, so far from God’s grace and love, that we cannot on our own find words to say, we can say the words of the Lord’s Prayer and know that even if those words feel hollow in our mouths, they are words that Jesus promised would connect us to the Father.
This prayer connects us not just to God but to one another and to the whole church across time and space, because there is a communal nature to this prayer. We pray “Our Father,” not my Father, but “our.” “Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our sins.” We pray this prayer not just on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of the whole world. And similarly, the whole world prays this prayer on behalf of us. So when you are mouthing the words, not believing what you are saying, not trusting that God’s forgiveness is for you, you can do so with the promise that the person next to you is praying this prayer on your behalf. The person next to you is praying for you, praying you back into the kingdom of God. And when you are filled with the promise of God, when your heart is so full and your soul is so light with the hope of God’s grace, you can know that you are praying this prayer on behalf of someone else. That there is someone else in the room or in the world, someone who needs to know that God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will will be done, and you are praying that promise for them.
Another thing that’s great about the Lord’s Prayer is its completeness. Writer Ann Lamott says that all prayers can be simplified down to three words; help, thanks, and wow. The Lord’s Prayer, in a slightly different order, can be simplified to that. “Our Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,” is thanks. When we say these words, we are stating a promise we know to be true. That God’s name is holy, that God’s kingdom comes. It comes to us in Jesus, in the water and word, in the bread and the wine, and in a community that prays for us, and that we can pray for. The communal nature of this prayer is in fact the experience of God’s kingdom come to us. In affirming that this promise is true, we thank God for all that God has done for us.
Then we get to the help part. “Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” The Greek more closely translates, give us each day the bread that we need. This is a physical need, it reminds us of the Israelites in the wilderness, who every day could gather exactly enough manna for the one day. No more, no less, because on the next day there would be more. It is plea to have enough, not too little, but also not too much, enough to keep us satisfied, enough to remember our need for God.
“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” This is a really cool one in the Greek. Bear with me; I’m going to get a little grammar nerdy on you here. English teachers in the room, feel free to correct me if I get some of this wrong. My Greek grammar is decent, my English not as much. The first part of this line, “forgive us our sins,” is in the aorist tense. Now the aorist in Greek means a thing that happened once, that has ongoing effects. Like dropping a stone in a pond and watching the ripples spread out, there is one action that has on-going ramifications. So when we pray, “forgive us our sins,” the event that causes that to be true is the death and resurrection of Christ. Because of the Christ event, the experience of forgiveness flows on and on. We are forgiven, it’s already done, but we continue to receive the promise of that forgiveness on and on into eternity. The second part of this line, “for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us,” is a little different. That “forgive” is in the present, or my Greek professor called it the continuous tense. It means it is a thing that happens again and again. So again and again we forgive one another. God’s forgiveness is eternal, because of the death and resurrection of Christ. And because we have been forgiven, and continue to receive the experience of that forgiveness, we are then free to forgive one another again and again.
And finally, the wow. It’s not in the Luke reading, but it has come to be the way the church closes this prayer. “For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Everything is God’s, all places, all power, all glory, is there anything more wow then that.
There are, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, a million ways to pray. Way more, actually, more ways to pray then there are people. And any of the ways that help you talk to God are great ways. But the Lord’s Prayer is God’s gift to us for the times when we do not know how to pray. It is a prayer to keep us grounded, to help us stay balanced in asking, seeking, and knocking, to open our eyes to God’s kingdom come among us. And because we pray this prayer so often, it becomes lodged in our souls, so that like Paul wrote to the Romans, when we do not know how to pray, the Spirit can intercede for us with sighs to deep for words. Thanks be to God, who taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed by your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
Now and forever. Amen.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 11:1-13
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Prayer is a central theme in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus was frequently going away to pray, and he prayed before the major turning points in his ministry, the calling of the disciples (6:12-13), Peter’s confession (9:18), the transfiguration (9:28), at Gethsemane (22:40-42), on the cross (23:34, 46), and at the table with his disciples after the resurrection (24:30).
• First century Judaism already involved set prayers. Jews have prayers for morning and prayers for evening, prayers before eating, prayers before working. According to Jewish liturgical scholar Lawrence Hoffman, “Jews do offer freely composed prayers… But overall, it is the fixed order and content of Jewish prayer that gives it its distinctiveness and that demands the personal commitment to prayer as a discipline.” This is not unique to Judaism. Think about the liturgy we use in worship, the monastic tradition of praying the hours, the lectionary, even the order of fast songs, slower songs, faster songs of the non-liturgical traditions.
• V. 1 starts with “a certain” again, universalizing the teaching.
• Jesus teaches this prayer in Matthew also (6:9-13). While the prayers are very similar, there are some differences. The Lukan form, true to Luke’s general style, is simpler and more direct.
• The use of first person plural pronouns in the prayer demonstrate the communal nature of prayer. It is not an act of individual piety, but of communal worship.
• Naming plays an important role in identity in first century culture (c.f. Jesus asking the demons names in 8:30). Praying that God’s name be hallowed (made holy), is both a prayer to ask God to establish God’s own sanctity, and for the day that all will know God as holy).
• The second part, that God’s kingdom come, has been a central part of Jesus teachings (c.f. 10:9, 11).
• Having prayed for God, the prayer then turns to our needs; bread, forgiveness, and deliverance. Daily is an unusual word in the Greek. Epiousios, it only shows up on one other manuscript, so it is hard to know its exact meaning. It seems to have a physical rather than a metaphorical meaning, coming from the manna in the wilderness, which the Israelites could only gather enough for one day at a time (Exodus 16:4), or from Proverbs 30:8, “Feed me with the food that I need.” “Give” in v. 3 is in the present tense, which in the Greek indicates an event that happens over and over again. Every day, give us our daily bread.
• “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” The first “forgive” is in what is called the aorist tense. The aorist indicates an event that happens once and then has ongoing effects into the future. The second “forgive” is in the present tense, a thing that happens over and over again. We can read this as a powerful theological statement of the nature of forgiveness. The event from which we receive forgiveness is the death and resurrection of Christ, an event that has ongoing effects into the future, it continues to be true. We then forgive again and again. Our ability to forgive comes from the fact that we have been forgiven.
• Jesus teaching the disciples to pray is followed by a lesson about how God answers prayer.
• Galilean homes were simple one to two room structures built around a common oven. Because they all baked together, women would know which house was likely to have extra bread. And because the homes were small, getting up in the night was liable to rouse the whole family.
• Hospitality was such a central tenet of the community, that it would have been unthinkable for someone to refuse to help a neighbor, and thus forcing them to be unable to provide hospitality to their guest. Proverbs 3:28-29, “Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it,—when you have it with you.” The honor-shame code of the time would require the neighbor to get up and help, or risk being shamed for their failure of hospitality.
• V. 11-13 compare the goodness of a human father with the greater goodness of God.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Winner, Lauren. “Chapter Five: Tefillah, Prayer.” Mudhouse Sabbath. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2003, (54-64).
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Prayer is a central theme in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus was frequently going away to pray, and he prayed before the major turning points in his ministry, the calling of the disciples (6:12-13), Peter’s confession (9:18), the transfiguration (9:28), at Gethsemane (22:40-42), on the cross (23:34, 46), and at the table with his disciples after the resurrection (24:30).
• First century Judaism already involved set prayers. Jews have prayers for morning and prayers for evening, prayers before eating, prayers before working. According to Jewish liturgical scholar Lawrence Hoffman, “Jews do offer freely composed prayers… But overall, it is the fixed order and content of Jewish prayer that gives it its distinctiveness and that demands the personal commitment to prayer as a discipline.” This is not unique to Judaism. Think about the liturgy we use in worship, the monastic tradition of praying the hours, the lectionary, even the order of fast songs, slower songs, faster songs of the non-liturgical traditions.
• V. 1 starts with “a certain” again, universalizing the teaching.
• Jesus teaches this prayer in Matthew also (6:9-13). While the prayers are very similar, there are some differences. The Lukan form, true to Luke’s general style, is simpler and more direct.
• The use of first person plural pronouns in the prayer demonstrate the communal nature of prayer. It is not an act of individual piety, but of communal worship.
• Naming plays an important role in identity in first century culture (c.f. Jesus asking the demons names in 8:30). Praying that God’s name be hallowed (made holy), is both a prayer to ask God to establish God’s own sanctity, and for the day that all will know God as holy).
• The second part, that God’s kingdom come, has been a central part of Jesus teachings (c.f. 10:9, 11).
• Having prayed for God, the prayer then turns to our needs; bread, forgiveness, and deliverance. Daily is an unusual word in the Greek. Epiousios, it only shows up on one other manuscript, so it is hard to know its exact meaning. It seems to have a physical rather than a metaphorical meaning, coming from the manna in the wilderness, which the Israelites could only gather enough for one day at a time (Exodus 16:4), or from Proverbs 30:8, “Feed me with the food that I need.” “Give” in v. 3 is in the present tense, which in the Greek indicates an event that happens over and over again. Every day, give us our daily bread.
• “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” The first “forgive” is in what is called the aorist tense. The aorist indicates an event that happens once and then has ongoing effects into the future. The second “forgive” is in the present tense, a thing that happens over and over again. We can read this as a powerful theological statement of the nature of forgiveness. The event from which we receive forgiveness is the death and resurrection of Christ, an event that has ongoing effects into the future, it continues to be true. We then forgive again and again. Our ability to forgive comes from the fact that we have been forgiven.
• Jesus teaching the disciples to pray is followed by a lesson about how God answers prayer.
• Galilean homes were simple one to two room structures built around a common oven. Because they all baked together, women would know which house was likely to have extra bread. And because the homes were small, getting up in the night was liable to rouse the whole family.
• Hospitality was such a central tenet of the community, that it would have been unthinkable for someone to refuse to help a neighbor, and thus forcing them to be unable to provide hospitality to their guest. Proverbs 3:28-29, “Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it,—when you have it with you.” The honor-shame code of the time would require the neighbor to get up and help, or risk being shamed for their failure of hospitality.
• V. 11-13 compare the goodness of a human father with the greater goodness of God.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Winner, Lauren. “Chapter Five: Tefillah, Prayer.” Mudhouse Sabbath. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2003, (54-64).
Sunday, July 17, 2016
The Impossibility of Grace: A Sermon on Luke 10:38-42
We noticed in Bible study this week that Jesus is really impossible to please. Last week, with the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus told the lawyer to go and do. This week, Martha was busily doing, doing exactly what Jesus had told the disciples would be done, preparing and serving food to those whom she had welcomed into her home, and Jesus chided her for it. Ponder the scriptures and engage in intellectual pursuits like the lawyer, and Jesus said, get out and do something. Throw your whole self into service like Martha, and Jesus said, sit and listen. Come on now, Jesus, what do you want from us?!
I think the real grace and freedom in both this week’s and last week’s readings come from putting them together. So let’s start by digging into this one, and then we’ll see how putting them together really opens the whole thing up.
The temptation in preaching this text is to turn it into an object lesson on action versus contemplation. Martha chose work, Mary chose Jesus. Obviously then, you should choose Jesus too. There are all kinds of books and studies on whether you are a Mary or a Martha, and I’m going to say right out that I’ve read none of them, so this is not a critique on any of those books, some of them are probably great. But I do caution that setting it up as an either/or misses the point. I think this story might have less to do with action versus contemplation and more to do with expectation.
Hospitality is an essential part of the Christian vocation. In the sending of the seventy a few weeks ago, Jesus told the disciples to eat what was set before them, assuming the hospitality the followers of the Jesus movement would show to the disciples. The importance of hospitality is often drawn from our first reading this morning from Genesis. During the time of Abraham, hospitality was literally a life or death endeavor. There weren’t hotels or restaurants or even really roads in Palestine in the time of Abraham. People traveled from tent to tent, and if a tent didn’t welcome them, the traveler risked a very real possibility of death. But even for this expectation, Abraham’s show of hospitality was overkill. He ran out to meet the travelers, begging them to become guests. Then he sent Sarah to prepare bread for them, and a servant to cook a choice calf, before setting before his guests, quote, “the curds and milk and calf that he had prepared.” Except, notice, he didn’t prepare any of those things. Sarah prepared part, the servant prepared part, and Abraham took the credit of the preparing. Sarah in fact, wasn’t even at the table; she was in the tent. She cooked the food, gave it to Abraham, and disappeared, very much the proper ancient near east wife.
Flash forward a few centuries to the time of Jesus, and the role of women hadn’t changed all that much. In first century Palestine, discipleship was men’s work. Men sat at the feet of teachers and learned from them, women did not. I came across a quote this week that read, “when a visiting teacher comes, welcome him into your home, sit in the dust at his feet, and drink from the wisdom of his words… but do not speak with the women.” Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus wasn’t a beautiful act of contemplative piety; it was a radical stand against societal expectations.
I think the “better part” that Jesus said Mary had chosen was not a life of contemplation over and above a life of action. I think the “better part” was a life that was bigger then the box that gender had placed them in. Mary saw in Jesus an invitation to transcend that box. To be more than she had always been told she could be, to live more fully then she had before thought possible. Martha, on the other hand, was hemmed uncomfortably in by that box. The scripture doesn’t say that Martha was working happily away, lost in the beautiful contemplation of bread baking or dish washing or whatever, until Jesus busted in the kitchen and said, “get out here and listen to me.” No, it said Martha was distracted by her many tasks. She didn’t seem to want to be about the work, it seems more like she saw it as duty and obligation, the thing she was supposed to do and be, the limit to her role in the Jesus movement. And so Jesus, in his gentle way, invited Martha to step out of the limits she had been given by the world around her and be more than she thought she could be. In the same way that Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead and brought the Gerasene demoniac back into himself, Jesus coaxed Martha into a fuller existence.
Each of us have a box that limits us. Maybe it’s the expectation of gender roles, or racism or homophobia. Maybe it’s economic limits, age, illness, anxiety, depression, addiction, or ableism. Even as we chafe against these imposed limits, there is a certain degree of safety within them. It’s comfortable to only be able to grow so far, to only have so much expected of us. That way when we fail, it’s not our fault, it is the fault of some external force beyond our control that keeps us in place. Martha might gripe at Jesus to send Mary back into the kitchen to ease her burden, so that she didn’t have to deal with the fact that she didn’t really want to be in the kitchen in the first place. The lawyer might have argued with Jesus over the specific legality of who was and was not a neighbor, so that he didn’t have to move beyond intellectual curiosity and into the realm of real relationship. But limits, even comfortable ones, are not what Jesus wants for us. The Jesus movement was not about hospitality or contemplation or even neighborliness. The Jesus movement was and is about freedom. It is about being drawn into a place where we discover that we are so much more than we imagined. It is about a God who sees the fragile, broken limitedness of our lives and draws us ever more fully into the unlimited expansiveness of grace. In Jesus the blind see, the lame walk, the oppressed go free. Those who think they can only do are invited to sit and listen. Those who see themselves as only listeners are challenged to go and do. If Jesus seems impossible to satisfy, it is only because Jesus just simply sees more in us then we are able to see in ourselves. Jesus just simply loves us too much to let us remain trapped in boxes, instead he is constantly calling us to be the people that he knows that we are.
That, dear people of God, is grace. Grace is believing so fiercely in someone, that you cannot bear to see them remain in one place, but instead you love them into a version of themselves that they did not know they were capable of. Grace is the continually drawing forward into the completeness of God. It is the shackled Gerasene demoniac sitting clothed and relaxed at the feet of Jesus, and then being sent as a missionary to his own people. It is Simon being named the rock of the church, denying he knew Jesus at the cross, and then going on to be one of the greatest apostles of the faith. It is Jesus inviting Martha to throw off who she thought she should be and instead to be who she wanted to be. It is the lawyer being challenged to see even the Samaritan as his neighbor. It is confessing our sins and requesting repentance every single Sunday, knowing that every single week we will again fall short of our best ambitions, and yet every single Sunday hearing those same words of forgiveness again and again, and knowing that they are just as true this time as they were the week before. Sometimes we dive headfirst into grace, like Mary. Other times we are more like Martha, needed coaxing and encouragement. But always, always, Jesus is drawing more out of us then we ever thought possible, shaping us with the gentle grace of love. Thanks be to God. Amen.
I think the real grace and freedom in both this week’s and last week’s readings come from putting them together. So let’s start by digging into this one, and then we’ll see how putting them together really opens the whole thing up.
The temptation in preaching this text is to turn it into an object lesson on action versus contemplation. Martha chose work, Mary chose Jesus. Obviously then, you should choose Jesus too. There are all kinds of books and studies on whether you are a Mary or a Martha, and I’m going to say right out that I’ve read none of them, so this is not a critique on any of those books, some of them are probably great. But I do caution that setting it up as an either/or misses the point. I think this story might have less to do with action versus contemplation and more to do with expectation.
Hospitality is an essential part of the Christian vocation. In the sending of the seventy a few weeks ago, Jesus told the disciples to eat what was set before them, assuming the hospitality the followers of the Jesus movement would show to the disciples. The importance of hospitality is often drawn from our first reading this morning from Genesis. During the time of Abraham, hospitality was literally a life or death endeavor. There weren’t hotels or restaurants or even really roads in Palestine in the time of Abraham. People traveled from tent to tent, and if a tent didn’t welcome them, the traveler risked a very real possibility of death. But even for this expectation, Abraham’s show of hospitality was overkill. He ran out to meet the travelers, begging them to become guests. Then he sent Sarah to prepare bread for them, and a servant to cook a choice calf, before setting before his guests, quote, “the curds and milk and calf that he had prepared.” Except, notice, he didn’t prepare any of those things. Sarah prepared part, the servant prepared part, and Abraham took the credit of the preparing. Sarah in fact, wasn’t even at the table; she was in the tent. She cooked the food, gave it to Abraham, and disappeared, very much the proper ancient near east wife.
Flash forward a few centuries to the time of Jesus, and the role of women hadn’t changed all that much. In first century Palestine, discipleship was men’s work. Men sat at the feet of teachers and learned from them, women did not. I came across a quote this week that read, “when a visiting teacher comes, welcome him into your home, sit in the dust at his feet, and drink from the wisdom of his words… but do not speak with the women.” Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus wasn’t a beautiful act of contemplative piety; it was a radical stand against societal expectations.
I think the “better part” that Jesus said Mary had chosen was not a life of contemplation over and above a life of action. I think the “better part” was a life that was bigger then the box that gender had placed them in. Mary saw in Jesus an invitation to transcend that box. To be more than she had always been told she could be, to live more fully then she had before thought possible. Martha, on the other hand, was hemmed uncomfortably in by that box. The scripture doesn’t say that Martha was working happily away, lost in the beautiful contemplation of bread baking or dish washing or whatever, until Jesus busted in the kitchen and said, “get out here and listen to me.” No, it said Martha was distracted by her many tasks. She didn’t seem to want to be about the work, it seems more like she saw it as duty and obligation, the thing she was supposed to do and be, the limit to her role in the Jesus movement. And so Jesus, in his gentle way, invited Martha to step out of the limits she had been given by the world around her and be more than she thought she could be. In the same way that Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead and brought the Gerasene demoniac back into himself, Jesus coaxed Martha into a fuller existence.
Each of us have a box that limits us. Maybe it’s the expectation of gender roles, or racism or homophobia. Maybe it’s economic limits, age, illness, anxiety, depression, addiction, or ableism. Even as we chafe against these imposed limits, there is a certain degree of safety within them. It’s comfortable to only be able to grow so far, to only have so much expected of us. That way when we fail, it’s not our fault, it is the fault of some external force beyond our control that keeps us in place. Martha might gripe at Jesus to send Mary back into the kitchen to ease her burden, so that she didn’t have to deal with the fact that she didn’t really want to be in the kitchen in the first place. The lawyer might have argued with Jesus over the specific legality of who was and was not a neighbor, so that he didn’t have to move beyond intellectual curiosity and into the realm of real relationship. But limits, even comfortable ones, are not what Jesus wants for us. The Jesus movement was not about hospitality or contemplation or even neighborliness. The Jesus movement was and is about freedom. It is about being drawn into a place where we discover that we are so much more than we imagined. It is about a God who sees the fragile, broken limitedness of our lives and draws us ever more fully into the unlimited expansiveness of grace. In Jesus the blind see, the lame walk, the oppressed go free. Those who think they can only do are invited to sit and listen. Those who see themselves as only listeners are challenged to go and do. If Jesus seems impossible to satisfy, it is only because Jesus just simply sees more in us then we are able to see in ourselves. Jesus just simply loves us too much to let us remain trapped in boxes, instead he is constantly calling us to be the people that he knows that we are.
That, dear people of God, is grace. Grace is believing so fiercely in someone, that you cannot bear to see them remain in one place, but instead you love them into a version of themselves that they did not know they were capable of. Grace is the continually drawing forward into the completeness of God. It is the shackled Gerasene demoniac sitting clothed and relaxed at the feet of Jesus, and then being sent as a missionary to his own people. It is Simon being named the rock of the church, denying he knew Jesus at the cross, and then going on to be one of the greatest apostles of the faith. It is Jesus inviting Martha to throw off who she thought she should be and instead to be who she wanted to be. It is the lawyer being challenged to see even the Samaritan as his neighbor. It is confessing our sins and requesting repentance every single Sunday, knowing that every single week we will again fall short of our best ambitions, and yet every single Sunday hearing those same words of forgiveness again and again, and knowing that they are just as true this time as they were the week before. Sometimes we dive headfirst into grace, like Mary. Other times we are more like Martha, needed coaxing and encouragement. But always, always, Jesus is drawing more out of us then we ever thought possible, shaping us with the gentle grace of love. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 10:38-42
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This week’s and last week’s (Luke 10:25-37) readings deal with the radical nature of what following Jesus’ commands require, a love that is deep to the point of scandal.
• In the sending instructions given to the twelve and the seventy, the disciples are commanded that when they are welcomed to a town, they are to eat what is set before them (Luke 9:1-6; 10:1-12). Martha is then welcoming Jesus by preparing a feast, as the disciples were told was to happen.
• Mary does not help in preparing the meal, as would have been the expected role of a woman, but instead takes a man’s place sitting at the feet of Jesus as a disciple. This clear violation of appropriate gender roles would have brought shame upon Mary and upon the house.
• V. 40 – “work” is diakonia in Greek. It can also be translated as “service” and is where we get the English “deacon” or “diaconate.” Later, the church will appoint deacons, so the act of serving doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem is that Martha is “distracted.” This idea comes again in Acts 6:1-6, where the disciples appoint deacons so they will not be distracted from study.
• The repetition of Martha’s name may be a rhetorical device to indicate compassion, a mild rebuke rather than a harsh one.
• Culpepper writes: “While Martha is distracted by “parts” of the meal, Mary chooses “the good part.” Disciples often need more discrimination, not more vigorous effort. Martha presumes to tell Jesus what he should do; Mary lets Jesus tell her what to do.”
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Parsons, Mikeal C. “Commentary on Luke 10:38-42.” Working Preacher. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2917>. Accessed 13 July 2016.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This week’s and last week’s (Luke 10:25-37) readings deal with the radical nature of what following Jesus’ commands require, a love that is deep to the point of scandal.
• In the sending instructions given to the twelve and the seventy, the disciples are commanded that when they are welcomed to a town, they are to eat what is set before them (Luke 9:1-6; 10:1-12). Martha is then welcoming Jesus by preparing a feast, as the disciples were told was to happen.
• Mary does not help in preparing the meal, as would have been the expected role of a woman, but instead takes a man’s place sitting at the feet of Jesus as a disciple. This clear violation of appropriate gender roles would have brought shame upon Mary and upon the house.
• V. 40 – “work” is diakonia in Greek. It can also be translated as “service” and is where we get the English “deacon” or “diaconate.” Later, the church will appoint deacons, so the act of serving doesn’t seem to be the problem. The problem is that Martha is “distracted.” This idea comes again in Acts 6:1-6, where the disciples appoint deacons so they will not be distracted from study.
• The repetition of Martha’s name may be a rhetorical device to indicate compassion, a mild rebuke rather than a harsh one.
• Culpepper writes: “While Martha is distracted by “parts” of the meal, Mary chooses “the good part.” Disciples often need more discrimination, not more vigorous effort. Martha presumes to tell Jesus what he should do; Mary lets Jesus tell her what to do.”
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Parsons, Mikeal C. “Commentary on Luke 10:38-42.” Working Preacher. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2917>. Accessed 13 July 2016.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Jesus the Good Samaritan: A Sermon on Luke 10:25-37
I went to two prayer vigils this weekend. Two. On Thursday evening I went to the Sojourner Truth memorial for a vigil grieving the fact that this week two more black men were killed by police officers. It was a powerful evening, and let me tell you what made it all the more powerful was that Battle Creek police officers were there with us. Not as police, but as community members, as fellow grievers. We, police and people, stood together at the Sojourner Truth memorial and reflected on the fact that the sin of racism is real and alive, and it touches us all.
Having stood gratefully with our police department on Thursday, it was with great sadness that I got up Friday morning and went to the Police Memorial, for a vigil grieving the death of five police officers who were assassinated on Thursday evening at a protest very like the vigil in Battle Creek. The Dallas Police Department, like the Battle Creek Police Department, is aware of how racism affects policing and have actively worked to dismantle their own implicit biases. By all accounts the protests in Dallas were peaceful, police and community gathered together to declare that racism has no place in their community. One person unaffiliated with the protesters destroyed that peace. As I stood at the Police Memorial, a block from where I’d stood less then twenty-four hours before, and looked out on many of the same somber faces I thought, how did we get here again? How do we live in a world where two vigils for senseless violence are required in the span of less than two days?
Dear people of God. Black lives matter. Black live matter, and saying this in no way negates the fact that blue lives matter. Blue lives matter. Blue lives matter, and saying this in no way negates the fact that black lives matter. This is true because of course all lives matter. So wouldn’t it be easier to just say all lives matter? No. We have to be specific. We have to say black lives matter, we have to say blue lives matter for the same reason when you get a cut on one finger, you don’t put a band-aid on all your fingers because all fingers matter. You care for the finger that is hurt because if you do not, infection can set in and hurt the whole body. This specificity is actually biblical. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he addressed divisions in the body of Christ, saying, “those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.” Later he wrote, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.” Our Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton in a video message this week said, “We are killing ourselves.” Racism is an infection that is killing the body of Christ, and police and people of color are being caught in the crossfire.
These are hard conversations, dear church. These are hard times. But sadly, these divisions that seem so sharp and powerful are not unique to our time. In our Gospel reading for this morning, the lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, let’s be clear, the lawyer was not asking this question because he was sincerely curious about how to lead a better life. He was an expert in the law; he knew what the answer should be. He was asking the question to test Jesus, to make sure Jesus knew what the right answer was, to make sure Jesus understood who was in and who was out. And Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan. It is almost impossible to overstate just how outrageous this would have been to its original hearers. There was, in the Judean worldview, no such thing as a good Samaritan, in the Samaritan worldview, no such thing as a good Judean. This is the Hatfields and the McCoys, the Crips and the Bloods, the Israelis and the Palestinians, ISIS and everyone who is not ISIS. The lawyer was so disgusted that when Jesus asked him, “Which of these was a neighbor to the man?” he could not even utter the word “Samaritan,” sputtering instead, “the one who showed him mercy.” To which Jesus responded, “Go and do likewise.”
Now, this is a great story about how God wants us to view anyone who is in need as our neighbor, and to love them expansively. To strive to serve everyone we come across in the model of the Good Samaritan is certainly a great way to live. But I think there’s something even more amazing going on here than just an object lesson on neighbor love; something that takes this story from teaching tool to transformation. It comes in two places. First, verse thirty-three reads that the Samaritan, when he saw the man, “he was moved with pity.” Moved with pity could also be translated “had compassion.” If you remember a few weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus raising the widow’s son because he had compassion for her. That’s the same word here, splagchnizomai. It literally means a churning in ones guts. This word shows up another time in Luke’s Gospel, in the story of the prodigals. When the father saw his son coming toward him, he was moved with compassion and began to run to him. Jesus was moved with compassion, the prodigal father, a metaphor for God, was moved with compassion. To be moved with compassion in Luke’s Gospel is an attribute not of humanity, but of the divine. God alone is capable of being moved so deeply.
The second place that we catch this hint of transformation is unexpectedly from the lawyer’s own unintentional confession. When he could not say, “Samaritan” and instead said, “the one who showed mercy,” he was making a statement greater than he knew. See “mercy” in Luke’s Gospel is also a word used exclusively as an attribute of the divine. Humans are capable of care, of concern, of support, of asking for help for the sake of others, of all kinds of wonderful and important acts of care, but only God shows mercy.
In this parable Jesus is not casting us in the part of the Good Samaritan. He is casting himself. We are the man lying injured in a ditch; Jesus is the one who we thought was our sworn enemy, who spared no expense to make sure that we were made whole. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, [then] having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.”
There is not better news than this. If you have ever thought you don’t deserve God’s love. If you’ve ever thought there’s no way you can do enough to get God to love you. If you have something in your past that you think is unforgivable, guess what, this is a parable for you. Guy in a ditch never did anything for the Samaritan. Guy in the ditch in fact had probably, in a million tiny ways, been actively hostile to the Samaritan, in that way that we can be to people who are different than us, even when we don’t mean to. And yet, the Samaritan helped him. Picked him up, patched his wounds, set him up in an inn, and paid the cost and then some for his recovery. He had absolutely nothing to gain from this, but the Samaritan did it anyway, because that’s what mercy, that’s what compassion does, it moves to action.
That Jesus has cast himself as the Samaritan is why we can trust that forgiveness is real. It is why we can trust that grace is real, that grace is true, and that grace is for us. So radical, so overwhelming, so merciful is God’s love for us that even the most stark barriers, like that between Samaritans and Judeans, is destroyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You can be confident in God’s love for you, because the Samaritan helped the man in the ditch. If THAT can happen, then there is NOTHING you could ever do, that could ever separate you from the love of God.
So, “Go and do likewise,” Jesus said to the lawyer. If this story is about Jesus the Samaritan, what do we do with that line? Well, think about this for a minute. Imagine what happened to the man who was saved after this story. Imagine him waking up, groggy and sore, in a strange inn. Imagine his shock when the innkeeper tells him that he was brought in by a Samaritan, who had tended his wounds. Imagine when he goes to check out, and discovers that the same Samaritan who’d cared for him, has also foot the whole bill for his recovery. Imagine how that must have changed him. The lightness in his step as he walked away, the gratitude in his heart, the burning desire to help another in just the graceful way that he had been treated. How he must have looked at the whole world and everyone in it differently, after experiencing such care.
The man in the ditch must have found his whole worldview changed after his experience with the Samaritan. I imagine it changed not just him, but everyone he came across, as he recounted this story of the Samaritan who saved him. Acts is full of stories of ministry among and with the Samaritans, who became part of the ever-expanding message of the kingdom of God.
So what do we do, in response to Jesus’ command to go and do likewise? We live as people transformed by the mercy we have received. We can show up in the lives of people who are viewed in the same light that the lawyer viewed the Samaritan and we can say, he, she, too is my neighbor. I have gotten involved in a group in Battle Creek called “Showing Up for Racial Justice,” is a nation-wide organization of white people committed to walking alongside communities of color and showing up in the places that they need us to be present. They are planning a launch sometime in September, and I will share details with you as I know them. On September 25th, our sisters and brothers from St. Mark CME church will worship here with us, and on November 13th, we will worship at St. Mark with them. You can come to those services as we get to know one another and praise God together. I ran into Chief Blocker during the Battle Creek half marathon last weekend, and I invited him to join us for Freeze Pop Tuesdays sometime this summer. He and some of his officers are going to try and make it this Tuesday, so you can come here Tuesday and thank them for the work that they do protecting our community and keeping us all safe.
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus told the lawyer. Go and live like the one who has just been rescued from a ditch. Go and walk lightly, with the hope of one who has experienced mercy. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians that we read this morning, “You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among you from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.” The grace of God is already bearing fruit within you, so go and do likewise. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Having stood gratefully with our police department on Thursday, it was with great sadness that I got up Friday morning and went to the Police Memorial, for a vigil grieving the death of five police officers who were assassinated on Thursday evening at a protest very like the vigil in Battle Creek. The Dallas Police Department, like the Battle Creek Police Department, is aware of how racism affects policing and have actively worked to dismantle their own implicit biases. By all accounts the protests in Dallas were peaceful, police and community gathered together to declare that racism has no place in their community. One person unaffiliated with the protesters destroyed that peace. As I stood at the Police Memorial, a block from where I’d stood less then twenty-four hours before, and looked out on many of the same somber faces I thought, how did we get here again? How do we live in a world where two vigils for senseless violence are required in the span of less than two days?
Dear people of God. Black lives matter. Black live matter, and saying this in no way negates the fact that blue lives matter. Blue lives matter. Blue lives matter, and saying this in no way negates the fact that black lives matter. This is true because of course all lives matter. So wouldn’t it be easier to just say all lives matter? No. We have to be specific. We have to say black lives matter, we have to say blue lives matter for the same reason when you get a cut on one finger, you don’t put a band-aid on all your fingers because all fingers matter. You care for the finger that is hurt because if you do not, infection can set in and hurt the whole body. This specificity is actually biblical. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he addressed divisions in the body of Christ, saying, “those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.” Later he wrote, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it.” Our Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton in a video message this week said, “We are killing ourselves.” Racism is an infection that is killing the body of Christ, and police and people of color are being caught in the crossfire.
These are hard conversations, dear church. These are hard times. But sadly, these divisions that seem so sharp and powerful are not unique to our time. In our Gospel reading for this morning, the lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Now, let’s be clear, the lawyer was not asking this question because he was sincerely curious about how to lead a better life. He was an expert in the law; he knew what the answer should be. He was asking the question to test Jesus, to make sure Jesus knew what the right answer was, to make sure Jesus understood who was in and who was out. And Jesus responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan. It is almost impossible to overstate just how outrageous this would have been to its original hearers. There was, in the Judean worldview, no such thing as a good Samaritan, in the Samaritan worldview, no such thing as a good Judean. This is the Hatfields and the McCoys, the Crips and the Bloods, the Israelis and the Palestinians, ISIS and everyone who is not ISIS. The lawyer was so disgusted that when Jesus asked him, “Which of these was a neighbor to the man?” he could not even utter the word “Samaritan,” sputtering instead, “the one who showed him mercy.” To which Jesus responded, “Go and do likewise.”
Now, this is a great story about how God wants us to view anyone who is in need as our neighbor, and to love them expansively. To strive to serve everyone we come across in the model of the Good Samaritan is certainly a great way to live. But I think there’s something even more amazing going on here than just an object lesson on neighbor love; something that takes this story from teaching tool to transformation. It comes in two places. First, verse thirty-three reads that the Samaritan, when he saw the man, “he was moved with pity.” Moved with pity could also be translated “had compassion.” If you remember a few weeks ago we heard the story of Jesus raising the widow’s son because he had compassion for her. That’s the same word here, splagchnizomai. It literally means a churning in ones guts. This word shows up another time in Luke’s Gospel, in the story of the prodigals. When the father saw his son coming toward him, he was moved with compassion and began to run to him. Jesus was moved with compassion, the prodigal father, a metaphor for God, was moved with compassion. To be moved with compassion in Luke’s Gospel is an attribute not of humanity, but of the divine. God alone is capable of being moved so deeply.
The second place that we catch this hint of transformation is unexpectedly from the lawyer’s own unintentional confession. When he could not say, “Samaritan” and instead said, “the one who showed mercy,” he was making a statement greater than he knew. See “mercy” in Luke’s Gospel is also a word used exclusively as an attribute of the divine. Humans are capable of care, of concern, of support, of asking for help for the sake of others, of all kinds of wonderful and important acts of care, but only God shows mercy.
In this parable Jesus is not casting us in the part of the Good Samaritan. He is casting himself. We are the man lying injured in a ditch; Jesus is the one who we thought was our sworn enemy, who spared no expense to make sure that we were made whole. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, [then] having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.”
There is not better news than this. If you have ever thought you don’t deserve God’s love. If you’ve ever thought there’s no way you can do enough to get God to love you. If you have something in your past that you think is unforgivable, guess what, this is a parable for you. Guy in a ditch never did anything for the Samaritan. Guy in the ditch in fact had probably, in a million tiny ways, been actively hostile to the Samaritan, in that way that we can be to people who are different than us, even when we don’t mean to. And yet, the Samaritan helped him. Picked him up, patched his wounds, set him up in an inn, and paid the cost and then some for his recovery. He had absolutely nothing to gain from this, but the Samaritan did it anyway, because that’s what mercy, that’s what compassion does, it moves to action.
That Jesus has cast himself as the Samaritan is why we can trust that forgiveness is real. It is why we can trust that grace is real, that grace is true, and that grace is for us. So radical, so overwhelming, so merciful is God’s love for us that even the most stark barriers, like that between Samaritans and Judeans, is destroyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You can be confident in God’s love for you, because the Samaritan helped the man in the ditch. If THAT can happen, then there is NOTHING you could ever do, that could ever separate you from the love of God.
So, “Go and do likewise,” Jesus said to the lawyer. If this story is about Jesus the Samaritan, what do we do with that line? Well, think about this for a minute. Imagine what happened to the man who was saved after this story. Imagine him waking up, groggy and sore, in a strange inn. Imagine his shock when the innkeeper tells him that he was brought in by a Samaritan, who had tended his wounds. Imagine when he goes to check out, and discovers that the same Samaritan who’d cared for him, has also foot the whole bill for his recovery. Imagine how that must have changed him. The lightness in his step as he walked away, the gratitude in his heart, the burning desire to help another in just the graceful way that he had been treated. How he must have looked at the whole world and everyone in it differently, after experiencing such care.
The man in the ditch must have found his whole worldview changed after his experience with the Samaritan. I imagine it changed not just him, but everyone he came across, as he recounted this story of the Samaritan who saved him. Acts is full of stories of ministry among and with the Samaritans, who became part of the ever-expanding message of the kingdom of God.
So what do we do, in response to Jesus’ command to go and do likewise? We live as people transformed by the mercy we have received. We can show up in the lives of people who are viewed in the same light that the lawyer viewed the Samaritan and we can say, he, she, too is my neighbor. I have gotten involved in a group in Battle Creek called “Showing Up for Racial Justice,” is a nation-wide organization of white people committed to walking alongside communities of color and showing up in the places that they need us to be present. They are planning a launch sometime in September, and I will share details with you as I know them. On September 25th, our sisters and brothers from St. Mark CME church will worship here with us, and on November 13th, we will worship at St. Mark with them. You can come to those services as we get to know one another and praise God together. I ran into Chief Blocker during the Battle Creek half marathon last weekend, and I invited him to join us for Freeze Pop Tuesdays sometime this summer. He and some of his officers are going to try and make it this Tuesday, so you can come here Tuesday and thank them for the work that they do protecting our community and keeping us all safe.
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus told the lawyer. Go and live like the one who has just been rescued from a ditch. Go and walk lightly, with the hope of one who has experienced mercy. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians that we read this morning, “You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among you from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.” The grace of God is already bearing fruit within you, so go and do likewise. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 10:25-37
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The next two week’s readings deal with the radical nature of what following Jesus’ commands requires, a love that is deep to the point of scandal.
• The word “test” in v. 25 is ekpeirazo, the same word for “tempting.” It means the explicit challenge of one’s honor. The lawyer would have been a recognized expert in the scriptures, there was no difference during the first century between religious and civil law. So the lawyer is trying to get Jesus to say what the lawyer knows to be the right answer.
• The question is what is necessary to “inherit eternal life.” Inheritance is what God promised to Abraham’s descendants through the covenant in Genesis 12:1-3.
• Jesus responds by asking the lawyer a question about the law, thus reversing the lawyer’s challenge to him.
• The lawyer’s response (different from Matthew 22:34-40 and Mark 12:28-34, where it is Jesus who responds) is an expansion of Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This is a piece of the Shema, a prayer that Jews are to repeat twice a day. Here and in Matthew and Mark it is linked with Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
• Whatever the number of qualifiers, the result is the same that love of God is to claim the whole of one’s life. “With all your mind “is not in Deuteronomy, but is consistent with the teachings of Hillel, a well-regarded Jewish scholar from just before the time of Christ.
• The lawyer’s follow-up question in v. 20 was intended to once again gain the upper hand after Jesus reclaimed it by forcing the question back on the lawyer in v. 26. Jewish law contained a series of boundaries for how Jews were to treat Gentiles and Samaritans, how priests treat non-priests, how men and women interact, and so on.
• The man in the story Jesus told was noticeably undefined. The Jewish listener might assume him to be a Jew, Luke’s Gentile audience might see him as a Gentile. “A certain man” becomes a common feature in how parables begin in Luke (12:16; 14:2, 16; 15:11; 16:1, 19; 19:12; 20:9).
• The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a dangerous one. It drops over 3,200 feet in 17 miles, through narrow passes. The wild terrain allowed many places for bandits to hide.
• Three passersby come across the man. By storytelling convention, after the first two fail to stop, the third will break the pattern. Given that the first two are clerics, a priest and a Levite, the expected turn here would be for the third to be an Israelite, thus giving the story an anticlerical edge.
• But the third traveler is not an Israelite, the third traveler is a Samaritan. It is hard to put in modern context just how unexpected this shift is. This is a Crip helping a Blood, an ISIS fighter helping an American. Naming the helper as a Samaritan not only forces a reconsideration of the stereotypes of Samaritans, it requires the invalidation of all stereotypes. The lawyer is so disgusted with this example, that when Jesus asked him which of the three was the better neighbor, the lawyer cannot even utter the word “Samaritan,” calling him instead “the one who showed him mercy.”
• The Samaritan “was moved with pity” (v. 33) for the man. Another translation is “had compassion,” the Greek word is esplaginsthe. It shows up three times in Luke’s Gospel; here, Jesus toward the widowed woman who’s son had died (7:13), and the Prodigal Father (15:20). In Luke’s Gospel, showing compassion is an attribute of God. Likewise, the lawyer described the Samaritan as “the one who showed him mercy” (v. 37). Almost every time the word “mercy” shows up in Luke, it is as an attribute of God (Luke 1:47-50, 54, 72, 78; 17:13; 18:38-39).
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Parsons, Mikeal C. “Commentary on Luke 10:25-37.” Working Preacher.. Accessed 6 July 2016.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The next two week’s readings deal with the radical nature of what following Jesus’ commands requires, a love that is deep to the point of scandal.
• The word “test” in v. 25 is ekpeirazo, the same word for “tempting.” It means the explicit challenge of one’s honor. The lawyer would have been a recognized expert in the scriptures, there was no difference during the first century between religious and civil law. So the lawyer is trying to get Jesus to say what the lawyer knows to be the right answer.
• The question is what is necessary to “inherit eternal life.” Inheritance is what God promised to Abraham’s descendants through the covenant in Genesis 12:1-3.
• Jesus responds by asking the lawyer a question about the law, thus reversing the lawyer’s challenge to him.
• The lawyer’s response (different from Matthew 22:34-40 and Mark 12:28-34, where it is Jesus who responds) is an expansion of Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This is a piece of the Shema, a prayer that Jews are to repeat twice a day. Here and in Matthew and Mark it is linked with Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
• Whatever the number of qualifiers, the result is the same that love of God is to claim the whole of one’s life. “With all your mind “is not in Deuteronomy, but is consistent with the teachings of Hillel, a well-regarded Jewish scholar from just before the time of Christ.
• The lawyer’s follow-up question in v. 20 was intended to once again gain the upper hand after Jesus reclaimed it by forcing the question back on the lawyer in v. 26. Jewish law contained a series of boundaries for how Jews were to treat Gentiles and Samaritans, how priests treat non-priests, how men and women interact, and so on.
• The man in the story Jesus told was noticeably undefined. The Jewish listener might assume him to be a Jew, Luke’s Gentile audience might see him as a Gentile. “A certain man” becomes a common feature in how parables begin in Luke (12:16; 14:2, 16; 15:11; 16:1, 19; 19:12; 20:9).
• The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a dangerous one. It drops over 3,200 feet in 17 miles, through narrow passes. The wild terrain allowed many places for bandits to hide.
• Three passersby come across the man. By storytelling convention, after the first two fail to stop, the third will break the pattern. Given that the first two are clerics, a priest and a Levite, the expected turn here would be for the third to be an Israelite, thus giving the story an anticlerical edge.
• But the third traveler is not an Israelite, the third traveler is a Samaritan. It is hard to put in modern context just how unexpected this shift is. This is a Crip helping a Blood, an ISIS fighter helping an American. Naming the helper as a Samaritan not only forces a reconsideration of the stereotypes of Samaritans, it requires the invalidation of all stereotypes. The lawyer is so disgusted with this example, that when Jesus asked him which of the three was the better neighbor, the lawyer cannot even utter the word “Samaritan,” calling him instead “the one who showed him mercy.”
• The Samaritan “was moved with pity” (v. 33) for the man. Another translation is “had compassion,” the Greek word is esplaginsthe. It shows up three times in Luke’s Gospel; here, Jesus toward the widowed woman who’s son had died (7:13), and the Prodigal Father (15:20). In Luke’s Gospel, showing compassion is an attribute of God. Likewise, the lawyer described the Samaritan as “the one who showed him mercy” (v. 37). Almost every time the word “mercy” shows up in Luke, it is as an attribute of God (Luke 1:47-50, 54, 72, 78; 17:13; 18:38-39).
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Parsons, Mikeal C. “Commentary on Luke 10:25-37.” Working Preacher.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Blessing in the Leaving: A Sermon on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
This Gospel reading from Luke has a special place in my heart, because it is a passage I clung to as I was discerning whether to leave my last call. I had a poem reflection on this passage hanging in my office, and by the time I left California, I had it memorized. The poem still hangs in my office here, as a reminder of what I left and why. The poem starts with this reflection:
There are times for leaning into the resistance that meets us; times when God calls us to engage the difficulty and struggle that will shape and form us in ways that ease and comfort never can…There is ground that becomes holy only when we remain long enough to see the blessing that can emerge from struggle, that shimmers only after the dust the struggle has kicked up finally begins to settle.
And then there are times for leaving; times when—as Jesus counsels his disciples—the holy thing to do is to shake the dust from our feet and leave behind a place that is not meant for us. This blessing is for those times.
I, like many of you, am one for “leaning into the resistance that meets us.” I think this is a lovely way to say that one is stubborn. This sometimes plays itself out in humorous ways. As most of you are aware, I finally moved this week. The hold up was a couple pieces of furniture that were too big for me to manage on my own. I had a couple of friends who were supposed to help me, but we kept being unable to connect. At one point I got so frustrated in my inability to line up help that I decided I didn’t need help. I could move a recliner by myself. There were various points in this process where I was reminded that this was an example of very poor decision making, for example coming down stairs out of my apartment that were barely wide enough for me and my recliner, or the point where my grip strength gave out as I tried to navigate two doors to get into the family room. But, I’m stubborn, and I got that recliner in, miraculously in one piece, and then collapsed, a scraped up, bruised, exhausted dust ball, but a dust ball that was dependent on no one in order to move a recliner! Luckily, I managed to coordinate schedules with a friend before I got equally ambitious about my desk and couch. Those would have ended poorly…
So I’ve always struggled with Jesus’ injunction to the disciples here to take nothing with them, to remain in the same house and eat whatever is provided. There is a level of dependency in the ministry that Jesus describes, that I just am not comfortable with. I want to be helpful to those I am ministering to, I want to free them from work, make things easy, help them out. I come by this honestly; it was drilled into me at an early age. When my family, including my grandparents, would visit my great-aunt in San Diego, on the day we were supposed to leave, my grandmother would literally sneak around the house and clean, with the goal of leaving my great-aunt’s house nicer then it was when we came. The problem with this was that inevitably a couple days later my cousin would call, my great-aunt’s glasses had been cleaned so well as to have disappeared, and might Nana remember where she’d put them?
That’s the problem with being to helpful and accommodating as a guest, there is actually a point when being helpful becomes unhelpful and distancing. When our own independence, our desire to do things for ourselves, and not bother others can break down our relationships. Jesus’ point here is that there is more gift in being a partner in ministry than a provider of it. Providing ministry, as well-intentioned as the provider might be, forces a power dynamic into the relationship. By having the disciples carry nothing with them; Jesus levels the power structure and allows the disciples and the villages to be equal partners in the spreading of the kingdom of God.
This is a powerful lesson not just for the disciples, but also for us. There is gift in letting others help us. There is gift in expanding the work load of the mission. To jump back to my moving analogy from earlier, I did get a friend to help with the last couple pieces of furniture, and there was gift in that. Not just in the fact that I didn’t end up crushed under a futon at the bottom of a staircase. But in giving my friend the opportunity to help me. Our friendship was strengthened in him carrying half my couch and crowd-sourcing the solution that will one day allow me to have a bed frame in my bedroom and not in my living room.
There is a level of vulnerability in allowing another to help us, but that very vulnerability can itself be transformative. If you remember, one of the on-going themes in Luke is Jesus breaking down the social barriers between those who are in, faithful Jews, scribes, Pharisees, and those who follow the law, and those who are out, sinners, tax collectors, gentiles, and the like. When Jesus sent the disciples out, he commanded them to “eat what is set before you.” This subtle statement about how to be a good guest is also a powerful dismantling of social barriers. This isn’t Jesus either telling the disciples to suck it up and deal if they don’t like tomatoes or to suffer in silence if they have a food allergy. Remember, what a person ate was a mark of social acceptance. Jesus was forbidding the disciples to give themselves airs and refuse so-called “unclean food.” It is a foreshadowing of Peter’s vision in Acts, where God declared, “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” If these people, to whom you have been sent by Jesus to spread the kingdom of God to, have offered you a meal, then the meal is clean, they are your partners in the Gospel, and you are to eat what they give you.
Verse eight is really a great model for ministry. Step one, “eat what is set before you.” Create community through humility and allowing others to serve you. Step two, “cure the sick.” So, once you’ve created community, seen others as your equal, recognized our interdependence on each other, then we get to do the part we’re best at. The helping part. There is a need for helping, for service. But authentic helping comes out of authentic relationships, not the other way around. Our community gets the privilege of seeing the truth of this statement every day in the work of the Woman’s Co-op. Co-op means the women are partners with each other. They are able to help each other so effectively because they recognize their interdependence. And then, step three is to say to those with whom you are now in relationship, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Part of the authentic relationships that Jesus is leading the disciples to here is the vulnerability and trust to share the source of their motivation. Once you’ve been served by someone, once you’ve in return served them, isn’t it also a gift to share with them, my peace comes through my relationship with Jesus Christ, can I tell you about that?
Step one, eat what is set before you. Step two, cure the sick. Step three, say that the kingdom of God has come near. Spreading the good news of the kingdom of God is as simple as that. I see us living this out in our community through our various summer initiatives. Step one, eat what is set before you. OK, so we’re not the ones doing the eating this summer with the Meet Up and Eat Up initiative through Harper Creek or through Freeze Pop Summer, but we are meeting people on neutral ground. There are no requirements for this space, no class they have to take or program they need to attend or way they need to be. These programs are entirely driven by what our neighbors want. If they want lunch and freeze pops they come, if they don’t, they don’t. If they want to stay and chat, they stay and chat. If they want to take their freeze pop and leave, they do that too. We “eat” if you will, whatever relationship they set before us. Step two, cure the sick. See a need and meet it. There are a lot of kids in our neighborhood, and during the summer some of those kids don’t have enough to eat. We have a bus delivering lunches in our parking lot. There is a need, and now there is a solution. Step three, say that the kingdom of God has come near. We’re not there yet. Nor should we be, we’re three weeks into the summer. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there. Folk know we are a church. They know we pray for them. They’re beginning to ask us for prayer, they’re beginning to trust us with stories. It’s week three, so I’m still using us and them language, but I think by the end of the summer it won’t be us and them. It will be Trinity folk who come Sunday mornings and sometimes other times throughout the week, and Trinity folk who come at lunchtime and sometimes other times throughout the week.
There will be people this won’t work for. And you know what, Jesus told his disciples, that’s OK. Shake the dust from your feet and move on. Not being received by someone is neither a failure on your part nor a cruelty on theirs. Sometimes it takes a while for the relationship to build, sometimes you are not the best person to build the relationship. That’s OK. Jesus went on, “Yet know this; the kingdom of God has come near.” Even when the disciples were rejected from a town, the kingdom of God was still present in that place. Because the kingdom of God was not dependent on the disciples’ ability to give it or the village’s ability to receive it. The kingdom of God is dependent only on the presence of Jesus. Like an ocean wave, it comes again and again, until all the world is caught up in his glory. So when we are not the messengers, we are free to walk away, knowing that our God is a God of resurrection, and hope coming out of the most unlikely places is exactly the way God operates.
I started this sermon by sharing that this text was one I clung to when I was discerning leaving my last call. I loved that congregation. We had been through so much together that walking away from them felt like abandoning the mission. But one of the truths of being a pastor is sometimes the only way to be faithful to the mission of a place is to leave them to the person who can better serve the next stage of their ministry. So I left. I shook the dust from my feet and moved on. Their pastor now is doing things with them I never could have done. Because there can be blessing in the leaving.
The final stanza of the poem on this text I have on the wall in my office goes like this: I promise you There is a blessing In the leaving, In the dust shed From your shoes As you walk toward home— Not the one you left But the one that waits ahead, The one that already reaches out for you In welcome, in gladness For the gifts That none but you could bring. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The poem quoted is "A Blessing in the Dust" by Jan Richardson. The full poem can be read at her website: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/06/30/a-blessing-in-the-dust/
There are times for leaning into the resistance that meets us; times when God calls us to engage the difficulty and struggle that will shape and form us in ways that ease and comfort never can…There is ground that becomes holy only when we remain long enough to see the blessing that can emerge from struggle, that shimmers only after the dust the struggle has kicked up finally begins to settle.
And then there are times for leaving; times when—as Jesus counsels his disciples—the holy thing to do is to shake the dust from our feet and leave behind a place that is not meant for us. This blessing is for those times.
I, like many of you, am one for “leaning into the resistance that meets us.” I think this is a lovely way to say that one is stubborn. This sometimes plays itself out in humorous ways. As most of you are aware, I finally moved this week. The hold up was a couple pieces of furniture that were too big for me to manage on my own. I had a couple of friends who were supposed to help me, but we kept being unable to connect. At one point I got so frustrated in my inability to line up help that I decided I didn’t need help. I could move a recliner by myself. There were various points in this process where I was reminded that this was an example of very poor decision making, for example coming down stairs out of my apartment that were barely wide enough for me and my recliner, or the point where my grip strength gave out as I tried to navigate two doors to get into the family room. But, I’m stubborn, and I got that recliner in, miraculously in one piece, and then collapsed, a scraped up, bruised, exhausted dust ball, but a dust ball that was dependent on no one in order to move a recliner! Luckily, I managed to coordinate schedules with a friend before I got equally ambitious about my desk and couch. Those would have ended poorly…
So I’ve always struggled with Jesus’ injunction to the disciples here to take nothing with them, to remain in the same house and eat whatever is provided. There is a level of dependency in the ministry that Jesus describes, that I just am not comfortable with. I want to be helpful to those I am ministering to, I want to free them from work, make things easy, help them out. I come by this honestly; it was drilled into me at an early age. When my family, including my grandparents, would visit my great-aunt in San Diego, on the day we were supposed to leave, my grandmother would literally sneak around the house and clean, with the goal of leaving my great-aunt’s house nicer then it was when we came. The problem with this was that inevitably a couple days later my cousin would call, my great-aunt’s glasses had been cleaned so well as to have disappeared, and might Nana remember where she’d put them?
That’s the problem with being to helpful and accommodating as a guest, there is actually a point when being helpful becomes unhelpful and distancing. When our own independence, our desire to do things for ourselves, and not bother others can break down our relationships. Jesus’ point here is that there is more gift in being a partner in ministry than a provider of it. Providing ministry, as well-intentioned as the provider might be, forces a power dynamic into the relationship. By having the disciples carry nothing with them; Jesus levels the power structure and allows the disciples and the villages to be equal partners in the spreading of the kingdom of God.
This is a powerful lesson not just for the disciples, but also for us. There is gift in letting others help us. There is gift in expanding the work load of the mission. To jump back to my moving analogy from earlier, I did get a friend to help with the last couple pieces of furniture, and there was gift in that. Not just in the fact that I didn’t end up crushed under a futon at the bottom of a staircase. But in giving my friend the opportunity to help me. Our friendship was strengthened in him carrying half my couch and crowd-sourcing the solution that will one day allow me to have a bed frame in my bedroom and not in my living room.
There is a level of vulnerability in allowing another to help us, but that very vulnerability can itself be transformative. If you remember, one of the on-going themes in Luke is Jesus breaking down the social barriers between those who are in, faithful Jews, scribes, Pharisees, and those who follow the law, and those who are out, sinners, tax collectors, gentiles, and the like. When Jesus sent the disciples out, he commanded them to “eat what is set before you.” This subtle statement about how to be a good guest is also a powerful dismantling of social barriers. This isn’t Jesus either telling the disciples to suck it up and deal if they don’t like tomatoes or to suffer in silence if they have a food allergy. Remember, what a person ate was a mark of social acceptance. Jesus was forbidding the disciples to give themselves airs and refuse so-called “unclean food.” It is a foreshadowing of Peter’s vision in Acts, where God declared, “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” If these people, to whom you have been sent by Jesus to spread the kingdom of God to, have offered you a meal, then the meal is clean, they are your partners in the Gospel, and you are to eat what they give you.
Verse eight is really a great model for ministry. Step one, “eat what is set before you.” Create community through humility and allowing others to serve you. Step two, “cure the sick.” So, once you’ve created community, seen others as your equal, recognized our interdependence on each other, then we get to do the part we’re best at. The helping part. There is a need for helping, for service. But authentic helping comes out of authentic relationships, not the other way around. Our community gets the privilege of seeing the truth of this statement every day in the work of the Woman’s Co-op. Co-op means the women are partners with each other. They are able to help each other so effectively because they recognize their interdependence. And then, step three is to say to those with whom you are now in relationship, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Part of the authentic relationships that Jesus is leading the disciples to here is the vulnerability and trust to share the source of their motivation. Once you’ve been served by someone, once you’ve in return served them, isn’t it also a gift to share with them, my peace comes through my relationship with Jesus Christ, can I tell you about that?
Step one, eat what is set before you. Step two, cure the sick. Step three, say that the kingdom of God has come near. Spreading the good news of the kingdom of God is as simple as that. I see us living this out in our community through our various summer initiatives. Step one, eat what is set before you. OK, so we’re not the ones doing the eating this summer with the Meet Up and Eat Up initiative through Harper Creek or through Freeze Pop Summer, but we are meeting people on neutral ground. There are no requirements for this space, no class they have to take or program they need to attend or way they need to be. These programs are entirely driven by what our neighbors want. If they want lunch and freeze pops they come, if they don’t, they don’t. If they want to stay and chat, they stay and chat. If they want to take their freeze pop and leave, they do that too. We “eat” if you will, whatever relationship they set before us. Step two, cure the sick. See a need and meet it. There are a lot of kids in our neighborhood, and during the summer some of those kids don’t have enough to eat. We have a bus delivering lunches in our parking lot. There is a need, and now there is a solution. Step three, say that the kingdom of God has come near. We’re not there yet. Nor should we be, we’re three weeks into the summer. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there. Folk know we are a church. They know we pray for them. They’re beginning to ask us for prayer, they’re beginning to trust us with stories. It’s week three, so I’m still using us and them language, but I think by the end of the summer it won’t be us and them. It will be Trinity folk who come Sunday mornings and sometimes other times throughout the week, and Trinity folk who come at lunchtime and sometimes other times throughout the week.
There will be people this won’t work for. And you know what, Jesus told his disciples, that’s OK. Shake the dust from your feet and move on. Not being received by someone is neither a failure on your part nor a cruelty on theirs. Sometimes it takes a while for the relationship to build, sometimes you are not the best person to build the relationship. That’s OK. Jesus went on, “Yet know this; the kingdom of God has come near.” Even when the disciples were rejected from a town, the kingdom of God was still present in that place. Because the kingdom of God was not dependent on the disciples’ ability to give it or the village’s ability to receive it. The kingdom of God is dependent only on the presence of Jesus. Like an ocean wave, it comes again and again, until all the world is caught up in his glory. So when we are not the messengers, we are free to walk away, knowing that our God is a God of resurrection, and hope coming out of the most unlikely places is exactly the way God operates.
I started this sermon by sharing that this text was one I clung to when I was discerning leaving my last call. I loved that congregation. We had been through so much together that walking away from them felt like abandoning the mission. But one of the truths of being a pastor is sometimes the only way to be faithful to the mission of a place is to leave them to the person who can better serve the next stage of their ministry. So I left. I shook the dust from my feet and moved on. Their pastor now is doing things with them I never could have done. Because there can be blessing in the leaving.
The final stanza of the poem on this text I have on the wall in my office goes like this: I promise you There is a blessing In the leaving, In the dust shed From your shoes As you walk toward home— Not the one you left But the one that waits ahead, The one that already reaches out for you In welcome, in gladness For the gifts That none but you could bring. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The poem quoted is "A Blessing in the Dust" by Jan Richardson. The full poem can be read at her website: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/06/30/a-blessing-in-the-dust/
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