After last week’s story about Jesus breaking the rules and healing on the sabbath, this passage feels like a bit of whip-lash. If the synopsis of last week’s teaching from Jesus was “break all the rules,” this week’s seems to be “how to game the system.” Last week, Jesus was a rebel for justice, this week he’s a shrewd Miss Manners, here’s how to use etiquette to win friends and influence people.
The section the lectionary gives us is a bit jumpy, because verses two to six are almost the exact same story we heard last week, about Jesus healing on the sabbath to the annoyance of the religious leaders. But in this healing there are a couple of key differences that are worth pointing out before we get into this morning’s text.
Like last week, once again Jesus was in the company of Pharisees on the sabbath, and once again a person in need of healing, this time a man with dropsy, was there also. Last week, with the woman who was crippled Jesus called her over and healed her immediately, and the Pharisees were irate. But this week, Jesus seemed to have wised up a bit. Instead of healing the man, he first turned to the religious leaders and asked, “so what do you think, should I heal this guy on the sabbath?” Which is a super shrewd question. There is a law against working on the sabbath, we know that from last week. But there is also a law about failing to help a neighbor in need. So whatever the Pharisees said, they would be breaking a law. If they said, yes, heal on the sabbath, then they were hypocrites and law breakers, and if they said no, don’t heal on the sabbath, they were cruel and heartless and law-breakers. It is a lose-lose for the Pharisees. So they just stayed silent. Jesus healed the man, and then chided the Pharisees for their hypocrisy anyway.
So Jesus already had the Pharisees on edge when he launched into these parables about humility and hospitality. At least, Luke called them parables. But they really don’t sound like any of the other parables we’ve heard. Take for example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the rich fool, the parable of the Prodigal Son, all of these are stories told in the third person. Even the shorter parables, like the lost sheep and the lost coin we’ll hear in a couple weeks, are stories about someone else. But here, Jesus said, “when you are invited,” “when you give a luncheon.” These don’t sound like parables, they sound like advice.
And shrewd advice at that, at least the first one. When you are invited, do not sit at the place of honor. Instead, sit at the lowest place, because then you will be moved to a higher place, and will be honored for your humility. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like fishing for compliments to me. It’s like doing something nice for someone, and then making a big deal about how “it wasn’t that big of a deal,” so they are forced to thank you again for whatever nice thing you did. Yeah, you might get recognition, but you’re also “that guy.” And then the second piece of advice seems really tricky. Don’t invite your friends to your parties, invite the people who can’t pay you back, so that your reward will be at the resurrection of the righteous. The Bible conversation groups, and I’m with them, had a lot of problems with this piece of Jesus’ advice. First off, if you are inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, etc., so that God will reward you, isn’t that works righteousness? Isn’t that doing something to earn God’s pleasure, really not a thing we believe in as Lutherans? And second, and here’s a great point that gets really confusing, if we are inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame, to our dinner parties so that God will be pleased with us, aren’t we still othering them? Aren’t we still seeing them as less than us? How do we do that Jesus?! How do we invite those who cannot pay us back while simultaneously not treating them as inferior or doing it just to earn God’s favor? If this is advice, I’m not sure I understand it.
So, what if it’s not advice? What if, like Luke said, it is a parable? Remember what parables are, short tales that illustrate a universal truth. Jesus’ parables usually communicate truths on various levels, a surface level about how we should live now, and a deeper description of the nature of the kingdom of God. For example, the Good Samaritan is a story urging us to care for everyone as our neighbor, and a deeper truth about God who comes to us on the side of the road and cares for us.
So if these sayings are not advice but parables, what if the “you” Jesus is talking about is not us, but God. What if what Jesus is saying is that when God throws a banquet, God does not invite the people who can pay God back for God’s generosity. Because who could possibly pay God back for all that God has done. No, when God throws a banquet, God invites everyone, the poor, the lame, the crippled, the blind. And I would guess again, if this is a parable, that we’re not only talking about physical lameness, poverty, blindness, etc. Physical ailments certainly, but also people who are poor in relationships, who are made lame by addiction, who are blind to systems of injustice, who are crippled by sin. So, you know, all of us. One of the great truths I learned in my time working for a homeless shelter that hosted AA meetings is that we are all in recovery from something, only some of us are lucky enough to realize it.
So if Luke is right, and these are parables, then maybe what Jesus was saying to the crowd and to us is, you’re already invited to the banquet. You don’t need to play this complicated game of sitting in certain places, and wrangling for attention, and trying to earn the best place at the table, because you’re already on the guest list, your seat is already reserved.
You’re already invited to the banquet. You don’t need to worry about status or dress codes or making sure you’re with the right crowd, because you are already invited to the banquet. And guess what else, not only are you already invited to the banquet, but you already have a seat, the best seat, because God is the sort of guest who always takes the lowest seat at the table to make sure others are served. Not out of some sort of show of humility, because God wants us to tell God how great God is all the time, and raise God up to the highest seat. No, God takes the lowest seat, because God knows that humility is not self-deprecation, it is honesty. God doesn’t need the false humility of self-deprecation, because God knows God’s own majesty, and God wants others to know just how fondly God thinks of them. God wants others to have the experience of being honored. God wants us, God’s own good creation to know that we are beloved, and God loves us.
I think this is a parable, and this is how it should be interpreted, because this is parable whose truth we experience every Sunday. Every Sunday we gather, on the sabbath, no less, for a meal. God is the host and we are the guests. God invites us to this meal, even though there is nothing we have done to earn it, no way we can every repay God for the invitation. So we come, the invited crippled, lame, poor, and blind, to the table God has set for us. At the table, we do not jockey for position, because there is no place more honorable than another. Every seat is the place of honor; every seat is the best seat. Every seat is the seat God has left, taking a lower seat in order to raise us up.
And because we experience this deeper level of the parable. Because we experience every Sunday the truth illustrated of God the host inviting the unworthy to the feast, God the guest giving the place of honor to us, because we experience that to be true, then we can live the surface level meaning of this parable. We can be the guests, giving the place of honor to others. Not to raise ourselves up in some show of false humility, because we do not need false humility when we know just how well God thinks of us, but to raise them up, to help them see how much God loves them. We can be the hosts, inviting those who will never pay us back, to the banquet. Not to earn God’s good graces for how great we are, but because we are so confident in the love God feels for us that there is nothing we can do but spread that love out in return.
So come to the table where God is the host, come to the table where God takes the lower seat so that we might be filled. Come to the table of grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Monday, August 29, 2016
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 14:1, 7-14
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:
• In the interest of space and time, the lectionary leaves out verses 2-6, which is the parallel story to last week’s story of the healing of the crippled woman. This week, Jesus encountered a man who had dropsy (it is once again unclear if the man was there specifically for healing, or if he was simply present). This time, instead of immediately healing the man, as he did to the woman, Jesus first asked the Pharisees whether it was lawful to cure on the sabbath. Jesus really had them in a pickle. If they said yes, it was lawful, then they were condoning working on the sabbath. But if they said no, then they were neglecting the needs of their neighbor, which was also a violation of the law (“love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself”). When the Pharisees did not respond, Jesus healed the man and once again used an argument from lesser to greater, this time about helping an ox or child who had fallen into a well.
• We’ve talked a lot about Jesus’ meal politics in Luke’s Gospel and about the honor/shame code that was prevalent in first century Palestine. This quote from Pliny the Younger paints a clear picture of just how foreign to our culture these meals were: “Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wine; but you are not to suppose it was that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of lower order (for you must know that he measures out his friendship according to the degree of quality); and the third for his own freed-men and mine.”
• Proverbs 25:6-7 reads: “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” At first read, Jesus seems to simply be harkening back to this proverb. In an honor/shame culture, this is good advice, because it avoids shame and allows for the opportunity for a public display of honor. But is this no more than Jesus teaching a better way to play the social game? It seems like there’s more than that. Jesus tells the guests not to sit a few seats down, but to “sit at the lowest place,” calling to mind Jesus words that the first will be last and the last will be first. Also the word translated as “honor” is doxa, or “glory,” pointing beyond earthly recognition to recognition from God.
• On humility, Frederick Buechner writes: “Humility is often confused with the gentlemanly self-deprecation of saying you’re not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are. Conscious or otherwise, this kind of humility is a form of gamesmanship. If you really aren’t much of a bridge player, you’re apt to be rather proud of yourself for admitting it so humbly. This kind of humility is a form of low comedy. True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do.”
Works Sourced:
Buechner, Frederick. Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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:
• In the interest of space and time, the lectionary leaves out verses 2-6, which is the parallel story to last week’s story of the healing of the crippled woman. This week, Jesus encountered a man who had dropsy (it is once again unclear if the man was there specifically for healing, or if he was simply present). This time, instead of immediately healing the man, as he did to the woman, Jesus first asked the Pharisees whether it was lawful to cure on the sabbath. Jesus really had them in a pickle. If they said yes, it was lawful, then they were condoning working on the sabbath. But if they said no, then they were neglecting the needs of their neighbor, which was also a violation of the law (“love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself”). When the Pharisees did not respond, Jesus healed the man and once again used an argument from lesser to greater, this time about helping an ox or child who had fallen into a well.
• We’ve talked a lot about Jesus’ meal politics in Luke’s Gospel and about the honor/shame code that was prevalent in first century Palestine. This quote from Pliny the Younger paints a clear picture of just how foreign to our culture these meals were: “Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wine; but you are not to suppose it was that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of lower order (for you must know that he measures out his friendship according to the degree of quality); and the third for his own freed-men and mine.”
• Proverbs 25:6-7 reads: “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” At first read, Jesus seems to simply be harkening back to this proverb. In an honor/shame culture, this is good advice, because it avoids shame and allows for the opportunity for a public display of honor. But is this no more than Jesus teaching a better way to play the social game? It seems like there’s more than that. Jesus tells the guests not to sit a few seats down, but to “sit at the lowest place,” calling to mind Jesus words that the first will be last and the last will be first. Also the word translated as “honor” is doxa, or “glory,” pointing beyond earthly recognition to recognition from God.
• On humility, Frederick Buechner writes: “Humility is often confused with the gentlemanly self-deprecation of saying you’re not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are. Conscious or otherwise, this kind of humility is a form of gamesmanship. If you really aren’t much of a bridge player, you’re apt to be rather proud of yourself for admitting it so humbly. This kind of humility is a form of low comedy. True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do.”
Works Sourced:
Buechner, Frederick. Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973.
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, August 22, 2016
Good News for Rule-Followers and Rule-Breakers: A Sermon on Luke 13:10-17
Let me make one statement before we begin. I love rules. I love them. I love rules and policies and plans. They make me feel secure. I love the consistency of rules. If you do this, then this happens, if you do that, then that happens. In my perfect world, there would be a clearly stated rule for everything, and everyone would abide by said rules, and it would be very orderly and safe.
Except, here is the problem with this. The world doesn’t work that way because the world, unfortunately, is full of people. And people are not predictable. People do not always follow the rules and act in an orderly and consistent manner. This, as a rule-follower, is very frustrating for me. If we all just played by the rules, I want to shout at these rebels, everything would work out fine. Of course, that too is also not true. There is also the potential for problems with the rules themselves because rules are written and interpreted by people. Which means some rules are not good rules. Some rules are written by people in power to hold onto power and hurt other people. I shutter to think of what horrors my rule-following tendencies might have meant in the Jim Crow era south, for example, or Hitler’s Germany.
Then there are good rules, rules that are orderly and good and life giving, that are interpreted poorly. Poor interpretation of a good rule is I think exactly what we have going on in our Gospel reading for today. So before we get into the reading itself, let’s talk a little bit about Sabbath keeping, what it is, and what it’s for.
Sabbath is from the Hebrew verb “shabbot,” which means to cease or to rest. It has its origin in the Summerian word, “sa-bat,” “sa” from the word for “heart” and “bat” for “rest.” So sa-bat, shabbot, is literally “heart rest.” Sabbath-keeping has its basis in the idea that humans cannot work all the time, we need time to rest, recover, recharge, in order to be at our best. Studies prove this idea correct. There is not a direct correlation between hours worked and productivity. For a while more hours equals more accomplished, but we reach a point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and we become less and less able to function. There is also a humanitarian aspect of Sabbath-keeping. For the ancient Israelis, Sabbath rest applied not just to them, but to their slaves and animals as well. It was a day for everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike, to rest, relax, and reconnect, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. In the subsistence culture of antiquity, an entire day devoted to rest would have set the Jews apart from their neighbors, reflecting God’s promise that they were a nation set apart by God.
Sabbath in the Jewish tradition is a day to refrain from work. The Jews remember that God is the creator by refraining from everything created. But that does not mean that the Sabbath is supposed to be somber. Quite the opposite, actually. There are a lot of “thou shalls” in Sabbath law. Jews are encouraged to be joyful on the Sabbath, to dress in their finest clothes, to have guests over to share the Sabbath meal with them. Fasting is forbidden on the Sabbath, and sex is encouraged. The Jewish tradition personifies this day of rest, honoring her as “Sabbath queen,” and at the close of the Sabbath a special prayer is said, along with spices “to restore the soul saddened by the departure of this day.”
Rest, relaxation, reconnection with one’s creator physically, mentally, and spiritually. Study of scripture to gladden the soul, communal meals with friends and family, good food, good company, good conversation. What does this not sound like? The expectation of our Pharisees in the Gospel reading today.
Our reading opens with Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Study of Torah is encouraged on the Sabbath, because the study of the Torah is not considered work, it is a joy. Remember, this is not the twenty-first century, where so many of us have desk jobs. In a subsistence culture, the ability to do nothing all day but sit and study would be the height of leisure, a luxury available to only the wealthiest, were it not for the Sabbath. And Jesus, remember is a devout Jew. Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath because that is where a Jew is supposed to be on the Sabbath. So the problem that was about to emerge was not with the Sabbath itself, it is about the way the Pharisees were applying their understanding of the Sabbath.
So Jesus was in the synagogue, and all of a sudden he saw a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years. So Jesus called her over and said, “woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Did you catch that; Jesus called her over. People often came to Jesus for healing, but this doesn’t seem to be that. We don’t know why she was in the synagogue that day. Maybe she’d come for healing. Maybe to hear Jesus teach. Maybe she went to the synagogue every Sabbath, but because of her infirmity, no one had noticed her before. Why ever she was there, she seemed to have been minding her own business until Jesus called her over, laid his hands on her, and healed her.
And then, the reading says, “immediately she stood up and began praising God.” Except, that’s not actually a good translation of the Greek. A better translation is, “immediately she was stood up and began praising God.” She was stood up. It happened to her. On a day set aside for not doing work, the woman did no work on the way to her own healing. Even the act of standing up is a thing that was done to her. She, for the first time in eighteen long years, eighteen years where every step must have felt like such agonizing work, experienced the true, reconnecting, rejuvenating power of Sabbath rest. And the freedom of the burden of those eighteen twisted years made her shout for joy at what God had done for her.
But the Pharisees were mad. And in a way, I get their anger. They had built their entire lives around following the rules, and suddenly it felt like the rules that gave their lives purpose, were just being done away with. I get it, but I also have to admit the problem with their logic. The law, which was a good law, but the law as they were interpreting it only benefited them. Sabbath is about rest, reconnect, and rejuvenation, and they were trying to turn it into a day where everyone saw just how good and faithful they were. They were using this life-giving law in a way that kept others from life.
See here’s the thing about laws. They really are good. We need them. Humans need order and structure to be able to flourish. As tempting as anarchy might seem, it is really not good for us. I mean, at the most juvenile example, think about how sick you feel if you throw out the food pyramid and eat nothing but ice cream for a day. Feels great at first sure, but by the end, not so much. Even the Kingdom of God has laws, because too much freedom is itself a form of oppression. But the laws in the Kingdom of God are always freeing. The laws in the Kingdom of God area always life-giving. The laws in the Kingdom of God always draw us closer into relationship with God and with each other, always bring us into our best selves, always encourage, empower, and strengthen us. If a law does not do that. If it separates someone, hurts someone, oppresses someone, or puts someone down then it is either not God’s law, or it is not being applied correctly.
So for those of you who, like me, are rule-followers, Good news! God is pro-rules. In the Kingdom of God there is order and structure. But here’s the challenge for us rule-followers, in the already and not yet of our current reality, not all rules are God’s rules. So there are times when we have to break the rules in order to experience the kingdom and to bring the kingdom to others. It is not, my dear rule-following siblings, as clear cut as we would really prefer.
And for those of you who are rebels, who live to break the rules, Good news! Just because it is a rule, doesn’t mean it’s good. We need to go out and shake the structures so that God’s freedom can prevail. And we need people like you to lead the charge, and to drag us rule-followers along. But here is your challenge. The kingdom of God is a team sport. Be careful that your love of challenging everything does not lead you to isolation or individualism. Some rules bring life, and are there for a reason. Freedom is not the same as anarchy, tempting as it might sound.
Good news for rule-followers and rule-breakers. But challenge for both of us too. Confusing and frustrating and freeing and life-giving, yep, sounds about right for our creative, challenging, bringing order from chaos and upending the order of death to wrest life from its clutches God. God is predictably unpredictable. That is the beautiful, wonderful, life-giving nature of resurrection. Amen.
Except, here is the problem with this. The world doesn’t work that way because the world, unfortunately, is full of people. And people are not predictable. People do not always follow the rules and act in an orderly and consistent manner. This, as a rule-follower, is very frustrating for me. If we all just played by the rules, I want to shout at these rebels, everything would work out fine. Of course, that too is also not true. There is also the potential for problems with the rules themselves because rules are written and interpreted by people. Which means some rules are not good rules. Some rules are written by people in power to hold onto power and hurt other people. I shutter to think of what horrors my rule-following tendencies might have meant in the Jim Crow era south, for example, or Hitler’s Germany.
Then there are good rules, rules that are orderly and good and life giving, that are interpreted poorly. Poor interpretation of a good rule is I think exactly what we have going on in our Gospel reading for today. So before we get into the reading itself, let’s talk a little bit about Sabbath keeping, what it is, and what it’s for.
Sabbath is from the Hebrew verb “shabbot,” which means to cease or to rest. It has its origin in the Summerian word, “sa-bat,” “sa” from the word for “heart” and “bat” for “rest.” So sa-bat, shabbot, is literally “heart rest.” Sabbath-keeping has its basis in the idea that humans cannot work all the time, we need time to rest, recover, recharge, in order to be at our best. Studies prove this idea correct. There is not a direct correlation between hours worked and productivity. For a while more hours equals more accomplished, but we reach a point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and we become less and less able to function. There is also a humanitarian aspect of Sabbath-keeping. For the ancient Israelis, Sabbath rest applied not just to them, but to their slaves and animals as well. It was a day for everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike, to rest, relax, and reconnect, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. In the subsistence culture of antiquity, an entire day devoted to rest would have set the Jews apart from their neighbors, reflecting God’s promise that they were a nation set apart by God.
Sabbath in the Jewish tradition is a day to refrain from work. The Jews remember that God is the creator by refraining from everything created. But that does not mean that the Sabbath is supposed to be somber. Quite the opposite, actually. There are a lot of “thou shalls” in Sabbath law. Jews are encouraged to be joyful on the Sabbath, to dress in their finest clothes, to have guests over to share the Sabbath meal with them. Fasting is forbidden on the Sabbath, and sex is encouraged. The Jewish tradition personifies this day of rest, honoring her as “Sabbath queen,” and at the close of the Sabbath a special prayer is said, along with spices “to restore the soul saddened by the departure of this day.”
Rest, relaxation, reconnection with one’s creator physically, mentally, and spiritually. Study of scripture to gladden the soul, communal meals with friends and family, good food, good company, good conversation. What does this not sound like? The expectation of our Pharisees in the Gospel reading today.
Our reading opens with Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Study of Torah is encouraged on the Sabbath, because the study of the Torah is not considered work, it is a joy. Remember, this is not the twenty-first century, where so many of us have desk jobs. In a subsistence culture, the ability to do nothing all day but sit and study would be the height of leisure, a luxury available to only the wealthiest, were it not for the Sabbath. And Jesus, remember is a devout Jew. Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath because that is where a Jew is supposed to be on the Sabbath. So the problem that was about to emerge was not with the Sabbath itself, it is about the way the Pharisees were applying their understanding of the Sabbath.
So Jesus was in the synagogue, and all of a sudden he saw a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years. So Jesus called her over and said, “woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Did you catch that; Jesus called her over. People often came to Jesus for healing, but this doesn’t seem to be that. We don’t know why she was in the synagogue that day. Maybe she’d come for healing. Maybe to hear Jesus teach. Maybe she went to the synagogue every Sabbath, but because of her infirmity, no one had noticed her before. Why ever she was there, she seemed to have been minding her own business until Jesus called her over, laid his hands on her, and healed her.
And then, the reading says, “immediately she stood up and began praising God.” Except, that’s not actually a good translation of the Greek. A better translation is, “immediately she was stood up and began praising God.” She was stood up. It happened to her. On a day set aside for not doing work, the woman did no work on the way to her own healing. Even the act of standing up is a thing that was done to her. She, for the first time in eighteen long years, eighteen years where every step must have felt like such agonizing work, experienced the true, reconnecting, rejuvenating power of Sabbath rest. And the freedom of the burden of those eighteen twisted years made her shout for joy at what God had done for her.
But the Pharisees were mad. And in a way, I get their anger. They had built their entire lives around following the rules, and suddenly it felt like the rules that gave their lives purpose, were just being done away with. I get it, but I also have to admit the problem with their logic. The law, which was a good law, but the law as they were interpreting it only benefited them. Sabbath is about rest, reconnect, and rejuvenation, and they were trying to turn it into a day where everyone saw just how good and faithful they were. They were using this life-giving law in a way that kept others from life.
See here’s the thing about laws. They really are good. We need them. Humans need order and structure to be able to flourish. As tempting as anarchy might seem, it is really not good for us. I mean, at the most juvenile example, think about how sick you feel if you throw out the food pyramid and eat nothing but ice cream for a day. Feels great at first sure, but by the end, not so much. Even the Kingdom of God has laws, because too much freedom is itself a form of oppression. But the laws in the Kingdom of God are always freeing. The laws in the Kingdom of God area always life-giving. The laws in the Kingdom of God always draw us closer into relationship with God and with each other, always bring us into our best selves, always encourage, empower, and strengthen us. If a law does not do that. If it separates someone, hurts someone, oppresses someone, or puts someone down then it is either not God’s law, or it is not being applied correctly.
So for those of you who, like me, are rule-followers, Good news! God is pro-rules. In the Kingdom of God there is order and structure. But here’s the challenge for us rule-followers, in the already and not yet of our current reality, not all rules are God’s rules. So there are times when we have to break the rules in order to experience the kingdom and to bring the kingdom to others. It is not, my dear rule-following siblings, as clear cut as we would really prefer.
And for those of you who are rebels, who live to break the rules, Good news! Just because it is a rule, doesn’t mean it’s good. We need to go out and shake the structures so that God’s freedom can prevail. And we need people like you to lead the charge, and to drag us rule-followers along. But here is your challenge. The kingdom of God is a team sport. Be careful that your love of challenging everything does not lead you to isolation or individualism. Some rules bring life, and are there for a reason. Freedom is not the same as anarchy, tempting as it might sound.
Good news for rule-followers and rule-breakers. But challenge for both of us too. Confusing and frustrating and freeing and life-giving, yep, sounds about right for our creative, challenging, bringing order from chaos and upending the order of death to wrest life from its clutches God. God is predictably unpredictable. That is the beautiful, wonderful, life-giving nature of resurrection. Amen.
Monday, August 15, 2016
The Peace of Division: A Sermon on Luke 12:49-56
Whoa, who’s this Jesus?! Last week’s text was maybe a little rough, with the thief in the night metaphor and the sell all your processions, but it started with that soft, comforting, “do not be afraid, little flock,” so it felt like we had something to work with. And then here we are, just a couple verses later, and suddenly Jesus is all, “I came to bring fire to the earth… Do you think I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Whoa, whoa, wait a minute here Jesus. Number one, it was not all that many weeks ago that James and John wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans and you called them off. And now, all of a sudden, you’re cool with the fire thing? And two, yes, I did kind of think you have come to bring peace, because that’s what’s been said about you throughout the whole rest of the Gospel. That’s what the angels sang at your birth. That’s what you told your disciples to bring when they went out to spread the message. I know you are “under stress” right now, but this feels like a pretty dramatic shift from where we’d been going up to this point. What are we to do with a Jesus like this?
This passage might feel a bit out of place reading it now, in August, but the fact is there HAS been a dramatic shift in where Jesus is going. In Luke chapter nine, after Jesus came down from the transfiguration, he “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” And that’s where we going now. We’re going to Jerusalem; we’re going to the cross. Though it is today the middle of August, in our text it is the waning days of Lent, and Jesus’ crucifixion is drawing near. We may feel happily on the road with Jesus, but Jesus felt the urgency of the events ahead, and it was crucial to him that his followers were ready for what is about to happen.
Because of course, you’ll remember, his followers had no idea what was about to happen. They were still totally convinced that they were going to Jerusalem to take over the government. And then Jesus would be king, and they would all be high ranking officials, the Romans would be driven out, things would be back to the way they were during the great days of King David. And all of this would happen peacefully and easily, with minimal stress and no bloodshed. Just puppies and rainbows and King Jesus on his throne. The disciples could already see the image painted hundreds of years in the future in Sunday school classrooms the world over, the soft-focused kingly Jesus draped in white with a warm glowing light ringing his head, calm, quiet, and collected.
Oh my gosh, how badly do we want peace like that. How badly do we want peace to be calm, orderly, quiet, and safe. We want it so bad, that we are willing to go to any means to get it, even if it means silencing any who might disrupt that quiet. But quiet and calm are not same as peace. In fact, quiet and calm can be the very opposite of peace. When calm covers oppression, there is no peace. When order is injustice, there is no peace. When quiet silences those in need, there is no peace. When safety comes at the expense of others, there is no peace. The prophet Jeremiah has harsh words for those who “treat the wounds of people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.”
Because peace, true peace, is never quiet. Peace, true peace, is never calm. Peace is standing up to injustice. Peace is toppling the status quo. Peace is speaking truth to power and proclaiming life in the midst of death. This too was predicted at Jesus birth. When he was brought to the Temple as an infant, Simeon proclaimed Jesus as the “salvation… prepared in the presence of all people.” And in addition to salvation, Simeon proclaimed, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” What Jesus was telling his disciples was that that peace is not easy, that peace will come at a cost, and the cost will be Jesus’ own life.
And that, brothers and sisters, is the incredible, life-changing, earth-shattering good news of this pretty scary sounding passage. Jesus loves us too much to settle for the false peace of silencing dissent. Jesus loves us too much to settle for the false peace of the status quo of injustice. Jesus loves us too much to put his own safety above life for us. There is a tendency to want to read this passage as prescriptive. Too often this passage and passages like it have been used to divide us against each other. But I think this passage is really descriptive, I think this passage is about assuring the disciples, and us, that division does not mean that the kingdom of God is not here, but in fact division might just be proof of the emergence of the kingdom. When Jesus and his disciples got to Jerusalem they were met with angry crowds, corrupt rulers, and even deception from their own people. Things got so dark that the disciples ran in fear. But the cross, that most divisive tool, imposing death on life, became in fact the way in which God conquered death and wrested life back from death. Jesus could have sought easy peace and stayed away from Jerusalem, but Jesus loved us too much for such fake peace. Instead Jesus stormed right into the midst of division and drew us with him into resurrection.
The peace that Jesus came to bring always involves risk. There’s a great quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that reads, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security... Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God.”
This is a bold statement, but when I think back on the history of the world, the followers of Jesus have always been at our best when we have followed in the footsteps of Jesus and risked division for the sake of the Gospel. Martin Luther embraced division when he nailed the ninety-five theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg and declared that God’s grace was a free gift for everyone. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced division when he led the civil rights marchers over the Edmund Pettis Bridge and into the hands of the waiting state troopers. In our own denomination, the ELCA embraced division in 2009, when we declared that people of all gender identities and sexual orientations were created in the image of God and could be called by God as pastors and leaders in God’s church. It would have been easier in all of these situations, to turn away, stay with the status quo, and settle for a quieter peace, but it would have been at the cost of justice, it would have been at the cost of life.
It can be hard to step forward and enter into division. For so long, for too long, our tradition and our culture have fed us a soft, sweet Jesus, who would never say a cross word to anyone or stir up any trouble. And if some of God’s children got stepped on in the process, well, such was the cost of calm. But, dear people of God, Jesus loves you simply too much for that. When you are in pain, when you are held back, when someone tells you that you don’t matter, that you are less than, to keep quiet and wait your turn, Jesus will march in there and shake the very powers of heaven itself to bring you to freedom.
And because Jesus has marched into division to bring us to freedom, we can be bold to follow in Christ’s footsteps. We too can speak out against injustice. We too can proclaim truth. We too can shake the powers of earth and see God’s kingdom come among us. Be bold, dear people of God, because Jesus loves you even more boldly. Thanks be to God. Amen.
This passage might feel a bit out of place reading it now, in August, but the fact is there HAS been a dramatic shift in where Jesus is going. In Luke chapter nine, after Jesus came down from the transfiguration, he “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” And that’s where we going now. We’re going to Jerusalem; we’re going to the cross. Though it is today the middle of August, in our text it is the waning days of Lent, and Jesus’ crucifixion is drawing near. We may feel happily on the road with Jesus, but Jesus felt the urgency of the events ahead, and it was crucial to him that his followers were ready for what is about to happen.
Because of course, you’ll remember, his followers had no idea what was about to happen. They were still totally convinced that they were going to Jerusalem to take over the government. And then Jesus would be king, and they would all be high ranking officials, the Romans would be driven out, things would be back to the way they were during the great days of King David. And all of this would happen peacefully and easily, with minimal stress and no bloodshed. Just puppies and rainbows and King Jesus on his throne. The disciples could already see the image painted hundreds of years in the future in Sunday school classrooms the world over, the soft-focused kingly Jesus draped in white with a warm glowing light ringing his head, calm, quiet, and collected.
Oh my gosh, how badly do we want peace like that. How badly do we want peace to be calm, orderly, quiet, and safe. We want it so bad, that we are willing to go to any means to get it, even if it means silencing any who might disrupt that quiet. But quiet and calm are not same as peace. In fact, quiet and calm can be the very opposite of peace. When calm covers oppression, there is no peace. When order is injustice, there is no peace. When quiet silences those in need, there is no peace. When safety comes at the expense of others, there is no peace. The prophet Jeremiah has harsh words for those who “treat the wounds of people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.”
Because peace, true peace, is never quiet. Peace, true peace, is never calm. Peace is standing up to injustice. Peace is toppling the status quo. Peace is speaking truth to power and proclaiming life in the midst of death. This too was predicted at Jesus birth. When he was brought to the Temple as an infant, Simeon proclaimed Jesus as the “salvation… prepared in the presence of all people.” And in addition to salvation, Simeon proclaimed, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” What Jesus was telling his disciples was that that peace is not easy, that peace will come at a cost, and the cost will be Jesus’ own life.
And that, brothers and sisters, is the incredible, life-changing, earth-shattering good news of this pretty scary sounding passage. Jesus loves us too much to settle for the false peace of silencing dissent. Jesus loves us too much to settle for the false peace of the status quo of injustice. Jesus loves us too much to put his own safety above life for us. There is a tendency to want to read this passage as prescriptive. Too often this passage and passages like it have been used to divide us against each other. But I think this passage is really descriptive, I think this passage is about assuring the disciples, and us, that division does not mean that the kingdom of God is not here, but in fact division might just be proof of the emergence of the kingdom. When Jesus and his disciples got to Jerusalem they were met with angry crowds, corrupt rulers, and even deception from their own people. Things got so dark that the disciples ran in fear. But the cross, that most divisive tool, imposing death on life, became in fact the way in which God conquered death and wrested life back from death. Jesus could have sought easy peace and stayed away from Jerusalem, but Jesus loved us too much for such fake peace. Instead Jesus stormed right into the midst of division and drew us with him into resurrection.
The peace that Jesus came to bring always involves risk. There’s a great quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that reads, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security... Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God.”
This is a bold statement, but when I think back on the history of the world, the followers of Jesus have always been at our best when we have followed in the footsteps of Jesus and risked division for the sake of the Gospel. Martin Luther embraced division when he nailed the ninety-five theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg and declared that God’s grace was a free gift for everyone. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced division when he led the civil rights marchers over the Edmund Pettis Bridge and into the hands of the waiting state troopers. In our own denomination, the ELCA embraced division in 2009, when we declared that people of all gender identities and sexual orientations were created in the image of God and could be called by God as pastors and leaders in God’s church. It would have been easier in all of these situations, to turn away, stay with the status quo, and settle for a quieter peace, but it would have been at the cost of justice, it would have been at the cost of life.
It can be hard to step forward and enter into division. For so long, for too long, our tradition and our culture have fed us a soft, sweet Jesus, who would never say a cross word to anyone or stir up any trouble. And if some of God’s children got stepped on in the process, well, such was the cost of calm. But, dear people of God, Jesus loves you simply too much for that. When you are in pain, when you are held back, when someone tells you that you don’t matter, that you are less than, to keep quiet and wait your turn, Jesus will march in there and shake the very powers of heaven itself to bring you to freedom.
And because Jesus has marched into division to bring us to freedom, we can be bold to follow in Christ’s footsteps. We too can speak out against injustice. We too can proclaim truth. We too can shake the powers of earth and see God’s kingdom come among us. Be bold, dear people of God, because Jesus loves you even more boldly. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 12:49-56
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 last few weeks/chapters have been an extended warning on the coming judgment, a decidedly Adventy feel in the middle of summer. This passage is the beginning of the conclusion of this section of Jesus’ teachings. There is an ironic truth to Jesus teachings’, the one who comes to bring peace will also bring inevitable division.
• Greek syntax orders words in a sentence by importance, with the first and last words holding the most weight. In the Greek, verse 49 literally translates “Fire I came to cast on the earth!” It evokes John the Baptist’s pronouncement in Luke 3:16, “[Jesus] will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Though in Acts, we see that the “consuming” fire of judgment is actually the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit.
• As Simeon had predicted, Jesus’ presence would bring division and conflict before it would bring peace, and Jesus himself would be the first casualty of the division. Luke 2:34-35, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
• This passage reminds me of a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes.”
• In Israel, the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the desert to the south control the weather. Winds out of the west bring moisture and rain, whereas winds from the south bring hot, dry desert air.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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 last few weeks/chapters have been an extended warning on the coming judgment, a decidedly Adventy feel in the middle of summer. This passage is the beginning of the conclusion of this section of Jesus’ teachings. There is an ironic truth to Jesus teachings’, the one who comes to bring peace will also bring inevitable division.
• Greek syntax orders words in a sentence by importance, with the first and last words holding the most weight. In the Greek, verse 49 literally translates “Fire I came to cast on the earth!” It evokes John the Baptist’s pronouncement in Luke 3:16, “[Jesus] will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Though in Acts, we see that the “consuming” fire of judgment is actually the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit.
• As Simeon had predicted, Jesus’ presence would bring division and conflict before it would bring peace, and Jesus himself would be the first casualty of the division. Luke 2:34-35, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
• This passage reminds me of a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes.”
• In Israel, the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the desert to the south control the weather. Winds out of the west bring moisture and rain, whereas winds from the south bring hot, dry desert air.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
God Has Faith in Us: A Sermon on Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40; and a little bit of 1 Corinthians 13
Well it’s a big wedding weekend this weekend. Yesterday was the wedding of Lou and Teresa, today we celebrate Don and Vivian’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and in our Gospel text for this morning Jesus told his disciples to “be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet.” Love, or at least weddings, is in the air.
I make the distinction between love and weddings, because they are not the same thing. During the offering today, Doug and Eileen are singing a song that is a paraphrase of the reading Lou and Teresa had during their wedding yesterday, First Corinthians thirteen. Even if you don’t know the reference, I’m sure you’ll recognize the words, it’s the one that goes, “love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t boastful, or arrogant, or rude.” You know that one.
I love First Corinthians thirteen as a wedding text, because it sounds so poetic, and then you really read it, and it is like so unrealistic as to be almost comical. At one point it goes so far as to say that love is never irritable. I mean, come on now. Can any of you think of a single relationship in your life where you have never felt irritable? Not just with your spouse, but with your friends, yourself, even your relationship with your dog has probably left you feeling at least some level of irritability at some point. First Corinthians is this great jumping off point to talk about how love is not a feeling but an action. Patience, kindness, not being arrogant, working on irritability, these aren’t things that just magically happen, they are actions we take. A better reading of this text is love shows patience, love acts with kindness.
And these actions aren’t something we get right all the time, but because God is love, they are things we can grow into. The first two words of chapter fourteen: “pursue love.” If love is all these things, patient, kind, etc., then our job isn’t necessarily to be all those lofty, ambitious goals, but to pursue them. There is this sense of the infinite in the word pursue, it promises that while we never quite get there, the journey itself is one that draws us closer into relationship.
This idea of love as an action and a journey we never quite reach, but one that changes us for the better as we travel, was working in my mind as I was thinking about the texts for this week. Our second reading for this morning is from Hebrews. I love Hebrews because I love good prose, and Hebrews is just beautiful writing. This section especially, and we only get a section of it, has this repeated refrain of “by faith.” By faith Abraham obeyed, by faith he stayed, by faith he received, by faith, by faith, by faith. The writer of Hebrews goes on with something that sounds right along the line of our journey metaphor from earlier, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them… they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” Sounds pretty good, right? Abraham sounds like this spiritual giant, this towering model of faith. But before we get too swept up in his greatness, let’s take a look at our first reading, and see what the writer of Hebrews really is describing.
Just as some background, Abraham started out as Abram, which in Hebrew means “exalted ancestor.” Though Abram at this point is seventy-five and has no children, so exalted ancestor seems like an ambitious name. In Genesis chapter twelve, God called Abram to set out and go to the land that God had prepared for him, telling him that he would be the father of a great nation. So they journey, and some things happen, and God’s with them, but still no children for this supposed great nation. So in chapter fifteen, God again came to Abram and promised he would be great. But this time, Abram’s like, God, how is this whole descendant thing going to work out, I still have no children. So God assured him, “Look toward heaven and count the stars… so shall your descendants be. And he believed the Lord; and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Abram believed, and so the Lord reckoned him as righteous. OK, so far that fits well with the whole “by faith” theme of Hebrews, if we stop at verse six. But if we go on to eight, the now reckoned as righteous Abram was like, OK God, but, how will I know? So God gave Abram a sign of the promise. Then chapter sixteen, Abram’s like, OK, still no child, clearly God needs some help with this, so he has a kid with his wife’s slave. And God blessed the kid, but that really wasn’t what God was talking about, so God came to Abram again in chapter seventeen and was like, really, father of many nations. In fact, I’m going to call you Abraham, which means ancestor of a multitude. Then in chapter eighteen, some strangers appeared and repeated the promise of offspring, and Sara laughed, you see where this is going. Abraham’s faith is basically a series of God showing up again and again and saying, no, seriously, this is how it’s going to happen.
The faith that made Abraham such a hero was not his faith; it was God’s faith in him. No matter how many times Abraham was like, but, wait a minute, God showed up and guided him back in the right direction. The writer of Hebrews was correct, Abraham was a great hero in the faith, and as his named testified, the ancestor of multitudes, but the faith that made Abraham someone for us to emulate was not his faith, but God’s faith in him. Abraham accomplished all these great things, because God said to him, Abraham, you are the guy, and God stuck with him until it became so.
Faith is not something we do, it is a gift from God. Faith, God’s faith in us, makes us capable of amazing things, even the kind of beautiful self-sacrificial, unending love Paul wrote about in First Corinthians. Not perfectly, we fall short certainly, but we can pursue that sort of love and grace and living because God has faith in us. Martin Luther said, “God does not love me because I am beautiful, but I am beautiful because God loves me.”
Which gets us back to our Luke passage, and the faithful waiting patiently for the master to return from the wedding banquet. Our reading started out, do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It is your Father’s good pleasure. This is something God wants to do. God’s not waiting around for us to prove our worth; God wants to give us the kingdom. So when Jesus goes on, “sell your possessions and give alms,” this isn’t the thing we have to do in order to earn God’s favor, but rather it is something we are freed to do because we already know we have it. We don’t have to worry about earning God’s love, so we can go about the good work of caring for each other. And because we are not spending our time and energy worrying, it frees us to do even more. I find in my own life that when I am worried about whether what I am doing is enough, I am way less effective then when I can get out of my own way and just try something. That’s I think the point of these first three verses, don’t wait until you have, for example, the faith of Abraham, or the faith that you imagined Abraham had, until you do something great. God already thinks you’re great, so go out and live that way.
And then Jesus told the two parables, about being ready for the master to return from the wedding banquet, and the thief in the night. Both passages feel like they are about the potential energy that we have as Christ’s followers. Because God wants to give us the kingdom, because we are already enough in Jesus Christ, we are like coiled springs of promise, ready to burst out and bring God’s kingdom to the world. We can help our neighbors, we can care for each other, we can proclaim that the reign of God has come near. I think just in our own community about the times that we have been ready for the master to find us alert, and we have been served by our preparedness. Think of the gift of the Co-op, who showed up at our door and we gave them a place. Or the gift of the garden out back, we had land and willingness to share it, and suddenly there were the Burmese, brought by God to bring our struggling garden to life. Or if you haven’t yet, check out the fruit on the Tree of Life, for other examples of God’s growth falling on prepared and unexpecting soil. So be dressed for action, little flock. And have your lamps lit. For God has faith in you, and treasure is coming at an unexpected hour. Thanks be to God. Amen.
I make the distinction between love and weddings, because they are not the same thing. During the offering today, Doug and Eileen are singing a song that is a paraphrase of the reading Lou and Teresa had during their wedding yesterday, First Corinthians thirteen. Even if you don’t know the reference, I’m sure you’ll recognize the words, it’s the one that goes, “love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t boastful, or arrogant, or rude.” You know that one.
I love First Corinthians thirteen as a wedding text, because it sounds so poetic, and then you really read it, and it is like so unrealistic as to be almost comical. At one point it goes so far as to say that love is never irritable. I mean, come on now. Can any of you think of a single relationship in your life where you have never felt irritable? Not just with your spouse, but with your friends, yourself, even your relationship with your dog has probably left you feeling at least some level of irritability at some point. First Corinthians is this great jumping off point to talk about how love is not a feeling but an action. Patience, kindness, not being arrogant, working on irritability, these aren’t things that just magically happen, they are actions we take. A better reading of this text is love shows patience, love acts with kindness.
And these actions aren’t something we get right all the time, but because God is love, they are things we can grow into. The first two words of chapter fourteen: “pursue love.” If love is all these things, patient, kind, etc., then our job isn’t necessarily to be all those lofty, ambitious goals, but to pursue them. There is this sense of the infinite in the word pursue, it promises that while we never quite get there, the journey itself is one that draws us closer into relationship.
This idea of love as an action and a journey we never quite reach, but one that changes us for the better as we travel, was working in my mind as I was thinking about the texts for this week. Our second reading for this morning is from Hebrews. I love Hebrews because I love good prose, and Hebrews is just beautiful writing. This section especially, and we only get a section of it, has this repeated refrain of “by faith.” By faith Abraham obeyed, by faith he stayed, by faith he received, by faith, by faith, by faith. The writer of Hebrews goes on with something that sounds right along the line of our journey metaphor from earlier, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them… they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” Sounds pretty good, right? Abraham sounds like this spiritual giant, this towering model of faith. But before we get too swept up in his greatness, let’s take a look at our first reading, and see what the writer of Hebrews really is describing.
Just as some background, Abraham started out as Abram, which in Hebrew means “exalted ancestor.” Though Abram at this point is seventy-five and has no children, so exalted ancestor seems like an ambitious name. In Genesis chapter twelve, God called Abram to set out and go to the land that God had prepared for him, telling him that he would be the father of a great nation. So they journey, and some things happen, and God’s with them, but still no children for this supposed great nation. So in chapter fifteen, God again came to Abram and promised he would be great. But this time, Abram’s like, God, how is this whole descendant thing going to work out, I still have no children. So God assured him, “Look toward heaven and count the stars… so shall your descendants be. And he believed the Lord; and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Abram believed, and so the Lord reckoned him as righteous. OK, so far that fits well with the whole “by faith” theme of Hebrews, if we stop at verse six. But if we go on to eight, the now reckoned as righteous Abram was like, OK God, but, how will I know? So God gave Abram a sign of the promise. Then chapter sixteen, Abram’s like, OK, still no child, clearly God needs some help with this, so he has a kid with his wife’s slave. And God blessed the kid, but that really wasn’t what God was talking about, so God came to Abram again in chapter seventeen and was like, really, father of many nations. In fact, I’m going to call you Abraham, which means ancestor of a multitude. Then in chapter eighteen, some strangers appeared and repeated the promise of offspring, and Sara laughed, you see where this is going. Abraham’s faith is basically a series of God showing up again and again and saying, no, seriously, this is how it’s going to happen.
The faith that made Abraham such a hero was not his faith; it was God’s faith in him. No matter how many times Abraham was like, but, wait a minute, God showed up and guided him back in the right direction. The writer of Hebrews was correct, Abraham was a great hero in the faith, and as his named testified, the ancestor of multitudes, but the faith that made Abraham someone for us to emulate was not his faith, but God’s faith in him. Abraham accomplished all these great things, because God said to him, Abraham, you are the guy, and God stuck with him until it became so.
Faith is not something we do, it is a gift from God. Faith, God’s faith in us, makes us capable of amazing things, even the kind of beautiful self-sacrificial, unending love Paul wrote about in First Corinthians. Not perfectly, we fall short certainly, but we can pursue that sort of love and grace and living because God has faith in us. Martin Luther said, “God does not love me because I am beautiful, but I am beautiful because God loves me.”
Which gets us back to our Luke passage, and the faithful waiting patiently for the master to return from the wedding banquet. Our reading started out, do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It is your Father’s good pleasure. This is something God wants to do. God’s not waiting around for us to prove our worth; God wants to give us the kingdom. So when Jesus goes on, “sell your possessions and give alms,” this isn’t the thing we have to do in order to earn God’s favor, but rather it is something we are freed to do because we already know we have it. We don’t have to worry about earning God’s love, so we can go about the good work of caring for each other. And because we are not spending our time and energy worrying, it frees us to do even more. I find in my own life that when I am worried about whether what I am doing is enough, I am way less effective then when I can get out of my own way and just try something. That’s I think the point of these first three verses, don’t wait until you have, for example, the faith of Abraham, or the faith that you imagined Abraham had, until you do something great. God already thinks you’re great, so go out and live that way.
And then Jesus told the two parables, about being ready for the master to return from the wedding banquet, and the thief in the night. Both passages feel like they are about the potential energy that we have as Christ’s followers. Because God wants to give us the kingdom, because we are already enough in Jesus Christ, we are like coiled springs of promise, ready to burst out and bring God’s kingdom to the world. We can help our neighbors, we can care for each other, we can proclaim that the reign of God has come near. I think just in our own community about the times that we have been ready for the master to find us alert, and we have been served by our preparedness. Think of the gift of the Co-op, who showed up at our door and we gave them a place. Or the gift of the garden out back, we had land and willingness to share it, and suddenly there were the Burmese, brought by God to bring our struggling garden to life. Or if you haven’t yet, check out the fruit on the Tree of Life, for other examples of God’s growth falling on prepared and unexpecting soil. So be dressed for action, little flock. And have your lamps lit. For God has faith in you, and treasure is coming at an unexpected hour. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Conversation Points for Luke 12:32-40
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:
• Verse 32 is an awkward place to enter into this reading, because it cuts the first half of Jesus’ speech, where he talks about anxiety. Read in context, verse 33-34 become an antidote to anxiety. If concern over stuff is causing stress, one solution is to not have stuff. Says Culpepper, “If there are only two impulses, either to grasp or to give, then the alternative to anxiety over what we do not possess or control is to release our grasp of that which we do control.” Jesus is encouraging the disciples to deal with their feelings of insecurity not by putting their trust in themselves, but in God.
• V. 35 “Be dressed for action” literally is to draw up the long outer garments and tuck them into the sash around one’s waist to be prepared for vigorous action. We might today translate, “get your work shoes on” or something like that.
• Rev. Thompson wrote: “this text is about vocation, not justification. These texts do not point to a simple quid pro quo of “be prepared and you will be saved.” Instead, the idea here is to be ready so that when God calls you to action, you seize the opportunity and spread the good news. Being alert and being ready are like potential energy, ready to be turned into kinetic energy when prompted. The energy produced here is gospel centered: healing, justice, love, grace, peace, etc.”
• It is a common theme in Luke that the disciples are sleeping when they should be praying.
• The master’s result of the servants preparedness was to serve them, the opposite of what would have been expected.
• There is an apocalyptic tone in this passage, that we see in all the Gospels as Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem. Apocalypse, remember literally means “unveiling.” Apocalyptic literature was written as a comfort to people in times of chaos, it unveiled how even here, God was in control.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Luke 12:32-40.” Working Preacher. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2950>. Accessed 1 August 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:
• Verse 32 is an awkward place to enter into this reading, because it cuts the first half of Jesus’ speech, where he talks about anxiety. Read in context, verse 33-34 become an antidote to anxiety. If concern over stuff is causing stress, one solution is to not have stuff. Says Culpepper, “If there are only two impulses, either to grasp or to give, then the alternative to anxiety over what we do not possess or control is to release our grasp of that which we do control.” Jesus is encouraging the disciples to deal with their feelings of insecurity not by putting their trust in themselves, but in God.
• V. 35 “Be dressed for action” literally is to draw up the long outer garments and tuck them into the sash around one’s waist to be prepared for vigorous action. We might today translate, “get your work shoes on” or something like that.
• Rev. Thompson wrote: “this text is about vocation, not justification. These texts do not point to a simple quid pro quo of “be prepared and you will be saved.” Instead, the idea here is to be ready so that when God calls you to action, you seize the opportunity and spread the good news. Being alert and being ready are like potential energy, ready to be turned into kinetic energy when prompted. The energy produced here is gospel centered: healing, justice, love, grace, peace, etc.”
• It is a common theme in Luke that the disciples are sleeping when they should be praying.
• The master’s result of the servants preparedness was to serve them, the opposite of what would have been expected.
• There is an apocalyptic tone in this passage, that we see in all the Gospels as Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem. Apocalypse, remember literally means “unveiling.” Apocalyptic literature was written as a comfort to people in times of chaos, it unveiled how even here, God was in control.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Luke 12:32-40.” Working Preacher. < https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2950>. Accessed 1 August 2016.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Abundance: A Sermon on Luke 12:13-21
Decluttering seems to be the new spiritual trend right now. Maria Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is consistently topping the New York Times Bestseller list, and was featured in articles in both Living Lutheran and The Christian Century. And Thursday morning while I was driving into the office and pondering what I was going to write for the sermon, the theme for The Diane Rehm show was The Lure of Minimalism. Seems like everyone is ready to sell you the next best thing to help you achieve the goal of not having so many things, which seems more than a little bit ironic.
The truth is I’m a bit snarky about the whole minimalist lifestyle; having lived it by default for the past fifteen years. There are only so many possessions you can hang onto when you move across the country once or twice a year. I remember several years ago talking to my cousin, who was waxing poetic about my free-wheeling lifestyle. How glorious it must feel to know that everything you own fits in the back of your car, and that you could, at a moment’s notice, pack up and move anywhere. “You know what else is nice,” I responded, probably snarkier than was really necessary. “Owning a toaster. Sometime you just want a piece of toast, and there is no good way to make toast without a toaster.” Now, before any of you rush out and buy me a toaster, I got one for Christmas last year, so I’m all set in the toast making department. My point is minimalism is it’s only desirable if you have it by choice. Freedom is only freedom if you’ve chosen it.
My own life example is fairly trivial, but there can be real danger in the zest for minimalism if it leads us to romanticize poverty. The fact is there is nothing more time-consuming, exhausting, and, ironically, expensive, as having nothing. When I worked at N Street, women would be lined up outside our door for the 7 am opening, because the night shelter closed at 6. Attempts to get housing were stymied by not having enough money for a down payment, but housing assistance meant hours in line at Department of Human Services, during working hours, an impossible task for someone who was working. They couldn’t buy in bulk, because you can’t save anything, so food, toiletries, etc., cost more. If they needed a car for work, they didn’t have credit for a loan, so they would be forced to deal with loan sharks and end up paying way more in interest. People in poverty have higher levels of stress, less time for self-care, and less money for nutrition, leading to higher risk of illness. And with less health benefits or jobs that offers sick leave, they often have to choose between medical care or feeding their families or keeping their homes. Poverty is only romantic if you’ve never been poor.
Of course, that’s not to say that wealth is the magic solution. The clichéd phrase “money doesn’t buy happiness” is cliché for a reason, it’s true. Ever read what happens to people after they win the lottery? They usually end up broke and miserable. And look at the man in our parable this morning. His land produced so abundantly, a veritable cornucopia of riches, that he had no place to store it. So he tore down his barns and built bigger ones, just to contain the expansiveness of his harvest. But listen to the preponderance of personal pronouns: “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? I will pull down my barns, and I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul…” My, my, my, the tone of man in the story bears more than a passing resemblance to that of a demanding two-year-old. This man is so obsessed with his possessions that they become a character in his story, the only other character in his story. They are his friends, his family, his community, his everything. Then God appears on the scene in verse twenty and says, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” Notice there is a verb and object in this sentence, but no subject. We know what is being demanded, his life, but not who is doing the demanding. Since God is the one making the statement, we could assume God is the subject. But remember, the only characters in the story are the man and his possessions. So, what if the subject is the possessions? What if God is saying that the possessions themselves are demanding the man’s life? And with only two characters in the story, the man and the possessions, whose will the possessions be, when the man is gone? The possessions will have their freedom; the man will have nothing, not even his life.
In the Old Testament, wealth was often used as a sign of God’s blessing, but such blessings came with strict warnings about the judicious use of riches. A diligent study of scriptures demonstrate that the man’s good fortune would expect him to make provisions for his whole community, not store it up in barns so he and he alone could relax. Because, of course, he could not relax. He would instead be forced into the never-ending task of building bigger barns and more storage to satisfy his ever-increasing need for self-sufficiency and security.
So what is the man to do? If my earlier point is true, that poverty is expensive, exhausting, and bad for one’s health, and the point of this parable is true, that excessive wealth is stressful, exhausting, and bad for one’s health, what is possibly the good news that we take from this teaching from Jesus?
Let’s read on in Luke, and see what Jesus said after this parable. We’ll pick up at verse twenty-two:
“[Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
Do not worry, do not be afraid. That, I think is the overarching point of this parable. Stuff is not in and of itself inherently evil, but when stuff becomes a character in our lives, a character that separates us from God and from each other, the place where our heart lies, then stuff controls us. We don’t need to have less stuff in order to be closer to God; we don’t need to have more stuff to prove our value to God. Instead as we get closer to God, we will find ourselves a part of communities who share stuff so that all of us have the stuff that we need, be it more stuff or less stuff. Stuff itself is the symptom of the problem, the cause being that most human belief that we can do it on our own, that we do not need God or each other in order to set our lives in order. Whether it manifests in exhaustive efforts to simplify or desperate quests to have more, the sin is the same, the self-centered belief that we alone are the source and ground of our own security. This sin causes our stuff, be it too much or too little, to consume us, eventually demanding from us our very lives.
So the question then is not how do we have less stuff, or more stuff? The question is how would we live, if we were free from the burden of stuff? How would we walk through the world differently if stuff didn’t control us? Let’s use for an example, our church. I use this as an example because we’re already pretty good at this. I wasn’t here when you made the switch, but I’ve heard the growing pains stories about when Co-op first moved in. I’ve heard about the signs, the battles over toilet paper, the lessons on feet wiping, I know it was not an easy transition. But to a large part, you’ve done it. One of the things I absolutely love about being the pastor here, and one of the things that’s earned us the nickname around the synod as the unicorn congregation, is that this is really a place where no one blinks when the hallway is so stuffed with furniture we can barely make it to coffee hour. When a visitor comes and noticed the bulging clothing closet, we are more apt to gush about the ministry Co-op is doing during the week than to complain about the mess. That’s not to say that we don’t get frustrated, which is normal. I’ve lived in enough group houses to know that communal living is always a struggle, no matter how much you love your roommates, but for the most part you’ve made it work.
But we’re a small congregation, and this is a big building, and I know the expense of keeping up this building and paying for the ministry we do here is stressful. The budget never balances and we’re already surprisingly good at stewardship, so even as we are doing great work, that nagging question remains, how long will we really be able to make it here? How long will we really be able to keep the doors open, the lights on, and a roof over our, and the Co-op’s, heads? Being a member of a small, struggling church like Trinity is a full-time commitment, you can’t float along like you could in a larger, more stable congregation. So it may seem possible for us to ignore this parable, we are, after all, certainly not building up any barns to store our fabulously overwhelming resources. Heck, I would be happy if this barn had a few less plumbing issues. But reading this parable in conjunction with the section about worry that follows it, I wonder if we might hear in it the promise that God will give us what we need, a promise that frees us to hold even more lightly to the few things that we have.
And I think the blessing of being a small struggling church is, unlike the man in the parable, let’s face it, we already don’t have anything, so we don’t have to give up anything but the worry. We don’t have to give up anything but the fear. The thought I’d like to leave us with this morning, the truth that I hope drives all of the decisions we make throughout our redevelopment process, and really throughout the whole life of the church is this: God has given us the kingdom. It is already ours. Everything we need is right here. So how would we live, if we already believed that? What risks would we take, what blessings would we find, if we let go of any attempt at our own security and truly lived without fear?
Dear people of God, we literally have nothing to lose but our fear. So let’s dream big. Who is God calling us to be? Do we want a youth center, a housing program, a community center, a farm? How will we live with the abundance that we have? Amen.
The truth is I’m a bit snarky about the whole minimalist lifestyle; having lived it by default for the past fifteen years. There are only so many possessions you can hang onto when you move across the country once or twice a year. I remember several years ago talking to my cousin, who was waxing poetic about my free-wheeling lifestyle. How glorious it must feel to know that everything you own fits in the back of your car, and that you could, at a moment’s notice, pack up and move anywhere. “You know what else is nice,” I responded, probably snarkier than was really necessary. “Owning a toaster. Sometime you just want a piece of toast, and there is no good way to make toast without a toaster.” Now, before any of you rush out and buy me a toaster, I got one for Christmas last year, so I’m all set in the toast making department. My point is minimalism is it’s only desirable if you have it by choice. Freedom is only freedom if you’ve chosen it.
My own life example is fairly trivial, but there can be real danger in the zest for minimalism if it leads us to romanticize poverty. The fact is there is nothing more time-consuming, exhausting, and, ironically, expensive, as having nothing. When I worked at N Street, women would be lined up outside our door for the 7 am opening, because the night shelter closed at 6. Attempts to get housing were stymied by not having enough money for a down payment, but housing assistance meant hours in line at Department of Human Services, during working hours, an impossible task for someone who was working. They couldn’t buy in bulk, because you can’t save anything, so food, toiletries, etc., cost more. If they needed a car for work, they didn’t have credit for a loan, so they would be forced to deal with loan sharks and end up paying way more in interest. People in poverty have higher levels of stress, less time for self-care, and less money for nutrition, leading to higher risk of illness. And with less health benefits or jobs that offers sick leave, they often have to choose between medical care or feeding their families or keeping their homes. Poverty is only romantic if you’ve never been poor.
Of course, that’s not to say that wealth is the magic solution. The clichéd phrase “money doesn’t buy happiness” is cliché for a reason, it’s true. Ever read what happens to people after they win the lottery? They usually end up broke and miserable. And look at the man in our parable this morning. His land produced so abundantly, a veritable cornucopia of riches, that he had no place to store it. So he tore down his barns and built bigger ones, just to contain the expansiveness of his harvest. But listen to the preponderance of personal pronouns: “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? I will pull down my barns, and I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul…” My, my, my, the tone of man in the story bears more than a passing resemblance to that of a demanding two-year-old. This man is so obsessed with his possessions that they become a character in his story, the only other character in his story. They are his friends, his family, his community, his everything. Then God appears on the scene in verse twenty and says, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” Notice there is a verb and object in this sentence, but no subject. We know what is being demanded, his life, but not who is doing the demanding. Since God is the one making the statement, we could assume God is the subject. But remember, the only characters in the story are the man and his possessions. So, what if the subject is the possessions? What if God is saying that the possessions themselves are demanding the man’s life? And with only two characters in the story, the man and the possessions, whose will the possessions be, when the man is gone? The possessions will have their freedom; the man will have nothing, not even his life.
In the Old Testament, wealth was often used as a sign of God’s blessing, but such blessings came with strict warnings about the judicious use of riches. A diligent study of scriptures demonstrate that the man’s good fortune would expect him to make provisions for his whole community, not store it up in barns so he and he alone could relax. Because, of course, he could not relax. He would instead be forced into the never-ending task of building bigger barns and more storage to satisfy his ever-increasing need for self-sufficiency and security.
So what is the man to do? If my earlier point is true, that poverty is expensive, exhausting, and bad for one’s health, and the point of this parable is true, that excessive wealth is stressful, exhausting, and bad for one’s health, what is possibly the good news that we take from this teaching from Jesus?
Let’s read on in Luke, and see what Jesus said after this parable. We’ll pick up at verse twenty-two:
“[Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
Do not worry, do not be afraid. That, I think is the overarching point of this parable. Stuff is not in and of itself inherently evil, but when stuff becomes a character in our lives, a character that separates us from God and from each other, the place where our heart lies, then stuff controls us. We don’t need to have less stuff in order to be closer to God; we don’t need to have more stuff to prove our value to God. Instead as we get closer to God, we will find ourselves a part of communities who share stuff so that all of us have the stuff that we need, be it more stuff or less stuff. Stuff itself is the symptom of the problem, the cause being that most human belief that we can do it on our own, that we do not need God or each other in order to set our lives in order. Whether it manifests in exhaustive efforts to simplify or desperate quests to have more, the sin is the same, the self-centered belief that we alone are the source and ground of our own security. This sin causes our stuff, be it too much or too little, to consume us, eventually demanding from us our very lives.
So the question then is not how do we have less stuff, or more stuff? The question is how would we live, if we were free from the burden of stuff? How would we walk through the world differently if stuff didn’t control us? Let’s use for an example, our church. I use this as an example because we’re already pretty good at this. I wasn’t here when you made the switch, but I’ve heard the growing pains stories about when Co-op first moved in. I’ve heard about the signs, the battles over toilet paper, the lessons on feet wiping, I know it was not an easy transition. But to a large part, you’ve done it. One of the things I absolutely love about being the pastor here, and one of the things that’s earned us the nickname around the synod as the unicorn congregation, is that this is really a place where no one blinks when the hallway is so stuffed with furniture we can barely make it to coffee hour. When a visitor comes and noticed the bulging clothing closet, we are more apt to gush about the ministry Co-op is doing during the week than to complain about the mess. That’s not to say that we don’t get frustrated, which is normal. I’ve lived in enough group houses to know that communal living is always a struggle, no matter how much you love your roommates, but for the most part you’ve made it work.
But we’re a small congregation, and this is a big building, and I know the expense of keeping up this building and paying for the ministry we do here is stressful. The budget never balances and we’re already surprisingly good at stewardship, so even as we are doing great work, that nagging question remains, how long will we really be able to make it here? How long will we really be able to keep the doors open, the lights on, and a roof over our, and the Co-op’s, heads? Being a member of a small, struggling church like Trinity is a full-time commitment, you can’t float along like you could in a larger, more stable congregation. So it may seem possible for us to ignore this parable, we are, after all, certainly not building up any barns to store our fabulously overwhelming resources. Heck, I would be happy if this barn had a few less plumbing issues. But reading this parable in conjunction with the section about worry that follows it, I wonder if we might hear in it the promise that God will give us what we need, a promise that frees us to hold even more lightly to the few things that we have.
And I think the blessing of being a small struggling church is, unlike the man in the parable, let’s face it, we already don’t have anything, so we don’t have to give up anything but the worry. We don’t have to give up anything but the fear. The thought I’d like to leave us with this morning, the truth that I hope drives all of the decisions we make throughout our redevelopment process, and really throughout the whole life of the church is this: God has given us the kingdom. It is already ours. Everything we need is right here. So how would we live, if we already believed that? What risks would we take, what blessings would we find, if we let go of any attempt at our own security and truly lived without fear?
Dear people of God, we literally have nothing to lose but our fear. So let’s dream big. Who is God calling us to be? Do we want a youth center, a housing program, a community center, a farm? How will we live with the abundance that we have? Amen.
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