What is Truth?: A Sermon on John 18:33-38a

If you’ve been here on a Good Friday, you may remember that it is my Lenten discipline every year to memorize the Passion narrative from John’s Gospel and recite it on Good Friday. I’ve done this for four years now, and every time it is this dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, and especially Pilate’s question of what is truth that catches my attention. I spend a lot of time each year mulling over that question and how to recite it. Is Pilate curious, “what is truth?” Is he incredulous, “what is truth?” Is he mocking, “what is truth?”

A bit of an aside, but it seems important to remind folk, how much interpretation goes into reading. We think we’re reading something objectively, but there is no tone in the written word, we are inserting the nuance ourselves. Beware, or at least be wary of people who tell you they read scripture objectively, because at best they are unaware of the blinders they are bringing to their understanding. Understanding the nuance of written language requires looking into the history of the person, trying to understand the context, and even then it is no more than an educated guess.

And as a good Millennial, this idea that our best interpretation and understanding is no more than an educated guess doesn’t bother me, it actually is what makes scripture, makes faith so fascinating, so rich and deep and powerful. Because Pilate wanted an answer and Jesus instead offered him a relationship, something which by its very nature is not fixed, but moving. It is always growing and changing, and forcing us to grow and change, and I loved that depth and complexity about Jesus. I loved the idea that Truth, the Truth with a Capital T that is Jesus, is bigger than something we can know, richer and even more flexible than facts. The world always felt, to my questioning millennial sensibilities, like it held so much curiosity and diversity, and I needed a God who could hold all my questions, my curiosities, my doubts, and my fears. That the Truth of Jesus was relationship was a Truth that felt big enough for that.

That was the sermon I would have preached on that text two years ago. And it probably would have been a decent sermon, though it also probably would have made a better systematic theology paper so you maybe should be glad that I don’t generally preach on Good Friday. But in the last two years, the phrase “alternative facts” has entered our national lexicon, and I’ve found myself having to reevaluate my relationship to the concept of truth. Because I love, and I really do love, if you’ve been to the bible chats on Wednesdays, you’ve experienced this, the idea that each of us bring both our own perspectives and our own limitations, and only by hearing the perspectives of many different people can we overcome our own limited worldview and come closer to full knowledge. But the side of me that values logic and reason bristles when that one friend on Facebook, and we all have that one friend, mine is a loose acquaintance from DC, posts that thing that is just objectively untrue, and I find myself shouting at the computer screen, “Have you never heard of Snopes?” Sometimes I feel like I can’t tell if the world’s gone crazy or if I have, so different are the realities that seem to exist between people.

People living next to each other and experiencing very different versions of reality is not new, a very similar thing was happening in Jesus’ time. Jesus lived during what was known as the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome. Pax Romana was a two-hundred year period of relative peace and stability that started when Octavian, who would eventually become Caesar Augustus, defeated Mark Antony, ending the Final War of the Roman Republic and transforming Rome from a Republic to an Empire. If Caesar Augustus sounds familiar, we hear his name on Christmas Eve, “There came a degree from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered…”

I described the Pax Romana as a period of “relative peace,” because whether you experienced peace depended on how you sat in favor with the Emperor. We’ve talked before about the Siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 68 CE, a battle so violent that the historian Josephus described blood running ankle deep through the streets, that was during this so-called period of peace. A peace held through strength and through the brutal destruction of anyone who posed a threat to the power held by those who benefited from that peace.

Pilate was very much part of that kind of peace. The synoptic Gospels give Pilate a bit of a pass, but John’s description of Pilate is probably the most accurate. He was a ruthless leader, most historians of his time described him as vicious, brutal, and cruel. His participation in the trial of Jesus had little to do with concern for Jesus’ guilt or innocence, rather Pilate was interested in humiliating his adversaries, the religious leaders, and further cementing his own power.

The Peace of Rome was Pilate’s truth. For Pilate, it was true that he was living in a period of peace, that it was his role to maintain that peace, and that the best way to do that was to crush anyone who questioned that peace or threatened his power. What was true for Pilate was what worked best for him, what brought him power, and strength and control.

And then Jesus showed up in Pilate’s headquarters, early in the morning on the day before the Passover. Brought over at the behest of Caiaphas the High Priest by the contingent of police and soldiers who had arrested and bound him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Already betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, abandoned by his followers, Jesus was alone, imprisoned, and constrained, the opposite of everything Pilate saw himself to be. But when Pilate started questioning Jesus, immediately everything shifted.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” he asked, a question I hear as thick with mockery. In Pilate’s truth, Jesus could not be a king, for kings were powerful, mighty and in control, not like this itinerate preacher in chains before him. “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus replied calmly, taking charge in that moment not just of the conversation, but of the entire scene. The question essentially, are you, Pilate, really in control, or are you no more than a puppet for others? Pilate, on his heels, answered back, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” And Jesus, in that Jesus way, answered the question that Pilate was not asking, “My kingdom is not from this world.”

This Sunday we’re celebrating Christ the King Sunday. We tend to think of church festivals as being ancient, and most of them are. But Christ the King Sunday is actually a very recent addition to the liturgical calendar, less than one-hundred years old. Pope Pius the eleventh instituted Christ the King Sunday in 1925 as a response his concerns about growing nationalism. We just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One on November 11th, 1918, by 1925 Hitler was gaining power in Germany and Benito Mussolini had given up all pretense of Italy being a democracy and firmly established a dictatorship. The purpose of the Feast of Christ the King was to remind believers that since Christ set us free from the bonds of sin, then our loyalties belong to Christ and him alone. There is also an end of days feel to this festival; reminding us that we live in the period between Christ has risen and Christ will come again. That even as things feel chaotic and out of control, and like we heard in last week’s reading, many competing voices are claiming they can save us, we have only one savior, in fact we have already been saved, and that savior will in time restore us and all of creation to fullness.

That Jesus is King is not just true, it is Truth. It is Truth because contrary to Pilate’s understanding, the Kingdom of God is not a geographical place, with borders that can be patrolled and controlled; the Kingdom of God is a relationship. And because the Kingdom of God isn’t a place but a relationship, it cannot be controlled through might and power because you cannot force someone to love you. You can force them to fear you, you can force them to honor you, you can force them to obey you, but you cannot force them to love you. And the Kingdom of God is a kingdom whose boundaries are defined by love, whose justice is legislated by love, whose power is expressed in love.

The Truth of Jesus is that love is the most powerful force of all because it presents not as force, but is power made perfect in weakness. In a few weeks we’ll celebrate that this King of the Universe came into the world in a way Pilate could never have imagined, as an infant born in a stable because Augustus forced his parents on the road, becoming a refugee because of the threats of an unstable tyrant, raised not in the center of power but in forgotten, rural Galilee, a man who passed by the powerful, to lift up the powerless, who ate with lepers and prostitutes, and who died to become food for the world. The Truth, is as simple as this, God loves you, and me, and every single other person in the world. Even, dare I say, Pilate. Because the Truth, dear people of God, is this, that God so loves the world. Amen.

Birth Pangs: A Sermon on Mark 13:1-8

“This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” Now, let me preface this by reminding you all that I don’t have children. I have never experienced the “miracle of life.” But, I’ve had enough friends who have by this point to tell you; it doesn’t seem all that fun. It’s been described to me as starting with nausea, then your clothes don’t fit. Necessitating shopping, which hell for me might actually be having to spend eternity in clothing stores. Eventually you move on to being tired all the time, and this is all pre-delivery. Actually having to remove the alien that’s been growing in your body for nine months, yeah, I don’t really want to think about it. But then, it’s over, and you have a beautiful baby, whom you will love and worry about and take care of, for the rest of your life. My brother and I are thirty-two and thirty-five, and we still have stuff in my parents’ storage unit. All jokes aside, I’ve heard having children described as ripping your heart out of your body and letting it walk around free outside of you.

But, as hard as this whole labor and delivery thing is, and as scary as letting something you love, something that was once literally a part of you, walk around free, the fact of our continued existence as a species tells us that the joy outweighs the cost. What comes after the birth pangs, this tiny, perfect little person, who will keep you up at night and make a lot of noise, and eat all your food, and eventually grow up to be a fully-sized adult human being who will more than likely still keep you up and night, and come home and eat all your food, all that, I’m told, is worth it.

To understand our Gospel reading for today, and what Jesus was describing when he was talking about birth pangs, it’s helpful to look back a few verses and remember where we came from. Last Sunday, we heard how Jesus was teaching in the Temple. And as he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces… They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” Then he went and sat by the treasury and watched people putting in their offering. A widow came and threw in two copper coins, worth a penny, and Jesus pointed her out, saying, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Then immediately after this, our reading this morning started, “As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Literally moments before, Jesus had told his disciples to beware those who take advantage of their role to puff up their own status, and now those same disciples are blown away by the opulence and grandeur of the Temple, built by the same gifts thrown into the treasury that Jesus had just spoken of. How quick we humans are to get caught up in appearances and lose sight of what really matters.

When Jesus heard his disciples marveling at the Temple, he immediately brought them back, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” It’s hard to understand just how unthinkable Jesus’ words would have been to his disciples. The Temple was a massive structure, built into the side of a mountain out of immense stones. Those stones were marble outlaid with gold, so that the building was said to shine such that it was almost blinding in the sun. The effort, the violence and destruction it would have taken to dismantle such a structure, was beyond comprehension.

So later, sitting on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Temple, the disciples asked Jesus, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” What should we look for, what are the warning signs? How should we prepare for this time of darkness? And Jesus, you’ll notice, in his Jesus way, didn’t answer their question. He didn’t tell them what to look for, instead, he told them what not to look for. ““Beware that no one leads you astray… When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed… For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” What Jesus was telling his disciples here was that what looks like the end is not the end. What looks like the end is not the end. This was important for Jesus’ disciples because at chapter thirteen we are two short days from what by all accounts is the end from which there is no return, we are two short days from Jesus’ death on a cross. And yet, the promise of our faith is that what looks like the end is not the end. Because three days after that death, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was found empty, and Jesus Christ lived again. Resurrection means the end is not the end, the end is never the end, there is always life after death.

If we read on in chapter thirteen, Jesus spoke of dire things that would happen to the disciples, “they will hand you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings because of me… when they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” From the book of Acts, we know those things happened. Many of the disciples were handed over to councils, beaten, jailed, and handed over to stand trial. And yet, as promised, the end was not the end. The Holy Spirit did speak for them, they did find words, they did share the good news. And we gather here, two-thousand years later as proof of this central promise, that what looks like the end, dark and uncertain as it might seem, is not the end, it is only the beginning.

I started the sermon by talking about birth pangs. Giving birth is one of the most dangerous and fragile times in life for both the woman and the baby. It can also be the hardest time on a relationship, many marriages end within the first year after the first child is born, the strain on the relationship with all that transition is so great. Times of transition, times of upheaval, times when we do not know where we are going and how, or if, we will get there, those can be scary times. And in those times of uncertainty, we sometimes, like the disciples, find ourselves looking for the flashiest, biggest, strongest message, looking for someone who will promise to have the answers, to know the path, and to lead us through. What these words from Jesus reminded the disciples, and remind us, is that sometimes the road is just hard. Sometimes there is not short-cut, there is no clear path, and the only way though is through. Giving birth is hard work, it’s called labor for a reason. There’s no short-cut, no workaround. But you have to do the work, you have to push through, because if you don’t, both your life and the life of your baby will be in danger.

At Trinity, we’ve been in this redevelopment process, this process of reforming ourselves as a congregation, for a while now. And it’s hard work. We’re starting to see the fruits of it, there are a lot of new faces in the room today that weren’t here when I came four years ago, and that’s so powerful to see, I am so glad to see who we are as a community and who we are becoming. But there is still a lot of work to be done; we are still just in the beginning of the birth pangs. And maybe after this reading you’ll be comforted to know that I hold no delusions that “I am he,” for maybe obvious reasons. I, first off, don’t identify as “he.” But, more importantly, I don’t know either exactly where we’re going or quite how to get there. I may well be leading us astray, but only because, as Thomas Merton prayed, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going…” And, like the disciples, I confess I too sometimes get caught up in metrics and numbers and how well we match up. But whoever we are, and whoever we become, the promise in this passage, the great hope of our faith, is that no matter what trials we face, no matter how scary life may feel, how uncertain things may be, God is, always has been, and always will be, with us. Guiding us, leading us, supporting us, and caring for us. Eons ago, God took God’s own heart out of God’s chest when God created us, granted us freedom, and permitted us to walk around outside of God’s body. We are the children who make a lot of noise, and eat all God’s food, and keep God up at night, because God loves us, like a parent loves a child, with a love that never ends. Amen.

Some Stuff was Voted On: A Sermon on 1 Kings 17:8-16 and Mark 12:38-44

So, you may have heard we voted on some stuff this week, both as a congregation and as a nation. Last Sunday we voted to adopt a new vision statement and core values, and on submitting those core values to Reconciling Works to be listed as a congregation who is welcoming to LGBTQ folk. Both things passed, which was super exciting. You can read the new core values, and share them with your friends, on the website. And if you go to the Reconciling in Christ website, you can search for us! And then on Tuesday, we as a nation had an election, where we voted on a bunch of people and stuff. And some people won, and some didn’t. And some stuff passed, and some didn’t. Actually, in Michigan all the stuff passed, but in some other states some stuff didn’t.

And for the last month I’ve been saying, this is super important, make sure you get out and vote. And for the last, geez, at least a year, I’ve been badgering the council and the Redevelopment Team, come on, we’ve got to get this vision statement and these core values done, and we’ve got to get everyone’s input on it, and let everyone vote on it, it’s super important. And now we’ve done all that and, guess what, none of it really matters. Wittmer or Schuette, Bizon or Noble, Prop one, Prop two, whoever you voted for, whether you were for or against any of the propositions, whatever circle you personally filled in on Tuesday, I don’t care. Today is neither the day for dancing in the streets nor for casting your hands up in despair. A bunch of people were elected on Tuesday. People who will do some good things and some bad things. Who will make some decisions you’ll like, and some you’ll hate. Even a stopped clock is right twice, I can just about guarantee that no matter how elated you may be with a victor, they will not make every single decision you would want. And no matter how incredibly, horribly awful you think the new office holder is, they will do something that you will agree with. Neither Jesus nor Satan was elected on Tuesday, just a whole bunch of people. Some of whom we liked, some we didn’t, but that’s all they are. People, just like you and I.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do think elections matter. But I push the point about elections being about people because I think we have a tendency to forget that these are people we elected, not saviors. It’s important to remember that because when we forget, when we raise them to the level of hero or villain, then we can blame them and distance ourselves, when things don’t go as we want.

What got me thinking about this was our Gospel reading for this morning, and specifically how many sermons I’ve heard and, I admit, preached, on the widow and her two copper coins. How selfless and generous she was, how strong her faith must have been, to give everything she had, the Greek literally translates “her whole life,” to God. She is so often raised up as a model of true generosity and faithfulness, oh that we could be more like the widow and give all that we have, everything that we are, to God.

But we won’t follow in the model of the widow and give everything we have. Or, at least, I won’t. I’ll give up a lot for God, and I try to be generous, but I also know the value of solid financial planning, and maybe it’s a sign of my lack of faith, but I know how compound interest works and it feels important to save for retirement. The bar the widow sets for us is so high as to be unrealistic. And since it’s impossible, rather than be a useful model, she becomes an excuse. Since I cannot give everything I have and trust completely in God like the widow, then why try. I’m going to fall short anyway, so does it really matter what I do with my money?

Not only is the widow’s example impractical, quite frankly it also feels unethical. As your pastor, let me be clear. I want you to give generously to the church and its mission. I want you to practice good stewardship of your resources. I want you to have faith, to take risks in your generosity, and to trust that God will provide. But I do not want you beggar yourself for the church. I won’t ask it of you. So what’s really going on here?

As popular and well known as the second half of this reading is, those wise souls who created the lectionary gave us the part before, the warning about the scribes. And while I joke about the lectionary and my disagreements with it a lot, I think they really nailed the division this week. Because I think we cannot understand Jesus’ words about the widow unless we understand what he first said about the scribes.

“As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” And here’s the important verse, the verse that links this section to the next, “They devour widows houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” They devour widows houses. And then a story about a widow, house destroyed, giving her last two copper coins to the institution that pays the scribes. I got to thinking as I read this, what if rather than lifting up the widow as a model, Jesus pointed her out as a proof of his condemnation of scribes, and of the religious system that taught this woman that the way not just to her salvation, but to her very survival, was to give literally everything she had to an institution that had already failed in its responsibility to her so fully as to leave her with only two copper coins to begin with, and then to ask those coins of her. I wonder if rather than “be like the widow,” the real challenge Jesus presented to his followers was “don’t be like the scribes.” Don’t create a religious system where those who have little give everything, in the blind hope of having something; while those with a lot, like the rich man feel like they have too much to lose. I wonder if Jesus lifted up the widow not as a model of generosity, but as an example of how the people of God had failed to live up to the obligation given by Moses in Exodus, to “not abuse any widow or orphan… [for] when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry.”

And if the fate of this widow, giving her last two coins to an institution who did not care for her, shows us what it looks like when the church fails its people, the Old Testament reading about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath is the hope, is what it looks like when we are the people of God are at our best. Unlike the woman putting her two copper coins in the treasury, Elijah asked the woman to share what she had with him. He asked for a portion. And yes, a portion of her meager goods was a huge sacrifice, but it was still just a portion. And that portion, that sharing, sustained both of them until the drought was through. In the same vein as the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, God’s economy is a sharing economy, when each of us gives of what we have; trusting in another to do the same, there is enough to go around. Giving everything we have isn’t a relationship. It’s a one-time transaction, when it’s gone, it’s gone. But to share, I have to know you, I have to know what you need, how much, and when, and you have to know the same things about me.

So I started this sermon by talking about the election. And we’re going to get back to the there, but first let me tell you what got me thinking about this was part of the core values conversation at the October council meeting. So the council and the Redevelopment Team had been wordsmithing these things for months. And they were getting frustrated because we were talking about the same thing over and over again, and I was getting frustrated because I felt like I wasn’t getting the feedback I needed to feel like these were values we all held and not just values that I thought sounded nice. So we were going back and forth about it, at my request, again, at the October meeting. And it was getting late, and I was pushing the point, and Teresa finally piped up and was like, “what is the point of this? No one is going to come into our church and ask to read our core values before they decide to join. Either they’re going to like us, and like our mission, or they’re not. No amount of fancy words are going to change that.” And it was late, and I was tired, and I must confess I got a little annoyed at Teresa for saying that. After all, we’d been at this thing for months, and we were so close to the finish line, and couldn’t she just give her input for one last council meeting so we could get this to a vote so we could get it before the congregation and be done with it! But I went home that night and I thought about it, and she was right. I was also right, the activity of crafting our core values, setting them to paper, voting on them, all of the time and effort we’ve put into this project lets us know what our values are and gives us a guide for how we are to live out our calling as the people of God in this place. But Teresa was also right, because if all we do with these core values is vote on them, paste them on our website, and call it a day, they mean nothing. That we wrote them down doesn’t matter, what matters is what we do with them. What matters is how we live them out. How we give love, how we show grace, how we practice inclusion, work for social justice, and put all these things into action. How we live them is what makes our core values matter.

The same is true for the election on Tuesday. It does matter that you voted, that you took the time to research candidates, consider the proposals, and made a decision. But if that’s all you do. If now that you’ve filled in your row of circles, you call it a day and wash your hands of the whole thing until you’re called upon to fill in a bunch of circles next time, then it really doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do with the people who have now been elected, what matters is how we move forward. Because we elected a bunch of people who are neither Jesus nor Satan, and who will do some things we like, and some things we don’t. So whether your guy or gal won or lost, and whether your proposition passed or failed, none of it matters unless we keep bringing all that we have to work for the widows and orphans of our society, those in need of support and care. And the promise in the Old Testament reading is that when we do that. When we get skin in the game, when we share what we have, money yes, but also our voices, our time, and our ideas, rather than leave it up to figureheads to either praise or blame, then there is not just enough, but abundance, to go around. The jar will not be emptied friends, and the jug will not fail, that is what God promises, so we have plenty to share. Amen.

Make Some Noise: An All Saints Day Sermon on Mark 12:28-34

We are celebrating All Saints Day today, because we always celebrate it on the first Sunday in November. But the somber beginning to the service, with the reading of names of our dearly departed, and carrying forward candles, seems even more appropriate this day, at the close of a week when our nation laid thirteen people to rest among the saints triumphant, eleven people shot in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and two in a grocery store in Louisville. Thirteen people, victims of racism and anti-Semitism, and we’re lucky that number isn’t higher. The Louisville shooter first tried to enter an African American church where earlier that day seventy people had been at worship. And we’re just a week out from fourteen pipe bombs being sent through the mail to targets across the nation, pipe bombs that could have gone off at any number of crowded places killing any number of innocent people. Thirteen funerals this week, for thirteen people killed by blind hate. I didn’t know them, but the weight of their loss, the weight of our nation’s collective grief at hatred spun out of control, sits heavy on my heart. At an interfaith service last Sunday, the rabbi of Tree of Life Synagogue, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, shared how as he lays awake at night, he reflects on Psalm twenty-three, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “Well God, I want,” said Rabbi Myers, “What I want, you can’t give me. You can’t return these eleven beautiful souls.”

One thing I admire about our brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith, a thing I think we as Christians lost somewhere along the way and could learn from them, is the understanding that it’s ok to argue with God, it’s ok to be angry with God. God is big; God can take it. The psalms, our collective first prayer book, is rich with examples of such turmoil. Rabbi Myers described wrestling with Psalm twenty-three. The Psalm immediately preceding it, Psalm twenty-two, is the Psalmist wrestling with God. It begins, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” and then dances back and forth between praise and anguish, between hope and despair. The psalms teach us that faith and anger are not contradictory feelings, but in fact it takes deep faith to hold righteous anger, to understand the truth in it. If God is a capricious God, uncaring or unattached, then there would be no point to anger. It is precisely because we know Go to be “a merciful God, slow anger and abounding in steadfast love,” that fuels the psalmist’s anger and demand for God to show up and be God, to show up and do what a righteous God should do. Even when, as Rabbi Myers remarked, that thing we want is a thing we cannot have.

And if faith and anger are not contradictory feelings, neither are anger and love. Hate and love are contradictory, as are hate and faith, but anger and love are not. Like faith, love can be what fuels anger, and love is also what tempers it, what keeps it in tension and moving in ways that are helpful and healing. Friends, I think God is angry at the state of our world right now, at the violence, the division, the degradation of our planet and of each other, God’s good creation. God’s anger is fueled not be vengeance, but by God’s own deep love for us and for this world which God called good. At least, I hope God is angry, because if God is not, I don’t know where to stand.

And in the same way I take comfort in the back and forth of the psalms, and the example in them of the back and forth of faith and anger, of anger and love, I take comfort in the example Jesus set in our Gospel reading for this morning. Because as tumultuous, violent, and uncertain as the world feels today, it has nothing on the uncertainty and instability of Jesus’ time. Our Gospel for this morning was from Mark chapter twelve, which is right in the middle of Holy Week. Fun fact for you, Mark is a Gospel known for its urgency and the use of the word “immediately.” But after the triumphant entry into Jerusalem in Mark chapter eleven, the pace of the narrative slows way down, and the last days of Jesus’ life take up as much as the entire Galilean ministry. Everything from here until his death in chapter fifteen is Jesus ratcheting up the tension until it finally breaks open on the cross, death no longer able to hold back the promise Christ contained.

As part of that ratcheting up of tension, since the coming into Jerusalem Jesus had been engaged in arguments, with the chief priests, the elders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, about anything and everything, as they tried to trap him. But the scribe who approached him in this morning’s reading was different. “Seeing that [Jesus] answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’” This question, unlike all the others lobbied at Jesus before, was an honest one. This was the sort of question which two religious scholars would debate back and forth between each other, not to change the other’s mind but to learn from each other, to have their own minds challenged and grown. Another gift we need to relearn from our Jewish sisters and brothers is the tradition of religious debate not to change the other’s mind, but to challenge our own. Entering into the sort of honest conversation that the scribe engaged Jesus is risky, because it involves true openness. So often we engage those with whom we disagree, if we engage them at all, in the same way the other religious leaders engaged Jesus, with the “correct” answer already firmly in our minds, confident that we know the one right answer, and that nothing the other person says could do anything to change what we know to be true.

The answer Jesus gave was both disarmingly simply and endlessly complex. “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.’” This is what is known in Judaism as the Shema, from the Hebrew word for “hear,” and as we heard in our first reading from Deuteronomy, this is a verse that the scribe would have known well, one which he would have had mounted on the lintels of his door, which is still hung on the doors of Jewish homes today. The shooter in Pittsburgh inevitably walked under it to enter the sanctuary, this bold proclamation held by Jews and Christians alike, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And Jesus went on, “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Love God; love your neighbor. Such seemingly simple commandments, yet if you’ve ever watched some you love hurt themselves or others and not known how to respond, you know how complicated these are, how nuanced and situational and ripe for mistake and misinterpretation they can be. An act done in love can feel like hate, or what we think we do in love can come instead from our own self-interest. These commands to love are both too simple and too vast to be understood on our own. We can only see the world through our own limited experience, to love our neighbor we have to know their own experience. And to love God requires knowledge beyond knowing.

I grieve the way this morning’s Gospel reading ended, “after that no one dared ask Jesus any questions.” I wish the questions had continued. Not in the way of the earlier questions, those asked to trick and to trap and to prove, but in the way of the scribe’s question, to learn, to teach, to challenge and to engage. To hear another’s perspective in the world and to wonder about how it differs from one’s own, and how their perspectives may have been formed from their experience, how love and faith can look different to each person, and how our love of God and neighbor can grow from knowing another’s perspective.

So the challenge I hear for myself in this Gospel reading, and the challenge I give to all of you, in this time and season of conflict and division, is to not be afraid to ask questions. Yes, there are extremes, there are falsehoods that cannot and should not be reasoned with, the hatred-fueled violence of racism and anti-Semitism that we saw played out this week are examples of that. But the silence of fear gives space for those fringes to thrive, rather than being pushed to the edges where hatred belongs. I invite you this week to find someone you disagree with and have a conversation with them. Not to change their mind, and not to change your mind, but simply to learn more about what they think and what caused them to come to that conclusion. I will share with you that I had such a conversation last week, about one of the ballot propositions, and while my views were not changed by the dialogue, I found myself more deeply engaged by their questions then I had been before, and more committed to being engaged in the process, so that the result that I hope will come out of the vote is what actually emerges, a result that is freeing and life-giving and good for the largest amount of people. The conversation was frustrating, it made me angry, but it forced me out of my silo to see the sides of the argument I had been missing, the gaps in my framework, and the real problems that still persisted. I came out of the conversation both clearer about my own opinion and with more respect for those whose vote will be different than mine, for from the conversation I know that while we want the same goal, our varying perspectives see different pathways forward. So we can disagree on how best to solve this, and yet still work together regardless of the result of the ballot proposal, because in the end the hope is the same. And our differing experiences bring up gaps in the other’s argument, leading to more growth overall.

Death dwells in the silence, and as Jesus told the questioning Pharisees in the verse immediately before our reading this morning, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” So let’s go make some noise. Amen.

Reformation Boldness: A Sermon on Mark 10:46-52

It’s Reformation Day! If you’re new to the Lutheran tradition, or even if you’re not, you may be wondering why everyone’s wearing red, why there are red streamers on the chairs for you to wave around, and what any of this means. So, quick history lesson. Every five-hundred years or so, the church, and by church I mean the whole church, like Christianity as a collective, undergoes a major shift. Two-thousand years ago, that shift was the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Which is THE shift, the one that changed human history both before and after. From that, five-hundred years later we get the Great Fall, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the disintegration of the Imperial Church established under Emperor Constantine. Then, five-hundred years after that, the Great Schism, where the Eastern and Western churches split. Five hundred years later, on October 31st, 1517, is the shift we’re celebrating today, when a German monk named Martin Luther felt that the Church had moved away from its mission to proclaim the unconditional grace and love of God for all people, and started an effort to reform the Church. That movement led to what is known as the Great Reformation. I’m tempted to go into more detail on this, because I’m a nerd, but this is a sermon and I only have twelve to fifteen minutes, so I’m going to leave it as a flyover view, but please, ask me more later, because I love to talk history. But, one of the big ideas that Luther championed was that we can never obey God’s law enough to earn our salvation. Every one of us is a sinner, every one of us is broken. Yet, also, because of what Jesus did for us at the cross, we are, to quote Paul, “united with Christ in a death like his, [and] we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Meaning, because of God’s grace and forgiveness we are set free from the bonds of sin and death, we are set free from our brokenness, and are children of God, a part of God’s family, and therefore also saints. Ready for your fancy, churchy phrase for the week? The official theological term for this is simul justus et peccator, “simultaneously saint and sinner,” we are one-hundred percent of both, all of the time. Nadia Bolz Weber, a theologian I love so much I’ve got the council reading her book for the rest of the year, talks about how this is why Lutheran theology makes sense to her, because the idea that we are both saint and sinner is the best explanation she’s heard for her own experience of being alive in this world, of how she is simultaneously capable of doing horrible things, of hurting people, of overlooking the needs of others, of being selfish, and greedy, and mean, and, insert your vice here, I can certainly insert mine, and yet at the same time she is also capable of incredible goodness. Of loving people she didn’t think she could love, of caring for others, of putting others needs above her own.

Our Gospel reading for this morning has that idea of simul justus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner, buried right in it. But you have to have a better grasp of ancient Biblical languages then I do to catch it, so thank God for super smart people who publish commentaries. The reading tells us that the name of the blind man who was healed is “Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.” Which if you read Hebrew is a bit of Department of Redundancy Department, because the prefix “bar” in Hebrew means “son.” So in Hebrew, verse forty-six names this man, “Son of Timeaus, Son of Timaeus.” But Mark wasn’t written in Hebrew, though much of his Jewish audience would have spoken it, it was written in Greek. And Timaeus sounds a lot like the Greek word timaios, which means “highly prized.” So we’ve got Greek, we’ve got Hebrew, but there was a third language that was commonly spoke in first century Palestine, Aramaic. And Timaeus also sounds like the Aramaic word tame which means “unclean.” So we’ve got some wordplay here, Bartimaeus echoes both “unclean” and “highly prized.” Both, given the theology of the time, sinner and saint. It’s important also to remember that Mark very rarely named the person Jesus was healing in the Gospel. So that Mark chose name Bartimaeus means we are meant to pick up on the double meaning.

So Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho, about twenty miles outside of Jerusalem and, more importantly, their last stop before Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when they came across Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting along the side of the road. And Bartimaeus may have been blind, but he was not mute. Because immediately, “when he heard that it was Jesus he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’” “Have mercy on me.” What a different request Bartimaeus had for Jesus then James and John from last week, “grant us to sit… in your glory,” or the rich man from three weeks ago, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Bartimaeus asked for mercy and to be able to see. And Jesus granted Bartimaeus’s request. Again, just as Jesus had with the rich man, whose question he answered, and with James and John, who he assured would drink the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism. Yet look at the difference in the responses. The rich man went away grieving, for he didn’t think he could live up to what Jesus was asking. James and John didn’t understand what they’d asked for; though history tells us they did live up to it. But Bartimaeus, when he was told, “Go, your faith has made you well,” did the opposite. Instead of going, he followed; he joined the thrones who lined the roads into Jerusalem, waving branches and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”

There’s another piece that asks us to read this story as the corollary to last week’s James and John story, and it’s the question Jesus posed. To both James and John and to Bartimaeus, Jesus asked, “what do you want me to do for you?” I read these two stories as both hope and challenge. Hope because, yet again the disciples are giving us the example of what not to do. Don’t follow Jesus as a way to fame and fortune, because that’s not where this train was headed, at least, not as the world defined it. But for all the disciples got it wrong, over and over and over again, Jesus kept them around, he loved them, he forgave them, he encouraged them, and eventually James and John got there, it just took them a while. In Mark’s Gospel the disciples function as this constant reminder to the reader that if the disciples missed the boat that many times while literally walking behind Jesus, certainly Jesus isn’t giving up on you either. And while the disciples are hope, we can’t misunderstand as badly as they did, Bartimaeus is challenge. Because Bartimaeus exemplifies the right response, the request for mercy, the courage to jump to Jesus’ invitation, the risk to ask for what was needed, and then ignoring the offer to go, choosing instead to follow.

To recap, every five-hundred years or so the church goes through a major shift, a shift so cataclysmic that those in the midst of it are led to wonder if the church will even survive. And if you were following along with my history lesson you might have caught that I said that the shift we’re celebrating today happened five-hundred and one years ago. Which means friends, we are yet again in the middle of just such a shift. If things feel unsteady right now, that fits the pattern. The Great Fall, The Great Schism, The Great Reformation, and theologian Phyllis Tickle named this time in our history as well, the Great Emergence. From each of those shifts the church emerged not as it had been before, but different, remade, renewed. We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what church is going to look like when we get to the other side of this. But on Reformation we remember, and we celebrate, that Luther really didn’t know either, but he had the courage to risk reformation anyway. He captured this in one of his evening prayers, where he wrote, “O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” For me, this prayer captures the heart of the Reformation, and the heart of our work as people still being reformed, to step out with courage, on paths we don’t know, trusting that God is guiding us. At times in my life where I have felt lost, that prayer and another one by Thomas Merton that literally starts, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going…” are the words that have given me comfort and the courage to go forward, even as I did not know where the path might lead.

So it’s Reformation Sunday, but it’s also Consecration Sunday, the Sunday when we set aside time to make financial pledges, to take the time to think about, and write down, how much we are financially going to be able to give to the work of God through the church this year. I love that the last few years these two Sundays have overlapped, because I think there are few examples of stepping forward in courage, few actions more requiring of uncertain risk, then making a financial pledge for an entire year. Because a year is a super long time. And we have no idea what that year might bring. You might make a pledge you intend to keep, and then something changes in your life and you are unable to meet the amount you wrote down. Or, in reverse, you might walk out the door today and discover you won the however many billion dollar Powerball and your pledge is suddenly incredibly low-balled. Which, by the way, if you win the Powerball, I’m not asking for a full ten-percent, but I’d love enough to buy and maintain Triangle in perpetuity. Just throwing that out there… I’ll also add that when you see the card, you’ll notice there’s a sentence at the bottom reminding you that this is an estimate of your intended giving, and you are free to raise or lower it at any time. I’m not asking you to sign a binding contract; I’m never even going to see your pledge card. This is between you and God. I’m asking you to write something down because we humans are physical beings; the physical action of writing things down is important and meaningful. But point is we have this card and we really have no idea what the year ahead might hold. Yet every year we do this anyway, as an experience at stepping out in faith, at risking something for the sake of God’s work in this place, and in gratitude for all that we have received. No, my two-hundred and thirty-one dollars a pay period is not a reformation. Unlike Luther, the world is not shifting on its axis because I’m turning a card in. At least, I don’t think it is. But Luther didn’t know he was shifting the world when he asked the questions of the Ninety Five These. And, he alone didn’t shift the world anyway, he started it and then the Holy Spirit took Luther’s action, and crazy and wonderful things followed.

So, dear friends, dear people of God. Let’s be bold. Let’s be bold as individuals, but let’s be bold as a congregation, as the church of God in this place. Because stewardship doesn’t end with putting these cards in the basket, it is then up to us to put our gathered giving into action, to move these pledges from this basket, from these doors, and out into the world. Bartimaeus didn’t stop when he received healing; he followed Jesus to Jerusalem and saw the world made new. And making this promise to give of our money, while maybe the hard part, is really not the best part, the best part is when the Holy Spirit puts these pledges at work to shift the axis of the world in a million large and small ways. Because guess what friends, that is already happening. I wish you could be a fly on the wall for one day of what I get to do in this place, what your diligent support of this congregation year after year, has allowed me to be a part of. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t stop me in the hall to ask for prayer, share a story, or tell me of how God is at work in their lives because you have made this space possible. The Reformation has started dear people, let’s follow the leading of our brother Bartimaeus, both unclean and highly beloved, and step forward in courage. Because Jesus is going ahead of us, and all history tells us is whatever is coming next is better than we could ever imagine. Amen.

We don't know, but Jesus does: A Sermon on Mark 10:35-45

I heard the Bishop preach on this text on Wednesday, and he said that based on this text the mission statement for all of our churches could be as follows: “[blank] Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus.” Since we’ve been doing a lot of work around our vision statement and core values recently, his comment really stuck with me. And here let me insert an explanatory fact about the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement. Per the consulting firm Bain and Company, “A Mission Statement defines the company's business, its objectives and its approach to reach those objectives. [Whereas] a Vision Statement describes the desired future position of the company.” Basically, a vision statement is who we want to be, a mission statement is who we are as we get there. So, given that definition, if at the November fourth special meeting we adopt as our vision statement, that the thing we want to be, is “a gathering of God’s people, anchored in the Post neighborhood, reflecting God’s freeing power to our congregation, our neighborhood, and our community,” what would it mean if our mission statement, who we are as we get there is “Trinity Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus”?

In our Gospel reading for this morning James and John, whose mission statement was quite literally “on the road, to the cross, following Jesus,” verse thirty-two reads “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead on them,” clearly had a sense of the vision they thought this mission statement was out to accomplish. For James and John, the vision statement of their journey could probably be summer up as, “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory.” And, let’s face it, they weren’t wrong. That was the exact vision for which the trip was headed. And they got this vision from Jesus himself. It was just a couple of months ago in Mark eight that we heard Jesus talk about “when [the Son of Man] comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Immediately before today’s reading, in verse thirty-three, Jesus said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem…” The disciples knew the Old Testament prophesies, about how a leader would emerge from the line of David who would restore the kingdom of Israel. Certainly, just a few short verses before the Passion narrative starts, they surely felt the gathering tension around Jesus. It’s easy to see how they came to catch the vision of “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory.”

Of course, then Jesus told them how “the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death… and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” The disciples again had clearly completely missed that part about what the vision statement “Jesus, in Jerusalem, in his glory” was going to mean.

So James and John asked him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Jesus had to know where such a request would be headed; these two had not earned the nickname “Sons of Thunder” for nothing. These were the men who when Jesus came calling, immediately left their father sitting alone in his boat with his nets to follow, the Zebedee brothers were not known for carefully weighing pros and cons. They were all in, one-hundred percent, all the time. Yet Jesus’ response to this brazen request was amazingly calm. OK, “what is it you want me to do for you?” Given the opening, James and John dove right in, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” If I was Jesus, the response would have been an immediate face palm. Come on guys, Jesus just finished telling you he was going to suffer and die in Jerusalem, and the response you had was, OK, but when everybody’s worshiping you, let me be right up there with you.

But Jesus is not me, and Jesus kept his cool, “you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized?” This question may sound weird to us, but it would have been a familiar idiom for the disciples. “Cup” in the Old Testament was a common metaphor for suffering. And the linked baptism reference calls to mind all the imagery in the Psalms of sufferers being overwhelmed by water. So James and John had to have known Jesus was asking them if they were prepared to suffer. But they bowled right on through, “We are able.”

But here’s the incredible thing about that statement. As arrogant and misguided and big-headed as it was, as much as James and John had absolutely no idea what they were saying, it was also true. Not in the way they meant it certainly, but it was still true. James and John would both face the kind of suffering Jesus faced, they would both “drink the cup” of persecution, they would both be baptized into Christ’s death. Acts chapter twelve tells us that “James, the brother of John,” was killed by King Herod. We don’t know how John eventually died, but at least twice he ended up in prison with Peter so one can assume his life after Jesus’ resurrection also didn’t involve being worshiped and adored in the way he seemed to have envisioned when he and his brother asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left in his glory.

So yes, John and James had no idea what they were saying when they brashly told Jesus, “we are able” to suffer as he would, but also yes they were correct, they could and they would. They didn’t know what was ahead of them on that day on the road to Jerusalem, but by the time of Acts, James and John certainly knew the stakes of continuing to proclaim the good news of Jesus, and proclaim they would, all the way to the end.

And Jesus, before all of this, before the true nature of his glory was revealed, back on the road to Jerusalem, with John and James following him to the cross, knew that they were in fact able, and honored that. “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Jesus knew James and John better then they knew themselves, he knew their future, he knew the great things they were capable of, the great things they would do. He knew their faith, their trust, their devotion, even though they did not know it themselves, though they did not know what they were asking. This cup that I drink, you will drink. You are more than you know.

To bring this around full circle, on November fourth we will have the opportunity as a congregation to vote on adopting our new vision statement and core values. And I admit a level of bias here, I helped write the vision statement, but I think it is a very good one. “Trinity Lutheran Church is a gathering place of God’s people, anchored in the Post neighborhood, reflecting God’s freeing power to our congregation, our neighborhood, and the wider community.” Given the earlier definition of a vision statement as a statement about who we want to be, a congregation anchored, and anchoring a neighborhood that really needs to know it is loved, reflecting the power of God to each other, to the neighborhood, and to the world, is a pretty great aspiration. I think it is the sort of vision of how we might be a part of spreading the Kingdom of God that is what we as church are called to. And while it is impossible to know what is ahead of us, your history of presence in this community, from your founding as a neighborhood church until now, seems to assert that it is a vision that we are capable of reaching. But the example of James and John is a caution, just because we are able, and just because it is the right vision, does not mean that we know the form the vision will take. We may feel we are called to be a gathering of God’s people, to be anchored in the Post neighborhood, and to reflect God’s freeing power, and that may well be true, but there are a million different forms that vision could take. Just like James and John were able to drink the cup Jesus drank, were able to be baptized in his baptism, and yet still had no idea the road that would take them. And the good news in all of this is, while James and John did not know the form of the vision, they still had the mission, who they would be as they went there. The mission to be “on the road, going up to Jerusalem, [to the cross], and Jesus was walking ahead of them.” And so, as we live out the vision to which we feel called, maybe the bishop’s suggested mission statement is a good one for us as well. “Trinity Lutheran Church, on the road, to the cross, following Jesus.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Toast is Freedom: A Sermon on Mark 10:17-31

I want to start off by laying out my own baggage with this text. From the time I left for college at eighteen, until I moved to Michigan at age thirty, I changed residences at least once, sometimes two or three times, every year. The result of all that moving was for twelve years of my life, everything I owned could be, and regularly was, condensed to a single car-load. Toward the end of this period, after I graduated from seminary, while waiting for a call from the synod about whether any churches might want to interview me to be their pastor, my cousin got reflective about this transient period of my life. “It must be such a freeing feeling,” she remarked, “to have everything you own fit in your car, knowing you could just up and go anywhere in the world you wanted at a minute’s notice.” I, unemployed and with no job prospects, mired in student debt, having just moved back in with my parents while all my friends were buying houses and starting families, wasn’t in the mood for reflection. “No,” I quipped back. “You know what’s a freeing feeling? Owning more than one towel. Being able to commit to a toaster without having to worry if it will fit in the next move. Toast whenever you want it is what freedom feels like.”

All this to say, this is not going to be a sermon in which I encourage you to sell everything you own and set yourself free from worldly possessions. I have spent enough of my life in transition to know that owning nothing is not in and of itself the pathway to freedom. I now own seven towels, and I’m legitimately grateful for and appreciative of every one of them.

The other reason this is not going to be a sermon about the virtue of selling everything you own is the risk of glorifying poverty. Because here’s another thing, I have never been poor. Yes, for twelve years I owned next to nothing, but I have never been poor. I come from a background of relative generational wealth and I knew at any time I had an escape route. I could move back in with my parents, I could put my multiple degrees and robust resume to work at any number of white-collar professions, I could settle down and buy a toaster. The transient life-style I lived for twelve years was my choice, and my choice alone. And to make the choice to live without a virtue is to diminish the struggle of those for whom going without is not a choice but the result of unjust systems.

This passage places us in the same struggle as the one two weeks ago about cutting off one’s hand, where we need to resist the temptation to reduce Jesus’ hyperbolic teaching style to the realm of metaphor. Because as we saw two weeks ago with the cutting off of hands, the more hyperbolic Jesus seemed to be, the more serious the teaching. And Jesus was definitely talking about wealth in this passage, about the damages and dangers of money and possessions. Money, by the way, is one of the most frequently mentioned topics in Jesus’ teachings. Jesus talked about money more often than he talked about the law, or forgiveness, or heaven and hell combined. In fact, money is second only to the Kingdom of God in how often Jesus spoke of it. Money, possessions, and the role they play in our lives is hugely important, and it was hugely important to Jesus. As Jesus is quoted as saying in both Matthew and Luke, “No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve both God and money.” So while this passage is neither a glorification of poverty nor an obligation to sell everything we have and embrace a life of austerity, it is absolutely a calling to us to take a careful look at ourselves, our lives, our wealth, and our possessions, to see what outsized role those things may be playing, how they may, like the rich man, be keeping us from recognizing what we truly lack. For twelve years, and still today, all too often the things that I thought I lacked kept me from seeing what I still had and what I still had to give. Because though I owned next to nothing and my back account regularly hovered around zero, I was never truly poor and I was never without the power that comes with being white, middle-class, and well-educated. I always had something I could give.

The other thing I learned, and am learning, is that just because someone else has less then me, does not mean I should not ask them also to think of what they have, and what they can give. Because giving of yourself, being able to contribute, that too is a gift and a privilege. And it is unfair for me to decide who is worthy of that privilege, to decide someone has less than me so I get to give my things to them, because then I get the reward of feeling good about how generous I am, and they get the obligation of being grateful for my generosity. And we both lose. I lose the opportunity to receive; they lose the power of being the one who gives.

Fall is stewardship time at Trinity, and it is also annual budget time. And while we talk about how the two are separate, how we are giving not to the budget but to our mission, and how our budget is not based on pledged giving but on a sense of God’s call, and that is true, the two seasons do overlap, and both the receipt of each individual’s estimate of financial giving to the congregation and our congregational budget are about stewardship and about addressing the question that Jesus gave to the rich man, the question of what we lack, and what we are willing and able to give.

The individual financial giving part is the easier one actually, because what we are willing and able to contribute of our own wealth is a question only each of us can answer for ourselves. I can tell you, and I will, how much that amount is for me and how I make that decision. I learned 10-10-80 as a general rule somewhere, 10 percent saved, 10 percent given away, 80 percent lived on, and that makes the math super simple. So when my paycheck comes, I move the decimal place over one, round up because I like round numbers, and done. Actually, 10-10-80 means I don’t even actually do the math, I just see how much money Bob withholds for my retirement contribution and write a check for the same amount. I guess one of those numbers is post-tax and the other pre-tax, but I’m clergy, which means my taxes are calculated by a formula only the IRS understands anyway, so I don’t get all that worked up about net vs. gross, or whatever. I go with what makes the math simple.

So that’s how I figure it out. Of course, the caveat on that is I have no dependents, my expenses are low, and I paid off my student loans while I was working under the much higher cost-of-living based salary guidelines of the Southwest California synod, so 10-10-80 is a rule that works for me. It may not work for you. Maybe you are not at a financial place where you can set aside 10 percent of your income, or maybe you’re at a place where you can set aside more. Our Muslim brothers and sisters have a different system entirely. Rather than a tithe, or ten percent of their income, they practice zakat, which means they figure out their total net wealth overall and then give two point five percent of that. The idea being if someone is living paycheck to paycheck, they may not be able to set aside a percentage of income, as that is the money they’re living on. But someone could give of their wealth, that which has moved from subsistence to sustainability. There are pros and cons to each system of course, but our Muslim siblings method may actually be more sacrificial for those of us who have accumulated generational wealth.

I offer all this as food for thought as you think about what your estimate of giving will be, when we collect estimate of giving cards during worship on the twenty-eighth. But as I mentioned, fall is also budget time, and deciding how we manage those our congregational resources is probably harder, because more of us are involved in, and affected by, the outcome. Basically, the stakes seem higher. I can more or less calculate my own income and expenses, and what I can reasonably give. I’m certainly apt to lean more on the side of caution than I probably should, one can always be more generous, but it’s still an individual decision. With the church budget, I get more antsy. Because that’s not an individual decision, and the ramifications are larger. If our money is mismanaged, either intentionally or unintentionally, and we cannot sustain ourselves, it is not just my income that suffers; it is all of us, this neighborhood, and everyone who’s given money to support our mission and ministry. I want us to be here because this is my job and I like being paid, yes. If I stop feeding him, Cat might decide to just eat me. I also want us to be here for you all, because I love watching us as a congregation grow in our faith, I love worshiping with you each week, I love visiting with you, learning from you, working with you, I love being your pastor. And I want us to be here for the people who are in and out of this building all week, who have never, and may never come here on Sunday, but who also call me pastor, and who are also a part of our faith community. What we do here is about us, but it’s also bigger than us. It drives me absolutely crazy that yet again it’s budget time and I don’t know how we’re going to make the numbers work. That you all are generous and frugal and creative, and yet we still haven’t figured out how to crack the code of the difference between your generosity and our neighborhood’s need. I don’t know what the budget numbers are going to look like, but I know that we will be looking at what we can cut. I’m tired, and I’ve only been doing it for four years, some of you have been doing it for forty.

But here’s what I do know. Jesus told the rich man to sell what he had because he lacked on thing, because he loved him. Verse twenty-one, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” And here’s something you probably didn’t know, the rich man in this story is the only person in the whole Gospel of Mark that Jesus is said to have loved. Jesus talked about love, but this is the one and only person whom Jesus specifically looked at, and loved. The command of Jesus to sell what he owned so that he could get what he lacked came not from a place of obligation, but from a place of love. This was Jesus trying to fill a need the man didn’t even know he had, a need that couldn’t be met by wealth, couldn’t be met by keeping the law, couldn’t be kept by discipline or observance or belief, but could only be met by Jesus. And the man couldn’t do it, and he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. At least, he went away grieving in the story, but here’s the wonderful open-endedness of Mark, we don’t know what happened after that. What we know is what Jesus then told his disciples, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

So here’s the thing friends. It’s budget time again, and I can already tell you, the numbers don’t work. But the fact of our continued existence is proof that if God wants us here, the numbers don’t really matter. If you all had turned in the towel every time the numbers didn’t work, I wouldn’t be here. Pastor Herdman wouldn’t even be here. There was a time in the 1940s when you were down to six; your roughest time as a congregation predates both of us. So in two weeks, when you’re writing a number on that pledge card, I’m going to reiterate what you’ve been saying for years, we are not giving to fulfill the budget. We may lack something, but that thing is not money. No, we don’t have much money, but the story of the rich man assures us that the only thing we can lack is a thing only God can give, and God has given and is giving it to us in abundance, the sustaining presence of the Spirit in this place. We will be here until God decides our work here is done, and then we won’t be. The Bishop keeps assuring me the church needs us here, so as long as we are needed, I guess this is where we’ll be.

So it’s stewardship time, and I invite you to give, and to give generously. Not because the church needs your money, but so that you may experience the grace that comes from being a part of something that is bigger then all of us, the work of God in this place. And also, please don’t give me a toaster. I got one for Christmas a few years ago, and I love it. Thanks be to God for all the many gifts we receive, and also for toasters, because sometimes freedom really is as simple as a delicious piece of toast. Amen.