August 25 -- Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

[Chloe, submissive, ashamed, cowering at our “No-o-o-o.]

It’s a powerful image this week as we gather around the story of the woman who was bent down, pushed down for 18 years.  

The text says it was a physical ailment, but the people of that time and the many people today too, believe that our physical ailments can be manifestations of much deeper spiritual ailments — stress, pent-up anger, bitterness, shame…

And the way those religious leaders were used doing business, there’s no question in my mind that they spoke to the people in tones similar to how we would sometimes speak to Chloe when she had misbehaved:  “No-o-o-o.”  And that woman cowered physically for 18 long years (half a lifetime for most in those days).  Can you imagine?  

We religious ones — we church people — had better be careful how we speak to those who are not in and of this religious establishment...because that imposition of shame, I’m afraid, is not outdated.  (Pew Research study about a few years ago: top words associated with the word “Christian” — judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay).  Ever experienced church shaming...if you haven’t been to church in a long time, or don’t believe the right way, or break church rules?  Have the Pharisees ever pressed down on you or someone you know?  (Please don’t ask someone, upon return from a long absence from church: “Where have you been?”)

As soon as we get up on our high horses about church or spirituality or religious practices or the non-religious, and push others down — the one we follow and call Jesus has no time for that.  We see it in our Gospel here.  We can do the same thing with the Sabbath...

There’s an amazing reversal in this Gospel from Luke — very characteristic of Luke.  Holy flipping.  Jesus takes the poor and the lowly, sick and the sorrowing, the outcast and the stranger, the weak and the bent down...and Jesus raises them up, reverses their status.  Think of poor, young Mary; the 10 lepers; the Samaritan.  Jesus takes them and raises them up, does a holy flipping of their place in the community.

And Jesus takes the proud and the strong, the rich and the showy, the arrogant and the judgmental…and he brings them down.  The text today says, “he puts them to shame.”  The one who’s ashamed is lifted up, and the one who is used to shaming others is brought down.

In other words, Jesus has no time for compassion to go by the wayside.  Whenever mercy is not being shown, Jesus steps in.  Our God is a God of mercy and compassion — showering down on us and on this world like an ever-flowing stream.  And woe be to the one who’s getting caught up in judging and shaming others, especially the weak and the lowly, the sick and the forgotten.  It’s like Jesus has this radar for judgmental and powerful types.  And he hones right in on them, and he eats with them, and he teaches them.  He stays with them.  

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I think we all have our moments in both camps, don’t we?  Sometimes we are pressed down with shame and pain, including in our self-obsession, unable to stand up straight and look around to see our neighbors in need.  (Luther’s definition of sin: self curved inward.)  Can’t see anyone else...

And other times, oh, we can see others just fine: We can see them mis-behaving, we can see them being lazy or irresponsible, or not going to church, or not being Christian enough — basically not being as good of people as we are.  

Yeah, we’re not curved inward, we’re out and up in everyone else’s business.  And failing to take a deeper look at our own lives and souls.  I think we all have moments in both camps.

And that’s where Jesus moves in.  He levels us when we’re full of ourselves, pious, hard-working, little “holier than thou’s”.  He says, “Hey, cool it, let it go, come down here with us.”  

Maybe there’s someone in your life for whom your good judgment on them seems perfectly appropriate, but your anger and frustration with them is so overwhelming, you’re so high up on your horse, you’re so right...That’s when Jesus steps in and says: “Hey, breathe; come down here with me.”  

Jesus brings the temple leaders down, he shames them, and in so doing perhaps there’s even a hidden gift there.  “You guys are getting so obsessed with the law — the Sabbath, in this case — that you’re starting to use it as a weapon.”  Remember: they were only defending the Sabbath.  Nothing wrong with that.  (We’ve just finished a whole book here in Adult Ed, which defends the Sabbath.)  Author talks about it there too, actually:  How we can skew the Sabbath (and actually miss the absolute gift that’s there).  When the keeping the Sabbath becomes a weapon or a burden and not a gift, Christ steps in.  When the Bible is used as a weapon, not a gift, Christ steps in, and says, “Where is mercy, where is compassion, where is the radical welcome I proclaim?”  I wonder if there’s any way Jesus was actually giving a gift to those high-and-mighty religious leaders, even if they failed to see it right away.  And Jesus brings us down too — has no patience for our lack of compassion and mercy-showing toward our neighbor.  Jesus steps in to crush our pride, to lift up those we have hurt, and to restore community.  This text about the woman’s ailment, about the Sabbath, is about restoring community.  (The 10 C’s are about community!)

Thank God.  There is forgiveness for the sinner, for the proud and the arrogant, and the rich, and the nosey; there is forgiveness for the judgmental and the cruel.  Thank God, because I can live up there sometimes.

And there is hope for us when we’re pressed down.  When we’re bent so low by life.  Burdened by sorrow and pain, spiritually crippled, physically pressured, hurting and longing for a better day.  Jesus steps in and gives us healing and peace.  Jesus steps in and calls us, names us, what we are:  “Daughter of Abraham, son of Sarah, child of God, stand up straight.  Look around.  You are set free of what ails you.”  

Jesus comes to you this day, friends in Christ, Jesus arrives in this place in wheat and wine, water and Word, and offers us new life, a new day.  The resurrection is real.  You have been raised up with Christ, buried with him and therefore raised with him — not just after you die, but right now.  God has turned the world on its head, through Christ Jesus!  We are given new life this day, and even you are free of your ailments — free to live in hope, free to live in trust that God is with us, that God forgives us, and that nothing can separate us from the love that God has for us.  We no longer have to shame others or cower (like Chloe) in fear, for we are children of God, released to live as the people that God has molded us to be in this world, for this world.  Alleluia!  AMEN.  

August 18 -- Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

I never cease to be challenged by the divisiveness of Jesus.  On one hand, so much language and imagery about how he’s my friend, our friend, like the old hymn -- “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  I’ve sung this together with the family of faith in their last days, as well as that great Gospel song, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me…”  It’s wonderful to have a God who is a friend, someone waiting for and walking with us even now.  Someone who takes us by the hand.  But if we who are not yet on our deathbeds, who have (God-willing) plenty of time and health left to share some things on this earth…if we who are actively living, have only a picture of this gentle, sweet Jesus, then we’ve traded our Bibles for just a few of our favorite songs and images!

There was a book few years ago by Kendra Creasy Dean entitled “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church”.  She argues, that our young people, studies are showing, are emerging and drifting away from our churches, with not much more than an image of a God who is simply “nice.”  The fancy term is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Let’s just call it “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion.  This “Nice God Up In the Sky” religion, as she describes, has made its nest in the hair of Christianity, and is in fact sucking the life out of the church of Jesus Christ, living off of the complicated cross-and-resurrection core of our faith, like a parasite.  If the “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion had a creed, these would be the 5 pillars, acc. to Dean and her colleagues.  See if this sounds familiar:  “1) Sure God exists, whatever, and God watches over us from way above, 2) God wants us to be good and nice and fair like the Bible says.  3) We should also all be happy, and feel good about ourselves.  4) God’s not really involved in our lives, except when we need God to solve a problem.  And 5) if we’re good, when we die, we’ll go to heaven.”  Maybe these ideas don’t sound too off base, but know that Christian theologians, and martyrs, and scholars and saints down through the centuries — would call this creed profane and lazy.  “Nice God Up in the Sky” religion is not scaring our young people away, running for their lives, terrified of the church — there’s really nothing scary about it — it’s just not interesting, it’s not captivating or challenging, it’s not life-giving — it’s boring. It’s slowly but surely “life-draining”...like a parasite. 

I’m afraid, in many ways we could be responsible for teaching this to our kids (I certainly could be guilty as charged) — maybe because “a nice God” teaching is a reaction to the “mean, wrathful God” teaching (like Zeus with a lightning bolt) that some of us grew up with…

But this easy, nice, sweet, friend Jesus preaching-and-teaching is slowly-but-surely eroding the church, rounding out the edges, watering it down, making it harder and harder for us to even hear Jesus’ challenge today.  (I imagine preachers this Sunday — I know some — who are either irritated that this text was coming up again or make jokes about how this is a good week to go on vacation or preach on something different.  I myself joked with Marie, “Good thing so many are traveling right now.  Who wants to hear this text about Jesus bringing a sword?!”)  

But, but friends, Jesus speaks anyway, thank God!      

“What did you expect?”  Jesus asks us today, in less-than-sweet tones.  “Did you expect me to come and affirm your status quo?  Did you expect me bring you just gentle words of encouragement?  Did you expect me to take a look at how you’re treating one another and this earth, how you hoard your money, and your gifts, how you exclude one another and trample one another, how you fail to forgive, how you hurt, and judge, and ridicule, and attack one another, and simply say, well, you’re doing the best you can?  Good for you.”   

Friends in Christ, Jesus loves us too much to let us off the hook that easy, and Jesus is too alive in our world today to stop speaking to us, even if it might be hard for us to hear — with the buzzing nest of “Nice God” religion in our hair.

Just because we might be drifting in these late days in summer, doesn’t mean God is drifting.  Just in case you’re feeling drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical these days…about life, about church, about the world, Jesus does not get drowsy, or distracted, or lost, or cynical — thank God! 

We are shaken to the core by this powerful text, wrenched back to life by a God who is teeming with energy and life, “Did you think I came to bring peace?”  Jesus, for one thing pulls out that “Nice God Up in the Sky” nest, rips it to pieces and sets it ablaze.  Jesus arrives onto our scenes TODAY, and rips us apart from our social circles, our family circles, our cultural circles, our political and economic circles — which can give us some sense of identity and security.  But if those circles fail to align with his agenda, then “wake up!” he cries.  

“My welcome is bigger than you can imagine, my love is wider, my forgiveness wraps around this…universe, my embrace has no end.”

And that’s going to upset a lot of people.  Jesus’ mercy is everlasting, his embrace is all-encompassing, his agenda is to set the captives free, recovery of sight, peace to the oppressed (1^st 12 chapters of Luke!), but what he doesn’t have time for, is those who stand in the way of that mission.  All are forgiven, yes.  Grace abounds, yes.  But if you refuse the path of discipleship — that difficult road of sacrificial giving and loving your enemy — then move aside.  Thank God: Christ’s realm arrives with or without our permission or our participation.  But we are nudged again this week to get on board!  Thank God.

I’ve learned and experienced in my ministry of 13+ years...that the more welcoming we get as a church, the more mission-minded we become, the more justice-seeking we act, the more we get on board — the more we upset.  At one time, it was just welcoming people of different nationalities (Norwegians and Germans mixing) — and divisions formed. Then different skin colors (black and white and brown) — and you know divisions formed.  Then in the 70’s the church worked on welcoming more explicitly women and divorcees into leadership — and divisions formed (and we’re not all the way past these historic struggles).  Now we’re working on welcoming even more explicitly the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual+ communities, and look how that’s going for us, as a church, as a nation.  The more welcoming you get, the more people you upset.  

“Did you think I came to bring peace?  What did you expect?  You know that clouds in the west mean rain…”    

What about caring for and welcoming the undocumented  immigrants into God’s embrace and into our sanctuaries? 

Or people of different socio-economic brackets, ages or abilities? What about people who don’t take care of “our” church?  Or the non-human members of this planetary society?  The more that Christ is understood as “cosmic” (as he is throughout the New Testament btw), the more divisions will ensue.  

And yet, AND YET, the mission goes on, the embrace extends, the compassion and mercy of our God reigns down on us still, and still on all those with whom we share this universe.  And despite the division that will inevitably occur when we join along side the One who first joined along side us, we will be alright.  Even in the division that our welcome may cause, even among ourselves, our congregations, we will be alright.  

We press on, friends in Christ, not because we have an agenda, not because we want to “change the world,” or the church or the city or ourselves.  We press on as Christians because of God’s agenda.  God has an agenda of freedom and grace and justice and mercy and compassion, and that has captivated us.   

That freedom locks us down ironically, it binds us together — and we can’t help but continue to be faithful, to continue in the covenant of our baptisms — that is, living among other faithful ones, hearing and tasting the Word, following Christ out into the world, striving for justice.  

WE-WILL-BE-ALRIGHT, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, following in the shadow of a God who is rich and complex, gentle and provocative, human and divine, so-much-more-than-just-nice-and-far-away, a God who is both peaceful and divisive.  Let us go now, renewed and strengthened, centered and bold.  In Jesus name. AMEN.

August 5 -- Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Two brothers fighting it out.  [whining] “Tell my brother to give me that.”  But these are not little boys fighting and whining.  They’re grown men.  And they’re not fighting over a toy; they’re fighting over the family inheritance.”  Trying to draw Jesus into it.  (Remember triangulation with the two sisters?)

There are many things that are instructive about this Gospel text today, but what occurs to me is that the one who’s getting treated unfairly, the one who actually has a case, I think, the one who’s getting none of the family inheritance, is the one who prompts Jesus‘ parable.  The corrective story is for the brother who’s getting the raw end of the deal!  

I think you and I could figure out some ways we are that brother, the one getting cheated.  

Think about it for a moment:  How many ways are you getting the short end of the stick in this life?  How have you been sucker punched in the economic, social, familial, professional, federal, psychological boxing ring of this life?  

I don’t know about you, but my prayer to God can sometimes sound a lot like this brother who’s getting stiffed.  “God, tell them [whoever the them is] to give me my fair share!”  Housing market, job market, family life, church life, retirement, vacation, kids…”God tell them to stop jacking up the prices on gas and groceries.”  “Why don’t we get the kind of beautiful weather everyone on our trip to paradise?”

Can we be as whiny in our prayer life as this brother who simply wants his fair share...and who goes to the source to ask for it?  I mean, we can say some pretty articulate and eloquent prayers, but can the content be just as whiny?

And again, Jesus doesn’t get roped into arbitration, triangulation.  He seizes upon the bigger picture.  

When this man and (if we’re honest) you and me are caught up in this act, in this lifestyle of pining and whining for what we don’t have, for what’s owed to us, for how we got wronged and how others deserve a shaming and more, then we are getting caught in what Ecclesiastes calls the “unhappy business” of life (vanity)...then we are no longer “on guard,” as Jesus would warn, “against all kin‘a greed.”  

“Your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” Jesus reminds us again today.  Your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. “Beware of storing up treasures.”

And here’s the good news:  God through Jesus has freed us in the life hereafter and even in this life, even today — God through Christ has freed us from the “unhappy business” of pining and whining...because we have been promised something much greater in our baptism:  richness toward God — faith.

Faith is a gift given to us in baptism.  It’s nothing you have to buy, it’s nothing you have to earn.  It’s just given freely to you and to me...at the very beginning  And this is an antibody against the virus of greed and vanity:  FAITH.  This will protect us from pining and whining, faith in Christ!  

This “word of God, word of life” today is like finding a most precious letter in the attic, or the closet, or the top shelf of the garage hidden among all the junk.  Colossians: You have been buried and raised with Christ, so you don’t have to keep living in a state of fear and scarcity and sadness and bitterness and clenching on so tightly to what you have, even if you have very little.  Because you have been buried (first) and then raised with Christ, this long-lost letter says:

You have been given this greatest treasure that is faith, and you are renewed this day, free to live in the image of God who created you!  

[Our former presiding bishop Mark Hanson, used to vividly describe the old coffin-shaped fonts, meant to drive this reality home…]

We die to the old [pining and whining]...and are born to the new in baptism [faith].  

How do we we live into that reality?  How do we cultivate fields of gratitude, when there are fields and fields of “pining and whining” all around us?  How, friends in Christ, can we be even better farmers of thanksgiving?  (I say ‘even better’ because there is so much generosity in this place.)  It’s not that we’re not already farmers of thanksgiving, cultivating fields and lives of generosity and seeing the abundance even when times are lean.  But this text is calling us back, again, and challenging us even more in our generosity, that is, in our “joyful releasing”.  [‘sweet spot’ story]  How can we even better share our gifts, our treasures, our inheritances, our possessions…rather than locking so much up in our barns...like that man with lots of money in the parable?  Bigger barns, more houses, more money, more things.  And what are ways that we can remain generous, gracious and thankful even when that same generosity and fairness doesn’t seem to be extended to us by the world? 

[slowly] Friends, Jesus frees us to let go...of our possessions.  

They were never ours in the first place.  And if you died tomorrow — which could happen to any of us — if you died tomorrow, would you have shared your things in this life in a way that reflects the God who loves and creates you anew?  Jesus frees us from greed.  And fear.  Jesus‘ gift of faith, given freely in baptism, is the antidote to our anger and our bitterness. 

Author Tod Bolsinger offers a few suggestions on his blog for cultivating generosity:  “Hang out with generous people.  It will rub off on you.”  I suppose that implies the opposite then too:  

Keep an emotional distance from those who are not farmers of thanksgiving.  I’ve noticed that bitter people can rub off on me also.  Hang out with generous people.  (Looks like you’re in the right place!)  

  

Bolsinger also suggests practicing generosity.  (Fake it ‘til you make it, I suppose.  Studies tell us this works with self-confidence...how about generosity?)  He writes: “Leave a big tip when you go out to dinner.  Buy [fair trade coffee] and give it to your neighbors.  Buy a struggling young [professional] a new suit or offer to pay the rent for someone who needs a helping hand.  And then thank them.  Tell them that you are doing it for yourself, and that they are doing you a favor.  Then find something that you are hanging on to a little too tight and just give it to someone.  Give away your [porcelain doll collection, or your baseball cards, or favorite shirt], or whatever.  Empty your wallet in the offering plate just for the experience of doing so.  Write the biggest check you can ever imagine to some work of God in the world, and watch how there is still food on your table.  And don’t ask for any recognition for it, because this is helping you.  Reorganize your finances so that the first tenth of every bit of income that comes in your door goes to the work of God.  I mean really tithe.  Look at it as a whole lot better deal than the rich [landlord, in our text] got.” (Which was, of course, poverty in God.)   

How is all this setting with you?  It’s hard for me, in a way, to even read these suggestions...because I can be kind of stingy.  But I’m trying to trust in the gift that’s been given to me (and you) — faith, “richness toward God”.  

Let’s stick together, siblings in Christ, let’s encourage one another, inspire one another, and keep practicing generosity together, knowing that God stays with us through it all, and that we have been freely given the riches of faith!  AMEN.

July 21 -- Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace…from Jesus, who is with us.  Amen.

Friends in Christ, we are distracted by many things.  Often times when this text comes up or this story is told, we are invited to think about whether we are Mary’s — sitting at the feet of Jesus, or Martha’s — worried and distracted by many things.  [It’s true, we can be both Mary and Martha at different times in our lives.]  But today, for the sake of this sermon, I’m going to just assume that we’re all Martha’s — worried and distracted by many things.  Yes, there’s a little Mary in each one of us too, but in this day-in-age, we are almost programmed to pick up and respond to distractions...  

I’d like to just take a moment and ask you to jot down about 10 things things that are distracting you right now…in this place and in your life.  

Are we relating to Martha yet?  (Distractions in the world, in your life, in the news, in the community...) And how when we’re busy/serving, it’s easy to be judgmental of those who aren’t?  “Huh, must be nice to go on vacation.”  “Huh, maybe someone ought to work a little harder.”  And then Martha pulls a classic triangulation with Jesus.  Do you know what triangulation is?  Concept introduced by Dr. Murray Bowen.  (We see this all the time in the church:  Instead of going directly to the person with whom we’ve got a problem, we go to someone else, and try to rope them into our conflict and get them on our side… For example, if I’ve got a problem with another pastor in the area, instead of talking face-to-face with my brother or sister, I go to the bishop: “Tell him to behave...but don’t tell them..”  Another example: Husband and wife:  She’s very frustrated by her husband’s work habits:  long hours, time away from the children.  But instead of talking to him, she calls her sister, and tells her, but tells her not to say anything because she doesn’t want to damage her relationship with her husband.  Is triangulation a healthy way of communicating?)

Kacy Brown of the Well Counseling Center (just one of many resources out there) suggests some ways to avoid triangulation:  1) Go directly to the person with whom you have the conflict.  2) Avoid trying to draw others in and get them on your side behind the scenes.  3) And try as much as you can to de-triangulate...stay out of triangles.  Encourage others who are venting to you to go directly to the person with whom they have the conflict.  

This little side note on triangulation may be an unintended gift of this gospel text for us today, helping us communicate better with one another and reminding us of some unhealthy pitfalls in our communication styles, to which we’re all susceptible.

So, poor Martha.  Poor you and me.  Not only is she getting nicked just for being busy, but also for being a poor communicator.  Yep.

But here’s where Jesus gives her a gift:  “Martha, Martha, stop, sit down, breathe.”  Rather than getting hooked into the triangle Martha is trying to form, Jesus offers her a path out of bitterness: to stop.  To breathe.  (Probably doesn’t help that he uses her sister as the example, but we do get an image of the human being from Mary...as opposed to the human doing.)   “Stop, sit down, breathe.”

How we too can be distracted by so many things in our lives, in our world, even as we sit here in the sanctuary on Sunday.    How we in the church can be all about church all the time, and yet never truly worship...even when we’re in worship.  

    [conversations about Martha’s bitterness: another distraction from Jesus’ point?]

How is Jesus inviting you to stop, sit down and breathe?

This, Christ says, is the “better part”.  There is so much here that relates to us today.  We are called to listen, more than talk; to watch and wait, rather than run, run, run all the time.

Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: "Divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear (a) that YHWH is not a workaholic, (b) that YHWH is not anxious about the full functioning of creation, and (c) that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work."  

Christ invites us to rest this day.  To stop.  To center.  To listen.  And to know that God is God.  We are human beings, not human doings.  And Christ makes us that this day, Christ redeems us from our incessant doing-ness — making us fully human being.  We are made to sit at Jesus’ feet.  (pillows in the sanctuary)  In our busyness, in our fallen communication styles, in our running around we can almost loose a piece of our humanity, becoming like robots knocking tasks off our lists.  I heard a story recently about “a mother who coached, drove her kids around and volunteered for every school committee.  She was a supermom.  She loved her kids. Thing is, one of the kids [at church youth group], confided in [her pastor] that she hardly ever saw her mom. Her mom was so busy coaching, leading, volunteering ‘for her kids’, she was too busy to spend time with them.  This is a phenomenal lesson for those who are leaders in the church. We can become so obsessed with doing ‘God’s’ work, we lose track of God.” 

But Christ redeems us today.  Our humanity is restored, and we are offered a place and a time to center, and breathe and refocus.  Prayer, listening, centering — it’s precisely when we say we don’t have time for these things, that we know we need them.  It’s not that we shouldn’t serve, of course.  It’s that centering and listening, sitting at the feet of Jesus like 

Mary, must come before the serving so that we don’t loose sight of the vision.  (scrubbing the deck of the ship, but not at the wheel, so the ship crashes)

Jesus speaks gently to you this day.  Calls you by name.  Invites you to slow down for a change.  “There is need of only one thing,” Christ instructs us.  God is love.  In Christ, is our hope.  We are gathered this day back to the center, the ultimate concern.  And here at the center, we are forgiven and we are fed.  The time will come to go and serve.  But not before sitting at Christ’s feet, receiving God’s gifts at the table, the manger, which are poured out for you in abundance.  

God’s forgiveness washes over you in this time.  God’s peace shines upon you.  God’s presence fills every fiber of your being.   And in a moment God’s very body, the bread of life, will fill your body, Christ’s own blood, will co-mingle with yours.  Stop, listen, watch, breath.  Christ’s own gifts are being poured out for you and for many.  There is peace and grace to go around, that never runs dry.  Come and rest, here at the wellspring of hope.  Here at the center.   Here at the feet of Jesus.  AMEN.    

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Hymn of the Day is “Will you let me be your servant” #659 which might seem counter intuitive to this Gospel text today. But I chose it because of the second half of the first and last verses: “Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”  ...which may be our greatest challenge: to sit and receive and breathe.

July 14 -- Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace and peace from Jesus the Christ, who loves us and calls us to love our neighbors. Amen.

I want to start with the idea of the Parable of the Good Muslim.  I’ve imagined this before in sermons on this very familiar text, where I invited folks to compare the Samaritan for the people listening to Jesus to a Muslim for us listening to this parable today.  The Parable of the Good Muslim.

I don’t think that’s fair or honest now.  Maybe for some of us, Islam does not make our blood boil.  Muslims certainly get a bad rep in the larger culture still, but maybe you don’t actually hate Muslims.  I don’t.  Maybe you, have friends or family members or co-workers who are Muslims.  The individual Muslims I’ve known have been awesome — funny, faithful, friendly, forgiving.  That’s not the attitude to have when listening to Jesus’ story.  “Hey, the Samaritans I’ve known have been great.”  No one in Jesus‘ audience would have said that.

So the way to really get at the story fairly and honestly today, the way to put yourself into Jesus‘ audience today, one commentator has suggested, is to ask the question, “What person would you rather die in the ditch than be rescued by?”

Jesus was trying to elicit groans from his hearers.  Maybe the Muslim example does work for you, but if you remember, Jesus and his disciples have just been rejected themselves by Samaritans.  (I haven’t ever received personally an unwelcome, rejecting word or gesture from a Muslim I’ve known.)  Jesus and his disciples had just been rejected…by Samaritans.  It was chapter 9: “They did not receive Jesus because he had his face set for Jerusalem.” And it angered his disciples James and John so much that they wanted to punish those Samaritans with a violent revenge.  But Jesus rebuked his disciples and just kept moving on peacefully.

So — that is to say — Jesus is not just picking some person out there that some people despise, but others are actually friends with so can’t relate.  Jesus is using a personal — and in his case a collective — example that is going to elicit audible groans.   

(He was also, btw, doing a twist on a punchline:  See, the trio is supposed to be a priest, a Levi, and a scribe.  [Probably a scribe listening.]  So everyone’s expecting the scribe to be the one to stop — almost an “I know, I know a priest doesn’t, a Levi doesn’t, but the scribe does.”  He’s the example and that’s how we should be.  But Jesus twists the punchline.)  

Jesus is really catching the people off guard and scandalizing them with an offensive example at the same time.  There would have been audible gasps in that crowd.  What’s so bad about Samaritans?  (GS law, lunch group) But Samaritans were the Jews in the Northern Kingdom who were not taken into Babylonian captivity, who didn’t experience the exile, who didn’t know what real suffering means, and what it means to remain a faithful Jew all those years.  The Judean Jews thought the Samaritan Jews were polluted by the other cultures that had come into the territory while they were gone in captivity.  

In other words, we’re talking about family that’s deeply estranged here.  They’re all descendants of Abraham and Sarah, but are now seeing themselves as arch-enemy siblings.  

Who is that for you?  Who would you rather die in a ditch than see that person coming to help you?  [pause]

Maybe, like in the story here, that’s a member of your own family.  Maybe die-rather-than-being-rescued-by-that-one is a little hyperbolic (as story tellers tend to be), but you get the idea, don’t you? 

I think it’s no coincidence that the very next story is about a family conflict.  Here it is again:  constantly in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches something...and then we see it played out.  First he tells a story and then a real life example.  The very next real-life event after the famous Good Samaritan story (next week’s text), is the two sisters Mary and Martha.  [paraphrase]

Now, I can’t quite imagine that they (and particularly Martha) were so at odds with each other that they’d rather die than be rescued by the other.  But there is definitely some deep resentment on Martha’s part (at least), right?  Almost like the Judean Jew toward the Samaritan Jew resentment: “She doesn’t know what it means to work and suffer,” Martha is complaining to Jesus.

And that’s were we can really touch down into this text.  (Who are you complaining to Jesus about?)  First an extreme lesson, and then a tangible, down-in-our-guts, incarnated example.  

The whole Gospel of Luke is about Jesus ushering in a society with mercy, including and climaxing with Jesus’ work on the cross and the resurrection.  All mercy.  He’s always over and against hard heartedness, bitterness, resentment, anger, fear.  It’s one story/event after the next about Jesus ushering in mercy.  

And these two episodes today are no exception.  The Samaritan shows mercy.  (But did you notice the man, when Jesus asks, “Now which of these three was the neighbor?” couldn’t even say the word?  He couldn’t even say ‘Samaritan’.  He just said, “The one who showed mercy.”)

Anyway, the Good Samaritan is a story about mercy, and not just of the hated Samaritan’s mercy, but calling us the hearers to mercy...to giving a second look to those we deem enemies, even and especially those opponents who are closest and most visceral to us.  And just to drive it home, it’s followed by a real-life example:  A sister.  A brother.  A parent.  A child.  A former best friend.  A  next door neighbor.  A co-worker.  A church member.  We’re talking not about some big enemy “out there”, but about a family member, a real person who makes your stomach turn, who makes you tense up, or keeps you awake at night.  How about giving that one a second look.  Who do you need to give a second look to, who is that person in your life — you’ve been so backed up with anger, fear, resentment, bitterness toward?  That’s your neighbor.

That’s where our new journey begins, friends in Christ.  With a groan.  And a challenge.  And a call to honesty…and mercy.  Christ calls us always to mercy, peace and grace.  

Christ offers us that mercy, peace and grace, even if we have wronged those around us in some way — those locally and immediately, like our sisters or brothers or neighbors...and those broadly, indirectly and globally.  Even if, even though we have fallen short.  This amazing grace and mercy is for us too.

And Christ walks with us as we continue to seek new ways of extending that grace and mercy to all those we meet here and out on our roads.  Thanks be to God, that we don’t do this hard work of Christian love alone.  We do it together, and Christ is right there with in our midst.  AMEN.

July 7 -- Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Grace to you and peace….well maybe…  :)
Jesus sends us out like lambs out into the midst of wolves!

That’s us he’s talking about!  When it says he sends “the 70” out, scholars are pretty clear that’s referring to all humanity.  Everyone is sent!  (I haven’t preached Luke’s Gospel since Lent, but remember that Luke is very interested in the Gospel of Christ radiating out, locally then globally, from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria...and to the ends of the earth.)

So how do you feel about that?!  Being the ones Jesus sends?

Ever wonder, like I do: What are we you doing, listening to and following after this Jesus?  I published that question in the newsletter this week, with my email asking for responses and got like 0!  :)   Uhhhh.  What are we doing following after Jesus, sends us, like lambs into the midst of wolves?

Why do you follow?  It’s good, in these hot humid days to ask what this is all about?  And to stop and take in the fact that Jesus asks us to go into some pretty terribly risky situations.  I love how he says (vs.2-3), “Go on YOUR way.”  My way?  My way is always the a easier way.  The most calculated, safest way.  The path of least resistance.  Jesus is telling us that we’ll most likely be rejected, even eaten up here!

I’m amazed Christianity is as strong as it is!  Aren’t you?  I mean, this faith stuff is not for the faint-hearted.

When tragedy strikes (my 42 year old friend from seminary’s husband died suddenly and mysteriously last week), when disease creeps in, when friends abandon/even betray you, when marriages fall apart, why do you keep following after this Jesus?
And then, at the core of this passage, like so many in the Gospel of Luke, is the call to stand up to the forces of evil in this world.  It’s not just rah, rah hang in there passage.  It’s not just about survival as lambs among wolves.  At the core of this mission Jesus gives to us (the 70) is the call to get face to face with the powers of this world and proclaiming a bold NO to the ways and means that hurt people and earth itself.

When you embrace, preach and live the peace of Christ (that we’ll share in a moment), ironically, you actually create conflict!  When the powers of this world are threatened, by a higher vision of Divine peace, the peace of Christ — where all are included, all are fed, housed, clothed, welcomed, educated — the powers start to get very disturbed, the dragons start to wake up and snarl and try to squelch the disturbance.  (Mother Theresa: feed hungry =saint; ask why there is hunger = communist)

See, everything in Luke is tying back to Jesus‘ inaugural address that we shared together back in January, where the poor have good news brought to them, the captives go free, debts are forgiven, the year of the Lord’s favor.  Luke, remember, I often like to call it: the Mercy Book.  When you start talking mercy, especially to strangers in power, like where Jesus sends us — out there! — you’ve got another thing coming.

Wait, wolves?!!!
Where is the Good News for us in that, friends?

Well, I believe it’s in the journey!  See, Jesus says it over and over, and it’s still really hard to get, but I’ll say it again (even to myself):  The kingdom of God is here!   It’s right here (at hand, upon us!  (candidacy essays: “I want to usher in the kingdom.”)
Our Creator God is already with us.  Christ is right by our side.  The Holy Spirit is moving all around in this sanctuary and in your home and your car and your office or classroom!  Out on the open road.  It’s in the journey!

Do you know the kinds of adventures you’ll have when you risk the call that Christ has for you here?  Don’t wait any longer.  Have the conversation that needs to be had.  Make the change in your life that will lead to deeper faith.  Let the investment go that’s been tying you down.  This is Christ calling us.  Sending you.  And do you know the kinds of fellow travelers you’ll meet?  The kinds of joys you’ll share, even amid the great struggles and pains?   The kingdom of God is here!  Now.  It’s all part of it.

I’m afraid I’m not making sense.
Church stories…
I have a friend who’s been the pastor of small church.  Opportunities for growth and renewal keep knocking on their door...literally but he cannot for the life of him get the congregation to trust God and open that door.  It would revitalize the whole ministry, but they are so stuck on protecting their building and their traditions.  He told me the other day, “It’s like there’s no room for God in there.  It’s like the Spirit is locked up in a cage, like a bird.”  The divine is crowded out by fear of the unknown.  And they just can’t take that step.

Meanwhile, here’s another church I knew in San Diego a few years back: They were literally dying.  Maybe that’s what it takes: my friend’s congregation wasn’t quite at that point yet.)  Anyway, Calvary Lutheran (aptly named in the moment) came together to have that really tough meeting about closing the doors.  It was a younger member of the church who stood up, faced with the realities of budget and staffing shortages, that said, “Well, if we’re going to die, let’s die serving.”  The whole congregation agreed.  This became their rally cry.  And with that they opened up a food pantry in their underserved neighborhood, where in a couple months and with some miraculous grants that came through they started feeding literally hundreds of families a week!   More than one of the more popular organizations downtown.  They just quietly kept feeding people — the whole congregation, not just a few dedicated members.  It became their whole identity.  Suddenly they weren’t worried as much about all they didn’t have.  Their whole perspective changed.  They heeded the call that Christ had for them all along.  And in that came true peace.

And it’s not romantic, it’s not like all their problems were solved and the church grew and recovered by leaps and bounds.  The renewal came in the paradigm shift, the radical re-envisioning of what it means to follow Jesus.

These are the kinds of adventures we have as we risk the call that Christ has for us.  The kingdom of God is not something far off, someday down the line — it’s right here, now (even as we’re dying)!

I love when babies scream during a baptism.  Well, I don’t love it, but I see a powerful reminder every time it happens:  this Christian life is not an easy one.  We should all shed a few tears.  It’s lambs-amid-wolves business.  And yet in this same crazy commission, Jesus talks about peace, true peace.  Finding and knowing God’s peace, right where you are.  Not moving around from place to place, always in search of a better deal, or more comfort or tastier food.  Right?  He says, “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide.”
So here we go.  Jesus told them to go, and so they went.  And God stays with them.  God stays with you, this day and always.  AMEN.

June 16 -- Holy Trinity Sunday

“Praise, my dear ones, let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.” (R.M.Rilke) AMEN. 

When I was a boy, growing up, we used to spend some of our summer vacations visiting Grandma and Grandpa Roschke in Kansas City, Missouri.  

And one of my favorite things to do there, I remember, was to go with my brothers and my cousins, to one of the city centers (I think it was downtown)...and play in the jumping fountains.  Ever seen one of these?

We would put our swim suits and Mom would put our sunscreen on in the hot Midwest summer.  And we’d all go down to the jumping fountains, and try to catch the water,  shooting from one pod to the next.  We’d try to figure out the pattern of the jumping fountain, but we never could.  And then after an interval of sporadic jumping water, the whole fountain would just explode with a huge shower!  And then quiet again.

I just remember so much laughing and squealing with glee and holding onto each other (both in teasing and in joy)...  And I remember when you got hit with that water [gasp] how cold and shocking it was (our parents would take pictures of our faces), and at the same time how refreshing it was.  It’s hard to talk about it and not smile…

The memories of that place—from another time in my life—come flooding back this day as I think about the Holy Trinity on this Holy Trinity Sunday, first Sunday after Pentecost, the beginning of what many of our liturgical brothers and sisters call Ordinary Time, what I have called Outside Time or the Green Season.

And it all starts today, on this Father’s Day, with the celebration of the Holy Trinity!  

What can we say of God, the Holy Trinity?

My guess is that pastors everywhere are sheepishly and humbly approaching church pulpits today—or at least they should be—because whenever you talk about the Trinity, you’re always in danger of committing heresy.

This might seem silly to us now: just say what you want to say about God...it’s a free country, right?  What’s the big deal?  In recent years, I haven’t heard a whole lot of synod assemblies arguing about the nature of Christ, and God the Son’s relationship to and with God the Father.  

   

But please remember today, that the early Christians really went to the mat on this stuff.  (Human sexuality and biblical interpretation, positions on war or women’s rights — the things we fight about: nothing compared to those controversies.)  Some wanted to say that there was a pecking order to the Holy Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son (who was a little bit less than God the Father) and then Holy Spirit...just like this extra bird or something.

But Athanasius really put the nail in Arius’ theological coffin.  Arius was the one who wanted to say that that God the Father was greater than God the Son.  Remember the Athanasian Creed from the old green hymnal, the LBW?  We used to always say this on Holy Trinity Sunday...

We worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons, nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.

Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is Spirit.

The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.

Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal;

as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings,

     but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty. 

Still with me?  This Trinity stuff is crazy.  But it should not just be tossed out: “Who cares?”  This is the doctrine we confess, to which we cling, which gives us hope and joy (actually) and is the basis for a rich theological tradition...to which Luther subscribed, and we many, many years later still put on this great outfit called the Trinity/our creeds.  To think that God the Spirit, is equal to God the Father, is equal to God the Son, who we name as Jesus!

Just trying to wrap our head around this, with the words of these ancient creeds, we start to enter into the mystery and the wonder of our God.  That God is not someone we can capture.  Saying these old creeds, while at first for us might seem restricting or limiting or too doctrinal — 

I’d actually encourage you to see these creeds (these fabulous outfits) rather as a threshold—or an entry way—into a wondrous relationship with God and with one another!   Put them on, and let the fun begin.

And so I began with an image of children playing in a jumping fountain — I tried to put words around and onto an experience that I really can’t put words around. [pause] But I hope you could at least catch the joy, even in my meager telling of that time in the jumping fountain…[pause]

...so it is with God:

We like children revel in the majesty of God’s splendor...even in this life, not just in the life hereafter.  Can’t accurately put words on it, exactly.  We laugh and run, we hold each other, sometimes we hurt each other, we are soaked with the waters of our baptism — and sometimes that’s shocking and freezing, but mostly it’s a joy, it is refreshing/renewing.  And we keep coming back to those waters to play, whether we’re 3 or 83... 

One of the newer hymns for Holy Trinity in our red hymnal is called “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity”.  Here is a modern hymn writer, shifting away from an explanation of the mystery of the Trinity—not in a heretical way—but rather imagining us people of God as being interwoven with God, caught up in the “dance” of the Trinity...I would say, reveling in the jumping fountain of our Triune God.  

Like that fountain in Kansas City, we can’t really figure out the pattern of God, but that doesn’t matter.  That’s not our job.  

All we can do is bask in God’s splendor and beauty.  Feel God’s love drench us and chill us, and hold onto one another.  This is life in the swirling, jumping Trinity!  We can’t ever fully put our finger on it.   And so we play and enjoy and try; we are helped today by a poem in Proverbs, a psalm, by Paul, and the Gospel of John, by our prayers and several hymn writers, through the text of our liturgy, and a sermon, and the gift of bread and wine.  

Friends, we are drawn together into the life of our unfathomable, “immortal, invisible God, only wise.” We revel in the mystery, we dance in the Trinity, we are swept up, soaked and filled with joy, as our praises today reach the rafters and our spirits soar in thanksgiving!  

To our Triune God be the glory, forever and ever!  AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.