Uprooting mulberry trees and planting them in the sea? If you’ve ever taken down a tree, you know it’s very hard work. First, of course, there’s the chopping or sawing. Then if the tree was on a lawn or public space, you’d probably either rent a stump grinder or pay someone else to take out the stump.
What is Jesus talking about here? We are still on the road with Jesus, heading toward Jerusalem and all that will take place there. In this middle section of the gospel, the evangelist has collected a variety of Jesus’ teachings and sayings. No doubt the evangelist has also tried to arrange them in some coherent order. We’ve heard parables and stories about lost sheep and lost coins, and we heard about a dishonest manager and the rich man and Lazarus. In most of these stories and sayings, the evangelist has shown Jesus using overstatement and exaggeration, one of the favorite rhetorical tools of the rabbis.
As we come to this place in the gospel narrative, the disciples are clearly feeling overwhelmed and downright puzzled by all that Jesus has called them to be and do. So they make what seems like a simple request: “increase our faith.” But what exactly are they asking for? Is a faith a quantity that can decrease or increase? What would more faith look like in real life? If they had “more faith” would the disciples fast, give, heal, and teach more? Would they stop complaining as they trailed behind Jesus? Would they willingly let themselves be executed with Jesus?
Do you find Jesus’ response to his disciples perplexing? At this point, you might not even like the Jesus you see here. He doesn’t reassure the disciples. He doesn’t make a joke or pat them on the back. He barks at them, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed….” Then he uses the image of a master and slaves – overworked slaves – to suggest something about what faith really means. Although the image of hardworking slaves would have been perfectly acceptable to Jesus’ disciples and to the evangelist’s audience, it of course grates on our ears. And more than that, both the sayings about the mustard seed and the image of slaves are surely further examples of overstatement and exaggeration.
So what is the real message here? What is the evangelist suggesting to his own community – and by extension to us – about what faith is? Let’s unpack that word “faith” and look for a minute at what we might think it means. Is faith supernatural power, especially power that, if I believe hard enough, I can make God do what I want? Is faith acceptance of all the traditional statements of the church, believing seven impossible things before breakfast, as one wag put it? Do I have deep faith if I understand and accept every statement in the Nicene Creed? Do I have faith if I take the Bible literally, especially if I believe that creation happened according to the account in Genesis, or that every miracle occurred just as it is depicted? Do I have faith if I adhere to a set of specific devotional practices? Am I person of deep faith if I fast, tithe, and read Forward Day by Day every morning?
The truth is that faith – or perhaps, better, faithfulness – the faithfulness we are called to have as followers of Jesus, is none of these things. To begin with, faith is a gift of God. But it is not something that we earn as a reward for hard work. It is something we already have just by virtue of being a creature made in God’s image. We may have models of people who have faith, like the women Lois and Eunice mentioned by the writer of the second letter to Timothy, but we must still acknowledge God’s gift for ourselves.
Perhaps faith is more what we moderns might call a mindset. When we acknowledge God’s gift, then we can begin seeing the world as God sees it. We can acknowledge ourselves as part of God’s creation, and as such deeply and truly loved by God. We can also understand ourselves as only a small part of God’s creation, as one of God’s many children. And we can begin seeing ourselves as connected to everyone we meet, looking out at those both near and far, not with our egocentric desire to possess and control, but rather with compassion and a desire to help others grow and flourish.
What’s more important, faith is not something static, it is not something that comes in a quantity that Jesus or God can increase at our request. It is not something that we can throw away. We can ignore God, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have no faith. And more important, our faith, whether it’s in God or in anything else, is dynamic. It grows, flourishes, and unfolds throughout our life’s journey. It’s apt really that Jesus used the image of a seed for faith. Remember Jesus’ image of the mustard seed that grows to be a great tree, in which even the birds can nest? If we water and tend our faith, it too can become a green living quality within us that will reflect God’s presence within us and in the world.
The most important thing about faith is that it is ultimately a verb. Jesus was right in suggesting that if we have faith we do something. Jesus might have been exaggerating in using the image of the uprooted mulberry tree, but the truth is that ultimately if we acknowledge the divine gift within us, then we show forth our faith “not only with our lips but with our lives.”
And how do we do that? Not surprisingly, faith is a verb that calls us to look in two different directions at once. If faith enables us to see ourselves as one of God’s beloved children, then to remain faithful we must also hear God’s call to us. We must leave ourselves open to God in regular prayer and times of silence, however briefly, and go beyond our rote prayers or our spontaneous calls for help, to reach the God within us, to connect more deeply to the God within us, to hear more clearly the words of that God. And we do this not to prove anything, not to buy God’s favor, not to placate an angry God, but so that we might follow more closely behind Jesus, so that our God-given faith may indeed become that great green tree.
And then we must do our faith out in the world. Writer Debie Thomas reminds us that that to do faith is “To do the loving, forgiving thing we consider so banal we ignore it. Why? Because the life of faith is as straightforward as a slave serving his master dinner. As ordinary as a hired worker fulfilling the terms of his contract. Faith isn’t fireworks; it’s not meant to dazzle. Faith is simply recognizing our tiny place in relation to God’s enormous creative love, and then filling that place with our whole lives.”1 We do our faith by doing what God calls us to do, in our ordinary given lives, and, to the extent that we fallible humans can, with the mindset of Jesus. Doing our faith will look different for each one of us. For many of us, living out our faith will mean truly accepting ourselves as God’s beloved children. And it also will mean looking hard at our lives, forgiving those who have hurt us, forgiving ourselves for the hurt we have visited on others, and asking for forgiveness where we can. Doing faith will mean seeing Christ in the faces of strangers, especially of those who ask for our help. For some of us, doing faith might mean embarking on a new educational or career path, or taking in an unwanted child. For all of us doing faith will mean using our God-given financial resources intentionally, especially to support people and organizations that are helping us to care more intentionally for the earth, and that are working to bring God’s reign nearer. Doing faith will mean working for justice, especially among those falsely accused. For some of us, doing faith will also mean working to abolish the death penalty. And for all of us, and especially in this contentious political season, doing faith will mean using our right to vote thoughtfully and intentionally.
We have a myriad ways to fulfil our call to do faith in the world. And the truth is that we have all the faith that we need. As we do our faith, God may deepen and strengthen our faith. But even now, every one of you has all the faith that you need to do God’s will. Because, “the tiniest fragment of real faith, real fidelity to responding to God’s prior fidelity to us, can work wonders. Not only a sycamore tree, but even much more deeply-rooted problems, can be dug up and planted in to the sea, if we have that basic, deep-down trust in God.”2 May it be so.
1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay .
2. Patrick J.Ryan, America (September 26, 1992), quoted in Synthesis, October 2, 2016.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
Seek the Lost
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea; there’s a kindness in God’s justice, which is more than liberty.” We just sang those words. Do you believe them? Do you believe “there is welcome for the sinner and more graces for the good….”? Or is there a part of you that still believes you have to do something to get God to love you? Or worse, do you think that you’ve botched up your life so badly that there’s no way that God could love you? Or maybe it’s all those other people out there – whoever “they” are – who don’t deserve God’s love: the murderers, drug dealers, crooked politicians, child abusers, and streetwalkers? Or perhaps you believe that when “bad things happen to good people,” when people are caught in floods or tornadoes, or their cities are bombed, it’s because they deserve it, that God is punishing them – or the rest of us on their behalf. On this day fifteen years ago, some of us heard claims like that. So does any of this reflect your beliefs?
If your only idea of the God of the Hebrew Bible is what we heard this morning in the reading from Jeremiah, you might think that all those statements about God are true. Remember that Jeremiah originally wrote his prophecies at a time of great political upheaval, when the Babylonian armies had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and were herding the Judean leaders into exile in Babylon. The prophet is very clear about God’s judgement of the people of Judah. Clearly God is enraged at them. God calls them foolish and stupid, skilled in evil, and ignorant of good. They have even violated creation. God pronounces judgement: God will destroy the land and make the earth mourn. And God is fiercely determined to carry out God’s plan.
And yet. Did you notice the hints that God did not intend to wreak total destruction? Did you notice something else besides God’s fierce anger? Did you hear “my poor people?” Did you hear that “my people” are foolish, like stupid children? Did you hear God acknowledge God’s deep relationship with God’s people, the hint of God’s compassion for them? Did you hear God say, “Yet I will not make a full end?”
Throughout this long book, the prophet continues to rail against the wrong-headed political alliances that eventually led to the triumph of the Babylonians over the Judeans. Yet, in chapter 30, God declares, “… have no fear my servant Jacob … and do not be dismayed, O Israel; for I am going to save you from far away, and your offspring from the land of their captivity.” And more: God declares, “I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob, and have compassion on his dwellings; the city shall be rebuilt upon its mound, and the citadel set upon its rightful site.” Most important of all, God promises to make a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The prophet Ezekiel, who also experienced the exile, also trusted God to seek out and restore God’s people. Using the familiar image of God as a shepherd, Ezekiel repeats God’s declaration that “I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered ….”
Perhaps Jesus had that very section of Ezekiel in mind as he responded to the implied criticism of the Pharisees and scribes. And here let me remind you that, despite what you hear in the Gospel, in Jesus’ time the Pharisees are the good guys – literally. Though the gospels often show them arguing with Jesus, they strove to keep the Law of Moses, to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” it. They also continued the process of reinterpreting the law – which rabbis do to this day – so that the law remains relevant for those who try to observe it.
Like all good people, the Pharisees tend towards self-righteousness. Focused on their own efforts to be good, they exclude those who miss the mark more visibly. It is understandable that they might wonder why this charismatic rabbi not only seemed to avoid the obviously good people but sought out the least, the lost, and the left behind. Why would a self-respecting follower of God’s law do that? Here in Luke’s telling, Jesus answers their concerns by telling three stories, two of which we just heard. Just as we heard in last week’s gospel, Jesus uses hyperbole to make his point. Using images that would resonate with ordinary people, Jesus pictures a shepherd who chases after a lone sheep, leaving ninety-nine “in the wilderness,” then rejoices when he finds the lost one. Would a sane shepherd, even imagining that he had a flock that size, really leave them all to chase after one? Jesus then uses the image of a woman searching for a lost coin and rejoicing when she finds it. Would a person expend that much effort just to find one coin?
Wondering about what happened to the ninety-nine sheep left behind or the woman’s effort entirely misses the point of these stories. Jesus is not saying anything here about sheep, women, or even us. In answering the complainers, Jesus is saying something about God’s intentions. He is reminding his hearers – and us – that God takes the initiative to seek and rescue the lost. And maybe we’re all lost – only the ninety-nine “good” sheep and the nine coins hanging around the woman’s neck – that’s how the poor kept their money – don’t know that they’re lost. So God starts with those who do know that they’re lost, those who’ve wandered away and can’t find their way back, those who fall in between the cracks, or end up behind the drapes. And God not only takes the initiative to go looking for the least, the lost, and the left behind, God welcomes them, even eats dinner with them. To show what God was really like, “Jesus welcomed the people we ignore and despise. The sexually suspicious. The religiously impure. Ethnic outsiders. Rich tax scammers and lazy poor people. Soldiers of the Roman oppressors. The chronically sick and the mentally deranged. Women with multiple marriages, widows, and children. His closest disciples who betrayed him.”1
And why does Jesus – or God – take the initiative to seek out those on the margins? Of course in the parables, the sheep and the coin are forms of wealth. And you know what? So are we! So are all of us, even those who we good people wouldn’t be caught dead embracing! God loves all of us. And even more important, the least, the lost, and the left behind people are part of the community, and the whole is not complete without them. God’s search for us – all of us – is ultimately a quest for restoration and wholeness. “In this sense, all of us who are part of God’s creation should be just as anxious as God until the lost are restored and we are made whole again by their presence.”2
And so, what of us? If God always takes the initiative, if God always seeks us out, are we willing to be found? If we are, how do we let ourselves be found? On Tuesday, we wondered how to discern God’s will – which may be another way of asking the same question. No surprise: we discovered that we have to open ourselves to God’s presence in our lives. We realized that a deeper relationship with God helps us to be found by God and to let God lead us – even when the next steps aren’t always clear. The means? Intentional silent prayer is a good first step: letting go of our own ego, our own small needs and concerns, and simply sitting silently in God’s presence. Intentional reading of Scripture is another good practice. Daily examen, looking over your day and seeing God’s presence in the events of the day, is yet another good practice. We will experience all of them at next month’s quiet day, but I’ll be happy to give a preview of both practices to anyone interested.
But. Practices of prayer are never ends in themselves – if Jesus is our example. After taking time away for prayer, Jesus leapt right back into active ministry, healing, teaching, proclaiming the reign of God. Once God has found us, welcomed us, fed us, healed us, and strengthened us, then we have a responsibility to share God’s welcome with others, to actively seek the least, the lost, and the left behind, both those who come to us and those who don’t find their way through our doors, who may not even know that we exist.
Today, we remember all those first responders and everyone else who went out to help victims and family members of those who lost their lives in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, PA. And here’s another example. Every Wednesday evening, the Lost Sheep Ministry reaches approximately 250-300 people under the Interstate Bridge in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. Many volunteers take part in this ministry. After a brief prayer service, they serve hot meals, give away gently used clothes, including work and interview clothes, staff a prayer table, provide dental and medical assistance, hold an annual flu clinic, and provide risk-free tuberculosis screening.3
Who are the homeless bridge people around us? To whom are we called to reach out with God’s love? “I once was lost, but now am found.” As God has found us, as God has showered us with love and great blessings, with whom are we called to share that love? Who needs to be found, so that the Body may be made whole?
Let your God love you. Then go out and to seek the lost, to share God’s love with them.
1. Dan Clendenin, “A Trustworthy Saying,” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay .
2. Jennifer Copeland, “Clean Sweep,” Christian Century, Sept. 07, 2004, http://christiancentury.org/article/2004-09/clean-sweep
3. http://lostsheepministry.org/under-the-bridge/
If your only idea of the God of the Hebrew Bible is what we heard this morning in the reading from Jeremiah, you might think that all those statements about God are true. Remember that Jeremiah originally wrote his prophecies at a time of great political upheaval, when the Babylonian armies had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and were herding the Judean leaders into exile in Babylon. The prophet is very clear about God’s judgement of the people of Judah. Clearly God is enraged at them. God calls them foolish and stupid, skilled in evil, and ignorant of good. They have even violated creation. God pronounces judgement: God will destroy the land and make the earth mourn. And God is fiercely determined to carry out God’s plan.
And yet. Did you notice the hints that God did not intend to wreak total destruction? Did you notice something else besides God’s fierce anger? Did you hear “my poor people?” Did you hear that “my people” are foolish, like stupid children? Did you hear God acknowledge God’s deep relationship with God’s people, the hint of God’s compassion for them? Did you hear God say, “Yet I will not make a full end?”
Throughout this long book, the prophet continues to rail against the wrong-headed political alliances that eventually led to the triumph of the Babylonians over the Judeans. Yet, in chapter 30, God declares, “… have no fear my servant Jacob … and do not be dismayed, O Israel; for I am going to save you from far away, and your offspring from the land of their captivity.” And more: God declares, “I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob, and have compassion on his dwellings; the city shall be rebuilt upon its mound, and the citadel set upon its rightful site.” Most important of all, God promises to make a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The prophet Ezekiel, who also experienced the exile, also trusted God to seek out and restore God’s people. Using the familiar image of God as a shepherd, Ezekiel repeats God’s declaration that “I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered ….”
Perhaps Jesus had that very section of Ezekiel in mind as he responded to the implied criticism of the Pharisees and scribes. And here let me remind you that, despite what you hear in the Gospel, in Jesus’ time the Pharisees are the good guys – literally. Though the gospels often show them arguing with Jesus, they strove to keep the Law of Moses, to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” it. They also continued the process of reinterpreting the law – which rabbis do to this day – so that the law remains relevant for those who try to observe it.
Like all good people, the Pharisees tend towards self-righteousness. Focused on their own efforts to be good, they exclude those who miss the mark more visibly. It is understandable that they might wonder why this charismatic rabbi not only seemed to avoid the obviously good people but sought out the least, the lost, and the left behind. Why would a self-respecting follower of God’s law do that? Here in Luke’s telling, Jesus answers their concerns by telling three stories, two of which we just heard. Just as we heard in last week’s gospel, Jesus uses hyperbole to make his point. Using images that would resonate with ordinary people, Jesus pictures a shepherd who chases after a lone sheep, leaving ninety-nine “in the wilderness,” then rejoices when he finds the lost one. Would a sane shepherd, even imagining that he had a flock that size, really leave them all to chase after one? Jesus then uses the image of a woman searching for a lost coin and rejoicing when she finds it. Would a person expend that much effort just to find one coin?
Wondering about what happened to the ninety-nine sheep left behind or the woman’s effort entirely misses the point of these stories. Jesus is not saying anything here about sheep, women, or even us. In answering the complainers, Jesus is saying something about God’s intentions. He is reminding his hearers – and us – that God takes the initiative to seek and rescue the lost. And maybe we’re all lost – only the ninety-nine “good” sheep and the nine coins hanging around the woman’s neck – that’s how the poor kept their money – don’t know that they’re lost. So God starts with those who do know that they’re lost, those who’ve wandered away and can’t find their way back, those who fall in between the cracks, or end up behind the drapes. And God not only takes the initiative to go looking for the least, the lost, and the left behind, God welcomes them, even eats dinner with them. To show what God was really like, “Jesus welcomed the people we ignore and despise. The sexually suspicious. The religiously impure. Ethnic outsiders. Rich tax scammers and lazy poor people. Soldiers of the Roman oppressors. The chronically sick and the mentally deranged. Women with multiple marriages, widows, and children. His closest disciples who betrayed him.”1
And why does Jesus – or God – take the initiative to seek out those on the margins? Of course in the parables, the sheep and the coin are forms of wealth. And you know what? So are we! So are all of us, even those who we good people wouldn’t be caught dead embracing! God loves all of us. And even more important, the least, the lost, and the left behind people are part of the community, and the whole is not complete without them. God’s search for us – all of us – is ultimately a quest for restoration and wholeness. “In this sense, all of us who are part of God’s creation should be just as anxious as God until the lost are restored and we are made whole again by their presence.”2
And so, what of us? If God always takes the initiative, if God always seeks us out, are we willing to be found? If we are, how do we let ourselves be found? On Tuesday, we wondered how to discern God’s will – which may be another way of asking the same question. No surprise: we discovered that we have to open ourselves to God’s presence in our lives. We realized that a deeper relationship with God helps us to be found by God and to let God lead us – even when the next steps aren’t always clear. The means? Intentional silent prayer is a good first step: letting go of our own ego, our own small needs and concerns, and simply sitting silently in God’s presence. Intentional reading of Scripture is another good practice. Daily examen, looking over your day and seeing God’s presence in the events of the day, is yet another good practice. We will experience all of them at next month’s quiet day, but I’ll be happy to give a preview of both practices to anyone interested.
But. Practices of prayer are never ends in themselves – if Jesus is our example. After taking time away for prayer, Jesus leapt right back into active ministry, healing, teaching, proclaiming the reign of God. Once God has found us, welcomed us, fed us, healed us, and strengthened us, then we have a responsibility to share God’s welcome with others, to actively seek the least, the lost, and the left behind, both those who come to us and those who don’t find their way through our doors, who may not even know that we exist.
Today, we remember all those first responders and everyone else who went out to help victims and family members of those who lost their lives in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, PA. And here’s another example. Every Wednesday evening, the Lost Sheep Ministry reaches approximately 250-300 people under the Interstate Bridge in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. Many volunteers take part in this ministry. After a brief prayer service, they serve hot meals, give away gently used clothes, including work and interview clothes, staff a prayer table, provide dental and medical assistance, hold an annual flu clinic, and provide risk-free tuberculosis screening.3
Who are the homeless bridge people around us? To whom are we called to reach out with God’s love? “I once was lost, but now am found.” As God has found us, as God has showered us with love and great blessings, with whom are we called to share that love? Who needs to be found, so that the Body may be made whole?
Let your God love you. Then go out and to seek the lost, to share God’s love with them.
1. Dan Clendenin, “A Trustworthy Saying,” http://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay .
2. Jennifer Copeland, “Clean Sweep,” Christian Century, Sept. 07, 2004, http://christiancentury.org/article/2004-09/clean-sweep
3. http://lostsheepministry.org/under-the-bridge/
Monday, September 5, 2016
Are You All In?
We’re still on the road with Jesus. For the last month or so, ever since Jesus “set his face for Jerusalem,” we‘ve been walking the dusty roads between Galilee and Judea with him. All the while, Jesus has been flinging hard words at us. If you become one of my followers, be prepared for conflict with your friends and family, he told us last month. Just last week he told us not to assume that we are the high-status people, and to invite the riffraff to our parties rather than our families and friends. It’s hot, we’re tired, and we’ve had enough of Jesus’ hard teachings. “That’s it, Master, no more. Leave us alone.”
Maybe Jesus can already see Jerusalem and the events that will happen there – if not with his naked eye, then perhaps in his mind’s eye. So he flings his hardest teaching yet at us. He tells us to be prepared for the cost, the full cost of truly following him. “You have to hate your family members,” he says. “You have to follow me all the way to unjust execution, if necessary.” “You have to give away everything you have.” “Wait, wait, you can’t mean all that Jesus, can you?” He can, and he does.
OK, the rabbis of Jesus’ day were given to hyperbole. Maybe Jesus overstated his expectations for their shock value, so that he could get our attention. So what, as Luke tells it, did Jesus want his followers – and by extension us – to hear? In a nutshell, it’s not a piece of cake to follow him. We don’t follow him because it feels good. We don’t follow him when life calms down and we have time to get around to it. Being Jesus’ disciple is not a spectator sport, as if you can watch the clergy try to do it, but sit in the bleachers yourself.
When we decide to follow Jesus in a serious way, we are making a deep commitment. We are committing ourselves to putting God before all the other commitments in our lives, before family, social class, nationality, before all those pieces of our lives that are not God. We are committing ourselves to a way of life that puts the needs and desires of others ahead of our own needs and desires. We are committing ourselves to working for the good of all creation. We are committing ourselves to travelling lightly with our achievements and our “stuff,” while acknowledging our responsibility to share what we have. We are making a commitment to letting ourselves be transformed by God. As we travel behind Jesus, we promise to be ready to respond to God’s call to grow in ways that may seem difficult, risky, and strange. And we know, that, at some point along that road, Jesus will turn to us and say, “Are you all in?”
In effect, Paul posed that same question to Philemon and the others to whom the brief letter bearing Philemon’s name is addressed. Oddly, this letter is the only truly personal letter of Paul’s that has been preserved. And sadly, we don’t know much about it. You can easily figure out the broad outlines of the story. The slave Onesimus ran away from his master, Philemon, possibly also taking money or property. He met up with Paul in prison, where Paul converted him. Now Paul writes to Philemon asking him to take Onesimus back as a fellow follower of Jesus and promising to reimburse Philemon for any expenses. What we don’t know are where Paul was imprisoned, how he and Onesimus got together, and, most important, what Paul means when he asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother.”
We do know this: whatever we now think about slavery – and some would criticize Paul for not taking a strong stand against slavery – Paul was following Roman law in returning Onesimus to Philemon. Upon Onesimus’s return, Philemon could have severely punished him, hobbled him, as was done to African slaves in the American South and in South Africa, or sold him away. Instead, Paul asks Philemon to treat Onesimus very differently, to treat him as a fellow member of a Christian community, and even, if possible, to send Onesimus back to Paul. In effect, Paul has forsaken the expectations of his culture, and is subtly undermining the system of slavery by reminding Philemon of his common humanity with Onesimus as a fellow follower of Christ. He is further asking Philemon to treat Onesimus differently than what law and custom would permit. And he does this, not by trying to coerce Philemon, but by gently requesting that Philemon follow his own example and treat Onesimus with love.
I wonder what we would do in Philemon’s place. I couldn’t help thinking of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and another letter, the letter that Huck Finn planned to write to turn in the runaway slave Jim. The laws and the customs of the day tell Huck that Jim should be returned to his owner. Huck even drafts a letter. But then when he realizes all that Jim has done for him, how Jim has been a friend and father to him, Huck tears the letter up. Huck is definitely all in. I wonder if I would have had the courage to do what Huck did.
Even the reading from the prophet Jeremiah indirectly poses a question of commitment to us. Here Jeremiah uses the image of the potter shaping and reshaping the pot to suggest the way God works God’s transformations within us. However, Jeremiah is not addressing individuals but rather the covenanted community, the Israelites who have promised to follow God’s law. As we hear throughout this long book, the Israelites get entangled in untrustworthy political alliances, amass wealth, exploit the poor, and visit all kinds of injustices on each other. Jeremiah warns them here of the dire consequences of forsaking the promises they made to God. He assures them that God will force then to undergo a period of transformation, which indeed, as it turns out, happens when they are sent into exile.
And so: are you all in? Are you committed to Jesus and willing to pay the cost of following him? What examples might we choose to illustrate what full commitment looks like? Actually, we have some wonderful examples of what such total commitment to the beliefs of one’s heart actually looks like – even when those beliefs challenge the status quo of the culture around them. Think about those who enter vowed religious life, convents and monasteries. They truly give up all their possessions, traditionally even their clothes and their name, and they commit to a life in common with others, traditionally a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability. How about those who took part in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s? The Freedom Riders challenged the status quo of segregated buses by riding interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups and by defying local laws or customs that mandated segregated seating. Those who took part in the Montgomery bus boycott to protest segregated municipal buses walked to work for 381 days until the city finally caved in and allowed people of all races to sit where they pleased. Those of you who are athletes know the single-minded commitment that is necessary to excel in any sport. We were all charmed last month as we watched Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Alys Raisman, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian defend the USA’s gold medal title in the team all-around gymnastics event in the Olympics. Those young women had practiced for years to get to that place. They were definitely all in!
And are we? What does being all in look like for us? John Calvin suggests that there are four different ways in which we can show our commitment to Christ. The first is through self-denial, i.e., not seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, but rather recognizing that of God in everyone else and affirming our kinship with all people. Second, we can bear our cross, i.e., face whatever suffering comes our way in life without complaint, knowing that Christ bears it with us, trusting in God for the outcome of what we bear, and sharing the suffering of others. Third, we can meditate on eternal life, i.e., we can seek to understand ever more deeply who we are and whose we are, that we are all beloved children of God. And fourth, we can use God’s gifts properly, i.e., we can live a simple life, knowing that we are on a spiritual pilgrimage. We are called to live neither ascetically nor overindulgently as we remember that we will ultimately be accountable to God for how we have used God gifts. To which I would add one more: we are called to recognize that salvation, spiritual wholeness and health, are not do-it-yourself projects. We are all in this together. Just as Paul wrote to Philemon and the others in his Christian community, so we are also called to build up each other and to call each other to greater and greater love.
Are you all in?
Maybe Jesus can already see Jerusalem and the events that will happen there – if not with his naked eye, then perhaps in his mind’s eye. So he flings his hardest teaching yet at us. He tells us to be prepared for the cost, the full cost of truly following him. “You have to hate your family members,” he says. “You have to follow me all the way to unjust execution, if necessary.” “You have to give away everything you have.” “Wait, wait, you can’t mean all that Jesus, can you?” He can, and he does.
OK, the rabbis of Jesus’ day were given to hyperbole. Maybe Jesus overstated his expectations for their shock value, so that he could get our attention. So what, as Luke tells it, did Jesus want his followers – and by extension us – to hear? In a nutshell, it’s not a piece of cake to follow him. We don’t follow him because it feels good. We don’t follow him when life calms down and we have time to get around to it. Being Jesus’ disciple is not a spectator sport, as if you can watch the clergy try to do it, but sit in the bleachers yourself.
When we decide to follow Jesus in a serious way, we are making a deep commitment. We are committing ourselves to putting God before all the other commitments in our lives, before family, social class, nationality, before all those pieces of our lives that are not God. We are committing ourselves to a way of life that puts the needs and desires of others ahead of our own needs and desires. We are committing ourselves to working for the good of all creation. We are committing ourselves to travelling lightly with our achievements and our “stuff,” while acknowledging our responsibility to share what we have. We are making a commitment to letting ourselves be transformed by God. As we travel behind Jesus, we promise to be ready to respond to God’s call to grow in ways that may seem difficult, risky, and strange. And we know, that, at some point along that road, Jesus will turn to us and say, “Are you all in?”
In effect, Paul posed that same question to Philemon and the others to whom the brief letter bearing Philemon’s name is addressed. Oddly, this letter is the only truly personal letter of Paul’s that has been preserved. And sadly, we don’t know much about it. You can easily figure out the broad outlines of the story. The slave Onesimus ran away from his master, Philemon, possibly also taking money or property. He met up with Paul in prison, where Paul converted him. Now Paul writes to Philemon asking him to take Onesimus back as a fellow follower of Jesus and promising to reimburse Philemon for any expenses. What we don’t know are where Paul was imprisoned, how he and Onesimus got together, and, most important, what Paul means when he asks Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother.”
We do know this: whatever we now think about slavery – and some would criticize Paul for not taking a strong stand against slavery – Paul was following Roman law in returning Onesimus to Philemon. Upon Onesimus’s return, Philemon could have severely punished him, hobbled him, as was done to African slaves in the American South and in South Africa, or sold him away. Instead, Paul asks Philemon to treat Onesimus very differently, to treat him as a fellow member of a Christian community, and even, if possible, to send Onesimus back to Paul. In effect, Paul has forsaken the expectations of his culture, and is subtly undermining the system of slavery by reminding Philemon of his common humanity with Onesimus as a fellow follower of Christ. He is further asking Philemon to treat Onesimus differently than what law and custom would permit. And he does this, not by trying to coerce Philemon, but by gently requesting that Philemon follow his own example and treat Onesimus with love.
I wonder what we would do in Philemon’s place. I couldn’t help thinking of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and another letter, the letter that Huck Finn planned to write to turn in the runaway slave Jim. The laws and the customs of the day tell Huck that Jim should be returned to his owner. Huck even drafts a letter. But then when he realizes all that Jim has done for him, how Jim has been a friend and father to him, Huck tears the letter up. Huck is definitely all in. I wonder if I would have had the courage to do what Huck did.
Even the reading from the prophet Jeremiah indirectly poses a question of commitment to us. Here Jeremiah uses the image of the potter shaping and reshaping the pot to suggest the way God works God’s transformations within us. However, Jeremiah is not addressing individuals but rather the covenanted community, the Israelites who have promised to follow God’s law. As we hear throughout this long book, the Israelites get entangled in untrustworthy political alliances, amass wealth, exploit the poor, and visit all kinds of injustices on each other. Jeremiah warns them here of the dire consequences of forsaking the promises they made to God. He assures them that God will force then to undergo a period of transformation, which indeed, as it turns out, happens when they are sent into exile.
And so: are you all in? Are you committed to Jesus and willing to pay the cost of following him? What examples might we choose to illustrate what full commitment looks like? Actually, we have some wonderful examples of what such total commitment to the beliefs of one’s heart actually looks like – even when those beliefs challenge the status quo of the culture around them. Think about those who enter vowed religious life, convents and monasteries. They truly give up all their possessions, traditionally even their clothes and their name, and they commit to a life in common with others, traditionally a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, and stability. How about those who took part in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s? The Freedom Riders challenged the status quo of segregated buses by riding interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups and by defying local laws or customs that mandated segregated seating. Those who took part in the Montgomery bus boycott to protest segregated municipal buses walked to work for 381 days until the city finally caved in and allowed people of all races to sit where they pleased. Those of you who are athletes know the single-minded commitment that is necessary to excel in any sport. We were all charmed last month as we watched Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Alys Raisman, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian defend the USA’s gold medal title in the team all-around gymnastics event in the Olympics. Those young women had practiced for years to get to that place. They were definitely all in!
And are we? What does being all in look like for us? John Calvin suggests that there are four different ways in which we can show our commitment to Christ. The first is through self-denial, i.e., not seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, but rather recognizing that of God in everyone else and affirming our kinship with all people. Second, we can bear our cross, i.e., face whatever suffering comes our way in life without complaint, knowing that Christ bears it with us, trusting in God for the outcome of what we bear, and sharing the suffering of others. Third, we can meditate on eternal life, i.e., we can seek to understand ever more deeply who we are and whose we are, that we are all beloved children of God. And fourth, we can use God’s gifts properly, i.e., we can live a simple life, knowing that we are on a spiritual pilgrimage. We are called to live neither ascetically nor overindulgently as we remember that we will ultimately be accountable to God for how we have used God gifts. To which I would add one more: we are called to recognize that salvation, spiritual wholeness and health, are not do-it-yourself projects. We are all in this together. Just as Paul wrote to Philemon and the others in his Christian community, so we are also called to build up each other and to call each other to greater and greater love.
Are you all in?
Monday, August 15, 2016
Not Good News?
No wonder neither A.J. nor Carolyn wanted to preach today! Here we are on a lazy summer day, about to enjoy a lovely picnic, and we’ve just heard some of the hardest lessons of the liturgical year. Honestly, what were the crafters of the lectionary thinking when they set these lessons for the summer? Winter maybe, but not warm, lazy summer, and especially when our groaning potluck table beckons!
But we are part of a tradition that respects Scripture and has given us a broad three-year system of Scripture readings to be heard in public worship. And hear these lessons we must, for our spiritual health, and for our growth as followers of Jesus.
Unquestionably, the lesson from the prophet Isaiah is hard to hear. Through the prophet’s voice we first hear a love song, in which God describes all the tender care that God has lavished on Israel. The prophet then lets us hear God’s profound disappointment when Israel does not live up to God’s expectations. Did you hear the poignancy, the infinite sadness, in God’s “Why did it yield wild grapes?” Did you hear the grief in God’s decision to abandon Israel to her own ways? Our psalm echoes the same themes, but it ends with a promise both we and the psalmist know that Israel will never be able to keep: “And so will we never turn away from you….”
Our lesson from the Letter to the Hebrews isn’t a lot better. The writer gives us examples of people who were faithful to God’s call. But what did many of them get for their faithfulness? Torture, mocking, and imprisonment. And the writer’s counsel? Look to Jesus – who endured all that and more! Really God?
Our gospel lesson is perhaps the hardest of all to hear. We’re in the middle of the gospel of Luke. As we heard in chapter 9, Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” While Jesus is no doubt already focused on the events that will happen in Jerusalem, in the narrative we are on a road trip with Jesus and his friends. This and the following chapters, approximately through chapter 17, are only loosely structured in terms of story, time, and place. They seem to be more a collection of Jesus’ sayings, as the earliest community of Jesus’ followers remembered them. It’s as if the writer wanted to make sure that everything the community remembered was included. So these chapters have a cobbled-together feeling, with some sayings addressed to closer disciples, and some to wider crowds. Thus in today’s reading, the saying about conflicts within families is addressed to the disciples, while the saying about interpreting changes to come is addressed to a wider audience, perhaps curious villagers who gathered around Jesus as he passed through their area.
Even so, it’s important for us to hear Jesus’ words here. First, it’s important to hear the passion and sense of urgency in Jesus’ voice, as he wishes for his work in Jerusalem to be finished. It’s also important for us to hear what those who take his message seriously may face, those who seek to follow his example of loving self-giving, those who seek to welcome all, especially the poor and those on the social margins, and those who seek to produce good fruit and work for the justice and righteousness that God so clearly expects.
Jesus’ warning is clear: those who take the gospel seriously and seek diligently to follow him will inevitably face conflict with those around them. Certainly, Jesus’ followers will face conflict with the powers that be: the rich and powerful never want to hear that God loves the entire cosmos, all of creation, and that God especially has a preference for the poor and marginalized. And more: Jesus’ followers will also face conflict within their own families. It is not that Jesus desires that family members be at odds over following him. It is more that Jesus is realistic – and wants his followers to be realistic – about the real costs of taking the gospel seriously. So consider yourself warned!
And why should his followers face such conflict? Here and elsewhere in Luke’s gospel we hear Jesus’ reminder that he is calling together a new kind of community, not one based on blood ties and the unequal social structures sustained by traditional patriarchal family roles. Rather, Jesus is calling together a new kind of community, a community that is united not by devotion to clan or tribe, but a community that finds its identity solely in Jesus, a community where everybody matters, a community that looks “to Jesus” as it pursues its commitment to follow him and work for the coming of God’s reign.
We know only too well that our commitment to Jesus’ way and our attempt to work for God’s justice and righteousness lead to conflict, even conflict with beloved family members. We also know that when we commit ourselves to a particular faith community, we may have to leave behind our families and all that was once comforting and familiar to us.
There are so many stories of the cost involved in our faith commitments. In many stories from the early church, we encounter those who faced martyrdom. Perhaps no such story is more heart-rending than that of Perpetua and her maid Felicity. Perpetua was a high-born Roman matron in third-century Carthage whose family begged her to turn her back on the strange new religion of Jesus and return to them. Instead, Perpetua left behind her newborn infant and, with Felicity at her side, bravely faced death. A thousand years later, Clare of Assisi, whose family traced its lineage all the way back to the Roman republic, heard St. Francis preach. Although she was probably betrothed, she defied her family, left behind her riches, and joined Francis’s mission, later founding her own order, now known as the Poor Clares. During the English Reformation, family members were also deeply divided. Some, like Thomas More, refused to break with the Catholic Church in England, and was the only one of his family to be put to death. Others, to the dismay of their families, eagerly embraced the new church. And there are so many others. Here are just a few more. Elizabeth Seton, who left behind her proper Episcopalian family to join the Roman Catholic Church, eventually founded both the first Catholic girls school in the US and the Sisters of Charity. Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky was a Russian Jew, whose family expected him to become a rabbi. Instead, he found the Church of England, eventually became Anglican bishop of Shanghai, and translated the Bible into Chinese. Alice Paul, a champion of women’s suffrage, endured force-feeding in prison when she attempted hunger strikes. As we know only too well, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a martyr to the cause of civil rights, while his followers endured unspeakable hatred and violence in their segregated communities.
And with all that, we also know that sincere Christians – or members of any faith community – can wind up on different sides of religious, social, and political issues. Witness the many families in this area who wound up on different sides of our Civil War. I have just finished a book about Americans who joined the Spanish Civil War. There too, families were deeply divided. Today Republicans and Democrats – uneasily perhaps – coexist in the same family.
And so then, what are we to do? As people who profess to follow Jesus, who are willing to hear the hard words of today’s Scripture readings, how are we know how to produce the good grapes that God calls us to produce? How are we know whether to continue on course, despite conflict with family members and the wider community, or whether to heed the words of those who would pull us back? In effect, how are we to discern whether it is truly God who is leading us, and the path that God calls us to follow?
The answer to those questions is the one given by the writer of Hebrews: look “to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith….” In practice, that means regularly engaging in worship and prayer, letting ourselves be nourished in Word and Sacrament. It means intelligently reading Scripture, with both some understanding of the history and context of any particular book or passage, and openness to letting Scripture address us where we are. It means thoughtfully and prayerfully engaging with the issues of the day, knowing that even reasonable people can disagree. And it means admitting that, in order to remain true to the call we hear from God, we may have to disagree with those we love, over the way we express our faith, and over the way we seek to bring in God’s reign.
Yes, today’s Scriptures are not easy to hear. God often challenges us to hear what we don’t want to hear. As followers of the one who gave his life as a ransom for many, we stay open to new ideas, even as we pursue our visions of justice and righteousness. We seek the truth in ideas with which we disagree, recognizing that none of us has a corner on truth. And still, with Jesus, we continue on our journey, trusting God’s transformative work in our lives, and knowing that, despite our own imperfections and limitations our futures are always in God’s hands.
But we are part of a tradition that respects Scripture and has given us a broad three-year system of Scripture readings to be heard in public worship. And hear these lessons we must, for our spiritual health, and for our growth as followers of Jesus.
Unquestionably, the lesson from the prophet Isaiah is hard to hear. Through the prophet’s voice we first hear a love song, in which God describes all the tender care that God has lavished on Israel. The prophet then lets us hear God’s profound disappointment when Israel does not live up to God’s expectations. Did you hear the poignancy, the infinite sadness, in God’s “Why did it yield wild grapes?” Did you hear the grief in God’s decision to abandon Israel to her own ways? Our psalm echoes the same themes, but it ends with a promise both we and the psalmist know that Israel will never be able to keep: “And so will we never turn away from you….”
Our lesson from the Letter to the Hebrews isn’t a lot better. The writer gives us examples of people who were faithful to God’s call. But what did many of them get for their faithfulness? Torture, mocking, and imprisonment. And the writer’s counsel? Look to Jesus – who endured all that and more! Really God?
Our gospel lesson is perhaps the hardest of all to hear. We’re in the middle of the gospel of Luke. As we heard in chapter 9, Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” While Jesus is no doubt already focused on the events that will happen in Jerusalem, in the narrative we are on a road trip with Jesus and his friends. This and the following chapters, approximately through chapter 17, are only loosely structured in terms of story, time, and place. They seem to be more a collection of Jesus’ sayings, as the earliest community of Jesus’ followers remembered them. It’s as if the writer wanted to make sure that everything the community remembered was included. So these chapters have a cobbled-together feeling, with some sayings addressed to closer disciples, and some to wider crowds. Thus in today’s reading, the saying about conflicts within families is addressed to the disciples, while the saying about interpreting changes to come is addressed to a wider audience, perhaps curious villagers who gathered around Jesus as he passed through their area.
Even so, it’s important for us to hear Jesus’ words here. First, it’s important to hear the passion and sense of urgency in Jesus’ voice, as he wishes for his work in Jerusalem to be finished. It’s also important for us to hear what those who take his message seriously may face, those who seek to follow his example of loving self-giving, those who seek to welcome all, especially the poor and those on the social margins, and those who seek to produce good fruit and work for the justice and righteousness that God so clearly expects.
Jesus’ warning is clear: those who take the gospel seriously and seek diligently to follow him will inevitably face conflict with those around them. Certainly, Jesus’ followers will face conflict with the powers that be: the rich and powerful never want to hear that God loves the entire cosmos, all of creation, and that God especially has a preference for the poor and marginalized. And more: Jesus’ followers will also face conflict within their own families. It is not that Jesus desires that family members be at odds over following him. It is more that Jesus is realistic – and wants his followers to be realistic – about the real costs of taking the gospel seriously. So consider yourself warned!
And why should his followers face such conflict? Here and elsewhere in Luke’s gospel we hear Jesus’ reminder that he is calling together a new kind of community, not one based on blood ties and the unequal social structures sustained by traditional patriarchal family roles. Rather, Jesus is calling together a new kind of community, a community that is united not by devotion to clan or tribe, but a community that finds its identity solely in Jesus, a community where everybody matters, a community that looks “to Jesus” as it pursues its commitment to follow him and work for the coming of God’s reign.
We know only too well that our commitment to Jesus’ way and our attempt to work for God’s justice and righteousness lead to conflict, even conflict with beloved family members. We also know that when we commit ourselves to a particular faith community, we may have to leave behind our families and all that was once comforting and familiar to us.
There are so many stories of the cost involved in our faith commitments. In many stories from the early church, we encounter those who faced martyrdom. Perhaps no such story is more heart-rending than that of Perpetua and her maid Felicity. Perpetua was a high-born Roman matron in third-century Carthage whose family begged her to turn her back on the strange new religion of Jesus and return to them. Instead, Perpetua left behind her newborn infant and, with Felicity at her side, bravely faced death. A thousand years later, Clare of Assisi, whose family traced its lineage all the way back to the Roman republic, heard St. Francis preach. Although she was probably betrothed, she defied her family, left behind her riches, and joined Francis’s mission, later founding her own order, now known as the Poor Clares. During the English Reformation, family members were also deeply divided. Some, like Thomas More, refused to break with the Catholic Church in England, and was the only one of his family to be put to death. Others, to the dismay of their families, eagerly embraced the new church. And there are so many others. Here are just a few more. Elizabeth Seton, who left behind her proper Episcopalian family to join the Roman Catholic Church, eventually founded both the first Catholic girls school in the US and the Sisters of Charity. Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky was a Russian Jew, whose family expected him to become a rabbi. Instead, he found the Church of England, eventually became Anglican bishop of Shanghai, and translated the Bible into Chinese. Alice Paul, a champion of women’s suffrage, endured force-feeding in prison when she attempted hunger strikes. As we know only too well, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a martyr to the cause of civil rights, while his followers endured unspeakable hatred and violence in their segregated communities.
And with all that, we also know that sincere Christians – or members of any faith community – can wind up on different sides of religious, social, and political issues. Witness the many families in this area who wound up on different sides of our Civil War. I have just finished a book about Americans who joined the Spanish Civil War. There too, families were deeply divided. Today Republicans and Democrats – uneasily perhaps – coexist in the same family.
And so then, what are we to do? As people who profess to follow Jesus, who are willing to hear the hard words of today’s Scripture readings, how are we know how to produce the good grapes that God calls us to produce? How are we know whether to continue on course, despite conflict with family members and the wider community, or whether to heed the words of those who would pull us back? In effect, how are we to discern whether it is truly God who is leading us, and the path that God calls us to follow?
The answer to those questions is the one given by the writer of Hebrews: look “to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith….” In practice, that means regularly engaging in worship and prayer, letting ourselves be nourished in Word and Sacrament. It means intelligently reading Scripture, with both some understanding of the history and context of any particular book or passage, and openness to letting Scripture address us where we are. It means thoughtfully and prayerfully engaging with the issues of the day, knowing that even reasonable people can disagree. And it means admitting that, in order to remain true to the call we hear from God, we may have to disagree with those we love, over the way we express our faith, and over the way we seek to bring in God’s reign.
Yes, today’s Scriptures are not easy to hear. God often challenges us to hear what we don’t want to hear. As followers of the one who gave his life as a ransom for many, we stay open to new ideas, even as we pursue our visions of justice and righteousness. We seek the truth in ideas with which we disagree, recognizing that none of us has a corner on truth. And still, with Jesus, we continue on our journey, trusting God’s transformative work in our lives, and knowing that, despite our own imperfections and limitations our futures are always in God’s hands.
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
What is Faith?
What is faith? Is faith agreeing with a set of intellectual statements? Do you have faith if you can recite – and understand – all the statements of the Apostles and Nicene creeds? Is faith conscientious observance of all the traditional spiritual disciplines and practices? Do you demonstrate great faith if you receive communion every Sunday, fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, or dress up in fancy vestments? I think our reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning had something to say about that! Is faith being able to quote Scripture? Do you show great faith if you can win an argument by proof-texting your opponents by referring to verses in the Bible – or the Torah, or the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad Gita?
If you were listening to the reading this morning from the Letter to the Hebrews, you already know the answers to those questions. You already know that the answer to each one is “No.” Actually, all four of our readings have something to say about what faith is. Our reading from Isaiah, from whom we will hear again next week, and our psalm warn us about relying on religious rituals alone, especially when our rituals don’t connect with how we live our lives outside the temple – or on the other side of the red doors. In our reading from the gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus encouraging us to hang in there, stay alert, and keep on doing what we discern God has called us to do – words that strengthened Luke’s community and still comfort us.
However, it is the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews that provides us the most compelling description of the nature of faith. Actually, we don’t often hear from the Letter to the Hebrews in worship – and probably less in preaching! Most of us would rather preach about Jesus! Hebrews was probably written sometime after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, i.e., after 70 AD. Although its author is anonymous, we are virtually certain that it was not written by Paul – its language and subject matter are very different from those of the rest of Paul’s letters. Actually, it’s not really a letter. Rather, it’s an extended sermon – and far longer than most Episcopal priests would dare to preach! And despite its traditional title, it was probably addressed to a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, not to an exclusively Jewish Christian community. Even so, clearly its author expected that his hearers knew about the details of temple worship, and that they were well acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures.
One thing we can surmise from reading this sermon is that it was addressed to a community facing hostility and conflict with the wider culture around them, and that its members were ridiculed and shamed for professing to be followers of an itinerant rabbi who had been executed as a common criminal. These early followers were not subject to martyrdom yet, but they were possibly also wondering when Jesus’ promise to return would be fulfilled. So this sermon was written to console and encourage them and to bolster their commitment to Jesus. The writer sought to reassure them that, despite their hardships, they had made the right decision to follow him.
Much of the early part of this sermon deals with various aspects of temple worship. The writer argues that Jesus is the fulfillment of all sacrifices, the final sacrifice, and that sacrificial worship is now no longer needed. At the end of chapter 10, just before today’s reading begins, he gives his hearers a charge: “Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (10:35-36). Chapter 11, some of which we have just heard, is his attempt to flesh out that endurance, by offering a definition of faith and examples from the Hebrew Scriptures of faithful people.
Our passage opens with that definition a faith – actually a definition that is often quoted but not well understood, since the Greek uses words that are extremely difficult to translate accurately. Essentially, what the writer is telling us is that faith is absolute assurance that God is real, that there is a spiritual dimension to the ground of life, that there is a deeper reality to life than we can see on the surface of things. Faith is the conviction that all that we see and know, the cosmos, all creation, has been brought into being by God and is sustained by God. Faith is the deepest possible trust that God has made promises to us, that God has fulfilled God’s promises to us in the past, and most especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that God will continue to fulfill God’s promise to renew all things. Most important of all, the writer is certain that faith is a dynamic force that leads us to answer God’s call to us, even when we are not certain where God might be leading us.
The writer then provides examples from Scripture to illustrate his definition and encourage his hearers. In the verses omitted from today’s reading, the writer mentions Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who especially displayed trust in God by heeding God’s warning and building the ark – even under cloudless skies. However, for this writer, Abraham is the primary example of faithful response to God’s call. The early chapters of the book of Genesis tell us in detail how God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their ancestral home in Ur and to journey to a completely new land. God also promised that Abraham and Sarah would have thousands of descendants, even though they had reached old age without any children. For new followers of Jesus, who were hearing this sermon, Abraham and Sarah must have been truly encouraging and apt examples of faith in their willingness to follow God’s leading and trust God’s promises, even when they could see the end of their journey only in the distance.
And so they are for us too. We too trust in God’s leading, even when we are not sure where we are going. Certainly anyone who has agreed to go back to school, take a new job, have another child, retire, or discern for ordained ministry, has faced that moment when we say, “Are you sure, God? Is this right?” Even Thomas Merton, a deeply contemplative Trappist monk, knew such moments, when he said, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end…. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Like Merton, who in his last years also developed a profound respect for Buddhist contemplation, we too are called to continue our spiritual journey. We know that the font was just the beginning of the journey. We acknowledge that we are called to not stop permanently at any stage of spiritual practice or understanding, but to “live in tents,” to continue to grow in wisdom and compassion. We too understand that we are called to put our faith into action, to embrace others, and to work to make God’s promises real in our own time.
And do we too have examples of faith in action? Certainly, like the hearers of the sermon to the Hebrews, we can find models of faith in the Bible, in Isaiah and Jeremiah, who struggled with the political movements of their own days, and in Jesus’ friends and followers, who sought him out for healing, and who witnessed his death and resurrection. The Apostles creed reminds us that we believe in a “communion of saints.” Open a copy of Holy Women, Holy Men. Examples of faith in action, both of people traditionally on the calendar of saints, and those closer to us in time, will leap off the pages for you.
And we also have examples of faith right in the world around us. Twice a week, volunteers from All Saints Episcopal Church near Brussels, Belgium travel twenty miles to the central Brussels trains station. There they serve a meal and deliver much-needed clothing, toiletries, and sleeping gear to the refugees flooding into Belgium, people often arriving with only the bare minimum: the clothes they are wearing, and their only link to home – a cell phone. In support of this ministry, members of All Saints donate some of the food supplies to serve approximately 100 people at each meal, supplemented with additional food purchased with parish funds and special fundraising efforts. Like the volunteers, who have ventured forth trusting that God would bless their efforts, the refugees, most of whom have come from Syria and other war-torn areas, have also been people of faith, who have left everything in search of a better life. For the refugees, “The Episcopal community in Europe has been inspiring in its compassionate effort to bring safety, comfort and fellowship to those who are displaced,” said a program officer for Episcopal Relief & Development, which helps support this ministry. “The people of All Saints’ Church in Waterloo especially have taken initiative, continuing to increase their activities and motivating the wider community to get involved in outreach efforts as well.”
We have not been refugees. We have not been tortured or murdered for our faith. Most of us have not been ridiculed for our faith. Even so, as we continue to commit ourselves to following God’s leading, we too are called to faith. We too are called to live our lives knowing that the ground of all is love, that Jesus has shown us the nature of that love, and that there is a divine spark within each of us that helps us to trust the promises of Scripture and work to bring nearer the reign of God.
If you were listening to the reading this morning from the Letter to the Hebrews, you already know the answers to those questions. You already know that the answer to each one is “No.” Actually, all four of our readings have something to say about what faith is. Our reading from Isaiah, from whom we will hear again next week, and our psalm warn us about relying on religious rituals alone, especially when our rituals don’t connect with how we live our lives outside the temple – or on the other side of the red doors. In our reading from the gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus encouraging us to hang in there, stay alert, and keep on doing what we discern God has called us to do – words that strengthened Luke’s community and still comfort us.
However, it is the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews that provides us the most compelling description of the nature of faith. Actually, we don’t often hear from the Letter to the Hebrews in worship – and probably less in preaching! Most of us would rather preach about Jesus! Hebrews was probably written sometime after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, i.e., after 70 AD. Although its author is anonymous, we are virtually certain that it was not written by Paul – its language and subject matter are very different from those of the rest of Paul’s letters. Actually, it’s not really a letter. Rather, it’s an extended sermon – and far longer than most Episcopal priests would dare to preach! And despite its traditional title, it was probably addressed to a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, not to an exclusively Jewish Christian community. Even so, clearly its author expected that his hearers knew about the details of temple worship, and that they were well acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures.
One thing we can surmise from reading this sermon is that it was addressed to a community facing hostility and conflict with the wider culture around them, and that its members were ridiculed and shamed for professing to be followers of an itinerant rabbi who had been executed as a common criminal. These early followers were not subject to martyrdom yet, but they were possibly also wondering when Jesus’ promise to return would be fulfilled. So this sermon was written to console and encourage them and to bolster their commitment to Jesus. The writer sought to reassure them that, despite their hardships, they had made the right decision to follow him.
Much of the early part of this sermon deals with various aspects of temple worship. The writer argues that Jesus is the fulfillment of all sacrifices, the final sacrifice, and that sacrificial worship is now no longer needed. At the end of chapter 10, just before today’s reading begins, he gives his hearers a charge: “Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (10:35-36). Chapter 11, some of which we have just heard, is his attempt to flesh out that endurance, by offering a definition of faith and examples from the Hebrew Scriptures of faithful people.
Our passage opens with that definition a faith – actually a definition that is often quoted but not well understood, since the Greek uses words that are extremely difficult to translate accurately. Essentially, what the writer is telling us is that faith is absolute assurance that God is real, that there is a spiritual dimension to the ground of life, that there is a deeper reality to life than we can see on the surface of things. Faith is the conviction that all that we see and know, the cosmos, all creation, has been brought into being by God and is sustained by God. Faith is the deepest possible trust that God has made promises to us, that God has fulfilled God’s promises to us in the past, and most especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that God will continue to fulfill God’s promise to renew all things. Most important of all, the writer is certain that faith is a dynamic force that leads us to answer God’s call to us, even when we are not certain where God might be leading us.
The writer then provides examples from Scripture to illustrate his definition and encourage his hearers. In the verses omitted from today’s reading, the writer mentions Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who especially displayed trust in God by heeding God’s warning and building the ark – even under cloudless skies. However, for this writer, Abraham is the primary example of faithful response to God’s call. The early chapters of the book of Genesis tell us in detail how God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their ancestral home in Ur and to journey to a completely new land. God also promised that Abraham and Sarah would have thousands of descendants, even though they had reached old age without any children. For new followers of Jesus, who were hearing this sermon, Abraham and Sarah must have been truly encouraging and apt examples of faith in their willingness to follow God’s leading and trust God’s promises, even when they could see the end of their journey only in the distance.
And so they are for us too. We too trust in God’s leading, even when we are not sure where we are going. Certainly anyone who has agreed to go back to school, take a new job, have another child, retire, or discern for ordained ministry, has faced that moment when we say, “Are you sure, God? Is this right?” Even Thomas Merton, a deeply contemplative Trappist monk, knew such moments, when he said, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end…. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Like Merton, who in his last years also developed a profound respect for Buddhist contemplation, we too are called to continue our spiritual journey. We know that the font was just the beginning of the journey. We acknowledge that we are called to not stop permanently at any stage of spiritual practice or understanding, but to “live in tents,” to continue to grow in wisdom and compassion. We too understand that we are called to put our faith into action, to embrace others, and to work to make God’s promises real in our own time.
And do we too have examples of faith in action? Certainly, like the hearers of the sermon to the Hebrews, we can find models of faith in the Bible, in Isaiah and Jeremiah, who struggled with the political movements of their own days, and in Jesus’ friends and followers, who sought him out for healing, and who witnessed his death and resurrection. The Apostles creed reminds us that we believe in a “communion of saints.” Open a copy of Holy Women, Holy Men. Examples of faith in action, both of people traditionally on the calendar of saints, and those closer to us in time, will leap off the pages for you.
And we also have examples of faith right in the world around us. Twice a week, volunteers from All Saints Episcopal Church near Brussels, Belgium travel twenty miles to the central Brussels trains station. There they serve a meal and deliver much-needed clothing, toiletries, and sleeping gear to the refugees flooding into Belgium, people often arriving with only the bare minimum: the clothes they are wearing, and their only link to home – a cell phone. In support of this ministry, members of All Saints donate some of the food supplies to serve approximately 100 people at each meal, supplemented with additional food purchased with parish funds and special fundraising efforts. Like the volunteers, who have ventured forth trusting that God would bless their efforts, the refugees, most of whom have come from Syria and other war-torn areas, have also been people of faith, who have left everything in search of a better life. For the refugees, “The Episcopal community in Europe has been inspiring in its compassionate effort to bring safety, comfort and fellowship to those who are displaced,” said a program officer for Episcopal Relief & Development, which helps support this ministry. “The people of All Saints’ Church in Waterloo especially have taken initiative, continuing to increase their activities and motivating the wider community to get involved in outreach efforts as well.”
We have not been refugees. We have not been tortured or murdered for our faith. Most of us have not been ridiculed for our faith. Even so, as we continue to commit ourselves to following God’s leading, we too are called to faith. We too are called to live our lives knowing that the ground of all is love, that Jesus has shown us the nature of that love, and that there is a divine spark within each of us that helps us to trust the promises of Scripture and work to bring nearer the reign of God.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
All Things Come of Thee
“How much Land Does a Man Need?” That is the title of a story by the nineteenth-century writer Leo Tolstoy. In the story a peasant makes a deal. He can buy all the land he can circle on foot in one day for only 1,000 rubles. However, if he doesn’t return to his starting place by sunset, he gets no land – and he loses his money. The greedy peasant frantically races the sun as he tries to cover as wide a circle as he can. Just short of his starting point, he drops dead of exhaustion. He is buried in an ordinary grave, only six feet long. In his death, Tolstoy thus gives us the ironic answer to the question posed in the title of the story.
How much is enough? What do we, as Jesus’ followers, truly need? What do we, as people called to seek the “things that are above,” truly require? Be warned: I am about to cross a great taboo. No, I’m not about to preach about sex or politics! I am about to talk about money, in the church – and maybe more than once between now and All Saints Day. We in the church are so reluctant to talk about money! Like most Americans, we think of our use of money as strictly our own affair – not something a preacher should be addressing. Many of us might even secretly agree with Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider in Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street,” who told a group of stockholders that greed is good. Alan Greenspan, the billionaire Koch brothers, and other influential business and political leaders openly follow the philosophy of author Ayn Rand, who titled one of her books The Virtue of Selfishness. You may not be a follower of Rand. Even so, Jesus’ talk about money might still make you uncomfortable, especially his decided preference for the poor in Luke’s Gospel. But we’d better listen to Jesus, because our use of our money is at least as much an expression of our faith as anything else we do. Show me your checkbook, and I’ll know what you really believe!
Indeed, our lessons today offer sobering perspectives on wealth and possessions. In our gospel reading, Jesus minces no words as he explicitly inveighs against greed and the stockpiling of possessions. “Be on your guard,” he thunders, “against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he tells the neat parable of the rich fool. Does the rich man in the parable remind you of anyone you know? Make no mistake: Jesus reminds us that, because death strips us of all our possessions, we must instead be “rich toward God.”
The writer of the letter to the Christians at Colossae couldn’t agree more. Here too we hear a caution against greed – as well as other behaviors that attach us to this world. I wonder. As you heard the catalogue of sins, did you also hear that greed is idolatry? And did you remember that idolatry – worship of false gods – is just what the Israelites were doing to anger God in our reading from Hosea? What is more important, the writer to the Colossians reminds us that, as Jesus’ disciples, as people who have been dressed in the new clothes of baptism, we are to live a new and different kind of life from that which we lived previously. We are to direct our lives toward God, and we are to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is….”
How are we to do this? What does it mean to be “rich toward God,” or to set our minds on “things that are above?” The reading from Hosea reminds us of God’s great love and compassion for us, but offers us no alternative to a life of idolatry and fleeting pursuits. Jesus, in our Gospel reading, implicitly condemns the rich man for his self-centered intent to build bigger barns and live a life of ease. However, Jesus does not tell us what the rich man should have done instead, nor does he tell us what being “rich toward God” means. The writer to the Colossians lists the bad habits we need to give up. However, other than suggesting that Christ has overcome all ethnic divisions, he does not tell us what habits and virtues we need to cultivate. How shall we give up our attachment to earthly things and seek the “things that are above?”
Beginning in the fourth century, women and men sought to follow Jesus’ teachings about possessions by withdrawing from society and living in isolated communities. In Egypt and North Africa, communities sprang up in the desert, dedicated to the simple life. In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous Rule for monastic communities that stressed living the simple life in common, forsaking most pleasures of the flesh, respecting the needs of others, and committing oneself to remaining in community. Benedict’s Rule proved to be so influential that it still provides the template for the rule of almost every Roman Catholic and Anglican vowed community. Most of us are not prepared to join monastic communities. Even so, there are ways to create a “monastery of the heart,” to use the phrase of Benedictine sister Joan Chittister. And as her commentary on Benedict’s Rule so insightfully suggests, it is possible for Benedict to guide even us secular twenty-first century followers of Jesus.
What are some ways we might begin becoming “rich toward God” and seeking “things that are above?” For starters, we can be honest about the source of our wealth. The rich man in Jesus’ parable behaved as if he alone were responsible for the abundant produce of the land. In truth, it was the fertile soil, good weather, hard work of his farmhands, and domestic support of his womenfolk that produced the abundance. The same is true for us – all of us. None of us is self-made. If you are sitting here, you have been gifted – even if you received no inheritance from your parents, even if you struggled to finish school with scholarships and loans, even if you’ve worked hard every day of your life. Many of us were fortunate to have had supportive families, enough food, and an education provided by other people’s taxes. Our parents took us to the doctor and dentist. We’ve had roads, and street lights, police and fire protection, hospitals and churches. We’ve been fortunate to live in a web – a village if you will – that has helped make us what we are and enabled us to enjoy much good fortune and comparative wealth. None of us lives on the streets, and all of us have a good idea of where our next meal is coming from. Understanding that it is by good fortune that we have our houses, clothing, food, Kindles, Ipads, and whatever, and that we are alive and able to do God’s work, is the first step towards being “rich towards God.”
Second, we can look at our checkbook. Where are we actually using our resources? Do we have a balanced life? Or are we tied down by possessions? Can we simplify our lives? In her commentary on the Benedictine Rule, Chittister reminds us that our possessions tie us to the earth. “They clutter our space; they crimp our hearts; they sour our souls. Benedict says that the answer is that we not allow ourselves to have anything beyond life’s simple staples….” What areas of our lives can we declutter and simplify? What are we no longer using that we can give to others?
And then we need to actively consider how we might share our wealth with others. In the first half of life, that may mean especially providing for the needs of our own families. However, in the second half of life, sharing our wealth should mean considering the needs of others outside our families. In both halves of life, we need to be intentional in our use of our resources. We need to be intentional in our gifts to the church, as well as to other institutions that we support. John Wesley is reported to have admonished his followers, “Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?” Ultimately, being “rich toward God” and using our wealth to seek the “things that are above” mean using our resources to benefit others. If we want to leave a lasting legacy, if we want to ensure that our lives are more than “vanity,” then we must have a plan for how that is to be done – a will. The Book of Common explicitly directs me to instruct you to make wills, younger people to ensure that their dependents are properly provided for, and older people to ensure that their legacy honors God.
Finally, we need to remember that concern for possessions – of any kind – makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, to be open to God. Ultimately, we are all naked and empty-handed before God. We begin our lives naked and empty-handed, and we end them that way. In between our birth and death we thank God for God’s great love and compassion. We seek to learn how we can become rich toward God. We ask God to help us to travel light, to help us to let go of all that gets in between ourselves and God. Then we pray to know how to intentionally use our possessions to further God’s agenda in the world. Truly blessed are those who can say, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”
How much is enough? What do we, as Jesus’ followers, truly need? What do we, as people called to seek the “things that are above,” truly require? Be warned: I am about to cross a great taboo. No, I’m not about to preach about sex or politics! I am about to talk about money, in the church – and maybe more than once between now and All Saints Day. We in the church are so reluctant to talk about money! Like most Americans, we think of our use of money as strictly our own affair – not something a preacher should be addressing. Many of us might even secretly agree with Gordon Gekko, the corporate raider in Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street,” who told a group of stockholders that greed is good. Alan Greenspan, the billionaire Koch brothers, and other influential business and political leaders openly follow the philosophy of author Ayn Rand, who titled one of her books The Virtue of Selfishness. You may not be a follower of Rand. Even so, Jesus’ talk about money might still make you uncomfortable, especially his decided preference for the poor in Luke’s Gospel. But we’d better listen to Jesus, because our use of our money is at least as much an expression of our faith as anything else we do. Show me your checkbook, and I’ll know what you really believe!
Indeed, our lessons today offer sobering perspectives on wealth and possessions. In our gospel reading, Jesus minces no words as he explicitly inveighs against greed and the stockpiling of possessions. “Be on your guard,” he thunders, “against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he tells the neat parable of the rich fool. Does the rich man in the parable remind you of anyone you know? Make no mistake: Jesus reminds us that, because death strips us of all our possessions, we must instead be “rich toward God.”
The writer of the letter to the Christians at Colossae couldn’t agree more. Here too we hear a caution against greed – as well as other behaviors that attach us to this world. I wonder. As you heard the catalogue of sins, did you also hear that greed is idolatry? And did you remember that idolatry – worship of false gods – is just what the Israelites were doing to anger God in our reading from Hosea? What is more important, the writer to the Colossians reminds us that, as Jesus’ disciples, as people who have been dressed in the new clothes of baptism, we are to live a new and different kind of life from that which we lived previously. We are to direct our lives toward God, and we are to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is….”
How are we to do this? What does it mean to be “rich toward God,” or to set our minds on “things that are above?” The reading from Hosea reminds us of God’s great love and compassion for us, but offers us no alternative to a life of idolatry and fleeting pursuits. Jesus, in our Gospel reading, implicitly condemns the rich man for his self-centered intent to build bigger barns and live a life of ease. However, Jesus does not tell us what the rich man should have done instead, nor does he tell us what being “rich toward God” means. The writer to the Colossians lists the bad habits we need to give up. However, other than suggesting that Christ has overcome all ethnic divisions, he does not tell us what habits and virtues we need to cultivate. How shall we give up our attachment to earthly things and seek the “things that are above?”
Beginning in the fourth century, women and men sought to follow Jesus’ teachings about possessions by withdrawing from society and living in isolated communities. In Egypt and North Africa, communities sprang up in the desert, dedicated to the simple life. In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous Rule for monastic communities that stressed living the simple life in common, forsaking most pleasures of the flesh, respecting the needs of others, and committing oneself to remaining in community. Benedict’s Rule proved to be so influential that it still provides the template for the rule of almost every Roman Catholic and Anglican vowed community. Most of us are not prepared to join monastic communities. Even so, there are ways to create a “monastery of the heart,” to use the phrase of Benedictine sister Joan Chittister. And as her commentary on Benedict’s Rule so insightfully suggests, it is possible for Benedict to guide even us secular twenty-first century followers of Jesus.
What are some ways we might begin becoming “rich toward God” and seeking “things that are above?” For starters, we can be honest about the source of our wealth. The rich man in Jesus’ parable behaved as if he alone were responsible for the abundant produce of the land. In truth, it was the fertile soil, good weather, hard work of his farmhands, and domestic support of his womenfolk that produced the abundance. The same is true for us – all of us. None of us is self-made. If you are sitting here, you have been gifted – even if you received no inheritance from your parents, even if you struggled to finish school with scholarships and loans, even if you’ve worked hard every day of your life. Many of us were fortunate to have had supportive families, enough food, and an education provided by other people’s taxes. Our parents took us to the doctor and dentist. We’ve had roads, and street lights, police and fire protection, hospitals and churches. We’ve been fortunate to live in a web – a village if you will – that has helped make us what we are and enabled us to enjoy much good fortune and comparative wealth. None of us lives on the streets, and all of us have a good idea of where our next meal is coming from. Understanding that it is by good fortune that we have our houses, clothing, food, Kindles, Ipads, and whatever, and that we are alive and able to do God’s work, is the first step towards being “rich towards God.”
Second, we can look at our checkbook. Where are we actually using our resources? Do we have a balanced life? Or are we tied down by possessions? Can we simplify our lives? In her commentary on the Benedictine Rule, Chittister reminds us that our possessions tie us to the earth. “They clutter our space; they crimp our hearts; they sour our souls. Benedict says that the answer is that we not allow ourselves to have anything beyond life’s simple staples….” What areas of our lives can we declutter and simplify? What are we no longer using that we can give to others?
And then we need to actively consider how we might share our wealth with others. In the first half of life, that may mean especially providing for the needs of our own families. However, in the second half of life, sharing our wealth should mean considering the needs of others outside our families. In both halves of life, we need to be intentional in our use of our resources. We need to be intentional in our gifts to the church, as well as to other institutions that we support. John Wesley is reported to have admonished his followers, “Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?” Ultimately, being “rich toward God” and using our wealth to seek the “things that are above” mean using our resources to benefit others. If we want to leave a lasting legacy, if we want to ensure that our lives are more than “vanity,” then we must have a plan for how that is to be done – a will. The Book of Common explicitly directs me to instruct you to make wills, younger people to ensure that their dependents are properly provided for, and older people to ensure that their legacy honors God.
Finally, we need to remember that concern for possessions – of any kind – makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, to be open to God. Ultimately, we are all naked and empty-handed before God. We begin our lives naked and empty-handed, and we end them that way. In between our birth and death we thank God for God’s great love and compassion. We seek to learn how we can become rich toward God. We ask God to help us to travel light, to help us to let go of all that gets in between ourselves and God. Then we pray to know how to intentionally use our possessions to further God’s agenda in the world. Truly blessed are those who can say, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”
Monday, July 4, 2016
Where Does God Show Up?
Have you ever wondered about the people in the town that doesn’t welcome Jesus’ friends? Why would they not welcome these people who were bringing a message of good news, good news that the reign of God was close to them? Was there something about Jesus’ friends, or the way they proclaimed Jesus’ message, that would turn off the people in such a town? Would they expect that a message about God could only be delivered by one of the religious leaders? Or perhaps they would think, “How could a rag-tag bunch of people, including even women, have anything to say to us about God’s reign?” Would these naysayers think that God could show up only in certain people, places, or ways?
We might ask the same questions after hearing the story of the healing of the Aramean general Naaman. As most of you know, the Episcopal Church follows a three-year cycle of readings for the Sunday Eucharist. We are currently in the third year of the cycle, Year C. In year A, the gospel readings are mostly from Matthew, in year B from Mark, and this year from Luke. During the summers of all three years, we read some of Paul’s letters more or less straight through. For example, for the last several weeks we’ve been hearing from Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians. Today we heard the very end of that letter. Next week, we’ll begin Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae. With the readings from the Hebrew Bible, the lectionary gives us two choices, either to read some of the books sequentially, track 1, or to read lessons that complement the gospel, track 2. As you can see from your bulletin insert, we are reading track 1, the semi-continuous readings. Today we come to the end of a cycle of readings from first and second Kings, which describe the ministries of the great prophet Elijah and his successor Elisha. Starting next week, you’ll be hearing from the book of Amos.
In this last reading about Elisha, we hear an ancient story about the healing of Naaman. Ancient though it may be, this story makes me ask the same questions as the gospel reading does. Did the characters in this story think that God could show up only in certain people, places, or ways? Our general, Naaman, was so highly regarded by his king, because the Arameans, had bested the Israelites in battle, and, indeed, had killed Ahab, who, as we heard a few weeks ago, had acceded to Jezebel’s stealing of Naboth’s vineyard. Yet this great general is clueless about how to cure his skin disease – which probably was not Hansen’s disease, i.e., true leprosy, but something more like psoriasis. Instead, he had to learn from a captured servant girl, the lowest possible person in his household, that an Israelite prophet might cure him.
Of course, instead of following the servant girl’s suggestion, Naaman heads to the Aramaen king, who is also clueless. He sends Naaman off with a delegation to the king of Israel. The king of Israel, rightly fearing another Aramean raid, is also clueless and seemingly unaware of the great prophet in his own city. Naaman is so full of self-importance, that when Elisha finally steps in and, through his servant, asks Naaman to perform a simple ritual, Naaman cannot do it. It takes Naaman’s own servants to save the day, by urging their arrogant master to do what he must do to be cured. Is it possible that Naaman misses the saving action of God, because he has preconceived ideas about through whom, where, and how God will show up? To his credit, Naaman, as we learn in the verses following the ones we just heard, acknowledges the action of the God of Israel and thereafter continues to worship God, even after returning to Aram.
Let’s stay with the ancient story a little longer. Yes, this story suggests that we can miss God’s appearance because we expect God to show up in certain ways. The story of Naaman reminds us that God often makes Godself known in unexpected ways. Often the powerless perceive God’s presence, here, for example the servant girl and Naaman’s own servants, while the powerful miss God’s appearance. Low social or economic status does not mean that one is spiritually poor. Indeed, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament suggest that often the opposite is the case. Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees before God called him. David was the youngest of Jesse’s sons and was out tending the sheep when Samuel came to anoint a king over Israel to follow Saul. Jesus was born in a no-account village in the conquered part of the Roman Empire to the young wife of a carpenter. Many of Jesus’ earliest followers were low on the social scale, fisherman, tax collectors, and prostitutes. Yet it was they who were able to sense God’s presence. It was they who were able to hear Jesus’ message and act on it, not the rich people or the political and religious leaders who were wedded to their wealth and positions.
What is more important, the story of Naaman reminds us that when God shows up God can work through anyone. God was able to work through a servant girl, the servant of a prophet, even a general’s servants, to bring about the healing of Naaman. The same is true of the seventy who were sent out by Jesus. The people to whom they were sent no doubt expected that you had to be learned in the ancient texts like the rabbis, in order to heal, preach, or drive out demons. Jesus’ friends were largely unlettered, certainly lay people without any special training. God was able to work through them. Sent by Jesus, bearing his authority so to speak, the seventy could also be instruments of God, in healing, driving out demonic spirits, and proclaiming God’s realm.
So do the stories of Naaman’s healing or of Jesus’ sending out seventy followers have anything to say to us? Do we believe that God only works through certain people, or in certain ways or places? How many times have we said, for example, “We’ve always done it that way?” Episcopalians are very good at saying that! Or “We tried that once, and it didn’t work?” Do we longtime Episcopalians think that the only prayers that God will hear are those contained within the Book of Common Prayer? The Book of Common Prayer is a liturgical treasure house, to be sure, and we trust that God will be present to us in the sacraments. But doesn’t God also respond to the prayers of Baptists, or Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims? Don’t Buddhists or Hindus also have something to teach us about how and where God shows up?
Are we among the powerful and well-off? Do we think we have nothing to learn from those of a lower social or economic status than ourselves? For example, don’t the folks who come to Loaves and Fishes also have something to teach us about faith? I am always struck by the people who give me the slips of paper on which they have requested prayers. They remind me again and again that, somehow, they have faith that our prayers will help their relatives or friends.
Now here’s a risky thought: is it possible that we could be instruments of God’s action? Might you stand in the place of Naaman’s wife’s servant girl, of Elisha’s servant, or of Naaman’s servants? Might you be sent, like one of the seventy, to heal and to preach the nearness of God’s realm? Oh, perish the thought! For so many of us, the good news of God, the nearness of God’s realm, especially as we experience God’s nearness in this church, is a well-kept secret. Or at least, we think that you have to be wearing a collar in order to be God’s instrument for others.
So here’s another story, a true story. A woman lay in a hospital bed. She had a cancerous tumor in her brain. She had been given two different kinds of treatments, the best that her doctors had in their arsenal, and both had failed. The tumor was not shrinking. Plus, she had had a mild stroke. As she lay in her hospital bed, now exhausted by the physical and occupational therapy that had followed the stroke, she began to wonder if it was time to abandon aggressive treatment and consider hospice. The attending nurse asked her if she had a pastor. The woman hesitated. The pastor of the church she had attended was leaving that church. However, she had a devoted husband, who had taken a leave of absence from his job to care for her. She had a network of friends who visited her almost daily. Other friends wrote encouraging letters and notes and commented on her Facebook posts. Yet other friends let her know that they were praying for her. Did she have a pastor? Finally, the woman said, “I have many pastors. God is caring for me.”
So here’s the real point, the good news, of the stories of Naaman and of the sending of the seventy. We are all sent. We can all be God’s instruments. You don’t have to be powerful, rich, learned, pious, good-looking, well-educated, or anything else. You don’t have to have studied the ancient texts. You don’t have to wear a collar. God shows up, unexpectedly perhaps, through us, whoever we are, whenever we care for each other – whoever that other is. God can and will work through us, perhaps when we least expect it, to heal and comfort others.
God’s energy is here now, ready to work through you. Dust off your sandals, speak your piece, visit those in need, work for peace and justice, and partner with God in bringing God’s reign nearer.
We might ask the same questions after hearing the story of the healing of the Aramean general Naaman. As most of you know, the Episcopal Church follows a three-year cycle of readings for the Sunday Eucharist. We are currently in the third year of the cycle, Year C. In year A, the gospel readings are mostly from Matthew, in year B from Mark, and this year from Luke. During the summers of all three years, we read some of Paul’s letters more or less straight through. For example, for the last several weeks we’ve been hearing from Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians. Today we heard the very end of that letter. Next week, we’ll begin Paul’s letter to the Christians at Colossae. With the readings from the Hebrew Bible, the lectionary gives us two choices, either to read some of the books sequentially, track 1, or to read lessons that complement the gospel, track 2. As you can see from your bulletin insert, we are reading track 1, the semi-continuous readings. Today we come to the end of a cycle of readings from first and second Kings, which describe the ministries of the great prophet Elijah and his successor Elisha. Starting next week, you’ll be hearing from the book of Amos.
In this last reading about Elisha, we hear an ancient story about the healing of Naaman. Ancient though it may be, this story makes me ask the same questions as the gospel reading does. Did the characters in this story think that God could show up only in certain people, places, or ways? Our general, Naaman, was so highly regarded by his king, because the Arameans, had bested the Israelites in battle, and, indeed, had killed Ahab, who, as we heard a few weeks ago, had acceded to Jezebel’s stealing of Naboth’s vineyard. Yet this great general is clueless about how to cure his skin disease – which probably was not Hansen’s disease, i.e., true leprosy, but something more like psoriasis. Instead, he had to learn from a captured servant girl, the lowest possible person in his household, that an Israelite prophet might cure him.
Of course, instead of following the servant girl’s suggestion, Naaman heads to the Aramaen king, who is also clueless. He sends Naaman off with a delegation to the king of Israel. The king of Israel, rightly fearing another Aramean raid, is also clueless and seemingly unaware of the great prophet in his own city. Naaman is so full of self-importance, that when Elisha finally steps in and, through his servant, asks Naaman to perform a simple ritual, Naaman cannot do it. It takes Naaman’s own servants to save the day, by urging their arrogant master to do what he must do to be cured. Is it possible that Naaman misses the saving action of God, because he has preconceived ideas about through whom, where, and how God will show up? To his credit, Naaman, as we learn in the verses following the ones we just heard, acknowledges the action of the God of Israel and thereafter continues to worship God, even after returning to Aram.
Let’s stay with the ancient story a little longer. Yes, this story suggests that we can miss God’s appearance because we expect God to show up in certain ways. The story of Naaman reminds us that God often makes Godself known in unexpected ways. Often the powerless perceive God’s presence, here, for example the servant girl and Naaman’s own servants, while the powerful miss God’s appearance. Low social or economic status does not mean that one is spiritually poor. Indeed, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament suggest that often the opposite is the case. Amos was a dresser of sycamore trees before God called him. David was the youngest of Jesse’s sons and was out tending the sheep when Samuel came to anoint a king over Israel to follow Saul. Jesus was born in a no-account village in the conquered part of the Roman Empire to the young wife of a carpenter. Many of Jesus’ earliest followers were low on the social scale, fisherman, tax collectors, and prostitutes. Yet it was they who were able to sense God’s presence. It was they who were able to hear Jesus’ message and act on it, not the rich people or the political and religious leaders who were wedded to their wealth and positions.
What is more important, the story of Naaman reminds us that when God shows up God can work through anyone. God was able to work through a servant girl, the servant of a prophet, even a general’s servants, to bring about the healing of Naaman. The same is true of the seventy who were sent out by Jesus. The people to whom they were sent no doubt expected that you had to be learned in the ancient texts like the rabbis, in order to heal, preach, or drive out demons. Jesus’ friends were largely unlettered, certainly lay people without any special training. God was able to work through them. Sent by Jesus, bearing his authority so to speak, the seventy could also be instruments of God, in healing, driving out demonic spirits, and proclaiming God’s realm.
So do the stories of Naaman’s healing or of Jesus’ sending out seventy followers have anything to say to us? Do we believe that God only works through certain people, or in certain ways or places? How many times have we said, for example, “We’ve always done it that way?” Episcopalians are very good at saying that! Or “We tried that once, and it didn’t work?” Do we longtime Episcopalians think that the only prayers that God will hear are those contained within the Book of Common Prayer? The Book of Common Prayer is a liturgical treasure house, to be sure, and we trust that God will be present to us in the sacraments. But doesn’t God also respond to the prayers of Baptists, or Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims? Don’t Buddhists or Hindus also have something to teach us about how and where God shows up?
Are we among the powerful and well-off? Do we think we have nothing to learn from those of a lower social or economic status than ourselves? For example, don’t the folks who come to Loaves and Fishes also have something to teach us about faith? I am always struck by the people who give me the slips of paper on which they have requested prayers. They remind me again and again that, somehow, they have faith that our prayers will help their relatives or friends.
Now here’s a risky thought: is it possible that we could be instruments of God’s action? Might you stand in the place of Naaman’s wife’s servant girl, of Elisha’s servant, or of Naaman’s servants? Might you be sent, like one of the seventy, to heal and to preach the nearness of God’s realm? Oh, perish the thought! For so many of us, the good news of God, the nearness of God’s realm, especially as we experience God’s nearness in this church, is a well-kept secret. Or at least, we think that you have to be wearing a collar in order to be God’s instrument for others.
So here’s another story, a true story. A woman lay in a hospital bed. She had a cancerous tumor in her brain. She had been given two different kinds of treatments, the best that her doctors had in their arsenal, and both had failed. The tumor was not shrinking. Plus, she had had a mild stroke. As she lay in her hospital bed, now exhausted by the physical and occupational therapy that had followed the stroke, she began to wonder if it was time to abandon aggressive treatment and consider hospice. The attending nurse asked her if she had a pastor. The woman hesitated. The pastor of the church she had attended was leaving that church. However, she had a devoted husband, who had taken a leave of absence from his job to care for her. She had a network of friends who visited her almost daily. Other friends wrote encouraging letters and notes and commented on her Facebook posts. Yet other friends let her know that they were praying for her. Did she have a pastor? Finally, the woman said, “I have many pastors. God is caring for me.”
So here’s the real point, the good news, of the stories of Naaman and of the sending of the seventy. We are all sent. We can all be God’s instruments. You don’t have to be powerful, rich, learned, pious, good-looking, well-educated, or anything else. You don’t have to have studied the ancient texts. You don’t have to wear a collar. God shows up, unexpectedly perhaps, through us, whoever we are, whenever we care for each other – whoever that other is. God can and will work through us, perhaps when we least expect it, to heal and comfort others.
God’s energy is here now, ready to work through you. Dust off your sandals, speak your piece, visit those in need, work for peace and justice, and partner with God in bringing God’s reign nearer.
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