Loose Lutherans
Our family has a longstanding New Year’s Eve tradition of spending the evening at the home of some old college friends in Tacoma. The gathering is made up of about five regular couples and their families who meet up every December 31st to make pizza, drink wine, and usher in a new year. We don’t have much in common except friendship with the host couple, so our conversation is usually fairly general and free of controversy and conflict. A few years back, however, there was a new couple introduced to the mix. They were younger than we were, and were quite vocal about their religious activities. Our hosts are not at all religious, but someone knew that I was a church goer and said something about my involvement with the Lutheran Church. The young wife asked what congregation I attended, I explained and noted that we are an ELCA congregation. “Oh,” she said, “You’re one of the loose Lutherans.” Luckily, someone else quickly changed the subject and I didn’t have to respond or get bogged down in a discussion that might have dampened the cheerful nature of the gathering. But, it got me to thinking.
Obviously, this young woman meant the term in a derogatory manner. For some reason that adjective, “loose,” comes with negative connotations in the common vernacular. It implies a sort of laxness of morals, an inability to stick to the proper path, a tendency to disregard the rules, and to behave with impropriety. In reality, though, “loose” has many definitions in the dictionary, most of them involving the word “free.” To be loose is to be “free or released… free from anything that binds or restrains, unfettered.” In that sense, then, I am – we all - are loose. According to the book of Romans, Chapter 8, verse 2 we have been “set free from the law of sin and death” by the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus. We have been called to be free and to serve one another in love. Just before the verses we have today in the 58th chapter of Isaiah the prophet proclaims that the Holy Spirit has freed us so that we might in turn “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, [and] set the oppressed free.”
Why, then does the word “loose” get such a bad rap? Why did the woman think she was putting me down by labeling me a loose Lutheran? In today’s scripture reading, Jesus is once again in trouble with the religious leaders of the day because he has broken the rules by healing (working) on the Sabbath by freeing a woman from her bondage to Satan – by setting her loose. Jesus has a habit of upsetting status quo. In this case it is the leader of the synagogue who is indignant that Jesus has, in his view, broken the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. He is a man for whom the Kingdom of Heaven was still something that was to be earned by following the rules. Many times in the gospels people ask Jesus what they have to do to get into the kingdom. Jesus came to free us from bondage to the belief that our own actions will earn us a place in the kingdom by showing us that grace is something freely given for which we should gratefully rejoice. Rejoice and praise God because He has raised us from the position of slaves to joint heirs with Christ, freed us from sin and death and given us the keys to the kingdom. He has set us all loose from bondage to the law of sin, just as he freed this daughter of Abraham from Satan’s power.
Still, freedom can be a very scary thing and maybe that is why people fear to have their chains loosened. I am reminded of my cat, Koko. Koko thinks she wants to be a free and roaming cat rather than the pampered house pet that she is. Every now and then she makes a break for freedom when the front door opens. Once out onto the porch, though, she skids to a halt. Where to go? What to do? Chase a squirrel? Climb a tree? Hide under a bush? Too many options! Before she has a chance to act, she is scooped up and returned to her safe and predictable environment. People are like that, too. We profess to want freedom, but then are often overwhelmed when we get it. We don’t know what to do, we are blinded by our own light rising in the darkness and turning our gloom into a noonday sun and before we know it we’ve fastened those chains right back on and turned back into the familiar darkness. We trade freedom for a false sense of security and control.
During the summer I like to read fiction that doesn’t demand too much brain power – usually mystery novels. This summer I have been reading the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories by Dorothy L. Sayers – not exactly where I would expect inspiration to strike for a sermon, but God works in mysterious ways. These stories are set between the two world wars in England. Lord Peter is a member of the aristocracy and he marries a woman from a lower class (her father was a country doctor). She is not used to keeping servants and when she becomes “Lady Peter,” she is suddenly required to manage a household staff. This is also a time period when a lot of the old traditions and class barriers in England were beginning to break down. She wonders if they have to be “bound” by the old rules. He responds that “The servants like rules…They know where they are then, and exactly what they must do to give satisfaction. It makes for a peaceful household” (Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh). I suspect many non-loose (tight?) Christians feel the same way. If they know the rules, they know where they are and how to give satisfaction to their Lord. It makes for a peaceful world. We loose Lutherans, on the other hand, know that (as we heard last week) Jesus did not come to bring peace, but rather division and we profess that we are saved by grace through faith and called to do the difficult and dangerous and divisive work of living free and loose in the world.
And it is difficult, dangerous and divisive work. It is difficult because it requires us to take on a new level of responsibility. The servants in the above example like the rules because they know what to do to please their masters. We, however, are no longer servants, but joint heirs to the kingdom. To continue the English class system analogy, being a lord or lady carries with it a large portion of noblesse-oblige. Being a noble means that you have a responsibility to lead, manage, and care for those less fortunate. As we see in the reading from Isaiah, we do not cast off the yoke to run amok, but rather to offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Being free – loose – does not give us the right to become self-indulgent; it carries with it the obligation to care for others.
It is dangerous, because working for justice in an unjust world carries risks. We are pretty comfortable here in our little suburban community, but even here it is not always popular to speak up for the poor, the hungry, the mentally ill, the economically distressed. We can be hurt, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically not only by those who oppose our actions, but even those we are trying to help. Those living on the margins are often slow to trust and we may feel that our actions are futile. I know a little about this from working with “at-risk” students. Some of my colleagues have had money stolen from them, had their property vandalized, or even been physically assaulted by those young people we are working so hard to educate and care for.
It is certainly divisive. Our new Presiding Bishop-elect, Elizabeth Eaton has spoken eloquently about the ELCA being a denomination that has a history of living in paradox, of being able to hold strong opposing viewpoints but remaining unified around the cross. Sadly, though, some congregations have left the ELCA because we are have gotten too loose. They don’t seem to be able to live in the place Bishop-elect Eaton describes as “a place that says we can disagree on things that are vitally important but still listen to each other and see in the other a brother or sister in Christ, and more importantly, someone for whom Christ died.”
Here at Nativity we proclaim that we are called and empowered (freed/loosed) to serve, witness, nurture, and love – no qualifiers. We follow the great commandments to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and love our neighbors as ourselves. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and set loose on the world to serve, witness, nurture, and love even in the face of derision from those who think we are not tight enough. We live boldly in the bright light of freedom, casting off our yokes, sharing the abundance of our watered garden with the world. So, I take that derogatory term “Loose Lutheran” and turn it on its head. Sadly that young woman never returned to our yearly gatherings, so I couldn’t thank her or share the insights her comment stirred up for me, but now I embrace the title. The Holy Spirit has set us loose, freed us to be the face of Christ to the world and I take great pride in being a Loose Lutheran – or as my husband says - a “Loose-erin.” Amen.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
18 August 2013
“I have come ...”
Luke 12:49-56
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
18 August 2013
And so, today, with this Gospel text, our three-week-long sojourn in the 12th chapter of Luke’s Gospel comes to an end.
Honestly, I won’t be surprised to hear someone out there say “Thank God!”
These have not been easy words for us, these past few weeks.
They have been especially hard words for us, we who have much in the way of material blessings, possessions, stuff … Jesus has not been kind to his readers and hearers when it comes to what he has to say about earthly possessions.
Remember that man who had such a good harvest, and his first thought was to build up bigger barns in which to store it all. Jesus calls him a fool.
Remember last Sunday, and Jesus’ call for those who follow him to sell our possessions and give alms ... give it all away to the poor.
But then, this is the way it is for the Jesus who we meet in the words and scenes and actions of Luke’s Gospel.
He’s unabashedly and unashamedly “pro-poor.” Taking the case, choosing the side of the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider.
The Jesus we encounter here in the words of Luke’s gospel really, really loves the poor.
Which was not a popular word for Jesus or those who wished, willed, tried to follow him, back then.
Because … remember … how we heard last week, money was a closed system, there was only so much to go around. For the poor to have any gain at all … those with money had to give it away.
Sell your possessions and give alms, Jesus says.
You can guess how well that went over then.
About as well as it does now.
I ran across an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer this week titled “Reacting to the poor – negatively.” In it, a professor at Princeton described the results of a recent study she has done on how Americans react to the poor.
When people were placed in neuroimaging machines and shown photos of the poor and homeless, their brains responded as though the photos depicted things, not humans … a sign of revulsion.
Advocates for the poor aren’t surprised, saying enmity toward the needy runs thick.
“Americans react toward the poor with disgust,” said Susan Fiske, professor at Princeton … she has studied attitudes toward the poor for 12 years. “It’s the most negative prejudice people report, greater even than racism.”
And so it should come as little surprise that those who today take Jesus’ side toward the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider ... that they would receive and feel that same revulsion.
Little surprise … but still, painful words from our Gospel text today, when we hear them.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
You stand up for the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider, today, and you’re going to experience that same kind of division.
Lutheran hymnwriter John Ylvisaker – he who wrote our beloved worship-song, “I was there to hear your borning cry,” he wrote another song, one which includes the line, “Jesus was sent to upset and annoy.”
Well, these are certainly upsetting and annoying texts we have before us today, aren’t they? Do we have visitors with and among us today? Welcome to worship! Come and hear about our Lord who hangs out with the people that make polite society uncomfortable … the Messiah, the Savior who is a burr under the saddle to the rich, an itch that can’t be scratched to the legalistic, a stoker of flame and division among people.
Among Lutherans???! Nice, quiet Lutherans???. People who don’t want to call attention to themselves???
From another article this week, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of Cleveland has been elected presiding bishop of the 4 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America … the first female presiding bishop in the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination … a denomination of ten thousand congregations that lost seven hundred of those congregations after a 2009 decision to permit same-gender-partnered clergy.
Bishop Eaton (like her predecessor, outgoing Bishop Mark Hanson) supports that 2009 decision … but also says that being an inclusive church means respecting those who have a different understanding of Scripture and doctrine.
And a quote I saw on Twitter, from Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, the head of the Lutheran World Federation ... speaking at that same ELCA Churchwide Assembly, offering thanks for the 12 years of service of our outgoing presiding Bishop Mark Hanson:
To Bishop Mark Hanson – you have been a prophetic voice for justice and have upset a lot of people who hate justice.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Ah, but don’t blame it on Jesus. He didn’t start this fire.
God the Father is the source and root of this division, this burning flame.
We find this in our Isaiah reading.
The first few chapters of this longest book in the Bible start out – are set – in a pretty good time in Israel’s history. Things were good and going fairly well for the country – even though it was a divided country, two nations, north and south, Israel and Judah. But if one was paying attention, watching the signs, they could see storm clouds on the horizon … Judah’s neighbors were beginning to organize against her, and there would soon be war.
Isaiah was the prophet chosen by God to speak harsh words in this smooth time. God sent his word through Isaiah to warn Israel … and we have perhaps the most beautiful portion of that word here today, Isaiah’s poem about the beloved vineyard.
The vineyard is Israel, is Judah, a nation, a people of God’s own tending and care, of whom God wanted and expected a yield of good fruit … obedience to God’s law, unwavering loyalty in worship, love and care and justice for those to whom he calls his people to pay particular attention … the orphan, the widow, the wanderer and sojourner, the alien in their midst … those Old Testament terms for, yes, the poor.
But this ends up being the outcome for Judah’s yielding wild grapes … fruit of their own making, not following the work and will of the Lord:
I will make a waste … it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;
He expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
Righteousness, but heard a cry!
A cry … from those seeking justice … the poor, abused, the ‘havenots’ … at the hands of, by the ‘haves’ … and now … and now, NOW, in words Jesus would speak centuries later …
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
For Jesus, the division was clear enough. If in our modern “CSI” vernacular we were to make a list of “Jesus’ known enemies,” it would be a who’s who of precisely the people one wouldn’t want on their “enemies” list at that time:
• The religious leaders – Jesus wasn’t playing by their rules, didn’t like how they treated the poor and powerless, didn’t like their sense of “justice” which was selective justice ... justice for some … them … at the expense of everyone else;
• The political leaders – same as above;
• The military leaders – same as above
And after Jesus’ death … we, his followers, would and will say by faith, after his resurrection and ascension back to his Father and Our Father in heaven … but those people just named above – those who oppose him ... would by and large just say “after Jesus’ death” … “after Jesus’ death” anyone who followed Jesus, who followed his word, would, could surely feel the full force of Jesus’ words:
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
Father against son
And son against father,
Mother against daughter
And daughter against mother,
Mother in law against her daughter in law
And daughter in law against mother in law.
Being a follower of Jesus Christ was, literally, a matter of life and death for those of the church of the first three centuries of its existence.
Through history, in different parts of the world, being a follower of Jesus Christ has been, and, in some places in the world, still is, a matter of life and death.
But not for us. Not for most Western, European, North and South American Christians.
So we hear this word, and wonder.
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
We wonder because, much, most of the time, this religion called Christianity, and our being part of it, it isn’t like that at all.
Church isn’t like that for us. Most of the time, it’s go along and get along ...church is nice, and fun, happy, non-wake-raising Lutherans that we are.
No one is in fear of coming here to worship. It’s not a matter of life and death.
Sometimes, though, there is a sense of that division of which Jesus speaks.
When our faith comes between us and family members who don’t, or won’t, be part of the Christian life of worship and service with us, and we have to make choices between those we love and the weekly gathering of this community of faith, in and through which we are fed and forgiven and sent to service in Jesus’ name.
When the Word that Jesus speaks in our ear goes against the words we hear and images we see in the world around us, and we have to make choices, sometimes easy, sometimes more difficult.
And then there are those ... for those people, in those times, for whom, in which, standing with Jesus means standing literally face to face with division, against the powers and principalities, the workers of injustice and disunity and prejudice and hate.
Like Bishop Younan and Bishop Hanson, who have unceasingly spoken for the voiceless Palestinian Christians, caught in the midst of the eternal struggle between Arab Muslim and Israeli Jew, speaking for the rights of all to live in peace and safety in the face of oppression and injustice. Bishop Younan, again:
I continue to believe that security for the State of Israel depends on justice for Palestinians, and that freedom and justice for Palestinians depend on Israel’s security. It continues to be my vision that Palestinians will one day see the image of God in their Israeli neighbors and Israelis equally see the image of God in us, their Palestinian neighbors. For it is only when we recognize our common humanity and hold each other in dignity and respect and mutually recognize each other’s human, civil, religious, and political rights (... that...) the Holy Land (will) become a promised land of milk and honey for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Like Pope Francis, who is turning the magisterium of Roman Catholicism on its head, because unlike past bishops of Rome, he is NOT so much interested in the church doctrine and dogmatic moralisms which have been the hallmark of that faith over the past 30 years ... no, he is living out the moral imperatives of Jesus in Luke’s chapter 12, into the world, a pope in, with, of and for the poor:
From Pope Francis’ Twitter feed, @Pontifex, on 25 July:
The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty.
Like our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who in assembly in Pittsburgh just overwhelmingly passed a Social Statement on Criminal Justice, a statement which says in part that:
The ELCA is prompted to speak and to act because so many cries of suffering and despair emerge from the criminal justice system—from victims, the incarcerated, their families, communities, those wrongly convicted, they who work in the system—and have not been heard.
• Drawing from Holy Scripture, this church holds up a vision of God’s justice that is wondrously richer and deeper than human imitations and yet is a mirror in which justice in this world, God’s world, must always be assessed.
So why do we do it? Why do we do these things, pursue these things, act in these ways which “rock the boat,” which can, and do, cause division ... between friends and family, between Christians, in our communities, our workplaces, our schools ... in our world?
Because Jesus is there.
Because Jesus is there, the One, true source of justice and peace, calling us, his followers, to act, to speak, to live the same.
With justice, with peace, toward the poor, the powerless, the downtrodden and desperate, the destitute, the helpless, the hopeless, the outsider, the marginalized of this world.
Because Jesus is there. In the midst of the division, the separation, the conflict, Jesus is still, is always there, with and for us.
And he calls us to be there, too.
Will it get us in trouble?
Sometimes. Maybe. Perhaps. Likely.
We don’t, we won’t, go looking for it. But it will find us. But it will find us.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Pastor Jon Nelson, then of Maple Leaf Lutheran in NE Seattle, said at our ordinations, preaching the sermon some 19 plus years ago, but I still remember his words, “If I ever hear that you haven’t gotten in trouble for your preaching and teaching, your serving, your living in the shadow of the cross … well, I’ll be mighty disappointed.”
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
We don’t go looking for it … but it will find us.
Because we are passionate people of God. Passionate for and in service to the Gospel … the Gospel that is our only hope, our only hope for this life and into that which is to come … the coming Kingdom of God … a kingdom whose King Jesus claims us by going through suffering, through emptying himself, through becoming totally nothing … the offscouring of the world … dying … to live, to live with us in the midst of our divisions and conflicts ... to live with us and to save us, to save the whole world … rich and poor, black and white, Christian and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian, gay and straight, Republican and Democrat … you and me.
Here we stand. We can do no other. In the service, the love of, the repentance to and forgiveness from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Here we stand. We can do no other. God help us. Amen.
Luke 12:49-56
20th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
18 August 2013
And so, today, with this Gospel text, our three-week-long sojourn in the 12th chapter of Luke’s Gospel comes to an end.
Honestly, I won’t be surprised to hear someone out there say “Thank God!”
These have not been easy words for us, these past few weeks.
They have been especially hard words for us, we who have much in the way of material blessings, possessions, stuff … Jesus has not been kind to his readers and hearers when it comes to what he has to say about earthly possessions.
Remember that man who had such a good harvest, and his first thought was to build up bigger barns in which to store it all. Jesus calls him a fool.
Remember last Sunday, and Jesus’ call for those who follow him to sell our possessions and give alms ... give it all away to the poor.
But then, this is the way it is for the Jesus who we meet in the words and scenes and actions of Luke’s Gospel.
He’s unabashedly and unashamedly “pro-poor.” Taking the case, choosing the side of the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider.
The Jesus we encounter here in the words of Luke’s gospel really, really loves the poor.
Which was not a popular word for Jesus or those who wished, willed, tried to follow him, back then.
Because … remember … how we heard last week, money was a closed system, there was only so much to go around. For the poor to have any gain at all … those with money had to give it away.
Sell your possessions and give alms, Jesus says.
You can guess how well that went over then.
About as well as it does now.
I ran across an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer this week titled “Reacting to the poor – negatively.” In it, a professor at Princeton described the results of a recent study she has done on how Americans react to the poor.
When people were placed in neuroimaging machines and shown photos of the poor and homeless, their brains responded as though the photos depicted things, not humans … a sign of revulsion.
Advocates for the poor aren’t surprised, saying enmity toward the needy runs thick.
“Americans react toward the poor with disgust,” said Susan Fiske, professor at Princeton … she has studied attitudes toward the poor for 12 years. “It’s the most negative prejudice people report, greater even than racism.”
And so it should come as little surprise that those who today take Jesus’ side toward the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider ... that they would receive and feel that same revulsion.
Little surprise … but still, painful words from our Gospel text today, when we hear them.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
You stand up for the poor and powerless, the downtrodden and destitute, the outsider, today, and you’re going to experience that same kind of division.
Lutheran hymnwriter John Ylvisaker – he who wrote our beloved worship-song, “I was there to hear your borning cry,” he wrote another song, one which includes the line, “Jesus was sent to upset and annoy.”
Well, these are certainly upsetting and annoying texts we have before us today, aren’t they? Do we have visitors with and among us today? Welcome to worship! Come and hear about our Lord who hangs out with the people that make polite society uncomfortable … the Messiah, the Savior who is a burr under the saddle to the rich, an itch that can’t be scratched to the legalistic, a stoker of flame and division among people.
Among Lutherans???! Nice, quiet Lutherans???. People who don’t want to call attention to themselves???
From another article this week, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Bishop Elizabeth Eaton of Cleveland has been elected presiding bishop of the 4 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America … the first female presiding bishop in the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination … a denomination of ten thousand congregations that lost seven hundred of those congregations after a 2009 decision to permit same-gender-partnered clergy.
Bishop Eaton (like her predecessor, outgoing Bishop Mark Hanson) supports that 2009 decision … but also says that being an inclusive church means respecting those who have a different understanding of Scripture and doctrine.
And a quote I saw on Twitter, from Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, the head of the Lutheran World Federation ... speaking at that same ELCA Churchwide Assembly, offering thanks for the 12 years of service of our outgoing presiding Bishop Mark Hanson:
To Bishop Mark Hanson – you have been a prophetic voice for justice and have upset a lot of people who hate justice.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Ah, but don’t blame it on Jesus. He didn’t start this fire.
God the Father is the source and root of this division, this burning flame.
We find this in our Isaiah reading.
The first few chapters of this longest book in the Bible start out – are set – in a pretty good time in Israel’s history. Things were good and going fairly well for the country – even though it was a divided country, two nations, north and south, Israel and Judah. But if one was paying attention, watching the signs, they could see storm clouds on the horizon … Judah’s neighbors were beginning to organize against her, and there would soon be war.
Isaiah was the prophet chosen by God to speak harsh words in this smooth time. God sent his word through Isaiah to warn Israel … and we have perhaps the most beautiful portion of that word here today, Isaiah’s poem about the beloved vineyard.
The vineyard is Israel, is Judah, a nation, a people of God’s own tending and care, of whom God wanted and expected a yield of good fruit … obedience to God’s law, unwavering loyalty in worship, love and care and justice for those to whom he calls his people to pay particular attention … the orphan, the widow, the wanderer and sojourner, the alien in their midst … those Old Testament terms for, yes, the poor.
But this ends up being the outcome for Judah’s yielding wild grapes … fruit of their own making, not following the work and will of the Lord:
I will make a waste … it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;
He expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
Righteousness, but heard a cry!
A cry … from those seeking justice … the poor, abused, the ‘havenots’ … at the hands of, by the ‘haves’ … and now … and now, NOW, in words Jesus would speak centuries later …
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
For Jesus, the division was clear enough. If in our modern “CSI” vernacular we were to make a list of “Jesus’ known enemies,” it would be a who’s who of precisely the people one wouldn’t want on their “enemies” list at that time:
• The religious leaders – Jesus wasn’t playing by their rules, didn’t like how they treated the poor and powerless, didn’t like their sense of “justice” which was selective justice ... justice for some … them … at the expense of everyone else;
• The political leaders – same as above;
• The military leaders – same as above
And after Jesus’ death … we, his followers, would and will say by faith, after his resurrection and ascension back to his Father and Our Father in heaven … but those people just named above – those who oppose him ... would by and large just say “after Jesus’ death” … “after Jesus’ death” anyone who followed Jesus, who followed his word, would, could surely feel the full force of Jesus’ words:
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
Father against son
And son against father,
Mother against daughter
And daughter against mother,
Mother in law against her daughter in law
And daughter in law against mother in law.
Being a follower of Jesus Christ was, literally, a matter of life and death for those of the church of the first three centuries of its existence.
Through history, in different parts of the world, being a follower of Jesus Christ has been, and, in some places in the world, still is, a matter of life and death.
But not for us. Not for most Western, European, North and South American Christians.
So we hear this word, and wonder.
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
We wonder because, much, most of the time, this religion called Christianity, and our being part of it, it isn’t like that at all.
Church isn’t like that for us. Most of the time, it’s go along and get along ...church is nice, and fun, happy, non-wake-raising Lutherans that we are.
No one is in fear of coming here to worship. It’s not a matter of life and death.
Sometimes, though, there is a sense of that division of which Jesus speaks.
When our faith comes between us and family members who don’t, or won’t, be part of the Christian life of worship and service with us, and we have to make choices between those we love and the weekly gathering of this community of faith, in and through which we are fed and forgiven and sent to service in Jesus’ name.
When the Word that Jesus speaks in our ear goes against the words we hear and images we see in the world around us, and we have to make choices, sometimes easy, sometimes more difficult.
And then there are those ... for those people, in those times, for whom, in which, standing with Jesus means standing literally face to face with division, against the powers and principalities, the workers of injustice and disunity and prejudice and hate.
Like Bishop Younan and Bishop Hanson, who have unceasingly spoken for the voiceless Palestinian Christians, caught in the midst of the eternal struggle between Arab Muslim and Israeli Jew, speaking for the rights of all to live in peace and safety in the face of oppression and injustice. Bishop Younan, again:
I continue to believe that security for the State of Israel depends on justice for Palestinians, and that freedom and justice for Palestinians depend on Israel’s security. It continues to be my vision that Palestinians will one day see the image of God in their Israeli neighbors and Israelis equally see the image of God in us, their Palestinian neighbors. For it is only when we recognize our common humanity and hold each other in dignity and respect and mutually recognize each other’s human, civil, religious, and political rights (... that...) the Holy Land (will) become a promised land of milk and honey for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Like Pope Francis, who is turning the magisterium of Roman Catholicism on its head, because unlike past bishops of Rome, he is NOT so much interested in the church doctrine and dogmatic moralisms which have been the hallmark of that faith over the past 30 years ... no, he is living out the moral imperatives of Jesus in Luke’s chapter 12, into the world, a pope in, with, of and for the poor:
From Pope Francis’ Twitter feed, @Pontifex, on 25 July:
The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty.
Like our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who in assembly in Pittsburgh just overwhelmingly passed a Social Statement on Criminal Justice, a statement which says in part that:
The ELCA is prompted to speak and to act because so many cries of suffering and despair emerge from the criminal justice system—from victims, the incarcerated, their families, communities, those wrongly convicted, they who work in the system—and have not been heard.
• Drawing from Holy Scripture, this church holds up a vision of God’s justice that is wondrously richer and deeper than human imitations and yet is a mirror in which justice in this world, God’s world, must always be assessed.
So why do we do it? Why do we do these things, pursue these things, act in these ways which “rock the boat,” which can, and do, cause division ... between friends and family, between Christians, in our communities, our workplaces, our schools ... in our world?
Because Jesus is there.
Because Jesus is there, the One, true source of justice and peace, calling us, his followers, to act, to speak, to live the same.
With justice, with peace, toward the poor, the powerless, the downtrodden and desperate, the destitute, the helpless, the hopeless, the outsider, the marginalized of this world.
Because Jesus is there. In the midst of the division, the separation, the conflict, Jesus is still, is always there, with and for us.
And he calls us to be there, too.
Will it get us in trouble?
Sometimes. Maybe. Perhaps. Likely.
We don’t, we won’t, go looking for it. But it will find us. But it will find us.
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Pastor Jon Nelson, then of Maple Leaf Lutheran in NE Seattle, said at our ordinations, preaching the sermon some 19 plus years ago, but I still remember his words, “If I ever hear that you haven’t gotten in trouble for your preaching and teaching, your serving, your living in the shadow of the cross … well, I’ll be mighty disappointed.”
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
We don’t go looking for it … but it will find us.
Because we are passionate people of God. Passionate for and in service to the Gospel … the Gospel that is our only hope, our only hope for this life and into that which is to come … the coming Kingdom of God … a kingdom whose King Jesus claims us by going through suffering, through emptying himself, through becoming totally nothing … the offscouring of the world … dying … to live, to live with us in the midst of our divisions and conflicts ... to live with us and to save us, to save the whole world … rich and poor, black and white, Christian and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian, gay and straight, Republican and Democrat … you and me.
Here we stand. We can do no other. In the service, the love of, the repentance to and forgiveness from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Here we stand. We can do no other. God help us. Amen.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
11 August 2013
“Your Father’s good pleasure”
Luke 12:32-40
OT 19C
11 August 2013
Two weeks ago, our Gospel text was Luke’s conveying the words of what we’ve come to know as the Lord’s Prayer … words for Jesus’ disciples and for us, Jesus teaching us how to pray, with the second petition or subject matter very clearly stating “Your kingdom come.”
Last week’s text was about the great unknown of life … when, how will it be for me when I die? … and Jesus’ insistence that placing our bets on having “larger barns” … more material goods than anyone else … isn’t worth much in the Kingdom way of things, if those barns are meant to simply hold more stuff for ourselves.
Now, today, we get a merging and melding of both those stories.
Our text starts innocently enough – but wow! does it pack a punch, if we’re paying attention.
The Kingdom of God … it’s not something we have to seek after … not at all.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Right there, in that one brief sentence, is the end of religion as we know it.
It’s pointless for us to go seeking after the Kingdom of God, striving, toiling, doing stuff to try and earn it.
Because it’s God’s good pleasure to give it to us.
That’s right. God wants to give us the Kingdom. Give us the Kingdom. A gift. For us.
Can’t work for it. Can’t pay for it. Can’t do anything for it.
It’s. All. Gift.
So what does that mean for how we use our time … and our stuff … now?
We’re to give it all away.
Well, DUH. After spending nearly three quarters of a year steeped in Luke’s Gospel, we should have gotten this by now. Luke’s Jesus has little good to say about material possessions … wealth … stuff. For Jesus in this Gospel, the best use of material wealth is to help our neighbor … especially our poorer, sicker, down on their luck neighbor.
There is no such thing as “Jesus’ favorite economic system” – capitalism, socialism, communism, that’s how WE humans arrange things here on earth. Jesus’ word is clear here … his “Kingdom economic system” isn’t investment for ourselves, but divestment … and investment in our poor neighbors. “Give alms,” Jesus says. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Now, yes, we can and should be historically-critical of texts like this. We need to study what first-century economic conditions were like. And when we do that, we find that New Testament time people believed that wealth was a closed system – unlike today’s American capitalism, through which we believe that anyone can, through hard work and economic opportunity, amass their own fortune, or at least, make for themselves a comfortable living.
For New Testament people, they believed that for anyone to gain wealth, someone had to lose it. Acquisition was always considered stealing, so for the poor to escape poverty, the wealthy had to willingly share their possessions … the wealthy had to become poorer in order for the poor to economically gain … because, as I said, it was a closed system. There was a limited amount of money that people had to spend.
In some ways, today, though, this is still true. In rural America, when a big-box store moves to the edge of town, the little mom and pop stores in downtown usually end up closing. A community only has so much money to spend.
The number of charitable organizations in pursuit of donations has risen dramatically in the past 15 years … there is more competition for the charitably given dollar … and giving to religious organizations has been steadily dropping over the past 15 years.
There is a limited amount of money that most people can spend.
And yet, Jesus still wants us to give it away … to give away our treasure … and treasure is not necessarily just money, but it’s also our time and possessions. Whatever we value, that is our treasure. And Jesus says that what we do with our treasure affects our hearts – it determines who we are inside. It determines what sort of people we become.
Jesus wants us to become people who want the kingdom God wants to give us, want it with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.
Do we want the kingdom?
Remember once again that we’re in Luke’s Gospel here.
And remember a couple of weeks ago, when we read these words in the prayer we call “the Lord’s,” remember that praying “Your kingdom come” needs, must inexorably drive us back to the most well known statement about God’s kingdom coming upon us and all of creation … Mary’s song of joy and praise in Luke’s first chapter, we know it as the Magnificat …
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …
He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
Martin Luther, in his commentary on the Magnificat, said this:
Behold, how strong a comfort this is, that not man but God gives to the hungry, and that (God) not only gives them this or that but fills and fully satisfies them. Mary says, moreover: “with good things.”
On the other hand, how could one bring a more damning accusation against riches, or more grievously terrify the rich, than by saying that God sends them empty away? Oh, how great and overflowing are both God’s filling and God’s sending away! How utterly vain here is the help or counsel of any creature!
Remember that whenever we pray “Your kingdom come” to God our Father … this is a wildly, revolutionary, counter-cultural, political prayer. Because the coming of God’s Kingdom among us means the end of inequality, poverty, rich oppressing poor, strong oppressing weak, racism, sexism, discrimination of any and all kinds … in short, it’s The Great Leveling For All Creation.
So do we want it? Do we want the Kingdom that God takes good pleasure in giving to us?
Jesus’ next words in our text are about two different ways we can receive it.
The first – best, right way – Jesus’ way - is to be prepared.
Jesus’ example of good preparation is of servants waiting for their master, their Lord, to return from a wedding banquet. It’s a thinly disguised reference to himself – his word for master, is – really, Lord – a reference to himself, and those servants – disciples - who would follow him.
Be ready like these servants who stay awake for their master to come back, no matter what time it is, so they can let him in, Jesus says. And look what awaits them as their reward for being alert ... a total reversal of reality, indeed, a new reality – the kingdom of God ... the master will serve the servants. All because they were alert, they were ready, they did what they were supposed to do. And the implied message from Jesus is, just as these servants did for their master, so should you do for me.
But Jesus knows us well, very well. And so he gives us another little scenario -- the one about the owner of the house and the thief.
But know this ... if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
The reference here is to both the now of the text (how the religious of Jesus’ day reacted to Jesus) as well as the later (how people would think and behave about Jesus’ return, through the days, weeks, months, years, centuries later ... including today). The religious of Jesus’ time thought surely they knew how the messiah would come -- as a great military king, who would drive out the Romans. They thought they were the great householders of the faith, and that Jesus was the horrible thief, trying to mess up and take away all their traditions.
But they were wrong. Jesus was and is the true householder – the Lord and Master of all. And those religious leaders of Jesus’ time, in keeping their religion – and their treasure - to themselves, they were the real thieves.
But there’s still more going on in this little parable, another word for us.
Knowing the date and time of Jesus’ return means exercising control over it. We might even try to prevent it ... after all, it means an end to the little power games we play here on earth, who’s in, who’s out, who’s in control, who gets what. And so the real irony of this parable hits home for us. We who are the “haves” of this life might think we are the owners of the house, and that everyone else is a thief, trying to take away the power and the stuff we’ve got. But Jesus flips things around. This Jesus who makes himself known through Luke’s gospel knows that “having” does not make one rich with God.
Blessed are you poor, blessed are you hungry, blessed are you who weep ... woe to you who are rich ... and full ... and laughing.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What it finally comes down to is: how do we see Jesus’ return, to us ... his return we confess, his return we look toward in the words of the Creed, his return which is a cornerstone of our faith?
We’d surely like to think we are the good servants, prepared, waiting, satisfied only in the knowledge that the master will be coming soon ... but then … sometime … sooner or later, don’t you know we all end up like the poor misguided “homeowner,” staying up all night, eyes bloodshot and weary, grabbing whatever we can to protect our stuff, our position, our power and place, determined to hang onto “what’s mine.”
CS Lewis, in his final volume of the Chronicles of Narnia series, “The Last Battle,” paints a fine word-image of such a scene … the children, Eustace and Lucy, accompanied by Aslan the Lion-King, see that they have entered into a beautiful paradise-world … surely, an analogy for the Kingdom of God … but the dwarves refuse to be taken in by what they believe is a sham-promise. They won’t give up and give in … they’re like the homeowner of Jesus’ parable.
So there they sit, huddled, fighting and miserable, in a dark ugly stable of their imaginative-creating, while around them is, in reality, a beautiful new world.
Aslan puts it well:
You see, (the dwarfs) will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.
The bad news of this text is that we would rather choose cunning instead of belief. That we choose to be the homeowner protecting ourselves against thief Jesus, rather than the servants who wait expectantly for his return.
But the good news is that Jesus does not leave us there, like Lewis’ dwarves, in the prison we make for ourselves, victims of our poor choices.
For his word keeps coming to us ... relentlessly pursuing us ...
... do not be afraid, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
So how can we not be afraid?
Hear Jesus’ Word of love and forgiveness, undeserved kindness, mercy, grace and peace, for us. His word which comes freely to us as a promise ... a gift to us ... we don’t and can’t do anything for it.
See and hear the signs which he gives us as down-payment-proof on his promises ... in words and signs such as these:
“Your sins are forgiven.”
“You are baptized – made part of me and my will for this life – given new life in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Take and eat, this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for you.”
See and hear, eat and drink, and TRUST, that God’s Spirit is alive and moving among us, that God’s Spirit has created and is still creating, in this community of faith we call Nativity, part of the body of Christ in the world.
Be ready ... be prepared ... because the Kingdom is coming, God’s Kingdom is coming to and for us, to and for all of God’s creation ... the Kingdom is coming … so be prepared to receive it with joy ... and do not fear.
Trust Jesus’ word ... hear Jesus’ Word ... feel and eat and drink Jesus’ Word ...
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Amen.
Luke 12:32-40
OT 19C
11 August 2013
Two weeks ago, our Gospel text was Luke’s conveying the words of what we’ve come to know as the Lord’s Prayer … words for Jesus’ disciples and for us, Jesus teaching us how to pray, with the second petition or subject matter very clearly stating “Your kingdom come.”
Last week’s text was about the great unknown of life … when, how will it be for me when I die? … and Jesus’ insistence that placing our bets on having “larger barns” … more material goods than anyone else … isn’t worth much in the Kingdom way of things, if those barns are meant to simply hold more stuff for ourselves.
Now, today, we get a merging and melding of both those stories.
Our text starts innocently enough – but wow! does it pack a punch, if we’re paying attention.
The Kingdom of God … it’s not something we have to seek after … not at all.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Right there, in that one brief sentence, is the end of religion as we know it.
It’s pointless for us to go seeking after the Kingdom of God, striving, toiling, doing stuff to try and earn it.
Because it’s God’s good pleasure to give it to us.
That’s right. God wants to give us the Kingdom. Give us the Kingdom. A gift. For us.
Can’t work for it. Can’t pay for it. Can’t do anything for it.
It’s. All. Gift.
So what does that mean for how we use our time … and our stuff … now?
We’re to give it all away.
Well, DUH. After spending nearly three quarters of a year steeped in Luke’s Gospel, we should have gotten this by now. Luke’s Jesus has little good to say about material possessions … wealth … stuff. For Jesus in this Gospel, the best use of material wealth is to help our neighbor … especially our poorer, sicker, down on their luck neighbor.
There is no such thing as “Jesus’ favorite economic system” – capitalism, socialism, communism, that’s how WE humans arrange things here on earth. Jesus’ word is clear here … his “Kingdom economic system” isn’t investment for ourselves, but divestment … and investment in our poor neighbors. “Give alms,” Jesus says. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Now, yes, we can and should be historically-critical of texts like this. We need to study what first-century economic conditions were like. And when we do that, we find that New Testament time people believed that wealth was a closed system – unlike today’s American capitalism, through which we believe that anyone can, through hard work and economic opportunity, amass their own fortune, or at least, make for themselves a comfortable living.
For New Testament people, they believed that for anyone to gain wealth, someone had to lose it. Acquisition was always considered stealing, so for the poor to escape poverty, the wealthy had to willingly share their possessions … the wealthy had to become poorer in order for the poor to economically gain … because, as I said, it was a closed system. There was a limited amount of money that people had to spend.
In some ways, today, though, this is still true. In rural America, when a big-box store moves to the edge of town, the little mom and pop stores in downtown usually end up closing. A community only has so much money to spend.
The number of charitable organizations in pursuit of donations has risen dramatically in the past 15 years … there is more competition for the charitably given dollar … and giving to religious organizations has been steadily dropping over the past 15 years.
There is a limited amount of money that most people can spend.
And yet, Jesus still wants us to give it away … to give away our treasure … and treasure is not necessarily just money, but it’s also our time and possessions. Whatever we value, that is our treasure. And Jesus says that what we do with our treasure affects our hearts – it determines who we are inside. It determines what sort of people we become.
Jesus wants us to become people who want the kingdom God wants to give us, want it with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.
Do we want the kingdom?
Remember once again that we’re in Luke’s Gospel here.
And remember a couple of weeks ago, when we read these words in the prayer we call “the Lord’s,” remember that praying “Your kingdom come” needs, must inexorably drive us back to the most well known statement about God’s kingdom coming upon us and all of creation … Mary’s song of joy and praise in Luke’s first chapter, we know it as the Magnificat …
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …
He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
Martin Luther, in his commentary on the Magnificat, said this:
Behold, how strong a comfort this is, that not man but God gives to the hungry, and that (God) not only gives them this or that but fills and fully satisfies them. Mary says, moreover: “with good things.”
On the other hand, how could one bring a more damning accusation against riches, or more grievously terrify the rich, than by saying that God sends them empty away? Oh, how great and overflowing are both God’s filling and God’s sending away! How utterly vain here is the help or counsel of any creature!
Remember that whenever we pray “Your kingdom come” to God our Father … this is a wildly, revolutionary, counter-cultural, political prayer. Because the coming of God’s Kingdom among us means the end of inequality, poverty, rich oppressing poor, strong oppressing weak, racism, sexism, discrimination of any and all kinds … in short, it’s The Great Leveling For All Creation.
So do we want it? Do we want the Kingdom that God takes good pleasure in giving to us?
Jesus’ next words in our text are about two different ways we can receive it.
The first – best, right way – Jesus’ way - is to be prepared.
Jesus’ example of good preparation is of servants waiting for their master, their Lord, to return from a wedding banquet. It’s a thinly disguised reference to himself – his word for master, is – really, Lord – a reference to himself, and those servants – disciples - who would follow him.
Be ready like these servants who stay awake for their master to come back, no matter what time it is, so they can let him in, Jesus says. And look what awaits them as their reward for being alert ... a total reversal of reality, indeed, a new reality – the kingdom of God ... the master will serve the servants. All because they were alert, they were ready, they did what they were supposed to do. And the implied message from Jesus is, just as these servants did for their master, so should you do for me.
But Jesus knows us well, very well. And so he gives us another little scenario -- the one about the owner of the house and the thief.
But know this ... if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
The reference here is to both the now of the text (how the religious of Jesus’ day reacted to Jesus) as well as the later (how people would think and behave about Jesus’ return, through the days, weeks, months, years, centuries later ... including today). The religious of Jesus’ time thought surely they knew how the messiah would come -- as a great military king, who would drive out the Romans. They thought they were the great householders of the faith, and that Jesus was the horrible thief, trying to mess up and take away all their traditions.
But they were wrong. Jesus was and is the true householder – the Lord and Master of all. And those religious leaders of Jesus’ time, in keeping their religion – and their treasure - to themselves, they were the real thieves.
But there’s still more going on in this little parable, another word for us.
Knowing the date and time of Jesus’ return means exercising control over it. We might even try to prevent it ... after all, it means an end to the little power games we play here on earth, who’s in, who’s out, who’s in control, who gets what. And so the real irony of this parable hits home for us. We who are the “haves” of this life might think we are the owners of the house, and that everyone else is a thief, trying to take away the power and the stuff we’ve got. But Jesus flips things around. This Jesus who makes himself known through Luke’s gospel knows that “having” does not make one rich with God.
Blessed are you poor, blessed are you hungry, blessed are you who weep ... woe to you who are rich ... and full ... and laughing.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What it finally comes down to is: how do we see Jesus’ return, to us ... his return we confess, his return we look toward in the words of the Creed, his return which is a cornerstone of our faith?
We’d surely like to think we are the good servants, prepared, waiting, satisfied only in the knowledge that the master will be coming soon ... but then … sometime … sooner or later, don’t you know we all end up like the poor misguided “homeowner,” staying up all night, eyes bloodshot and weary, grabbing whatever we can to protect our stuff, our position, our power and place, determined to hang onto “what’s mine.”
CS Lewis, in his final volume of the Chronicles of Narnia series, “The Last Battle,” paints a fine word-image of such a scene … the children, Eustace and Lucy, accompanied by Aslan the Lion-King, see that they have entered into a beautiful paradise-world … surely, an analogy for the Kingdom of God … but the dwarves refuse to be taken in by what they believe is a sham-promise. They won’t give up and give in … they’re like the homeowner of Jesus’ parable.
So there they sit, huddled, fighting and miserable, in a dark ugly stable of their imaginative-creating, while around them is, in reality, a beautiful new world.
Aslan puts it well:
You see, (the dwarfs) will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.
The bad news of this text is that we would rather choose cunning instead of belief. That we choose to be the homeowner protecting ourselves against thief Jesus, rather than the servants who wait expectantly for his return.
But the good news is that Jesus does not leave us there, like Lewis’ dwarves, in the prison we make for ourselves, victims of our poor choices.
For his word keeps coming to us ... relentlessly pursuing us ...
... do not be afraid, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
So how can we not be afraid?
Hear Jesus’ Word of love and forgiveness, undeserved kindness, mercy, grace and peace, for us. His word which comes freely to us as a promise ... a gift to us ... we don’t and can’t do anything for it.
See and hear the signs which he gives us as down-payment-proof on his promises ... in words and signs such as these:
“Your sins are forgiven.”
“You are baptized – made part of me and my will for this life – given new life in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Take and eat, this is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for you.”
See and hear, eat and drink, and TRUST, that God’s Spirit is alive and moving among us, that God’s Spirit has created and is still creating, in this community of faith we call Nativity, part of the body of Christ in the world.
Be ready ... be prepared ... because the Kingdom is coming, God’s Kingdom is coming to and for us, to and for all of God’s creation ... the Kingdom is coming … so be prepared to receive it with joy ... and do not fear.
Trust Jesus’ word ... hear Jesus’ Word ... feel and eat and drink Jesus’ Word ...
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Amen.
Sunday, August 04, 2013
4 August 2013
“Ya never know …”
Luke 12:13-21
OT 18C
4 August 2013
It was one of the popular comics of the 1970’s … George Carlin, Steve Martin, I’m not sure which … maybe, both of them … who wondered aloud, what if, before we die, everyone got some kind of warning … like at the end of a football game, a two-minute warning coming before “the end.” The point of their stories, their wonderings was, what would you do in those last minutes of your life if you had such a warning?
My favorite was, that you’d get the warning, and make sure to be in line at one of those traveling faith healer shows … having everything so carefully timed that when the fraud put his hands on you and commanded you to “be healed,” you would drop over dead.
The truth is, of course, that except in extraordinary circumstances, we don’t get a ten minute warning, a two minute warning, or any kind of a warning. The end comes when it will come. Sometimes as a surprise or a shock, like in a traffic accident or sudden catastrophic health event like a heart attack. But even when there’s an illness and perhaps long suffering, and it’s certain, the time of when that death will take place is still elusive. Doctors, nurses, no one wants to say for sure, “it will happen in two days … or four hours.” The end is unpredictable … you just never know.
In our gospel reading today, it’s a totally different situation … no one is “left hanging” waiting for the end to occur. It’s already happened, and someone in the crowd of people following Jesus around wants him to help smooth out some family difficulties surrounding … the stuff, the inheritance, what’s left after (here, in this situation, probably the father of two sons) has died. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me,” one asks Jesus.
Again, words about an inheritance. It makes us remember the reading from a couple of weeks ago, the story of the Good Samaritan, when the lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Well, nothing, of course, is the answer to that question; to get an inheritance, the only thing that’s required to happen is that someone would die, and then they leave something to you as a gift. Eternal life comes as gift to us through Jesus’ death alone, not because of what we do … so the question really answers itself.
But here today, someone’s in a pickle because someone else – his brother, we assume, is messing around with the distribution of the products of the inheritance. Dad died, fairness dictates an even distribution of what’s left … but one brother’s being selfish and not giving the other his due. Or perhaps dad specified in his will that one brother, possibly the oldest, was to receive all the inheritance, and the other was not … that was the usual way of things in Jewish tradition, after all.
To Jesus, though, the person asking the question is missing the whole point. He doesn’t take the bait to become “judge and arbitrator;” rather, Jesus uses the occasion to make a pronouncement:
Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
And then …
And then, Jesus tells a story.
And at first, the story and its moral seem grossly unfair. A rich man has a good year with his crops. Such a good year, that he doesn’t know what to do with the surplus of grain his land has produced. Then he gets an idea: Ah! I’ll build me some bigger barns! That’s it! Then I’ll be set for life … I can take an early retirement, live off my investments, my pension plan … “relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
It sounds right and good and like everything that our investment counselors and pension planners tell us to do. Be prudent, build your nest egg up early, and then enjoy the fruits of your labors.
Except …
Except there’s that one little thing … ya never know … when something is going to change your plans.
The rich man sounds like a smart man too, because his hard work paid off for him, but to God, he is a fool.
You fool! This night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
The problem with the rich man’s plans, is that they were all centered around … him. Listen again to what he wants to do.
I will do this … I will pull down my barns and build larger ones … I will store my grain and my goods … and I will say to my soul … soul, you have ample good laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.
There’s nothing wrong with the stuff … the wealth, the surplus of grain, the blessings of a good harvest. It’s just how the rich man chooses to use them, that’s so wrong. The stuff tempts him to laziness, to comfortableness … providing for his own needs rather than driving him to use his riches in service to his neighbors.
Maybe they didn’t have as good a harvest. Maybe they have barns which are falling apart, and nowhere to store their grain. Our friend the rich man could have helped them. But he chooses himself first. And so … ya never know … and now the rich man’s stuff would be divided up, maybe between his children, maybe between complete strangers.
To the Lord, nothing is ours … it is, in the words of the old hymn, “a trust, O Lord, from thee.” All that we have and all that we are comes from God … and we are to share it … we are “blessed to be a blessing.” Not building up bigger barns … but building up better relationships of love and service with our neighbors … who, as we remember from that story of the Good Samaritan once again, are all people, everywhere in the world, not just those who look like us or speak like us or vote like us or live like us.
It’s one of the happy coincidences of the lectionary that this reading comes as it does this summer, at least for us. Much of our time the past couple months has centered around stuff … the stuff Kathleen and I have been entrusted with … and packing it into boxes, getting ready to move it; moving it; and then, unpacking again. But we’ve also had to get rid of a lot of stuff, to lighten our load before we moved. Furniture and parents’ things and books and as Kathleen calls it “crappity crap” has found its way to new homes. It’s amazing how much stuff one can accumulate … but it’s also been amazing to see how much we could “lighten our load” in a relatively short period of time. We “travel lighter” now.
“Traveling light” in matters of faith is also a good model for us as people of God to follow. The church, as we sing in one of our Bible School songs, “is not a building … it is the people living out their lives … called, enlightened, sanctified for the work of Jesus Christ.” Church isn’t meant to be just a building … no matter how nice and pretty it is … that people can point to and say, “There is the church;” but instead, the church is Christ’s body, in the world, people receiving his forgiveness and grace and then immediately going out and serving others, so people can point to us and say, “there is the church, who they are, what they’re doing.” Church is a verb, a movement, a movement that is meant to be out in the world, traveling light, not loaded down, worried about stuff.
Since our inheritance … the inheritance of what really matters … forgiveness, faith, and salvation from sin, death and the devil … is already guaranteed by the death and resurrection of Jesus … why do we need to be about building up more and larger barns? Should we not, instead, be about “traveling light,” using what we have to serve others in Jesus’ name?
Nine years ago this month I took a call to serve among you … a call which began and still continues with these words … promises I and every ordained pastor make to God and God’s people …
… to preach and teach the Word of God in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions … to speak for justice in behalf of the poor and oppressed … to equip us for witness and service; and guide us in proclaiming God’s love through word and deed.
It’s the preaching and teaching of that Word that often gets pastors in trouble. We’re to “comfort the afflicted,” and that’s the easy part of this job. But the Word of Jesus also “afflicts the comfortable,” and as Americans, as Pacific Northwesterners, as Nativity Lutherans, we need to be reminded by that Word that the tremendous blessings we’ve received are a call from God to service and sharing … not to be storing it up for ourselves … but using what we have and who we are as called and sent disciples of Jesus in service to and for others.
Not just because … ya never know … being motivated by fear of our end … but precisely because we do know … we already know about our end … we are saved, we are given the inheritance of eternal life … and so we are set free, let loose for service to our community and our world that so desperately needs to see and feel God’s love in Jesus Christ in tangible terms … as we’ve put it into words through the Spirit-led discover of our Story Matters text:
• “Nativity has been through times when there was no wine. Now there is much wine … much to celebrate … Jesus has turned our water into wine … so now it is time to share it with our community.”
And so we are called on to be part of that wine-blessing into our community:
• As the ARISE homeless shelter needs people to provide meals;
• As the Center of Hope shelter in Renton opens and strives to serve the homeless women and children of our community;
• As our Kids’ Church program continues to need leaders and assistants for Sunday mornings, to ensure its success;
• As our Renton Food Pantry, overwhelmed by the need in our community, needs food and more important, financial donations to help feed the hungry of our area …
• And those are but a few of the ways we’re being called on to “share our wine,” to “empty our barns” in Jesus’ name.
May God continue to nudge and cajole and, sometimes, plain old plant a foot firmly in our backsides, sending us out as servants of that Word … blessed to be a blessing to others … may our barns remain small … and our service great … until the day of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Luke 12:13-21
OT 18C
4 August 2013
It was one of the popular comics of the 1970’s … George Carlin, Steve Martin, I’m not sure which … maybe, both of them … who wondered aloud, what if, before we die, everyone got some kind of warning … like at the end of a football game, a two-minute warning coming before “the end.” The point of their stories, their wonderings was, what would you do in those last minutes of your life if you had such a warning?
My favorite was, that you’d get the warning, and make sure to be in line at one of those traveling faith healer shows … having everything so carefully timed that when the fraud put his hands on you and commanded you to “be healed,” you would drop over dead.
The truth is, of course, that except in extraordinary circumstances, we don’t get a ten minute warning, a two minute warning, or any kind of a warning. The end comes when it will come. Sometimes as a surprise or a shock, like in a traffic accident or sudden catastrophic health event like a heart attack. But even when there’s an illness and perhaps long suffering, and it’s certain, the time of when that death will take place is still elusive. Doctors, nurses, no one wants to say for sure, “it will happen in two days … or four hours.” The end is unpredictable … you just never know.
In our gospel reading today, it’s a totally different situation … no one is “left hanging” waiting for the end to occur. It’s already happened, and someone in the crowd of people following Jesus around wants him to help smooth out some family difficulties surrounding … the stuff, the inheritance, what’s left after (here, in this situation, probably the father of two sons) has died. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me,” one asks Jesus.
Again, words about an inheritance. It makes us remember the reading from a couple of weeks ago, the story of the Good Samaritan, when the lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Well, nothing, of course, is the answer to that question; to get an inheritance, the only thing that’s required to happen is that someone would die, and then they leave something to you as a gift. Eternal life comes as gift to us through Jesus’ death alone, not because of what we do … so the question really answers itself.
But here today, someone’s in a pickle because someone else – his brother, we assume, is messing around with the distribution of the products of the inheritance. Dad died, fairness dictates an even distribution of what’s left … but one brother’s being selfish and not giving the other his due. Or perhaps dad specified in his will that one brother, possibly the oldest, was to receive all the inheritance, and the other was not … that was the usual way of things in Jewish tradition, after all.
To Jesus, though, the person asking the question is missing the whole point. He doesn’t take the bait to become “judge and arbitrator;” rather, Jesus uses the occasion to make a pronouncement:
Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
And then …
And then, Jesus tells a story.
And at first, the story and its moral seem grossly unfair. A rich man has a good year with his crops. Such a good year, that he doesn’t know what to do with the surplus of grain his land has produced. Then he gets an idea: Ah! I’ll build me some bigger barns! That’s it! Then I’ll be set for life … I can take an early retirement, live off my investments, my pension plan … “relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
It sounds right and good and like everything that our investment counselors and pension planners tell us to do. Be prudent, build your nest egg up early, and then enjoy the fruits of your labors.
Except …
Except there’s that one little thing … ya never know … when something is going to change your plans.
The rich man sounds like a smart man too, because his hard work paid off for him, but to God, he is a fool.
You fool! This night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
The problem with the rich man’s plans, is that they were all centered around … him. Listen again to what he wants to do.
I will do this … I will pull down my barns and build larger ones … I will store my grain and my goods … and I will say to my soul … soul, you have ample good laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.
There’s nothing wrong with the stuff … the wealth, the surplus of grain, the blessings of a good harvest. It’s just how the rich man chooses to use them, that’s so wrong. The stuff tempts him to laziness, to comfortableness … providing for his own needs rather than driving him to use his riches in service to his neighbors.
Maybe they didn’t have as good a harvest. Maybe they have barns which are falling apart, and nowhere to store their grain. Our friend the rich man could have helped them. But he chooses himself first. And so … ya never know … and now the rich man’s stuff would be divided up, maybe between his children, maybe between complete strangers.
To the Lord, nothing is ours … it is, in the words of the old hymn, “a trust, O Lord, from thee.” All that we have and all that we are comes from God … and we are to share it … we are “blessed to be a blessing.” Not building up bigger barns … but building up better relationships of love and service with our neighbors … who, as we remember from that story of the Good Samaritan once again, are all people, everywhere in the world, not just those who look like us or speak like us or vote like us or live like us.
It’s one of the happy coincidences of the lectionary that this reading comes as it does this summer, at least for us. Much of our time the past couple months has centered around stuff … the stuff Kathleen and I have been entrusted with … and packing it into boxes, getting ready to move it; moving it; and then, unpacking again. But we’ve also had to get rid of a lot of stuff, to lighten our load before we moved. Furniture and parents’ things and books and as Kathleen calls it “crappity crap” has found its way to new homes. It’s amazing how much stuff one can accumulate … but it’s also been amazing to see how much we could “lighten our load” in a relatively short period of time. We “travel lighter” now.
“Traveling light” in matters of faith is also a good model for us as people of God to follow. The church, as we sing in one of our Bible School songs, “is not a building … it is the people living out their lives … called, enlightened, sanctified for the work of Jesus Christ.” Church isn’t meant to be just a building … no matter how nice and pretty it is … that people can point to and say, “There is the church;” but instead, the church is Christ’s body, in the world, people receiving his forgiveness and grace and then immediately going out and serving others, so people can point to us and say, “there is the church, who they are, what they’re doing.” Church is a verb, a movement, a movement that is meant to be out in the world, traveling light, not loaded down, worried about stuff.
Since our inheritance … the inheritance of what really matters … forgiveness, faith, and salvation from sin, death and the devil … is already guaranteed by the death and resurrection of Jesus … why do we need to be about building up more and larger barns? Should we not, instead, be about “traveling light,” using what we have to serve others in Jesus’ name?
Nine years ago this month I took a call to serve among you … a call which began and still continues with these words … promises I and every ordained pastor make to God and God’s people …
… to preach and teach the Word of God in accordance with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions … to speak for justice in behalf of the poor and oppressed … to equip us for witness and service; and guide us in proclaiming God’s love through word and deed.
It’s the preaching and teaching of that Word that often gets pastors in trouble. We’re to “comfort the afflicted,” and that’s the easy part of this job. But the Word of Jesus also “afflicts the comfortable,” and as Americans, as Pacific Northwesterners, as Nativity Lutherans, we need to be reminded by that Word that the tremendous blessings we’ve received are a call from God to service and sharing … not to be storing it up for ourselves … but using what we have and who we are as called and sent disciples of Jesus in service to and for others.
Not just because … ya never know … being motivated by fear of our end … but precisely because we do know … we already know about our end … we are saved, we are given the inheritance of eternal life … and so we are set free, let loose for service to our community and our world that so desperately needs to see and feel God’s love in Jesus Christ in tangible terms … as we’ve put it into words through the Spirit-led discover of our Story Matters text:
• “Nativity has been through times when there was no wine. Now there is much wine … much to celebrate … Jesus has turned our water into wine … so now it is time to share it with our community.”
And so we are called on to be part of that wine-blessing into our community:
• As the ARISE homeless shelter needs people to provide meals;
• As the Center of Hope shelter in Renton opens and strives to serve the homeless women and children of our community;
• As our Kids’ Church program continues to need leaders and assistants for Sunday mornings, to ensure its success;
• As our Renton Food Pantry, overwhelmed by the need in our community, needs food and more important, financial donations to help feed the hungry of our area …
• And those are but a few of the ways we’re being called on to “share our wine,” to “empty our barns” in Jesus’ name.
May God continue to nudge and cajole and, sometimes, plain old plant a foot firmly in our backsides, sending us out as servants of that Word … blessed to be a blessing to others … may our barns remain small … and our service great … until the day of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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