Wealth and Relationships

Luke 12:16-21

Luke 16:1-13

     Alistair Sim as Scrooge     

There are certain Sundays when it is particularly important that the hymns are sing-able, the prayers be meaningful, and the refreshments be plentiful.  For on these special Sundays much is needed to redeem the very confusing biblical text and the quite possibly more confusing sermon that accompanies it.

            This may well be such a Sunday and I am happy to see the requisite elements are in place.  And we are not alone.  This parable from the gospel of Luke excites the social networks of preachers like few others.  Tweets and posts fly back and forth, each with the essential question: what on earth are you doing with this passage this week?  This week lectionary preachers have felt more like mathematicians seeking to solve the centuries old equation.  We hope to unlock the secret.

            There is, however, no secret.  Just a parable and the one telling the parable—our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  And because it is Jesus speaking we are compelled to lean in and listen a little harder.  What did we miss?  What is happening here?  He didn’t say that did he?

            It appears he did.  “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”  Jesus is encouraging those within hearing range of his parable to act as the man in the parable acts—shrewdly by means of dishonest wealth.  How much more satisfying this whole parable would be if it were to end with, say, the voice over announcer we hear in Luke 12.  Perhaps you recall this story from a few weeks ago—the story of a wealthy man who runs out of room to store his harvest.  His response is to build even bigger storehouses.  Having stored up sufficient supplies for many years, the subject of this story proclaims that he will sit back, eat, drink, and be merry.  Now the Jesus of today’s parable might be inclined to commend this man for his shrewd ability to save and secure his future.  But in that story God speaks to the man.  “Fool,” God says, “This very night you will die.  Now who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?”  Jesus concludes this parable by announcing that such a fate awaits all who “hoard things for themselves and are not rich toward God.”

            So given that precedent,  we should well expect Jesus to tell a tale of a cheating manager who, because he was interested only in himself and his own wealth and wellbeing, got his comeuppance.   Perhaps God should be in this story, too, calling the man a fool.  But no.  This is not the case.  Not only does Jesus seem to offer him as a positive object lesson, the manager from whom he steals commends him for his behavior.  We scratch our heads and look to see what the hymn after the sermon is.

            But maybe, if we spend some time with it, there is something here.  And, perhaps, the parable in Luke 12 gives us a hint as to what to look for.  In the story of the man and his oversized barns, the question posed at the end is this: “Who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?”  The question suggests that the man has made no provision to share his wealth.  His sin seems rooted not in his wealth but in his selfish attitude toward his wealth.  It appears never to have occurred to him that the answer to his abundant crop may not be bigger barns but a bigger heart.

            And so we have our dishonest manager who has finally been found out by his rich boss.  The manager is at a crossroads.  He is about to lose his job and, for the first time it seems, understands that his job and its ill-gotten gains is the only thing in the world that he does have.  And this is where he acts shrewdly—of cleverly as the common English bible describes it.  The dishonest manager exchanges his wealth for relationships.  The dishonest manager, in his crisis, realizes that the only way forward is to forgo his material wealth for a wealth of relationships.  The dishonest manager has a new outlook on life: people are more important than wealth.

            This insight might not have kept the man with the big barns from dying, but it would have kept him from dying as the parable suggests he dies: outside of God’s barn… or what is called in this parable eternal homes.  The parable in Luke 12 provides this summary statement: This is the way it will be for those who hoard things for themselves and aren’t rich toward God.”  This parable provides this summary statement: You cannot serve God and wealth.  They sound a bit alike.  They seem complimentary.  For both statements, and both parables, are suggesting there exists a tension between serving wealth and serving God.  To serve God is to serve others.  The great commandment makes that clear: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  We serve God by serving the neighbor.  We serve the neighbor by sharing the resources that we have, among other ways.  So, after a fashion, the dishonest manager has learned this much.  At least he has learned more than the man with the big barns.  The dishonest manager learned that his long-term interests were going to be served by building relationships and not wealth.  So it is in the Kingdom.  Our long-term interests in the Kingdom—our entre into the eternal homes—is based not upon our possessions and our wealth but upon the quality of our relationships and whether those relationships are rooted in the expression of love that is at the heart of the gospel.

            Ebenezer Scrooge, as compensation for the pain of loss and abandonment in his life, sits in his money changing hole day after day counting his money while his clerk Bob Cratchit literally starves in front of him and Cratchit’s son Tiny Tim dies unseen by him.  It is only after Scrooge is visited by the Christmas Spirits that he comes to understand that the way to deal with pain and loss is not miserly indifference to the fate of others, but to reach out in love, build relationships, and share of one’s abundance for the common good.

            The Montagues and the Capulets, like Scrooge, live on hate.  But whereas Scrooge found redemption before the tragedy, in Romeo and Juliet the redemption follows the tragedy.  Romeo and Juliet die and only then is the cycle of hatred broken and the birth of relationship possible. 

            In the two parables about which we have been speaking this morning, we also have a story of redemption and a story of tragedy.  And each, like A Christmas Carol and Romeo and Juliet, have, as the final lesson, the imperative of relationships.  The man with the large barns dies tragically.  His wealth comes to nothing principally because he dies alone.  He has no friends, no family, no web of relationships with which to share not only his wealth but his heart.  To share with others is to share with God.  To be rich toward others is to be rich toward God.  For the dead man and his barns, time ran out.

 The dishonest steward may be short on ethics, but he is long on redemptive possibility.  Before it is too late, this man comes to understand that it isn’t the wealth it’s the relationship.  And true, he is not the greatest exemplar of Kingdom living before or after his transformation.  But that is really Jesus’ point.  If this sad man, who has a long way to go before he truly understands what it means to serve God, can understand that wealth buys little and relationships buy much, how much more should we, the “children of light” be increasing our stores of relationships in anticipation of our eternal homes?  

The Common English Bible translates the word “dishonest” as “worldly”.  This translation puts a slightly different slant on things.  Dishonest implies, well, dishonest as opposed to honest wealth.  Worldly suggests all wealth in this world is the same—neither honest nor dishonest.  It is simply wealth and, as wealth, should serve the singular purpose of building up the Kingdom of God.  One cannot serve wealth and serve God.  But one can use wealth to serve God.  After all, this is what Scrooge did.  He didn’t declare bankruptcy the day after Christmas.  He gave Bob Cratchet a raise and used his resources to help Tiny Tim get better.

Who knows what happened to this manager after his time ran out.  Apparently he didn’t die like the man with the oversized barns.  But this question is not of interest to the parable.  What is more of interest is what happens to you and to me.  How will we use our wealth, no matter how large or meager it may be?  Jesus hopes it will be in service to God, which is to say in service to the Kingdom, which is to say in service to each other—those known and unknown—whose debts like ours, and those of the parable—have been forgiven.

           

WE the people

 

This is an admittedly quick response to the growing discussion around Syria, but I thought I would jot it down while it was still fresh.

It is prompted by remarks read today in the New York Times from leading congressional Republicans.

As we know, President Obama favors military action in Syria as a response to what is claimed to be irrefutable evidence that the President of Syria used chemical weapons on his citizens.

But rather than striking out unilaterally President Obama hopes to secure congressional approval.  This was a politically strategic move.  Although President Obama retains his authority to act, he is placing Congress in a position of having to share responsibility for the outcome.  If congress fails to grant approval there may well be political and moral consequences.  If they grant approval it is more difficult to blame "the Syrian conflict" on the President alone.

But today we have a twist which is predictable and disheartening.  Here is the excerpt from the Times article:

Speaker John A. Boehner said on Tuesday that he would “support the president’s call to action” in Syria after meeting with President Obama, giving the president a crucial ally in the quest for votes in the House.

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, quickly joined Mr. Boehner to say he also backed Mr. Obama.

“Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action, and I hope he is successful in that endeavor,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement.






At face value this appears to be a positive step: bi-partisan agreement moving forward on Syria.  But the time bomb is planted in Mr. Cantor's quoted remarks.  After voicing support, Mr. Cantor adds "It is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action, and I hope he is successful in that endeavor.

Here is where the language becomes quite deliberate.  Why is it not "our" job to make the case?  Here is the quote again, not as it was but how it might have been. 

 “Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to all of us, the President and Republican leadership who support his cause,  to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action, and I hope WE are successful in that endeavor,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement.

By being very specific in identifying the task of convincing Congress as Mr. Obama's, Republican leadership has distanced itself from the outcome.  When the Republicans in the House are not persuaded, whose fault will this be?  Mr. Obama's.  I will grant this is quite ingenious, but it is also disingenuous.   If the Republican leadership truly wishes to give evidence that they support the President than they should share in the responsibility to support the President's ongoing disclosure of rational.  They need to move from the second person plural to the first person plural. But I will bet you dollars to donuts that when the Republicans hinder this effort, those who previously "backed" Mr. Obama will lament his poor ability to make the case and, in so doing, suggest that they are blameless all the way around. 

Certainly such military action needs justification.  Surely there is justification for skepticism on behalf of lawmakers.  My skepticism runs deeper and it is exemplified in the refusal of Mr. Cantor to shift to the first person plural even as Republicans are claiming to offer support.
 
And so it goes... and will continue to go until someone in a position of leadership in Washington reacquaints themselves with the first three words of the Constitution and thereby come to understand the importance of that first word,  the first person plural "we".

The Infomercial Church

Recently we upgraded our satellite TV package.  This was made necessary by a variety of factors not the least of which was bringing BBC America into our home in advance of the 50th Anniversary Dr. Who special (there were other factors but we shall not digress).

What I am here to observe is this: I did not think it possible that there could be even more television shopping channels than the ones already on the system.  Easily a third (or more) of our stations are dedicated to phone-in shopping.

It is a deplorable trend on such stations--and infomercials in general--that the preposterous use of language has become common.  More specifically, I am reflecting on all of the "free" products that cost money.

We have all heard it-- "And if you act now we will send you a second widget absolutely free--just pay shipping and handling"  These fees vary but I have seen S&H fees up to 19.95.

This is not free.  This is an item that costs 19.95.

Now we might dismiss all of this as being on the sort of showmanship made popular by the traveling snake oil salesmen.  Let the buyer beware.  Etc.

And yet these seemingly silly things come at a cost.  Like a tiny fountain pen in the laundry, the stain of this insidious language soon stains the whole of the landscape.

Most specifically I am thinking of the Church--Protestant churches mainly.  The Roman Church has always been pretty up front about the fees associate with salvation.  Most recently a discount on fees was offered by Pope Francis for following him on Twitter.  The Roman Church has never fudged around.  Salvation is not possible outside of the Church and if you want it you have to WORK for it.  Mass isn't optional people!  We are keeping track of the works!  You need to be lighting candles and offering prayers and DOING YOUR PART!  THIS AIN'T FREE YOU KNOW!

Ah, but it is... say the Reformers.  Listen to Paul, Luther intoned.  By grace we are saved through faith.  The Reformation, taking issue with a number of things, including indulgences, wanted to take back the Gospel from the industry of Rome and return to the simple notion of grace and faith.  It was Calvin's understanding that whatever "good works" we might do are done--not in fear of hell or the absence of heaven--but in gratitude for what Christ as already achieved on the cross.  No hidden fees.  Just grace.  Faith.  Gratitude.

But the centuries have eroded these ideals (if, in fact, they were ever truly present).  Today churches claiming the DNA of 16th century protests have crept back into the realm of the infomercial.  Grace is free, they say, just pay shipping.  Handling.  Processing.  These fees take the form of judgment upon the lifestyles, orientations, social standing, economic standing, and marital standing of many.  Many of these fees are "hidden" fees in that they are never explicitly mentioned but, after having spent some time in such churches as an "outsider", one begins to understand that all the fees have not been paid.

In their book "If Grace is True", Philp Gulley and James Mulholland write:

Salvation comes with believing God loves you unconditionally.  It is abandoning the misconception that you are rejected because of your bad behavior or accepted because of your goodness.  Only when we repent of this self-absorption and focus on God's love can love alter us.  Then and only then can God transform hearts darkened by sin and soften hearts hardened by self-righteousness. (pg. 151)

Or, as Paul Tillich wrote some sixty years prior:

Sometimes a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.  Do not aks for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.  Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.  Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything.  Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.  If that happens to us, we experience grace. (The Shaking of the Foundations: pg 162)

Grace is not "sold on the market as cheap jack's ware" (Bonhoeffer).  What's free is free.  And grace is free and it is freedom.  No hidden fees, no shipping and processing.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  No exclusions apply.  It is available in all areas. 

And as we have invoked Bonhoeffer in the last paragraph, we will acknowledge, with Bonhoeffer, that grace that is free is still grace that is costly.  But not in the manner in which many churches today peddle it.  The Church, if it is to be the Church of Christ, should not be where you order and pay for free grace.  It should be the place to celebrate it, share it, and live it.

Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

The impulse to prayer is universal.  Not as a constant thing but in those moments when human beings feel a need to relate to some thing or some one outside themselves.  It may be a moment of sudden panic, when the professor pops a quiz covering unread assignments.  It may be a moment of awe when one is stunned by the beauty of power and nature, or at a time when relief and gratitude need to be expressed.

            But if the impulse to pray is universal, so also must be the question, “Does it really matter?”  “Does prayer really change things?”  It is a question that cries out to be answered, for there are almost as many theories about prayer as there are those who pray, as many claims as there are those urging us to pray.

            I have only to remember persons I have known who have been persuaded to pray with the promise that whatever they desired would come to them as a result.  One man in particular cannot be forgotten.  He was not a church member, nor had he shown any interest in the church or belief until his wife became ill.  Some friends of hers persuaded him that prayer would save her life; so he threw himself desperately and passionately into praying for her.  Yet even as he prayed, she died, leaving him not only grieving but also bitterly angry with a God who, he concluded, let him down.

            Even more numerous must be those who, impressed by the regularity of the universe and by the conclusions of science, relegate prayer to a by gone era when we did not understand how  things worked in the world.  These are the ones who point to the “indisputable facts of history”, conflict upon conflict, a tale of warfare and suffering little influenced by the countless prayers of the faithful for peace and understanding on earth.  “The Church,” they argue, “has been praying for a new spirit within humanity and between nations and races for generations.  See how little things have changed?”

            Does prayer really change things?  This is one of the most serious questions.  It strikes at the very heart of faith.  And there is a sense in which we need to come clean, admitting that prayer has sometimes been held out as a form of magic, a technique to manipulate a higher power, to secure favors when favors were badly needed.  So when the question is put, “Does prayer really change things?” we must be honest and compassionate enough to answer, “No, not if by that question you mean that we can order God to change circumstances and make everything, no matter how trivial, more to our liking.”

            Certainly not in the sense of the prayer found among the papers of one John Ward, Member of Parliament, some years ago.  “O Lord, thou knowest I have mine estates in the city of London, and likewise that I have recently purchased an estate in the fee simple in the county of Essex.  I beseech thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquake, and as I have a mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg of thee likewise to have an eye of compassion on that county; for the rest of the counties, thou mayest deal with them as thou art pleased.”  (For whatever you make of it, theologically or otherwise, I am told that John Ward died in debtor’s prison.)

            These things must be said, not to be unkind but so as not to be misunderstood.  Nothing is more central in our growth as persons than the way in which we understand our relationship to God in Christ, which is to say how we understand prayer.

            For whatever reason, and there are many, it has been tempting for us to think of prayer in a mechanical sense or pattern, probably because it seems normal for us to think in terms of cause and effect.  So prayer comes to be understood on the model, perhaps, of an electronic teller machine, from which, if you have the right card and remember the correct number, you can secure money.  Then prayer becomes a matter of technique or of the right credentials.

            Or perhaps we have come to think of prayer in terms of negotiating.  If you can come up with the right offer, then a deal can be made.  Hence prayers in which we attempt to bargain with God, giving up this or that, or offering to do this or that if by that action God can be persuaded to give something we want in return.

            But neither the mechanical nor the magical nor the negotiating model is the way in which Jesus thought of prayer, and it is only as we enter into his understanding that we can appreciate what he meant when he spoke to his disciples about prayer.

            Jesus knew God in terms of personal relationship.  He spoke of his “heavenly father” with whom prayer was communication, not technique.

            Now it is true that we have become fairly successful in transforming personal relationships into mechanical ones, as when the teenager assures her friend, “Don’t worry, I’ll be able to go.  I will wait until the ball game comes on TV, and then I will ask my dad if I should practice my piano lesson, or can I come over to your house.”

            All too often relationships are reduced to the level of barter, as when a wife confesses, “I put up with what he wants, because then I know that I can get what I want.”

            Contrast these with truly personal relationships based on vulnerability, caring, and love.  Jesus always approached God in prayer as approaching a loving father to whom he could pour out his heart, knowing he would be heard and understood.

            But you can’t always predict what love may require.  It is not a simple formula to be followed or a response that can be programmed.  Sometimes love must be tough and sometimes gentle.  But it isn’t abstract, and it isn’t easy.  And in this kind of personal relationship, communication, the art of speaking together, is a very important thing.

            Do you remember Tevye, the father in “Fiddler on the Roof”?  Complaining to God, fighting with God, wanting to know why it would have been so difficult for God to have made him a wealthy man instead of a poor man?  Yet with it all, in spite of the lack of formality, there was a sense of honest communication, of affection.  There was a personal relationship.  So with Jesus who was able to pray “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me….”

            Here is a young man who is counting on his father to finance his college education.  His father had let him know that he is more than willing, even anxious to make that commitment for his son, but that he expected his son to make good use of the opportunity.  A phrase that obviously meant different things to different people, because the son partied through the first semester, making it a disaster academically, and the father was reluctant to subsidize that kind of career.  So there came a time of crisis when the subject of the second semester could no longer be avoided.  But as they talked, and as the son’s anger passed, and the father’s too, it began to dawn upon the son that his father actually meant what he had said, and that it was out of love that he was speaking.  Though it wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen just like that, a change did come over the son, and his father began to talk with him about regaining academic standing and continuing his education.  Father and son were now involved at a different level, and both were able to respond to the other in ways that had not seemed possible before.

            Perhaps to someone who believed that a deal was a deal, the father should have stood his ground, and the son should have learned his lesson the harder way.  But the father saw the beginning of change in his son, and he was able to change his own approach to meet that growth and to encourage it.

            That’s the way love is.  And prayer.  Prayer doesn’t simply change things to suit our fancy, but it does bring us into God’s presence and that may change you and it may change me and it may make it possible for God to act in ways which were not open before.  Prayer may not change a situation so that it will be more to our liking.  It may not remove barriers, but it may open us to God’s effective love in such a way that the barriers are no longer as formidable as we thought.  Prayer may not do away with problems, but it may enlarge us to the place where we can contend with problems.  Prayer may not drop a new job in our lap, but it may enable us to grow in ways that change that whole picture too.  And surely we pray for others, and others pray for us, in intercessory prayer that is not a technique for changing God’s mind or calling his attention to something that he should have done long ago, had he been paying attention.  Intercessory prayer is a way in which we place ourselves in a relationship of cooperation with God, sharing our concerns, opening ourselves, if we dare, to new insights, new impulses, new possibilities through which God can work, that were not open to God before.  Who can pray to God for others and then not do all he or she can to come to the aid of those others himself?  Very risky, this business of taking our concerns for others to God, for we ourselves may well be changed.

            That is always the risk when we take God seriously, when we persistently call upon him, with the same sense of urgency and need as the man who desperately needed bread in the middle of the night.  We can’t program God’s response.  We can’t pass off our problems on him to get us off the hook.  We can’t manipulate or bargain.  But we can come honestly to a heavenly father, who in love responds.  It may not change things, but it may sure change us.  That is the risk, and the possibility and the glory of prayer.  Amen.

A Tale of Two Teenagers

This morning I find myself reflecting on the fate of two different teenagers. Both were shot because their assailant believed them to be a threat. One survived and spoke recently at the United Nations. The other is dead. In the case of the first teenager, her assailant is universally condemned as a terrorist. In the second case the assailant was acquitted in a court of law and is a free man. It is a confusing world full of seemingly infinite interests and presumptions colliding like particles. Fate and circumstance navigate a razor thin line.What is the difference between Malala Yousafzai and Trayvon Marton?  The greatest difference is life itself. Malala has voice. Trayvon does not. I hope Malala's voice might rise on behalf of Trayvon and others for Malala advocates for education for all and it is my belief that the way out of this increasingly hostile social environment is education....the triumph over ignorance and fear and the gestation of true empathy and thoughtfulness.
But more specifics are needed.  For "education" is a wide net, and surely many highly educated individuals have contributed to some of the greatest injustices in our history.
There is no perfect solution to be sure.  And we are talking about something here that is so primordial, so deep within the mystery of human society that simple answers dissolve like cotton candy.
Perhaps there is a relationship, however, between the increasingly cruel and hostile environment in which we live and the corresponding decline in the humanities and liberal arts?  It is widely documented that the humanities are in decline in our colleges and universities.  Historically mocked for their "impracticality", degrees in philosophy, English, religion, music, theater and the like are now more than ever seen as superfluous and irrelevant.
What makes this particularly frightening is that these disciplines are the disciplines which take seriously the core realities of our current malaise.  Where else in the curriculum are we to delve deeply and uncomfortably into such topics as sin and so eagerly and hopefully into topics like redemption and transcendence?
What afflicts us today is what has afflicted us through the ages: sin.  And please do not think of sin as an exclusively "Christian" idea. Certainly sin is in the bible and certainly Christians speak of sin.  But Christianity has no monopoly on sin.  Sin is discussed centuries--millennia--before the Christian New Testament.
If we want to understand sin we cannot find it in mathematical or scientific textbooks.  We must seek it in poetry, art, literature, legend, myth, art, music, and drama.  Sin is identified and examined in the artistic imaginations of the seeking in every time and culture.  Correspondingly, redemption is experienced in the same way, in the same places.  And so it is with all of the aspects of our human condition that matter the most--those that contribute to life and justice--or death and injustice.
The recently released "official music video", "I Am Malala", is a moving expression of hope.  Young girls of the world sing and celebrate Malala's message of infinite hope.  Although no video yet exists (to my knowledge) there are no doubt many young black teenagers who would also cry "I am Trayvon".  Figures like Malala and Trayvon become mythical in their symbolic power to represent the ongoing struggle with injustice for many people.
But what solution there may be to our downward spiral rests not only with the identification with the victim, but also the perpetrator.  When King David stole Bathsheba from Uriah and summarily orchestrated Uriah's death, it was the prophet Nathan that came to David with a story.  That story of injustice culminated with David's anger kindled at the perpetrator.  Nathan then sprung the trap.  "You are the man!"  David, by identifying with the injustice in a story ostensibly not about him, became able to see his role in injustice as part of his own "story".
This is the power of story.  This is the power of art.  This is the power of music.  This is the power of drama. The story is the vehicle by which we move into solidarity with the victim and the perpetrator, the hero and the villain.  We are Oedipus who struggles heroically to save Thebes only to realize he is its fall.  We are Scrooge whose reclamation must be preceded by the painful acknowledgement of loss.  We are Jesus with our desire to love but we are also Pilate with our hands in the bowl.  We are Malala and we are Trayvon.  But we are also George and we are also the Taliban.
Without the ongoing influence of the humanities we will continue in the destructive path of the polarized either/or.  Only the empathy of the both/and can save us.  And that is what I mean by education.  If empathy can be said to be cultivated anywhere beyond our own experience it has to be in and through our exposure to, and engagement with, the great imaginative artistic works of the human condition.

When the Story is About Us

2 Samuel 12-1-7
Luke 7:36-50

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     Imagine a common scene: a family sits around the dinner table.  The mother is offering a bit of difficult but necessary wisdom to the teenager.  The teenager sits quietly—broodingly?—pondering.  The father, unaware of the dynamic as many fathers are, offers what he believes to be a word of encouragement.  “I believe what your mother is saying is…”  He never finishes.  The teenager looks up with a growl and says, “I KNOW what she is saying!”

            And such is the preacher’s lot with texts such as this.  And there are many texts such as this.  These are what we call parables, or simply the narrative itself.  In texts such as this the interaction of the character and dialogue is meant to stand as sufficient.  The meaning should be self-evident.  What more is there to say to Jesus’ words about love and forgiveness?  How does the preacher avoid being the one who says, “I believe what Jesus is saying is…” to a congregation that believes it knows what Jesus is saying.  Silence, not sermons, may be the more appropriate response to texts such as this.

            Yet I will take the risk and say something in hopes that we might hear not only what Jesus says to Simon but also what Jesus says to us.  The situation of the story is straightforward enough.  A Pharisee named Simon has invited Jesus to dinner.  This is a common strategy we see played out all the time.  Whoever is the hot ticket, whoever has the buzz, that is the one we want to be seen with.  Jesus is the latest thing.  He has been on all the late night television shows after that resurrection trick he pulled at Nain.  Or maybe Simon has a different motive.  Remember the adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer?  But whatever the reason, Jesus is at table with a Pharisee and his friends.

            Simon the Pharisee and Jesus the Christ are at table together.  But there is someone else there, someone unexpected.  A woman.  A woman from the city.  A woman who is a sinner.  A woman who is a problem.  This woman is behind Jesus, in view of Simon, washing and anointing his feet.  We need to note carefully the language and is employed here.  Simon does not 

challenge Jesus directly.  That Simon uses the third person suggests that he is more mumbling to himself or those around him than challenging Jesus directly.  This moment foreshadows a similar encounter in chapter 15, when the Pharisees grumble that Jesus cavorts with sinners and tax collectors.  “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  One could argue that, ironically, the Pharisee has done the same by welcoming Jesus and eating with him.  But that is for another time.  Here, as in chapter 15, Jesus is much like my third grade teacher.  You cannot grumble around him without getting caught.  And if you are caught, you can count on getting a story.

            Jesus tells a story of one creditor and two debtors.  One owes a great deal, the other much less.  The creditor forgives both debts.  Who will be more grateful?  The answer seems obvious to Simon.  The one who was forgiven more, he says, no doubt wondering what the relevance is.  Just so, says Jesus.

            Our Old Testament setting tells much the same tale.  When David decided to borrow Bathsheba from her husband while her husband was off fighting David’s war, he did so without much thought to consequence.  After all, he was king.  It was only after Bathsheba disclosed her pregnancy that David decided to take preventative measures.  After failing to entice Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to spend the night with her, David decided it was simpler to kill him.  Problem solved.  That is, until his court “story-teller” Nathan came to see him.

            Nathan told David a story about a poor man with a sheep.  He had little beyond the sheep, whom he loved.  There was a rich man with many sheep and, when one was required for a lavish banquet, the rich man bypassed his own collection and took the poor man’s only sheep and served it up with a side of mint jelly.  David, upon hearing of this towering injustice, was filled with rage.  As I am King, he proclaimed, such a man deserves death!  Let him repay four times the loss.

            David’s indignation is encouraging but his sensitivity is still lacking.  After all, this was not a property issue.  This was a love issue.  In Nathan’s story the poor man clearly loved the sheep and had no intention of serving it to anyone.  David sees the injustice, but does not see the emotional import.  He doesn’t understand that there are some things more important than property, assets, and privilege.  

            Which is why, I suppose, we still need sermons on stories.  When David heard the story he knew what the story was about.  That is, he knew what the story was about except that the story was about him.  When Simon heard the story it was tiresomely obvious what the moral of the story was.  What was harder to see is that the story was about him.  This is the joy and the sorrow of story.  Story opens us to levels of awareness that rational argument cannot penetrate.  Jesus and Nathan understood one of the first rules of engaging the audience; the emotional response.  The next, trickier step, is getting the audience to apply that emotional response to self awareness.

            Those of you with children; did you ever call your parents and complain about your child?  “You would not believe the words that come out of her mouth!”  “He just thinks everything should be laid out before him!”  “They don’t clean their room.”  When I was a kid my mother had a brilliant idea.  She folded the laundry and placed it in a bucket.  All of us kids had a bucket with our name on it.  We were supposed to take the bucket upstairs and put our clothes away.  Guess which Hawley child used to come down every morning, take clothes out of the bucket, and go back upstairs to get dressed?  Guess whose children do the same thing?

            Not that I complain.  I know where they get it.  But I am sure that I have done my share of complaining about other things, completely oblivious to the truth that I am the man.  Do you catch yourself gossiping with your neighbor about how so and so gossips so much?  We have words for this sort of thing: hypocrite or two-faced or insincere.  And sometimes that is the case.  But it is true for us all that we have a blind spot—some part of ourselves we cannot or chose not to look at very closely—and along will come a story to shine a bright light on our blind spot.

            When we hear stories that engage our sense of right and wrong, our “common” sense, the moral seems self-evident.  But it is a common characteristic of such stories that their lessons are more easily applied elsewhere than in our own hearts.  Simon understood well enough that if one is forgiven one hundred and another ten, the one forgiven one hundred will likely feel more relieved. David understood well enough that you should not raid another person’s house for things you already have.  What Simon, David, and commonly you and I fail to understand is that the story is about us.

            Bible stories are not just history and they are not just stories.   They are deep and penetrating examinations of what it means to be a human being, good and bad, in the presence of God.  This is the power of all stories that matter, that endure.  Stories serve not only as windows on the past but as mirrors for the present.  Stories that matter have the power to change us in ways that argument and lecture and a mountain of facts never can.  So Jesus told stories—stories designed to sneak up on us with their truth so that we end up inviting them in before we know what they have to say to us—sort of like how Simon invited Jesus to dinner unaware of what was in store for him.

            Had Nathan told David to his face he did a bad thing David would have excused and argued and evaded.  Had Jesus told Simon straight out that this woman was forgiven so get off her back, an argument would have ensued and little would be gained.  Rather, Nathan and Jesus invited David and Simon into the perilous world of self-discovery.  In our debt encumbered culture we can surely relate to Jesus’ question about which debtor would be more grateful.  Can we also see, by extension, the truth about love?

            Jesus’ story is the little story inside the bigger story that Luke is telling. In Luke’s story we note that the others at the table argue about forgiveness—who has it and who can offer it.  But Jesus never forgives this woman.  He simply observes that she is forgiven.  This explains her behavior.  For the one who is forgiven little loves little.  And the one who loves much is forgiven much.  By her love Jesus observes that she is a woman to whom much has been forgiven.  We are never told if Simon understands this.  Maybe, like David, Simon understood.  Maybe he went off and read psalm 51.  You love little, Simon, because you are forgiven little.  You love little, hence little do you forgive.

            Paul Tillich, a wonderful theologian and preacher, offered a sermon on this text.  Tillich reflected upon the social reality of his time which is the same in ours.  Why, he asked, do so many turn away from their righteous parents?  Why do they turn away from their righteous churches with their righteous pastors?  To escape judgment?  That is no doubt a part of it.  But, Tillich speculates, more often it is because they seek a love that is rooted in forgiveness, and that is a love the righteous cannot give.  There was a pastor of my acquaintance once in North Platte, Nebraska who lamented to me that it was getting harder and harder to find people for the church board.  “There are just not enough righteous people,” he lamented.  He might have had more luck filling the board with forgiven people.

            Tillich’s sermon on this text concludes this way and it can serve as the conclusion for us as well.  “The Church would be more the Church of Christ if it joined Jesus and not Simon in its encounter with those judged unacceptable.  Each of us who strive for righteousness would be more Christian if more were forgiven him, if he loved more, and if he could better resist the temptation to present himself as acceptable to God by his own righteous."

Gaining Access

Luke 7:1-10

Before I entered the ministry I was trained as a journalist.  I spent a decade involved with radio and television new and sports.  Although I never moved above a market size larger than Wichita, I was familiar with the necessities of those who perform on a much larger stage.  Journalists need sources.  They need leads.  They need tips.  But to be a player for the really big scoops you need access.

Access involves getting close to the decision makers, the eyewitnesses, the people with power.  Access is everything to a reporter.  In truth access is more than a journalism question.  Access is important in many parts of our society.  Who has access to education?  Who has access to healthcare?  Who has access to government and decision-making?  However we might answer those questions, we know there are many who do not have access to these fundamentals aspects of life.  Many do not have access to good education. There are many who have no access to health care.  There are many who literally have no chance to fight city hall.

In Jesus’ day access was pretty important too.  Obviously the ones with access to power and perks were the Roman citizens.  But many Jewish people did as well, particularly the leaders of the synagogue; the Scribes and Pharisees.  Although they were not Roman citizens, they were powerful enough to position themselves favorably in Roman society, often at the expense of the poor and the marginalized who looked to the synagogue and its leaders as the interpreters of God’s laws and the bearer of God’s grace.

This question of “access” is very much at the heart of Luke’s gospel.  Perhaps you recall an earlier passage from Luke that is often read at Christmas time.  Right after the angel tells Mary she is to bear God’s son, Mary sings a song.  A portion of that song goes like this:  “He has used the power of his arm; he scattered the proud of heart, he overthrew princes from their thrones, and the humble he uplifted, the hungry he has loaded with good things, and the rich he sent away empty.” 

After Jesus returns to his home in Nazareth as an adult, he enters the synagogue and reads aloud from the prophet Isaiah.  Jesus reads, “the Spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has consecrated me to bring good news to poor people, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and restoration of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.” 

All of this helps us to see why today’s reading is so fascinating.  Given Luke’s preference for the poor, we would expect Jesus to do what he commonly does—extend healing and wholeness to the forgotten ones of Israel.  But here we have something unexpected.  We have someone of privilege—someone who customarily experiences “access” coming to Jesus in need.

But he doesn’t actually come himself.  The first we learn of the crisis is through intermediaries.  The Roman captain sends some Judean Elders to Jesus.  Although accustomed to getting what he wants, suddenly the Roman captain is unsure, deferential.  Rather than approach Jesus with a sense of entitlement, he sends fellow Jews to Jesus to offer intercession.

Jesus agrees to go with the men.  What we are not certain of is why.  Did Jesus offer the man preferential treatment because of his large donation to the building fund?  I hope not.  I hope Jesus went because there was need.  And as the story unfolds, I believe this is in fact the case.

Before Jesus reaches the Roman in question…. and therefore his slave…Jesus encounters yet another group of intercessors.  These are members of the Roman officer’s staff.  But rather than continue to entreat Jesus to come… perhaps even encourage him to get a move on… they suggest his visit is not necessary at all.  This is another surprise.  Suddenly there does not seem to be the same sense of urgency?  Perhaps the slave has died.  Jesus is too late.

No, the slave is still alive.  But rather than bid Jesus to hurry, these intermediaries suggest he need not come at all.  They bring a message from their friend, “I am unworthy to receive you under my roof,” he begins.  Now earlier we heard that the Roman captain “deserves this favor.”  And now we learn that he believes himself unworthy.  But Jesus, safe to say, is indifferent to all of that.  For Jesus does not see worthy or unworthy.  He sees need.  He responds to suffering.  He offers wholeness.

Is this a rhetorical stunt by the Roman?  Is it sincere?  The Roman captain says that Jesus simply needs to say the word and his servant will be made well.  This is the last surprise of the story, and it comes as a surprise even to Jesus.  Jesus was “surprised” to hear these words.  “I tell you, nowhere in Israel have I met with such faith as this!”

How does this story help us to understand access and intercession as these apply to Jesus?

We generally associate access with privilege.  Even in Jesus’ day there was a pretty big gap between those who had access to a good life and those who did not.  And given what Luke has said about the place of the poor in Jesus’ ministry, we would expect him to limit his access to the least fortunate.

But this story leads us to rethink this.  Certainly Jesus does make himself accessible to those who ordinarily had no access to life’s necessities.  But Jesus is also accessible to one more accustomed to a comfortable life.  By his own statement, as sent through his friends, the Roman is accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed.  But in this case the circumstances went beyond this kind of worldly power.  The Roman officer understood that his authority did not extend to his servant who was lying near death.  This circumstance did not call for conquest.  It called for surrender… a surrender to faith.

The Roman is an unlikely recipient of Jesus’ healing power.  But Jesus sees beyond all earthly condition.  Jesus responds to need.  Jesus responds to those who respond to him in faith.  And that is the key here—faith.  What Jesus marvels at in this instance is the power and certainty of the man’s faith.  Not even in Israel—not even among those whom Jesus would expect to have faith and understanding—has he seen such a display.  The power of Jesus’ healing touch is accessible to anyone and everyone, regardless of earthly condition, if that power is embraced in faith.  We have been saved by faith through the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

But before we leave this story for this morning we should consider one more thing.  Intercession.  In the course of this story Jesus’ encounters several people.  He encounters members of the Jewish community who vouch for the Roman captain.  He encounters the friends of the Roman captain.  But he never encounters the Roman captain himself.  And the slave who is healed?  Jesus never touches him or lays eyes on him.

The intercessions on behalf of the sick man are many.  Are they responsible for Jesus’ response?  Certainly Jesus would not have known of the need if the need had not been brought to his attention.  The Jewish community, the man’s friends, the man himself, all petition Jesus to intercede for the need.  The result is healing.

As the church of Jesus Christ, we do not control access to Jesus.  And we must be vigilant that our message is one of grace and faith… that faith opens us up to the healing power of Jesus and not the adherence to some doctrinal code.

But as the church of Jesus Christ, we do have an obligation to bring our intercessions on behalf of others and the world.  Our intercessions help bring the healing power of Jesus to those in need.  And although we certainly offer intercessory prayer, anytime we advocate for those in need, when we send relief and aid to victims of disaster, whenever we lift up the suffering, we intercede.  Intercession in union with faith is the way to access the healing power of God in Jesus Christ.

A Poem and a Prize

In 2006 I enrolled in a poetry class as part of graduate studies in English.  One night, while seeking some inspiration for my weekly poem, I noticed my brother's textbook on cosmology sitting on my bookshelf.  I typed the title: "The Foundations of Modern Cosmology" onto the top of the page.  What followed was a poem about two siblings.  One was an astrophysicist.  The other was not.  The essence of the poem was the disconnect in communication between the siblings as to the state of their mother who was failing in a nursing home.  The metaphor of the poem--or the irony I suppose--was that the astrophysicist brother had won some kind of prize relating to black holes.  How do we know the existence of a black hole?  By the impact it makes on things around it.  And yet, so the poem suggests, the scientist seems as oblivious to his mother's plight as the non-scientist is to the prize winning discovery.

The reason I am bringing this up today is that my astrophysicist brother has won a prize.  (read about it here).  When I wrote the poem I was concerned that maybe it would be thought of as autobiographical in some way.  This would be unfair to my brother, who is a sensitive and attentive son to his mother.  So I put in a reference to a prize.  At the time my brother had been recognized in a variety of ways, but he had never won a prize such as the one implied in the poem.  Now he has.

.... so here is the poem, six years later, now more autobiographical than before.

(I suppose the part about my not understanding the science of what my brother does is pretty autobiographical.)


-->

Black Hole

I wanted to talk about mother,

how she can’t see anymore, of nurses

who bruise her arms and legs

when they bathe her.  You fold your paper

butter rye toast while you read

Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman.

I read your horoscope out loud.

You’re talking about quasars, pulsars

or some goddamn thing while I remember

the zoo when we were small, how we walked

for hours in heat while I squinted

through thick lenses to see tiny animals,

pictures on wooden signs,

Look, there it is you would say

I would search logs, long grass

but nothing moved.

Even now I cannot see.

I told you mom was proud of your prize,

your discovery, black holes

how light, gravity swallows

I asked how we could know about something

we can’t see, without looking up

you answer by observing its effect on things around it

I told you mom was forgetting our names

but you do not hear

at home with your numbers

geometric shapes which prove to you

the universe continues to expand

until one day it collapses in on itself.

The Initimate Spirit

The following is a sermon prepared at the invitation of the Oak Hill Presbyterian Church for Pentecost Sunday, 2013

Acts 2:1-11
John 20:13-23


 

            Happy Pentecost!  It is wonderful to be with you today as we celebrate one of the three major feast days of the Christian year.  Pentecost Sunday is the day set aside to celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The timing of Pentecost coincides with the 50^th day after Easter Sunday.  In Biblical times Pentecost was a Jewish festival known as the Feast of Booths and it occurred fifty days after Passover.   As the Jewish people came more and more under the influence of Greek ways, the name was changed to Pentecost.

            The most well known version of the events of Pentecost appears in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.    This account is full of awe and wonder. Because the Spirit appears on the feast day, Jerusalem is crowded with many Jews from various geographical areas.  When the Spirit comes it does so with tremendous pomp: A great and mighty wind and tongues of flame.  The crowd is caught up in the frenzy.  The mighty deeds of God are extolled in the languages of the world.  All in all it is quite a dramatic spectacle.  

            And it should be, for without the coming of the Holy Spirit there would be no Church and therefore no Book of Acts to chronicle the Church.  The Book of Acts is the account of the Church after the coming of the Spirit.  Acts is the story of Saul who is converted on the Damascus road into Paul, the early Church’s greatest evangelist.  The coming of the Holy Spirit is the necessary bridge over which Peter and Paul can walk as representatives of the community of the risen Christ.  The Spirit under girds the difficult and challenging job facing Peter and Paul as they confront the tensions between old and new, law and gospel. It is the Spirit that converts Peter in chapter 10 and leads him to offer baptism to the Gentiles for the first time—the first occasion of the Holy Spirit being received by “outsiders”.  The book of Acts ebbs and flows through trial and conflict and finally to triumph, and the Spirit is always there—moving and flowing in and through the Church as it spreads out into the world.

            This is a compelling and dramatic story played out on a big stage.  But it is not the only account of the gift of the Holy Spirit that appears in the New Testament.  There is another, more intimate portrayal.  This is the second of our two readings, the one from the Gospel of John.

            As John relates it, Jesus breathes the Spirit upon the disciples on the eve of his 

resurrection day.  This gift is the fulfillment of a promise Jesus makes in chapter 14, when he promises to give the disciples not only peace but also the “the advocate, the Holy Spirit”.  This Holy Spirit will “teach you everything and remind you of what I have told you.” This is a private moment, seemingly intentionally so.  No one else knows.  There is no public display, no wind and fire, no amazed bystanders.  Only Jesus, his disciples, and the Holy Spirit.

            In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the sentence containing the phrase “then he breathed on them” contains a unique expression.  It appears only here.  Although it is not repeated anywhere else in the Greek New Testament, it does appear in the Greek translation of the Old Testament: at the time of creation in the book of Genesis.   The Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters.  The spirit “breathed” over the waters…and God spoke creation into being.

            Clearly the author of the Gospel wants his readers—who would have had access to both the Old and New Testament in Greek—to make this connection.  Jesus is not only breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples, he is performing an act of Creation.  This is entirely consistent with John’s understanding of who Jesus is.  We might recall the words with which John begins his gospel, words we often hear associated with Jesus at Christmas time.  “In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”  John understands Jesus to be the incarnate word of creation.  The words “In the beginning” are an intentional echo of Genesis.  So as Jesus is the New Creation, so now his disciples are the New Creation, as Jesus breathes upon them in the same manner that the Spirit of God moved and breathed across the unformed vastness of the earth.  The implications of John’s story are immense.  It means no less than the truth that the community Jesus’ empowered is the community now responsible for the mission and ministry begun by Jesus.  As Jesus tells his disciples, “As the Father sent me, now I am sending you.”  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  The Word is still with us, for we are the Word.

            This same message is communicated in the Book of Acts as well.  Clearly the coming of the Holy Spirit was intended to get the Church up and moving.  In the power of the Spirit the gospel is proclaimed, the lame are healed, and even the dead are raised.  It is understandable to see these two stories as being distinct in detail but the same in overall message.  And this is essentially true.  But it is important to keep the two stories distinguished as well, especially in these days.  For the majority of churches known in casual language as “mainline”, there is a reassurance and a peace that comes with John’s version of events, the peace that Jesus promises throughout the gospel.  

            The vast majority of Reformed churches across America have less than 100 members.  The vast majority of the churches in our Presbytery have fewer than 100 members.  These churches are contemplating the future, wondering how much longer they can remain viable congregations.  Pastoral leadership in these churches is becoming harder to come by.  

            Understandably, members of such churches, many of whom have been members for much if not all of their lives, struggle to remain optimistic.   Churches with declining and aging membership might well be compared with those disciples of Jesus who sit alone in a locked room, afraid.  It is into this locked room—it is into this fear—that the risen Christ comes with his peace and his life giving breath.  Pentecost is so named because the story in the Book of Acts takes place on a Jewish festival day known as Pentecost.  But it does not exhaust the reality of the Holy Spirit at work in the world.  Equally compelling is John’s small market version; intimate, tender, peaceful.  John’s version of events does more than provide hope for small churches everywhere.  It validates the essential integrity of such churches.  John’s story of the Holy Spirit reminds us that the power of the Spirit and the responsibility to be bearers of the Word is not defined by size or location—only by the existence of a community in personal relationship to Christ the risen Lord.  This awareness does not wipe away the practical difficulties of being a small church in the world.  But it should provide spiritual confidence that a church, no matter how big or little, is infused with the Holy Spirit and empowered to be a witness to the ways of God in and for the world.  It is not our primary job to “keep the doors open”.  It is our job to trust, through faith, that God is working his purpose out, that the Spirit of God is in this place, and that we are called—not to earthly success—but to faithfulness.  

            We have this sacrament to remind us of this as well.  Like the gift of the Holy Spirit, this meal is played out on big and little stages.  Jesus fed the five thousand and he fed the four thousand.  But he also gathered around an intimate small table and said to those close to him “this is my body, broken for you.  This is the cup of the New Covenant sealed in my blood.  Do this in memory of me.”  For whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the saving death of our risen Lord.  We proclaim it to two, four, twelve, twenty, twenty thousand.  It matters not.  What matters is that we proclaim it, we live it, we believe it, and we witness it in and through the Holy Spirit which is with us now and always.  Amen.