Wee little Man

Luke 19:1-9

Signs, signs everywhere a sign

Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind

Do this don’t do that, can’t you read the signs.

This song by the Five Man Electric Band was a song of protest, but it also is a song about judgement. The first verse says “The sign says Long haired freaky people need not apply. So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why. He said “You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you’ll do.” I took off my hat and said imagine that, huh, me working for you!

How often have we let the way someone looks, dresses, styles their hair, affect the way we view them? How often have we let stereotypes about professions, schools, race, gender, religion cloud the way we see someone else?

We all have our own judgements, and some are well deserved.  But when these things get in the way of us hearing the word proclaimed, or witnessing God’s grace they need to be put aside.

Today’s scripture lesson can be difficult to hear when we look at it through cultural stereotypes or even our own stereotypes. The typical interpretation of this story is as follows:

Once upon a time Jesus was going into a city and people were excited to see him. The news traveled to a short man in the crowd who happened to be a tax collector (cue the boos). He couldn’t see the guy everyone was talking about so he chooses to climb a tree.

Jesus was walking past and noticed this strange man up in a tree. He looks up and tells the man to come down and then invites himself to dinner.

People complain that this short guy, probably with a Napoleon complex, isn’t worth Jesus’ time and effort. After all tax collectors are known sinners, bad hombre’s.

Zac hears these complaints and his pride is hurt. Or maybe just maybe he feels a twinge of guilt. He stands up and says to Jesus and the crowds “I will stop sinning right now. I’ll give half of everything to the poor and if I’ve defrauded anyone, (and they can prove it) I’ll pay back 4 times the amount.”

The crowd rejoices, Jesus says mazel tov and now salvation has come to this house. Everyone celebrates and Jesus moves on toward Jerusalem, one more saved soul on his belt.

That is the happy sanitized version, the VBS, Sunday school version. But I’m not sure that really accurate to the scripture we have, and how the Gospel of Luke intends this story to be seen.

Tax collectors traditionally are seen as bad guys. But time and time again in Luke tax collectors are something different. They are with the crowds that are baptized by John the Baptist. When they ask him what they should do he doesn’t say “Leave your profession because you cannot follow God and be a tax collector.” Instead he tells them to take no more than what they are owed. This indicates that tax collectors were not all sinners, there were some good apples in the mix. They just got painted with the same broad brush and so were tainted by association.

Jesus calls a tax collector to follow him. While Matthew does give up his job, he is seen as someone who will be a part of the inner circle. There is no dramatic change of heart, like we see in the Apostle Paul, rather he is called like Peter and responds. Just as he is, good enough for Jesus.

In our text last week Jesus holds up a man praying publicly crying out to God and beating his breast, aware of his sins and seeking relationship and forgiveness. This man is a what? A tax collector. And Jesus calls him justified.

So our first assumption, that all tax collectors are evil by nature doesn’t fit with the way Luke describes this group of people.

Zacchaeus is in the crowd seeking out the master. We are told that because he was short he could not see Jesus. Well, actually, it is intirely possible that he couldn’t see Jesus because Jesus was short. The term could just as easily apply to Jesus’ height as to Zacchaeus’ in the Greek.  SO perhaps that lovely children’s song really should be Jesus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he.

In our society however, shortness is a bad thing from a leader especially. The shorter candidate rarely becomes the president, for example. To think of Jesus as short shocks the senses and makes many of us squirm. Well, I don’t know for sure his height, but I do know that those pictures of him with blonde hair and blue eyes are not accurate.

Whatever the reason, Jesus’ hight or his own, Jesus finds Zaccheaus up a tree, unwilling to let any obsticales keep him for seeing the master. In his search to see Jesus, Jesus sees him. Jesus comes forward, calls him out of the tree and invites himself for the evening meal.

Who you ate with was a big deal in that culture, as we’ve discussed before, it was much like the junior high lunch room where who you sit with denotes how well liked or popular you are. Jesus is going to the house of a tax collector, who the common world judges based on his occupation and relationship with the Roman oppressors as sinful.

The crowd murmurs, grumbles, complains as they watch these two walk off together. Finally Zacchaeus can take it no longer. He stops and cries out to Jesus and to the crowd still listening.

Before I go into what he says, I want us to pay attention to his body language. What does he do to speak? Does he throw himself at Jesus feet like the repentant have done throughout Luke? Does he beat his breast like the Tax collector from chapter 18? No, he stands there. He stands in the presence of God, and the crowd. This is not a stance of repentance. This is a stance of defiance.

And what does he say? Well if we read from the NRSV or the NIV we hear him say “ I will give half of what I own. I will pay back 4 times what I’ve taken.” But these translations are honestly just bad.

I am not a Greek scholar, even though I studied Greek in seminary. I do however know some Greek scholars and have read the works of many scholars and as lot of them feel this is the worst translated verse in the scriptures. There has been an entire tense in ancient Greek created to be used in this one verse. It’s not used anywhere else in the whole of scripture.

The Common English BIble does a much better job with it. It reads “ Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”

Not I will, but I am doing, its present tense, not future perfect, present as in ongoing. This is not a new promise. This is a declaration of what he is already doing.

And what he is already doing is way above what the law required. The law said give 10% away, to God to care for others. He give 50%. The law said if you defraud someone, pay them back twice as much. He is paying back four times as much.

Zacchaeus, who has been painted with the brush of sinner, is really going above and beyond God’s call. He is doubling what is required of him.

Jesus proclaims that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house not for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus already believes in Jesus as lord, remember he wanted to see the master, a term not used by non-believers in Luke. No, these words are for the crowd to hear. This man, the one you ostracized, is a Son of Abraham, a child of God, a member of my flock. In your presence I say he is one I came to find and he is one I love.”

This is not a story about Zacchaeus’ salvation, this is about his restoration to the people of God. This is Jesus once again showing us that God is at work in places and people that we would never expect. This is the kingdom of God breaking out into the corners of the world that human beings thought were too corrupt to see hope, truth, let alone salvation.

Transformation happens in many different ways. Some have a Saul/Paul experience, a radical change that is life altering. Some have lives of faith that are lived quietly, without fanfare and hoopla, but still faithful.

Two questions arise from this view of Zacchaeus’ tale for me. One, Who do I grumble about? Who is it that I see and think, why would God offer them anything? They are too short, too tall, too big, too skinny, too rich, too poor, too famous, too insignificant, too, so many things.

How often do I let someone else’s outside keep me from valuing them inside?

But the second question is this, what am I doing that is causing grumbling?

Jesus welcomed someone who was unpopular and the crowds complained. Am I showing the radical, inclusive love of God in a way that might make the crowds complain? Am I standing up and saying that God’s love is big enough for all of us, even those that some people think are undesirable? Am I offering good news to all humankind, like the angles offered the shepherds?

This question is the most important to me personally. If I’m really extending God’s grace, there are some who won’t like it. But am I letting fear of their dislike or grumbling keep me from proclaiming the truth I hold so dear?

Jesus issues the invitation to discipleship to all, the invitation to a real relationship. The invitation to wholeness. The invitation to salvation. It is open and available to all. It is not something that we deserve; it’s not something we can earn! It is a gift, a precious gift given because of who God is, not because of who we are!

This invitation is open to all persons, in all places, at all times! Praise be to God that there is no LIMIT to the grace of Christ! There is no person who will be passed by. Isn’t that amazing! I ask, no I beg of us this morning that we not be like the crowds that try to keep people from coming because they are too young, too old, to short, too rich, too fill in the blank. But that we would be like Zacchaeus, so desperate to see the Lord that we would literally go out on a limb for the chance of that contact! All praise and Glory be to God, who is and was and is to come. Amen

Just Keep Praying

Luke 18:1-8

How many of you have seen the show “Big Bang Theory?” Or perhaps watched the movie Finding Nemo? This particular passage reminds me of Sheldon Cooper and Dory. Sheldon is the beyond socially challenged nerd, and dory is the lovable forgetful fish. This passage of Scripture I think could easily be their favorite, if Sheldon believed in God, which is a whole different discussion.

I can see Sheldon, when he finally decides to pray going: knock knock knock, God. Knock knock knock, God. Knock knock knock, God. Or hear Dory singing out the refrain, “Just keep praying, just keep praying, just keep praying.” Too often this is all we glean from this passage of scripture. Keep asking for something and eventually you will get it, even if for no other reason that God will get tired of you.

But my friends, that simplistic view of this passage is completely messed up. That view equates God with the judge in this parable, and as the Judge neither feared God, nor respected people, I don’t think God would take too kindly to such a comparison.

So, where does that leave us? Let’s look again at this passage a bit more closely.

Jesus has been teaching about the kingdom of God in these passages. He has answered questions about faith and is giving his followers glimpses of the present, not yet kingdom of God all around them.

He tells this story about a widow. Our ears should perk up a bit at this point. There are certain things that we should know about widows in biblical times. They were without the protection of a husband, so they would rely on the next closest male relative to help them. This could be a son, a brother, or a brother in law. Far too often however, the closest male relative did not want to take care of a widow. There are many stories in the old testament that tell us about widows and their brother-in-law’s, take Tamar for instance, in which the brother-in-law is of no help whatsoever.

This attitude was so prevalent that early on thin the history of the chosen people they are admonished to care for widows and orphans, these marginalized people who were the most susceptible to abuse or neglect because they had no one to stand up for them, legally or otherwise.

We hear of this widow and all of the historical cultural background should come to our minds. She is begging for justice. Chances are she is not able to do this in an actual court, as she has no actual legal rights. More than likely she is following the judge out and about to the market place, to the town center, even to his home. She is crying out day in and day out for justice, possibly justice against those who were to be her protectors.   

This is also the book of Luke, and widows in Luke take on an additional role. Early on in Luke we have the widow Anna. You remember her, the woman who sat day in and day out in the temple for 80 years waiting to see the Messiah. She rejoiced to see Jesus as a baby brought to the temple by Mary and Joseph. Luke calls her a prophetess. Luke also mentioned the widow of zaraphath, the one who helped Elijah during the famine. The one whose son was brought back from the dead. And speaking of that, there is the widow of Nain, to whom Jesus returns her only son after her has died.

In Luke widows bear not only the image of poverty and need, but also the prophetic voice that reminds others of their calling to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

It is not a stretch to see her calling out for justice, not only for herself, but for others who likewise need justice.  She cries out to the judge who refuses to listen.

This judge is not like God at all my friends. I honestly think he’s much more like most of us. He has a job to do and it is important. This widow woman is just getting in the way. She won’t leave him alone. She shows up protesting at his office. She post’s memes about him on Facebook. She even blows up his twitter feed with demands to be seen and heard. He’s ignored her for years, but she refuses to go away.

Eventually he is battered and bruised enough to give in, if for no other reason than he is tired of her. He gives her the justice she has been begging for all of this time.

Too often we think of justice as revenge. That is not the case. Justice according to the words and actions of Christ is very different.

Justice is following the greatest commandments, Loving God and loving neighbor. One way we show our love of God is by respecting and loving others. We do this by recognizing the child of God within all of humanity. God asks, and expects us to do this very thing. By treating people with respect, with human dignity we are also reminded that we have a responsibility to ask others to do the same. This isn’t being overly sensitive or “politically correct” it is really living out the greatest two commandments, it is living out justice for our neighbor.

The judge in this story not only has no respect for neighbor, he’s not a respecter of persons or of God. This person could not be farther from the character of God. Yet even he eventually manages to do what is right and offer justice.

When we recognize the humanity of others we can really begin to offer justice, not revenge, not reparations, but justice, the viewing of others as children of God. But how do we do that in a world that seems so vastly separated? How do we do that when vilifying one another is business as usual? Perhaps we take a small que from the people of the middle ages.

About this time of year, well actually on All Hallows eve, people would go souling. We do a much more self-serving version of this in our own country called trick-or-treating. Souling was not about begging strangers for candy. It wasn’t even really about poor people hassling the rich for food.  The poor of a town would go from door to door and offer to pray for the souls of departed family members and in exchange they were given food to eat. It had to do with over turning the social order that persistently kept people hungry/powerless and others well-fed/powerful- even if that over turning lasted only one evening.

It reminded both rich and poor of their relatedness to one another and of the fact that everyone had the potential to be a conduit of God’s grace- whether the gift of grace came in the form of food or in the form of prayers. In a very real sense, the annual practice reminded everyone of their call and ability to be conduits and stewards of God’s gifts of life.[i]

Friends, each of us has the opportunity to be the judge, to hear the complaints of the other and respond with justice, if for no other reason than we want them to be quiet. But we also have the opportunity to go with the widow to seek justice from others. I wonder how long it would have taken if she had not have been by herself? What happens when others rally around and speak out against injustice? What happens when we together tell the world that all of God’s children matter? Might we find the good things God offers; the kingdom, justice and love, even faster?

An African American preacher once summed this passage up in one sentence “Unless you have knocked at a locked door until your knuckles bled you don’t know what prayer is.”

Friends, are we seeking justice with that intensity? Are we seeking God’s intervention in this world so passionately, with such intensity that our knuckles bleed?  Are we standing with our brothers and sisters, fellow children of God and demanding they be seen; that they be heard, that they be loved?

This passage as Luke says is about persistent prayer. And Jesus asks “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on this earth?”

As long as there are those crying out for justice alongside those saying “How long O Lord”, as long as we are willing to add our voices to help those without voices, as long as we are willing to love those we are called to love there is hope. There is hope that faith, even the faith of a mustard seed will be found. There is hope that one day those words we pray “Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” will come true.

---

[i] Radical Gratitude Tanya Barnet & Tom Wilson

Obedient Thanks

 Obedience. On a week when most preachers are opening up this Gospel reading and preaching gleefully about grace and gratitude, I'm thinking about obedience. So why am I seeing obedience in this passage? Well... it has something to do with the passage that comes right before it, the passage I preached on last week. Remember that here we have a collection of sayings of Jesus. In this last bit Jesus shares a parable about slaves and the duty expected of them, that they will work all day and then attend to the feeding and care of their masters before attending to their own needs, doing all this expecting no thanks in return. He then suggests that this is a model for Christian discipleship, we are to do whatever we have been ordered to do without expectation of reward. No matter how difficult (forgiving), no matter how wearying (forgiving the same person seven times in a day), we are to do it. Why? As was suggested last week, we are to be obedient because we are grateful, grateful for all that has already been done for us in Christ.

Now, I know that our minds are very capable of objecting to this message, this message that so much has already been done for us in Christ. Some of us are thinking, sure, easy for you to say” or “If I've been forgiven, why am I carrying around this lead weight of guilt that just seems to get heavier every day? If I've been healed, why am I in constant pain? If I've been provided for, why am I barely scraping by month to month, why am I in the position of picking and choosing what bills I'll pay and which ones I won't even open, why am I always having to say 'no' to my kids? If I've been protected, why have I been so hurt?" Or perhaps you're thinking “I’ve worked hard for the good things in my life. God doesn’t want us to rely on him too much. We’ve got to pull ourselves up by our boot-straps. God’s got little to do with my life.”

So, if we're not sure that we have much to be grateful for, it's not likely that we'll be terribly inspired to be obedient, especially to the most challenging teachings of our faith. We might be more inclined to pick out the teachings of God in scripture that suit us best and let the others slide. We might not even bother to try to know what God requires or hopes of us... why should we? We'll just do whatever we want in this world; convinced as we are, on some level, that we're more or less left on our own.

Let's consider the 10 lepers in our story today. Here we have 10 people who have been suffering for an unknown length of time, suffering from skin conditions, potentially very serious skin conditions, but also suffering from alienation, exclusion, and estrangement. By law they were cast out of their communities and forced to live only with people like them. They had to scream out that they were unclean anytime they came near anyone; they could not touch nor be touched. We meet them today in a borderland, on the edges of two regions- between Galilee and Samaria. They are on the margins of their societies in every sense of the word.

If ever there were a group of people who would seemingly have a case for giving up on God, for lacking motivation for obedience, for feeling far from grateful- I think we can all agree these folks would qualify. However, they approach Jesus, though respectfully keeping their distance, and how do they name Jesus? They call Jesus, Master. Master... as slaves would call their owners... master. And so it is that we are reminded of the previous parable. But lest we think of them as passive and content with their lot, listen to the passion of their plea "HAVE MERCY ON US!" They were weary of their existence; they wanted change.

Does Jesus come over and touch them? Do they experience dramatic, on the spot, healing and reintegration? Is their plea met with instant satisfaction? They ask for mercy and receive... a command. "Go and show yourselves to the priests." If they had been healed they would need to show themselves to the priests, this was what the law required if they wanted to be reintegrated into society. But they weren't healed. They asked for mercy and received a command.

And how do they respond to this command? Do they yell at Jesus in anger and resentment? Do they slouch away discouraged and dejected? No. They simply obey. The master commands and they obey. They may not see much point in their obedience, suspecting that they'd get to the priests and be sent away, rejected again, but... the master commanded, and they obeyed. Jesus said "Go" and they went.

And somewhere along their journey to the priests, a potentially long journey, a journey on which they surely continued to call out "UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!", they are made clean. They obeyed even before they had much to be grateful for and along the way they receive the gift of their hearts' desire, in the midst of their obedience they receive the grace that inspires gratitude.

Surely all 10 lepers were grateful. I can see them doing the gratitude dance all the way to the priests. I can hear them shouting praises to God as they continue on their way. But... by continuing to go to the priests they were continuing to be obedient- both to Jesus' command and to the demands of Jewish law. They were exercising a double obedience if you will.

But one of them, an outsider among outsiders, a Samaritan, saw that he was healed and his gratitude dance sent him twirling right around and heading back from whence he had just come. He had asked for mercy and he received a command, but when he got the mercy, he went back to say thank you. Perhaps because he was a samaritian, an outcast, someone who would not have been welcomed by the priest, he felt a stronger pull of gratitude. His obedience was extravagantly interrupted by gratitude- a gratitude that led him to shout praises to God and kiss the ground at Jesus' feet.

Jesus wants obedience; he made that quite clear in last week's reading. But this week's reading complicates that a bit for us, or deepens it a bit for us. Jesus seems disappointed that only one came back- the other nine were simply following his command and after last week we'd think he'd be grateful for that, but he certainly seems disappointed. "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

It seems to me that while Jesus desires obedient disciples, he does not desire lifeless disciples. While Jesus wants us to follow the path he has traveled, while he wants us to live into his teachings more and more fully as time goes by, he doesn't want this to be a matter of simply going through motions, or of mindless drudgery. He knows that sometimes, even, our obedience might appear to be disobedience when we get spun about by gratitude. He wants our obedience to be infused with gratitude. He wants us to be joyful and lighthearted and able to turn on a dime and give thanks- a thanks that involves our whole selves- our voices, our bodies, our hearts, souls, and minds.

What he wants are disciples so committed to him, so in love with him, that thankfulness and obedience become intertwined. Where they compliment one another day in, day out. What he is offering is more than just cleansed bodies, he offers cleansed beings. Hearts, souls, spirits renewed through the faith in the faithful one! He seeks a relationship with us, as a people, and as individuals. A relationship with a master whose mercy is so great we call out for it even at a distance. A master whose mercy is so true that he gives it before we even begin to kneel at his feet. This is the God we worship! This is the God we know and love. Remember his words of healing and wholeness! Remember his words “Rise, my child, your faith has made you well.”

This thanksgiving, this obedience, this faith. They are all intertwined. Our lives should be full of them all in order to experience the life of a disciple of Christ.

We had a study of Ann Voskamp’s 1000 gifts last Spring. In it Ann speaks of the eucaristic life, a life lived in thanksgiving. Giving thanks to God in all situations, in all things, at all times. Living a life of thanksgiving leads to a life of faith and obedience that we cannot begin to describe.

These do not guarantee perfection. They do not guarantee a life lived without struggle. Instead they allow us to walk through the struggles of life understanding that we are not the ones in charge. Understanding that the great God we love and serve holds all of us in hands that love and care. It is sometimes hard to see. This week with the horrors of Haiti and the devastation of the South East Coast after Hurricane Matthew it might be hard to picture a provident, caring God. But that does not mean God cares any less for God’s creation. I see God at work in the amazing preparation efforts that saved countless lives with advanced warnings and evacuations. I see God’s mighty hand moving through the recovery efforts already beginning again, even in places like Haiti who feel all they have done for the past decade is recover. I see God in this small denomination called the CP church already beginning efforts to help their fellow children of God in Haiti by planning mission trips and providing funds to aid those in need.

And in seeing God’s actions I am moved. I hope I am moved to gratitude, but perhaps I am first moved to obedience; to follow the call Jesus issued to “love thy neighbor.” May we all be moved to obedience and gratitude, to living lives that are full of both so that we may live lives of the faith that makes us whole.

Luke 16: 19-31

(Originally preached in 2007)

I have to be completely honest with you all this morning. This scripture has been eating me alive all week long. Seriously! I could not figure out what to say about it, what God wanted to be heard. In fact I almost gave up and sought out another scripture. This passage from Luke just seemed so hard. And to a congregation that has been through so much it didn’t seem to fit. But, I read the scripture and my notes again and realized there was a message for all of us after all. I just didn’t see it at first.

This parable is about an unnamed rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. It follows Jesus’ many teachings in Luke to the Pharisees, the elite of his day. Jesus tells of a rich man who lives a good life, with good things. The Pharisees would have identified with this man, after all the common held belief was if you were rich it was because of God’s favor or blessings. Outside of his gate, Jesus says, lived a poor man, ill, hungry, and in need, with only the neighborhood dogs for company. To the Pharisees this would not have evoked sympathy for Lazarus, they would have felt disdain for him for daring to sit in front of the gate of a wealthy man, begging for food, what a disgrace. If they thought God had blessed the rich then it stood to reason God has cursed the poor.

Jesus tells the crowds that both men died, reminding them and us that rich or poor we are all mortal. It’s the next line and the following that would have shocked the hearers of Jesus’ words. Jesus tells them that the rich man looked up from Hades and saw Lazarus with father Abraham. What? If wealth was a sign of God’s favor or blessing then why is the rich man in Hades, and why is that filthy beggar with Abraham? The rich man calls out begging Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with some water. Abraham replies with words that would have made the Pharisees shake in their boots. “You received good things on earth and Lazarus evil, now he is comforted and you are afflicted.” The rich man then begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his living family members that they might not suffer the same fate. And again his request is deigned. Even from Hades, the rich man cannot imagine that Lazarus isn't there to serve him and his purposes. Though the rich man is in agony in the flames, he is still completely focused on himself—his thirst, his family, what others can do for him. Regardless, Abraham will no longer allow Lazarus to be exploited. The tables are turned.

“If they did not believe Moses and the prophets they will not believe when someone rises from the dead.”

I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the crowd as Jesus had once again scored a major point for the oppressed and downtrodden. But what does this parable really mean to us this morning? Is it a description of the afterlife? Is it a God’s gonna get ya so watch out text? No, not really. Parables were not told about a specific place, person, or time. Rather they were teachings about how to live, NOW not in the afterlife, but in our lives here today!

You see, the rich man could be anyone of us. We live, as we know, in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Not all of us are millionaires, some of us even struggle to pay our day to day bills, but we are still wealth in the terms of the world. And so there is a certain kinship with the rich man. But I think the true kinship is in our inability or unwillingness to see, really see. The rich man lived in his home in comfort and bliss while a man sat dieing a slow death outside of his gate. While Lazarus dreamed of edible garbage and kept company with dogs, the rich man lived a life of comfortable pleasure. He might have seen the vagrant that loitered outside of his home. But did he ever truly see Lazarus, the human being, the son of God, who just needed some food?

No, he didn’t really see Lazarus. Even in Hades, he never speaks to Lazarus, just about him and around him. What happened to the rich man should
be a life-changing experience--a destitute at his
door, his own death, but nothing is his demeanor or
attitude is different--it is still all about him.

Isn’t that often the case, it is about us? I was reminded of a story about St. Francis of Assisi by a friend recently. There are many legends about the amazing power Francis had with animals. One of them tells us that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, there was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals.” Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, but the saint pressed on and when he found the wolf he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis. “Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil…” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” (Here I picture Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, come to rehabilitate the wolf and the town into a pack that can get along). So, Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens he made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had “done evil out of hunger” the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly, and in return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks.

The town’s folk had never questioned why the wolf was attacking; they only saw him as dangerous and a threat to their own survival. They were, as a result, blind to his need for food.

Too often we live a life that is blind by choice. We chose to not see the hurting in our community. We chose to not hear when our neighbors yell and fight. We chose to not see the men gathered near a store front hoping to get hired on as a day laborer. We chose not to see the group of homeless men and women who have taken up residence under the interstate on ramp. We chose not to see those in our own congregation that are in need of financial, emotional, and spiritual assistance. Why do we do this?

Because to see means we must do something, or come to grips with our own selfishness. We cannot be confronted by true need and not be changed. And so it is easier for us to live lives that are quite, peaceable, and unaffected then to seek out relationships with persons in need. Throughout the Gospels we are taught to care for one another, even in manners as small as the sharing of loves and fish. We are told that the kingdom of God is unlike the kingdoms of this world that devour widows and orphans, that attack the alien, that abuse the poor. And yet, for some reason we do not see!

Do we live our lives hearing and talking about the gospel, but never letting it in? Are we constantly divided by a chasm we cannot not cross because of our sinful selfishness? On our own we would not even notice this chasm let alone have a thought to cross. Unfortunately, that is how we often try to live our life; on our own. But the chasm can be crossed, thanks be to God, Jesus crossed it for us. If nothing reaches us, touches us in this life, than we cannot rejoice and celebrate in the freedom Jesus gives. It is out of grateful hearts that we use our hands for the work of God. It is with thankfulness that we fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It is with humble hearts that we give to Habitat for Humanity, to the Heifer Project, to missionaries both here and abroad.

What we can learn from this parable is a better way to live, in the here and now. A better way to show the Love of God and our love for God, through being instruments of his peace. St. Francis wrote a prayer to that effect once and it was turned into a lovely hymn that I would like to share with you as we reflect on this passage and it’s meaning in our lives.

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your
love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in
you.

Chorus:
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring
hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

Chorus:
Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal
life.

Good Christian Sex: Why Chastity Isn’t the Only Option- and Other Things the Bible Says About Sex. A Book Review

I am a thirty-seven-year-old clergywoman. I have been married for fourteen years to the same man. He is a clergyman in my denomination. We met in Seminary. It was his last year, my first year, and he showed me the safe place to shop in the big city of Memphis, TN. A month later we were dating exclusively. A month after that we were engaged. Five days shy of knowing each other a year we were married.

Why would I give this information in a book review?

Because my husband and I decided to read this book together. Yes, a book on Good Christian Sex was read every night by two clergypersons. And to be honest, I think this book led to the first real and meaningful conversations about sex that we have ever had with one another! I would recomend this book based on that fact alone!

When I first proposed reading thiss book together we both began to feel like nervous teenagers. Talking about sex made us uncomfortable to say the least. The fact that we were going to talk about God and sex completely freaked u out.

By the time the Reverend McCleneghan explained the intent of the book “to lay out some of the theological and ethical questions that arise in your average, everyday experience of adult sexuality, and to walk readers through those discussions in a clear and engaging way” (page 11) my palms were sweaty. Just what might she mean by “average, everyday experience of adult sexuality?” I’m not really sure I think about my own adult sexuality, let alone the everyday variety!

My husband and I got through the introduction with the occasional laugh and felt a bit better. The we started the first chapter called “My Favorite Feel” and all bets were off! “My reticence,” writes McCleneghan, “ to speak about pleasure and the solo pursuit of it is not just because it’s embarrassing as all get out. It’s also because I’m a woman talking about the solo pursuit of pleasure. Much of our cultural conversations around sex and pleasure is highly gendered.” (page 19)

This particular quote sent my husband and I down a lengthy rabbit trail. While the topic was initially awkward, the conversation began to get easier. We were able to share our thoughts, our preconceived notions, the things we had been taught.

The attitude my husband had been raised with about sex was very different from the one I was raised to believe. Most of his revolved around the stereotypical “Don’t do it, but if you do, use a condom.” While mine was squarely out of the “Purity movement” of the mid to late 1990’s. The attitude that “Sex is dirty. Save it for your spouse.” It is this mentality that led me to struggle with sexuality and appropriate expressions of sexuality for a VERY long time.

McCleneghan makes wonderful arguments for the blessed nature of sexual relationships. Her discussion on the fact that the Christian church tends to be very Gnostic in its beliefs, valuing the spirit over and above the body. This heresy is still dangerous to us today, because by denying the humanness, the body, we deny that the incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus Christ) is necessary, or indeed, holy.

These thoughts gave each of us pause and opened us up to much more productive conversation. But the real “ah-ha” moment for me came on page 53 and 54:

There’s a grace, then, in sexual intimacy that is mutually pleasurable. There is a grace in deeming someone worthy enough to see and know you; there’s a grace in being seen by someone in a new way . . . and maybe even coming to see yourself in a new way. There’s grace- and passion and delight- in coming to know another’s scent, another’s taste, another’s body, and to see oneself as having a particular, and beloved, scent, taste, and body

I think I cried for two days after reading this passage I had never seen sex as a means of grace. I had realized that my relationship with my husband was a means of grace. Through it I have learned so much about how beautiful and painful love can be. But the thought that God could use something that I had been told for 23 years was “bad” or “dirty” as a way to show us love and intimacy shocked my system.

These words helped me see something I had never been able to see before. They helped me see that mutual love and affection, yes, even physical affection, could not only be good, but could be holy.

There are so many other things that I have learned and I am beginning to realize through reading this book. There are so many things that together my husband and I are learning about one another and our relationship through the discussions we have had and continue to have about this book.

If I could say one thing to the Reverend McCleneghan it would be this:

Thank you for being brave enough to talk about adult sexuality and faith in the same breath. Thank you for digging into the hard questions, from defining sex, to consent, to past histories, which have allowed such open conversation between me and my husband. Thank you for taking sex back from a world that has made it cheap, disposable, and dirty. Thank you for reclaiming the presence of grace that can be found in such a sacred union. If nothing else, you have helped this pastor/wife/mom of three realize that there is so much more to the issue than “Just say no” or the equally upsetting “just do it!”



********

I received a free copy of the book after agreeing to participate in a Book Tour, with no promises made in exchange.

Be Dishonest

Luke 16:1-13

I honestly like my house. This may be the first home that Steven and I have lived in that I really liked. It’s not the nicest house in the world, maybe not even the nicest on my block, but I like it. We put down new floors this summer and I really enjoy the laminate flooring we have.

I feel settled, secure, safe, perhaps for the first time in my adult life. We live in a nice neighborhood with kids about the same age as our kids running around. It’s a quiet neighborhood, except when my neighbor has his band over practicing like he did last night. I have wifi, cable TV, the roof doesn’t leak and the air conditioner runs well enough. I like the security of my situation. I don’t have everything anyone could want by any means. In fact, there are dozens of things I can think of right off of the bat that I’d like, starting with a car big enough for my family, but even with that I know that I am blessed and more than that, fairly content.

And that my friends, might be why I really don’t like our parable for this morning. It is unsettling. It is disturbing. It is confusing. I don’t like it, and I am not alone.

The most common thing I read when studying this text, the thing almost all commentators agreed upon was this: This is perhaps the hardest passage in the Gospel of Luke, perhaps even in all of the Gospels.

The parable of the dishonest manager is troubling at best and worrisome at the very least. Why would Jesus tell this story? Why must it be so unsavory? Why must it be so confusing? Why tell a story about money to begin with? After all money is a touchy subject and when a church or preacher bring it up it makes people uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that many, including me, try to avoid the topic at all costs!

And why tell this story about money, Jesus? Why tell us a story where the ending is so unsatisfactory? Why tell a story where the bad guy wins?

There is a strong taboo in our society against speaking of or preaching about, money. But in Luke, and throughout scripture, God makes it very clear that money matters. Why talk about it so much if it doesn’t? I think one of the main reasons it gets brought up is that people in Jesus’ day, just like today, struggled with money. How much is enough? How much do I need? How much do I share? And while this parable doesn’t give clear answers it does “present us with characters who also struggle with money, characters with mixed motives and yet who change overtime in relationship to their circumstances. Characters, perhaps, not unlike ourselves.”[i]

That is the beauty of parables. They are stories connecting the ordinariness of our life with the extraordinary nature of God. They give us a glimpse into the present not yet kingdom of God. And while today’s is certainly difficult, its goal is to illuminate a part of the kingdom that is hard for us to see.

What happens in this parable is hard for us to understand. I think with our 21^st century understandings of the world, everything about this passage is wrong. The steward or manager is told he is fired and so he goes and cheats his boss out of a large percentage of profit and then he is commended by that same boss for his shrewdness. To do this he goes and negotiates with these debtors with no real authority to do so. This goes beyond bad business practice; this kind of stuff will land you in jail. From the capitalist perspective he is guilty of all charges.

But perhaps some of what we see here is in our world view, most specifically our economic world view. We forget that biblical times were not the same as today. We forget that charging interest for loans was forbidden in Jesus’ day because it exploited the most vulnerable. Exodus 22:25-27, Leviticus 25:36-38 and Deuteronomy 23:19-20 all say do not charge interest.

Theologian Barbara Rossing says “We pray in the Lord’s prayer ‘Forgive us our debts’ but when we encounter a debt collector who actually reduces poor people’s debts by 20% to 50%- namely, reducing their debts to what was probably the original amount borrowed, without hidden interest charges- our first instinct is to judge him.”[ii]

Here we have a man reducing debt and he seems like a bad guy. Why is that? Well partially because he is seen as cheating his master out of potential gains. So we get put off by these actions. But the master, he commends the man for these actions. Not only that, but Jesus tells the crowd to make friends with dishonest wealth so that you will have a place in the eternal homes. Clear as mud right?

But maybe we are looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps the economics of the situation are clouding our vision. Let’s try something else. Perhaps if we look at this parable through another modern day parable.

Biblical Scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer tells this story:

When she was in her junior year of high school she played a trick on a teacher based on this very scripture. This was a VERY unpopular teacher. Students thought she was humorless and inflexible as well as very, very odd. A lot of teachers occasionally let the class order and chip in, one by one, for pizza to munch on during class, but not this one. A few friends and Sarah decided to see what this teacher was really made of.

They collected money from peers, sworn to secrecy, to buy pizzas for the whole class.

Sarah ordered the pizzas in the teacher’s  name, but had the cash on hand to pay for it.

The pizzas arrived, with the deliverer proclaiming that "Mrs. ____" (the teacher) had ordered them. The teacher looked flummoxed and panicked.

But within a second, Sarah sprang to her feet and said, "Mrs. _____, it's SO generous of you to buy pizza for the whole class. But I can't do that. Some friends already pooled some money for lunch, and we'll spring for it."

Her teacher had a choice to make in that moment. The whole class was applauding her for ordering pizza for all -- which she hadn't done. She looked at Sarah with a raised eyebrow, accepted delivery, and then paid for the pizza.

She could have let the class eat pizza but let the class pay for it, but Sarah thinks the teacher is a good person, and she decided that since everything was disrupted anyway, she might as well accept the acclaim of the class for her generosity, even if it wasn't her idea.

She had an in-between choice not available to the landlord of the "Unjust Steward" parable: she could have accepted the applause of relaxing class discipline, but refused the cost of the pizza.

But things were already upset. She did what I probably would have done in her shoes, and took the applause and affection of the crowd. She was a little different from then on; Sarah thought she saw a glint of mischief in her eye after that, and Sarah likes to think it was a glint that was always there, but was before suppressed. I suspect she wasn't so married to the order of a traditional "orderly classroom" as they all thought, and she welcomed the freedom to do things differently.

Maybe the landlord in the parable felt the same. Maybe he felt freed to function in ways that would make him a "Bad Landlord," but a better human being.

The Steward in this story doesn’t tell the farmers that he has been fired, that he has no real authority to make these changes, any more than he tells them that the landowner didn’t authorize this generosity.

“The result is that the farmers believe that the landowner is more generous than just about anyone else in his position would be. The landowner is now a hero in the farmer’s eyes- and the steward is also, by extension.

Dishonest this manager may indeed be, but he understood how to use what was entrusted to him for a greater good. We should take note of that Jesus says. How much more must the children of God do with the riches entrusted to our care?

What, precisely, is it that the steward does, albeit without authorization and with deception?

The steward forgives debts.

“The steward forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for past misconduct. But that's the decisive action that he undertakes to redeem himself from a position from which it seem he couldn't be reconciled, to the landowner any more than to the farmers.”[iii]

Forgive. Forgive everything. Forgive it for whatever good or bad reason you may have, or for no reason at all. Forgive for every reason in the world.

Forgive because you were forgiven. In the realm of God, debts are forgiven and slaves are set free.

This is so radical to us because somewhere along the way being in debt became normal to us. Owing someone something, whether it be money, favor, power or pride, became an everyday occurrence. Somewhere along the way we lost the freedom in God’s vision for God’s people. We stopped hearing the joy of God’s voice telling us that we are all beloved children of God, just as we are. Somewhere along the way we buried our treasures and are not sure where to find them.

What is important is not how much we have, how much we accumulate, how much we are owed. What matters is how we use what resources we have in light of our relationship to God and to those God loves. We, my friends, you and me, we have been entrusted with the resources of God’s kingdom. Will we act on behalf of God’s kingdom with the same sense of urgency and creativity as if our own personal well-being depended upon it?

You cannot serve two masters. It’s there in black and white, or red and white if you have a red letter bible. We are kidding ourselves if we think we can have two separate lives, one Sunday mornings and another the rest of the week. We cannot bounce back and forth between serving two masters when it is convenient.

“When faced with the pronouncement that we cannot serve God and Mammon we might do well to remember that whereas the Lord’s attention, care, and providence are constant; Mammon proves to be a pretty fickle and ultimately untrustworthy master.”[iv]

In the end my friends, this parable is like so many of Jesus’ parables. It expands our knowledge of the kingdom by pushing us to look outside of what is comfortable and into what, through Christ alone, is possible.

---

[i] David Lose, Working Preacher 2013

[ii] Barbara Rossing, Working Preacher 2016

[iii] Sarah Dylan Breuer Dylan’s Lectionary Blog 2007

[iv] David Lose . . . In the Meantime

Lost and Found

(I was really impressed by and influenced by Jill Duffield's take on the scripture this week.) 

Luke 15:1-10

I will admit to feeling very lost this week. While I know where I am, and for the most part what I am to be doing, I feel a bit, lost. You see, this week my beloved Milo, my pet and companion for 16 years had to be euthanized. It was a difficult decision, but the right one for Milo and for our family. But I feel lost without him, like my anchor has drifted just enough to make the surroundings seem unfamiliar.

I was reading an article by the Reverend Jill Duffield this week about today’s text of the Lost Sheep and lost coin. She said “The World never looks as big as when someone is lost.” And while I know that Milo is no longer suffering, while I know that he is in a better place, the world seems very big and slightly more frightening to me without him there.

“The world never looks as big as when someone is lost. This is the last sentence from an article  in The New York Times about Japanese families who continue, five years after the tsunami, to look for loved ones lost in the great wave that overtook the island. They are so desperate to find their lost loved ones that some of them have learned to deep sea dive, repeatedly taking to the ocean to search. Daily, one woman takes food, her missing daughter's favorite meals, and throws them in the sea. "You will do anything for your child," she said.

Years have not eased the urgency of the search. The man who dives in hopes of finding his wife says, "I have no choice but to keep looking."

This morning on the radio I heard that a GoFundMe site has raised $130,000 to fund the search for two American hikers missing in Pakistan. The site was updated with the following: "Our friends and the families of Kyle and Scott are working vigorously with local Pakistani heli, porter, and fellow climbing teams to locate them on the mountain. Weather has not been in our favor. Visibility is next to none. Heli has not been cleared to launch. Our rescue team at basecamp has attempted to climb the descent route but have been turned back due to weather. They will continue to try with each window of opportunity."

The world never looks as big as when someone is lost."[i]

In the aftermath of 9/11 there was news of a small chapel 100 yards from the towers that had survived. There is a book about it called “The Little Chapel that Stood” Some firemen hung their shoes on the fence and ran to help the people in the towers. One line reads “Oh what gallant men did we lose/ who never came back to get their shoes.”

The world never looks as big as when someone is lost.

The parable that we heard this morning from Jesus, about the lost sheep and the lost coin, stop before the perhaps better known story of the prodigal son. That particular text is covered in another Sunday. Today we get the first of Jesus’ responses to those who are criticizing him for his habits. They do not like the people he is associating with, the people he chooses to be seen dining with in particular. They are down on him for spending time with tax-collectors and sinners.

Jesus turns to them and tells them these two stories. One about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin.

What in Sam hill do a lost sheep and a lost coin have to do with sinners and tax-collectors, one might ask. Those of us who have made it around the lectionary a few times know that Jesus is equating those called sinners with those things lost. But it is an interesting point to think on.

What does the scripture mean when it says sinners? Sinners were individuals whose pattern of sinning were so well known, so a part of their identity, that the whole community is aware of the sin. Sort of like how a lot of families have an Uncle Jim, you know, the one who drinks too much at every family event and winds up cussing out grandma and apologizing to the refrigerator. (You don’t have one of those? Must just be me then)

Well then if sinners are habitually fallen, who are the righteous? These were not holier than thou people who pretended to be perfect. The righteous were those who tried their best to really live by the law.

Here we have Jesus being friendly with those who should not have been in polite company. Jesus is extending his reputation to those he eats with and Jesus has had his fair share of meals with Pharisees in Luke. Jesus is hanging out with the riffraff and the Pharisees, the decent folk are none too pleased.

That leads me to ask something. When we see people outside of our particular community, do we see sinners? Or do we see the lost? That’s an important distinction my friend.

If we see sinners, then we can easily pass judgement. They know they are in the wrong, they know they are less than, they should know their place, and it certainly isn’t here.

 But if we see lost ones, might that change the way we interact? We don’t blame them for being lost, there is no fault finding of the sheep or the coin in these parables. Would we instead seek to bring them into safety and shelter, like Jesus?

When we see people as lost we would go to great lengths to recover them, if they are of value. There is the rub. Of value. What do we value? Have any of you lost your car keys? How long did you search? Until they were found.

Have any of you lost your cell phone? How many times did you call it to find it? How long did you look? Until it was found.

I lost my wedding ring two months after Steven and I got married. We were setting up for a fall festival at the church I was serving. I was stuffing a Piñata and took off my rings so that they wouldn’t accidentally end up inside. Once that job was finished we went to each with the rest of the church in the fellowship hall. Then we had the festival and broke the piñata and gathered up the trash and started to leave.

I realized as I was walking to my car that I did not have my wedding rings. Steve and I went back inside and tore the place up looking for those rings. Someone from the church went and got his metal detector and we poured all of our trash out on the corner of Mendehall and Walnut Grove Road in Memphis, TN. We found 37 foil topped jelly packets but no ring.

The next Sunday this Gospel reading was the reading for the day and the children’s message was a plea for anyone who might have seen the rings to give me information.

A week later the rings turned up, in someone else’s pocket book. Her son had placed his pile of candy on a shelf and when she came to pick him up he racked the candy, and my rings, into her purse. She had been looking for change to buy a coke and she pulled out my ring. Her son exclaimed “That’s Mrs. Cardelia’s mom, keep digging, there are two more!!!”

The rings were important, but compared to losing a child in the store, they were nothing. How much more would you seek a lost pet? How much more would you seek a loved one who didn’t come home from school or work one evening? Or maybe a son missing on a mountain? A daughter washed away by a tsunami? Someone lost in the rubble of collapsed buildings?

The world never looks so big as when someone is lost.

Jesus will do anything for the lost children of God, in fact he is setting his face for Jerusalem in Luke, towards what he knows will be his death, so that the lost might be found. No price is too high to pay.

You see my friends, these parables are not about the sheep or coin choosing to become better, or different before being welcomed back into the fold or purse. They are about the grace of God.

The grace that seeks even when it seems extravagant. The grace that sweeps even when it seems pointless. The grace that searches even when all others have given up hope.

Duffield says “The common denominator, however, is sin and Jesus' relentless desire and unquestionable power to overcome the division, isolation, destruction and pain of the separation it causes. He has set his face toward Jerusalem in order to recover the missing, find the lost, save the doomed.

The world is never so big as when someone is lost. Thankfully, Jesus has the whole world in his hands: sheep, coins, prodigal sons, sinners, tax collectors, Pharisees, scribes, you and me. Therefore, we can rejoice."

My friends, church is a place for all of us who feel lost, righteous or sinner. In the end these parables are really about a God who loves us so extravagantly, so crazily that God will do anything to find them. To find us.

---

[i] Jill Duffield Looking into the Lectionary:24^th Sunday in Ordinary time (September 11)