Ordinary 24C -- September 15, 2013

Wandering Toward Home

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³So he told them this parable: ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. ⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

I keep having the same dream.  Actually, it isn’t a dream – more like variations on the same nightmare.  Every few months, a terrifying dream will wake me up in the middle of the night for three or four nights in a row. 

All of these bad dreams have a similar trajectory.  One or both of my children are missing. Sometimes in my dream we are in a big, crowded, scary place and both of them slip away from me.  Or I dream that I wake up in the morning to find David’s bed empty and he’s gone without a trace.  Or we’re on vacation and Rachel doesn’t meet us where she promised to meet us and I look for her everywhere I can think of in an unfamiliar city.  But she’s gone.   Sometimes, in my dream, I am paralyzed and can’t even dial a phone to call the police to help me find my missing children. 

The power of these dreams to mess with me is really startling.  Even as I describe them out loud here today, my heart is pounding and my eyes are tearing up.  If a fleeting dream of losing someone precious is enough to cut me to the core, how much more shattering is it to experience real loss in real time, in real life? I know many of you could tell me stories of losses that have shaken you beyond what you could imagine surviving.  

That kind of lump in your throat, ache in your gut loss that messes up everything in your life is at the heart of the story we’re gently unwrapping today in the gospel of Luke.  Especially as we hold up this image of the woman in a darkened house, on her hands and knees, panic-stricken, looking everywhere, in corners, under chairs, in the garbage can, in coat pockets, in crevices on the floor, frantically searching for that one small coin.  A small coin of enormous value to the woman, because it is a coin that may be all that stands between her family and starvation.   The image of this unnamed woman quietly lurks in the gospel of Luke between two, much more famous stories of lost sheep and a prodigal son, and it’s easy to overlook her if you’re not paying attention.

And I wonder…if we can so easily see God as a shepherd leaving behind 99 sheep to find the one that is lost, and if we know God as the father welcoming back the prodigal son, then maybe we can also imagine God as a woman – maybe a very old woman – who has experienced the loss of something so precious that she will not rest until she find it.  Perhaps she can give us courage to proclaim that the treasures we believe are lost forever are not lost at all.  Perhaps she offers us the comfort in knowing that all our losses are precious to God, because God has been down on the floor with us on our hands and knees, searching and hoping that the lost coin will turn up. 

Just for a moment this morning, let us imagine God as this woman, an old woman.  Imagine a woman who is growing older, her face covered with lines, her steps slowed, her eyes tired and red from weeping.  Her hearing is not what it used to be and she must strain to hear even familiar voices.  Yet, she remembers everything.

The old woman pulls a scrapbook from her shelf, opens it, and slowly begins turning its pages, looking at the faces of her children, seeing all the beautiful colors of their skin, all of the varied sizes and shapes of their bodies.  She can still remember with incredible clarity when the world was brand new and her children were young.  And she marvels at their accomplishments over the thousands of years – the music they have written, the gardens they have planted, the skyscrapers they have built, the art they have created, the amazing and beautiful ideas they have spun over time.  Their philosophies and theologies and their vague, sometimes desperate stabs at truth-telling.  Every moment when the old woman thinks she cannot possibly love her children any more than she already does, she recalls something else about them – their bad jokes, their readiness to come to the aid of someone in need, their earnestness in trying to do good – she thinks of all their unique gifts and she loves every one of her children even more. 

But there are also pages in her memory book the old woman would rather skip.  There is so much she wishes she could forget about her beloved ones.  She remembers her children spoiling the beautiful home she created for them and all the ways in which they put one another in chains.  She sees her children racing down dangerous roads, unable to stop them.  She remembers the dreams she had for them that they never fulfilled because her children were too fearful or too stubborn.  And the old woman’s eyes fill with tears as they always do when she remembers the names – too many names – of her children lost through war and famine, earthquake and accident, disease and suicide. 

God remembers all the times she has sat alone and wept of love for her children because she could not, would not stop the process she set in motion.  It is God who gave her children an freedom out of her love and respect for them.  And in return, God endures the pain they have managed to create out of that great gift of free will.  

So when God goes looking for her children, she isn’t at all surprised that we do our best not to be found.  She isn’t the least bit put off by every excuse we give about why we stay away.  “We’re busy, “ we say.  “We’d love to see you but we just can’t come tonight.  Too much to do.  Too many responsibilities to juggle.”  

God knows that we avoid being found because we don’t want to look at that aging face.  God understands that we are disappointed.  She knows that we have a hard time facing a God of our childhood expectations.  God didn’t give us everything we wanted.  We didn’t get the success we wanted from our work.  We didn’t get triumph in every battle or a life free from pain and loss.  The old woman understands that we would much rather stay lost because we don’t want her to see our disappointment.  God knows all of this, she knows we’re tired and hurting and sick of sin, and yet her deepest desire is to see us, face to face. 

And what if we did allow ourselves to face God?  What would it be like to finally be found?  I mean really, really found?  What is it like to be caught in the light of God? What happens when we step out blinking into the brightest of lights after spending months or years in darkness, concealed like a sticky old penny in the seat cushions? 

If we imagine God as that old, old woman, we might imagine that she would invite us into her warm, comfortable kitchen and pour us a cup of tea.  We might be nervous about what she might say to us, but we might be even more afraid of silence.  I imagine we would fill the first hour or so with lots and lots of chatter.   

Even as we sat there, sipping tea, chattering away about nothing, God would see everything.  She would see us newly born and dying.  She would see our birth and our death and all the years between.  Our years when we were young and thought there was nothing we couldn’t do.  She would see our middle years when our energy was unlimited and every moment had a purpose.  When we worked and cooked and fixed and wrote and volunteered and cleaned and drove and it seemed like everyone needed us and we had no time to sleep, although what we really, really needed more than anything was to sleep.  And then God could see us in our later years when the chaos is replaced by relentless quiet when we no longer feel needed by anyone and we are lucky to sleep at all and when finally fall into a fitful sleep the nightmares awaken us and leave us shaken and makes us wonder if we truly are lost to everyone, even to ourselves.

God sees things about us that we have forgotten and things we do not yet know.  For no matter how hard we try to hide from God, nothing about us is hidden from God’s sight. 

When God has finished looking at us, she might say, “So tell me.  How are you?”  That is when our chattering stops and we are struck dumb.  We are literally frozen, afraid to open our mouths and tell her what she really matters about us:  whom we love, where we hurt, what we have messed up or lost completely, what we wanted to be when we grew up, how far away we are from being the people we wanted to become and how far away we are from the being the people our God intended us to be.

When we look into the deeply lined face of the old woman, all we can sputter out is, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”  And the old woman looks right back at us, the beloved child she’s been waiting for, longing for, even dying to see…and utters the only words we have ever needed to hear:  “I forgive you.”

Those three words make everything new.  And unbelievably awesome.

“I forgive you,” are the words uttered by the thoroughly exasperated yet utterly relieved shepherd when he finally manages to find, probably for the third time this week, that one, pesky, ornery lamb who keeps wandering off to find adventure and always manages to get himself good and lost. 

 “I forgive you,” are the words uttered by the father who finally wakes up from the unspeakable nightmare of the lost child he thought he’d never, ever see again but look – there he is! – that lovable goofball trudging up the hill toward home – no longer a reckless youth, certainly older and hopefully wiser.  How long do you think that prodigal son will stay?  Although the story doesn’t say so, I’m willing to bet that after a couple of months or years, that same reckless son will probably go back out into the world and maybe even get lost again. 

And even when we are in the company of the wise old woman who has spent our lifetime waiting for us to get it together, we will eventually get the itch to be lost again.  I am afraid that is just how we are made as human beings – full of curiosity, aching to learn and create and notice and wander into trouble as easily as we draw breath.  The old woman knows this better than anyone.  Yet, when we get up to leave, we promise her that this time we’ll do better.  We won’t let so much time pass between visits. 

But as we are about to leave, God will stop us, draw us very close to her, and hold our face in her two hands and say:

“Do not be afraid.  I will be faithful to the promise I made to you when you were young.  I will be with you.  Even to your old age I still will be with you.  When you are grey headed, still I will hold you.  I gave birth to you.  I carried you.  I will hold you still.  When you are lost, you will find me.  Because I am here.  I am here.  I am here. You are never lost from me.  No matter what happens, I will find you.  You are mine.”

I heard an interview this week with one of my favorite pastors, Nadia Bolz Weber who serves a church in Denver, Colorado.  What I love about her church is that they are very, very faithful to a traditional liturgy in worship, yet they innovate in ways that really make sense to even a traditionalist like me.  For example: her church celebrates the Easter vigil on the Saturday night before Easter using an ancient liturgy  -- a three, three-and-a-half-hour-long service at night. The service happens outside in the parking lot of the church and everyone gathers around a new fire burning in the darkness.  As it gets close to midnight, the congregation parades up to the front door of the church.  They bang on the door, it opens up and everyone parades into the sanctuary where all the lilies are out and there are candles burning and all the people sing "Alleluia!" for the first time since Lent started.  They have communion together and baptisms. 

And then they have a huge dance party right there in the sanctuary. I mean, a huge party. As Nadia says, she and her congregation feel like nothing says Christ is Risen like a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font,.

⁹When she found it, the woman calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, and even the lost son all end with a party.  When the lost ones finally turn up, Jesus conjures up this great celebration of friends and families.  Because with God, the lost never stay lost.  What looks like death is redeemed and reclaimed and restored into a bright new life worthy of a really great party complete with dancing and laughter and bread and wine and maybe even a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font. 

We can grumble like Pharisees about the guest list and stare with resentment at this seemingly random crowd of sinners and saints that keep showing up with Jesus.

Or, we can consider ourselves blessed just to have found our way back home.  Again.

“What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”[1]

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

(Parts of this sermon were inspired by and adapted from,“God is a Woman And She Is Growing Older,” by Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig, in Reformed Judaism, Fall 1992, pages 26-28, 44)

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[1] Buechner, Frederick.  Godric. cf. “Tom Steagald’s Preaching Journal.”  www.goodpreacher.com on 9/14/13.

Ordinary 23C -- September 8, 2013

No One Left Behind

Luke 14:1, 7-14 

(Gospel reading from Ordinary 22C preached on September 8)

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.

 ⁷When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. ⁸“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; ⁹and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. ¹¹For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” ¹²He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Let us begin with prayer:  Oh Holy God, we know we are your creation, filled with value, fully loved and known by you.  Give us strength, we pray, to allow ourselves to be known and loved by others.  Through Christ, we pray.  Amen.

I’m not sure that every couple has this problem, but it’s been a big one for my husband and me.  Mitchell is a surgeon and I am a minister, so we move in quite different worlds during our workweeks and have friends with very different backgrounds.  We do not entertain often – maybe once or twice a year -- so when we invite people over it’s impossible to limit the guest list to only “my friends” or “your friends” or even “our friends.”  Our parties usually end up being a big mishmash of guests, most of who have very little if anything in common other than being friends with one of us. We’ve hosted stockbrokers, bagpipe players, therapists, college professors, seminary students, teachers, attorneys, stay at home moms, physicians assistants, secretaries, ministers, doctors, rich people, poor people, white people, black people, Chinese people, hipsters, vegans, vegetarians, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, kids, babies, teenagers, college kids, little old ladies, gay people, straight people, atheist, Hindu, Christian, Jew – very often all of them at the same time, in the same house, occasionally watching Steelers football which, I must say, is the great social equalizer and spiritual unifier on Sundays in Pittsburgh.  I am pretty sure Jesus will let me get away with saying that this week because everybody knows that God is a Steelers fan.  

Well, maybe not this year.

But it’s always risky business.  When you throw different people together as haphazardly as we do, there’s always the risk that the polite Emily Post dinner party we envisioned can devolve into something more like a fiasco.  There’s always the distinct possibility that somebody is going to say or do something that causes an impolite quibble. Even when I limit the liquor and try to head disaster off at the pass with a whispered warning to potential troublemakers while collecting coats. 

But sometimes the best-laid plans go awry. Like when the attorney for a school district got into a heated debate with a high school teacher who just happened to be the head of the local teachers union.  That was fun.  Or when the president of a synagogue met up over the buffet table with a pro-Palestinian seminary student who had just returned from Israel.   Those are the sort of evenings when I wish I had required our guests to wear a nametag with their name, rank and serial number and a list of acceptable conversation topics that won’t lead to mayhem over the Buffalo wings.

But you know whom I really would think about leaving off the guest list?  Jesus, that’s who.  Because Jesus doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who reads Emily Post.  Jesus doesn’t innocently wander into uncomfortable conversations. Jesus creates uncomfortable conversations. In fact, you can’t invite Jesus anywhere in the gospel of Luke.  He always manages to make a scene when he shows up for dinner.

For example, in chapter 5 of Luke, Jesus goes to the home of Levi for a big party with a guest list including tax collectors and other offensive sinners.  This sketchy gathering stirs up all kinds of issues for the Pharisees who end up calling Jesus and his friends a bunch of drunks and gluttons.  Then, in Luke chapter 7, Jesus is at another dinner party and this uninvited crazy lady shows up.  Most people would send such an unwelcome guest out the door, but Jesus lets her cry all over his feet and it’s all so embarrassing and sort of weird that the Pharisees end up madder than hornets.  A couple of weeks ago, we saw how Martha and Mary practically got into a fistfight when they invited Jesus to dinner.  And of course, in Luke 22, at the last dinner party Jesus hosted, he ends up getting betrayed, arrested, and dragged off to prison in handcuffs, bringing an otherwise very pleasant evening to a very abrupt end.

Even though he has proven himself to be just about the worst party guest ever, Jesus has been invited – again -- to a Sabbath dinner at the home of a Pharisee and from the get go Jesus is not behaving as the sort of guest who hopes to be ever invited back.  Jesus does not really care much for small talk.  He does not bite his lip or hold back on offering an opinion, especially an opinion that is apt to tick off his host.  Instead Jesus quickly hones in on the dining customs of his hosts and Jesus decides he doesn’t much like what he sees.  Because what Jesus sees is a social hierarchy in which everyone knows their place based upon the seat they are assigned at dinner.  The most important people in the group, the people holding the highest honor, are seated on the right and left of the host.  The host didn’t necessarily have to like those people seated next to him; those were simply the seats for the guests who called the shots in the community. 

And Jesus begins innocently enough by saying that nobody should come into a dinner party assuming they’ll receive the seats of honor.  That would be, I don’t know, sort of show-offy and nobody likes a show-off, even Pharisees. No, Jesus says – better to be humble and head for the peanut gallery rather than to automatically go to the head of the table and risk looking like an idiot when somebody asks you to move.  You can imagine the guests who hear this parable murmuring in polite agreement with Jesus.  After all, there’s nothing controversial in feigning humility.   In fact, everyone thinks it’s kind of charming when someone important or famous demonstrates how very humble they are, really.  It’s like that section in People Magazine: “The Stars – They’re Just Like Us!”  They go to the grocery store!  They take their kids to the playground!  They go to baseball games!  They carry their own luggage through the airport!  Everyone admires important people who pretend they’re not really as important as everyone thinks they are.  Even if nobody actually believes that Ben Affleck carries his own suitcase through LaGuardia Airport.   Really, if you were Ben Affleck, would you carry your own suitcase?

Everyone who exalts themselves will be humbled.  And those who humble themselves will be an exalted.  It’s all a little game for these Pharisees.  Jesus knows that it’s all an act.  Jesus knows that while he’s watching the social maneuvering of the party guests, the Pharisees are watching him closely– again – to see how Jesus behaves.  This isn’t about who sits where at dinner.  It’s about the larger power structure that Jesus has been poking at since his first sermon back in Nazareth.  And the Pharisees are watching Jesus and wondering:  has Jesus decided, finally, to play along?  Has Jesus decided to behave like a good rabbi and stop coming so dangerously close to upending a carefully constructed hierarchy?  Is Jesus going to keep making trouble for the guys who already have the game rigged in their favor?

Well, it is Jesus we’re talking about here.  Jesus is that terrible dinner guest you regret inviting because he ends up ruining everything.  The guest who insults the cook and informs the host that the people at this party are no fun at all and he needs to find some better friends.  

Who does Jesus tell us to invite?  The poor, the blind, the crippled and the lame.  And this is where Jesus gets in trouble with the Pharisees – again – and with most of us if we’re being honest.  This is the part of the story where we become either defensive or…well…even more defensive.  Because who does that? Who invites the most feeble people you can imagine to a party?  Who invites a homeless guy to their house for dinner?  I spent most of this week feeling really defensive and sort of put out because I would much rather give away all my possessions and go live like a monk in a cave than invite people I don’t know to my house.  Jesus is really asking too much of us here, isn’t he?

Then it came to me.  Jesus isn’t talking about the dinner party he wants us to give.  He’s talking about the dinner party we are called to receive – that great and crazy banquet God throws for all of us.  All of us who are truly are, deep down, blind, lame, poor, insecure, frightened, broken and dysfunctional people who waste enormous amounts of energy pretending that we are not.  All of us who need to stop depending on something, anything, everything outside of ourselves to tell us who we are.  We are all invited guests at God’s table of grace, whether we like the other people at the party or not.  If you’re going to have dinner with Jesus, the food will be incredible and the wine will never run out, but you will also probably find yourself at the table with other people with whom you'd never choose to have a meal, much less an eternal banquet.  That’s the great joy of the kingdom of God and also the great pain in the butt of it.

The film Little Miss Sunshine is the story of a girl, Olive, who has been chosen as a finalist in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest. So she and her incredibly nutty family head off for an 800 mile road trip to the pageant in a Volkswagen van that barely works.  In fact, in order to get the van moving, the family has to push the van until it reaches a speed of 20 miles per hour and then they all jump in and turn on the engine.

Olive is a chubby little girl with big glasses. At one point Olive says: “I don’t want to be a loser because Daddy hates losers.”  Olive’s father is a failed motivational speaker and most of what he says in the movie consists of clichéd aphorisms that make fun of people for being losers. The irony, of course, is that it’s absolutely clear to the audience that Olive’s father is a total loser and by most standards, so is the rest of the family.   When Olive’s father says, “There are two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers,” the camera pans round the people in the van: his foul-mouthed father, his suicidal brother-in-law, his son who refuses to speak, his exhausted wife who is trying to hold them all together, and himself, the failed businessman.

But there’s a great moment in the film when the family discovers that Olive isn’t in the van because they’ve left her behind at a gas station. We see the van moving across the screen in one direction and the whole family whisks her up into the vehicle without stopping because at this point, if they stop they won’t be able to restart the van at all. Then we hear the father’s voice: "No-one gets left behind, no-one gets left behind."

And I think that’s sort of the point that Jesus is making in this parable he unloads on the dinner guests.  In the kingdom of God, no one gets left behind.  No matter how broken.  No matter how difficult or annoying.  Which means that gotta reach out and pull one another in and then hold on for dear life in this broken down, sputtering old van that we call the church. 

It’s like that game people sometimes play when they’re on a boring road trip.  You know this one.  If you were able to invite three people to have dinner with you, living or dead, who would you pick?  That’s always a hard one.  Since you’re in church, you’d probably pick Jesus as one of your guests.  Then maybe George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.  Maybe Ben Affleck.  Who knows?

But if Jesus were playing the game, you’d ask:  “Jesus, if you could invite any three people to dinner, alive or dead, who would they be?”  And Jesus would reply, “That’s easy,” and go on to give us a full glimpse of who Jesus is and who he cares about.  “The poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”  “But Jesus, that’s four!  You only get three.”

“Oh in that case, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, your mother, your jag off brother, that guy you can’t stand at work, Bashar al-Assad, Barack Obama, Mother Theresa, Mister Rogers…”

The list goes on.  And on.  And on.  When Jesus throws a dinner party, the guest list is everyone. And that’s good news for us.

Jesus is establishing a new humanity that has no place for our insecurities and hang-ups and prejudices and craving for order.  That is why Jesus was so frightening to those who had a stake in keeping the higher ups high and the lowly low.  That is why those who were invested in a social pecking order – which, of course is all of us -- eventually put Jesus to death.  But this is the Jesus who came back and lifted his hands up in an eternal blessing, inviting all of us to a new vision where there is enough for everyone, no first or last, no honor or shame, just us, bound to one another in God’s abundant love and grace.  So we can show love and give all we have -- even to those who have nothing to give us in return. 

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Homewood Renaissance and House of Manna

We were glad to welcome Reverend Eugene "Freedom" Blackwell and his wife Dina "Free" Blackwell to Emsworth U.P. Church to worship on September 1st.  Not only do we pray for Rev. Blackwell's complete recovery from his leg injury (he preached from crutches -- ouch!), we will also keep Freedom and Free in our prayers as they seek to follow Jesus through their service to God's people in Homewood.

Here is more information about Homewood Renaissance Association

http://youtu.be/bVnDVe7NsfI

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4332278-74/blackwell-homewood-community#axzz2djm0MEoQ

And also about Rev. Blackwell's church in Homewood, a new church development in Pittsburgh Presbytery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D75edxHlqE&feature=share&list=PLDF094CA1F116B106

Ordinary 21C -- August 25, 2013

“Healing From The Outside In”

Luke 13:10-17

¹⁰Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. ¹¹And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” ¹³When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. ¹⁴But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” ¹⁵But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? ¹⁶And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” ¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

This is a very strange time of year, isn’t it?  Summer is not quite over, the leaves on the trees are still deep green, the temperatures still hover in the mid 80’s, yet the calendar is relentlessly beckoning us toward September. 

For those of us still ruled by the rhythm of the school year, this is the season in which we launch our children back into the classroom.  I drove Rachel back to Ohio last week before classes began so she could receive training as a teaching assistant for one of the freshman history classes.  I can’t believe she is a senior this year and has supposedly learned enough to be a source of wisdom for new kids entering her college. 

David enters sixth grade, which is even more mind-blowing to me.  And, I admit, his return to school is weighing heavily on me this year.  Because my beloved son is about to enter that swirling whirlwind of toxic hormones otherwise known as middle school.  When I was 12, we called it junior high, but from what I’ve observed with Rachel and my nieces, the particularly miserable rite of passage otherwise known as adolescence hasn’t changed much in 40 years.  Because David is autistic, his ability to navigate social situations is challenging even on a good day.  So I’m not sure how well David will cope in the wild world of middle school where the social hierarchy and terms of engagement can change on a daily, if not hourly basis.

We’ve done our best over the past few years to prepare David for his larger world.  David goes to therapy and has access to all kinds of help at school.  David is one of the lucky ones; he is a very bright kid and he has parents who love him beyond belief and will do whatever it takes to support him.  But no matter his intelligence or how much we support him and love him, David will never, ever be entirely “normal” by conventional standards.  We cherish him exactly as he is, but he will never be able to navigate social situations as well as other kids.  David will very likely never be healed of his autism.  It just is what it is.  Worst of all, perhaps, he knows it and sometimes I can see that knowledge weighing him down like a Sponge Bob backpack filled with bricks.

Our story in Luke today is about a woman who is also weighed down by a heavy and burdensome spirit.  She is given no name in the text – history has already named her, judged her and labeled her by her appearance.  She is the “bent over woman,” identified only by what is wrong with her.  As she is introduced to us in the gospel, we get the sense that she too has become accustomed to living life as it is, bent over with her eyes focused on the ground, cut off from the larger community around her.  No clue is given in this text about why she is the way she is.  We do not know if her physical condition is caused by illness, injury or disease.  But she had clearly been hobbled by something or someone somewhere along the line.

Luke tells us it is Sabbath and the people have gathered in the synagogue.  Jesus is teaching, the men are gathered in the front of the room, and the women are in the back – a standard practice in 1^st century Judaism.  And we can imagine the bent over woman quietly making her way to her seat, perhaps coming in a little late so she will not be noticed.

It must have been so difficult for the bent over woman to come to the synagogue.  I wonder why she keeps showing up.  She must have great faith because synagogue could not have been the most hospitable environment for someone like her.  She cannot see Jesus speaking.  And with her eyes continually cast down toward her feet, she cannot see the pity-filled faces of the women around her.  Or perhaps she has been that way for so long that the other women no longer pity her. Maybe they do not even notice her at all.  Perhaps the bent over woman has become invisible to them.  After 18 years…well, it just is what it is. 

But, for some reason, Jesus notices her. Jesus sees a small female figure way, way back in the synagogue and calls her over to him. He lays hands on her and she is able to stand up straight for the first time in 18 years.  And her response is to praise God. 

This is no metaphorical healing.  It is a healing real enough to get the attention of the people, particularly the ones in charge.  This is not the first time Jesus has stepped over the line and pushed the boundaries of Jewish law.  Jesus has touched and healed “unclean” people before – lepers, bleeding women, dead people.  And Jesus healed on the Sabbath before – the man with the withered hand and man possessed by a demon. 

What happens next is what usually happens when Jesus is around.  And the reaction of this leader of this synagogue is pretty much the same kind of reaction Jesus has encountered before.  The leader is ticked off because Jesus has broken the RULES.  There are rules, Jesus.  This woman has been crippled for 18 years!  You couldn’t wait another day to heal her? 

It’s a good question, isn’t it?  Why does Jesus keeping breaking perfectly clear rules?  And why does he keep breaking rules so publicly?  Why does Jesus deliberately walk into situations and do things that will only get him in trouble?

Jesus has been drifting in and out of synagogues throughout much of Luke.  In fact, he began his ministry in his hometown synagogue where things also didn’t go so well.   But it doesn’t seem as if he’s going into synagogues to find people to heal.  He doesn’t need to go to the synagogue to find sick, blind and crippled people.  Those people manage to find Jesus just fine on their own everywhere he goes. 

When Jesus goes into a synagogue, he seems to have a different sort of healing in mind.  Jesus seems to be trying to heal the synagogue itself by calling out its institutional addiction to ritual and religiosity.  Especially when that addiction to following rules comes at the expense of vulnerable people way back there in the back row, hiding in the shadows.  And if following Sabbath law means ignoring the human condition that comes hobbling into the midst of the community, not only does Jesus want no part of it, he also will call out the leadership clinging to those laws for they are.  Hypocrites.

Yup.  That’s what Jesus calls them and it certainly seems appropriate. After all, Jesus says, don’t you treat your animals well on the Sabbath?  Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey and give it water on this holy day?  What better day than the Sabbath to set free this woman, this daughter of Abraham, who has been suffering for eighteen long years, right here in your community, right under your noses?

Now I know what you’re thinking.  The leader of the synagogue is a jerk, right?  At the very least, he is certainly a poster boy for insensitive church leaders.  He certainly doesn’t care about the healing of this daughter of Abraham, does he? 

Yet many of us in the church have a similar stake in keeping disorder out of our orderly sanctuaries.  Whether we mean to do it or not, we feel the need to keep things safe and tidy and predictable.    

Because, after all, once you start making exceptions for this reason or that reason, pretty soon nobody is keeping Sabbath and it’s lost all its meaning.  And it’s not just the Sabbath, is it?  If you keep making exceptions, doesn’t the 10 commandments become something more like the 10 suggestions? 

But notice what Jesus doesn’t do when he is in these holy places of worship.  He does not compliment the synagogue leaders for running a tight ship.  He does not compliment them on their excellent music or beautiful flowers or flawless preaching.  What Jesus does is seek out what is most broken in the community because that is the only way to reveal the brokenness that was so well hidden.  The only way to heal that brokenness is to reach out to the margins and pull the hurting, the lonely, the least and the lost back into the center where they can no longer be hidden or ignored.  With that single move, Jesus deflates the status quo, but t a fresh new wind begins to blow through the community.  Those who were burdened are released.  The broken are healed.  Community is restored. 

This is the way it always seems to go with Jesus.  Jesus heals from the outside in, when he stands with the unclean, the undesirables, people at the very edge – to shame everyone else who has a stake in pretending everything is ok as long as they keep the rules.  Jesus is not a Sabbath breaker, but he is the One who demonstrates what Sabbath means, who God really is and God’s deepest concerns. 

When Jesus does that, the leaders are terrified because suddenly everything they stood for is pulled out from under them.  The leaders are terrified because Jesus shows they might be wrong about what matters most in their faith.  And worst of all, for this particular synagogue leader, he is shamed in front of his whole congregation.  Nobody likes to be shamed in front of other people.  That is a very big ouch.  Who does this itinerate rabbi think he is?

It is so easy for us to hammer the poor synagogue leader, and all of other pompous, arrogant, and smug guys who react to Jesus with fear and anger.  But then again, are we really so different? 

It is not that we do not see the one still bent over – the poor, the stranger, the widow and orphan. And it’s not so much about whether or not the healing of the bent over woman can wait until tomorrow.

The question is if we can recognize Jesus right in front of us today, offering us freedom from everything that weighs us down.  Freedom from how the world wants to define us.  Freedom to live into identities as children of God – all of us, sons and daughters of Abraham.

Do you remember the law about the Sabbath? There are two versions of the ten commandments, remember – and in the version given in Deuteronomy 5 we hear the instructions given to the people regarding Sabbath:

12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. ¹³For six days you shall labour and do all your work. ¹⁴But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. ¹⁵Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

Remember you were a slave.  Remember that the Lord your God has freed you.  Remember that God has given you this day as freedom from the bondage and oppression under which you once lived.   Remember that this gift is for everyone.  The Sabbath is not about what is restricted.  Sabbath is a gift of freedom. 

We need rules, we need order, we need a time for this and a time for that.  But if rules blind us to the grace of God we are lost.  We won’t see how Jesus is working on behalf of those who do not ask for anything anymore because, well, it’s been that way for so long and it is what it is.  But when we are on the outside looking in, perhaps even when we are trying our best not to be noticed by anyone at all, we will be called out by Jesus and all at once, there will a word for us that we did not ask for. (1) And that word is not law, but grace pure and simple.

The law is important, but it must always bow to mercy. The law helps us live better, but grace is the source of life itself.  Law helps order our world, but grace is what holds the world together.  Law keeps us in a safe space within the line, but grace beckons us to push against the margins to see just how far the Word can travel. (2)

For above and beyond all the laws ever received or conceived, the only absolute law that we dare not break is love.  That’s what Jesus said.  Love God.  Love neighbor.  Love God by loving your neighbor.  That’s all there is.  For me.  For you.  For middle school kids with autism and little old ladies with arthritis.  Love is all there is.  If we let it, love will heal us.  And love is always enough.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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1. Tom Steagald, "Preaching Journal", Lectionary Homiletics, August 22, 2013
2. David Lose, "The Law of Love," Working Preacher, August 18, 2013

Ordinary 20C, August 18, 2013

The Trouble with Gardening

Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ²He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

³And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. ⁶I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. ⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

The longest running show in musical theatre history is not “Cats,” or “Phantom of the Opera,” or even “Les Miserables.”  The longest running show in musical theatre history is a charming off-Broadway piece that opened in 1960 and ran for 42 years and 17,162 performances.   That show is “The Fantasticks.”  And unlike big budget  Broadway productions I’ve mentioned, “The Fantasticks,” has a simple set, only five main characters,  sparse musical accompaniment (a piano, a harp and drums), but a familiar, irresistible story line.  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl fall in love.  Boy loses girl.  Boy and girl get back together.  “The Fantasticks” also launched the career of Jerry Orbach from “Law and Order” fame, as well as the popular song, “Try to Remember,” which is just about the most beautiful song ever written.  Listen to Jerry Orbach sing “Try to Remember” the original cast album, and you’ll understand why the show lasted for 42 years.     

But there’s a another song in The Fantasticks that came to mind when I read today’s text from Isaiah.  In the second act, when the boy loses the girl, the fathers of the estranged couple try to think up a plan to reconcile the estranged lovers.  As it happens, both fathers are enthusiastic gardeners so they sing a song about how raising vegetables is a far easier task than raising children.  They sing:

Plant a radish.

Get a radish.

Never any doubt.

That's why I love vegetables;

You know what you're about!

Plant a turnip.

Get a turnip.

Maybe you'll get two.

That's why I love vegetables;

You know that they'll come through!

They're dependable!

They're befriendable!

They're the best pal a parent's ever known!

While with children,

It's bewilderin'.

You don't know until the seed is nearly grown

Just what you've sown.

There’s the same sort of parental bewilderment and disappointment in the song we hear today in Isaiah.  This is a love song sung by gardener who has put his heart and soul into his fledgling vineyard.  He sings about how he painstakingly dug up the soil to make it rich and fertile.  He sings about how he carefully picked out every rock.  Once the ground was prepared, he planted the choicest vines.  He put in hedges and walls to protect the vineyard from every kind of intruder and built a high tower so he could keep constant watch over the vines as they grew. Anticipating a generous yield of wonderful fruit, the gardener even prepared a big vat for the wine the grapes would produce.  All of this pleasant planting and careful tending would surely yield exceptionally delicious fruit.  How could this vineyard possibly fail?.  The gardener did everything right.

But like all those country songs about love gone wrong, this song from Isaiah takes a sad, sorry turn.  The beautiful grapes the gardener anticipated never grow.  For his trouble and toil, all the gardener gets is a few wild grapes that are gross and bitter and utterly useless. 

At this point in the song, the gardener turns to his audience and asks that sad, sad question, “What more could I have done?”  We all know the answer – nothing.  Nothing.  There’s nothing more the gardener could have done to get the good grapes.   

And indeed, that’s how it goes sometimes.  In gardening.  In raising children.  In careers and relationships.  Sometimes, you do everything right and despite your very best effort, you wake up one day to find yourself with a bunch of bad grapes on your hands. 

This was supposed to be a love song, but it is a love song without a happy ending.  But the love song quickly changes into something quite different because the gardener doesn’t just walk away, but gets really ticked off.   Angry.  Furious.  He will rip down the protective walls and hedges, plow the whole thing under and let the plot go back to seed and weeds.  That’s what the gardener will do.  It’s what the vineyard deserves for letting him down. 

The gardener finally commands the clouds to hold back rain and it becomes clear this isn’t just a story about a good vineyard gone bad.  We know what Isaiah is getting at in this text.  Duh.  This is not a song about an ordinary gardener, but a song about YHWH.  And this is no ordinary vineyard but the beloved children of the LORD of hosts, which is the house of Israel, and its vines are the people of Judah.

And YHWH expected more from them.  YHWH had always expected more from these people.  These were YHWH’s chosen ones, the people YHWH had loved and tended for generations.  YHWH expected mishpat (justice), but instead the people produced mishpach (bloodshed).  YHWH sought expected a harvest of tsedaqah (righteousness) but the people created tse’aqah (cries). 

Anyone who has ever poured his or her heart and soul into a relationship only to have it crumble into dust knows that punch in the gut feeling .  And sometimes it is a healthy thing to do what the gardener is doing here -- just step back and let things be, let the relationship lie fallow for a season or two, and try to resist the temptation to try to change a situation that has yielded nothing but bitterness. 

But stepping away does not mean the end of love.  I think God does sometimes leave us to our own devices, to stew in our own juices a bit, as my grandmother used to say.  But God’s love does not abandon us, nor does God’s love ever end.  It is always there, beckoning us back to life.  God’s love is as steadfast as God’s longing to see us yield the kind of fruit we were meant to yield.  Even in the darkest shadows of Isaiah, there is always a time of soothing healing.   After a time of  desolation, there is always tender and gentle consolation.  And after the deepest loss and darkest grief comes the light of hope. One small flicker at a time.  The light always comes.  God’s love does not end even in exile.

It always helps me to remember to whom Isaiah is speaking.  These are the people of Israel, more specifically the people in the south of the country, of the tribe of Judah.  And the history of Israel is all about a God of possibilities who somehow saw great promise in a group of people.  That God would choose the Hebrew people certainly proves Paul’s point that God loves to use the weak, the lowly and the foolish things of this world. 

Only God could see the possibilities in a rag tag group of people who began as a group of runaway slaves wandering around the desert, led by a stuttering shepherd.  Only God would continue raining down manna and quail on a group of people who never stopped whining and seldom said thank you for not being left on their own to starve to death.  Only God would bring the Israelites back from the brink of  what was often their self-inflicted disaster.  Again and again and again.

Even after they reached the Promised Land, this group of refugees never did become much of a super power.   Instead, they often found themselves kicked around and beaten up by a seemingly endless series of regional bullies.  Oh they had their moments of triumph, to be sure, and somehow these foreign nations never quite managed to absorb Israel into their empires.  The story of God’s people is that they survived against all odds.  In fact, I have Jewish friends who begin every holiday dinner with this somewhat flip but wholly accurate saying:  “They tried to kill us.  It didn’t work.  Let’s eat.”

In fact, it is safe to say that this little group of chosen people had only one thing going for them -- that God saw something in them that wasn’t at all apparent to anyone else.  God saw their potential – and sees our potential -- to become a people of justice, of righteousness, a light to the world, a people of peace.  In fact, God never has abandoned the vineyard.  In fact, God doubled down and entered into our overgrown, weedy garden in the human form of Jesus Christ.  And with that stroke of divine optimism, we have been cut down and set free to blossom.

See, I believe that every person who is born holds holy potential.  You, me, all of us.  Each one of us comes into the world as God’s choice vines, planted in the rich and loomy soil of love.  We need to stay connected to the nurturing power of God’s care and attention to grow into something more than our puny minds can imagine,  We need the nourishment that comes from our relationship to God and to one another.  We need to be fed with the living bread that does not perish and the font of living water, which never goes dry. 

I can’t help but picture God as this wildly optimistic gardener who goes overboard in lavishing care upon each one of us, fretting over us, hoping for the best of us but never really knowing what might grow.  And when we mess up – and yes, we do mess up -- Jesus and the prophets tell us that there will be pruning and fire and all sorts of trials that will be painful and all too real. God doesn’t abandon us in those moments, but suffers with us.  And when the smoke clears, God sees that there is always more potential in us to keep growing.    

This isn’t rosy, pie-in-the- sky optimism about suffering.  This is the stuff of life.  If you’re a gardener, you know the cycle of creative joy and misery.  You plant.  You prune.  You dig up and move a plant that’s failing in the hot sun and try it in a spot with a little more shade.  You trim when a plant is overgrown.  Sometimes you let a plot lay fallow to give it a chance to recover.  God does the same with us…God keeps coaxing and challenging and moving us forward.   

I was reading this week about the wildfires that have plagued the western states over the past several summers. On Colorado’s Front Range, near Colorado Springs, a wildfire last year burned more than 116,000 acres of forest, destroyed more than 600 homes and killed six people.  It was a terrible, devastating event that has, unfortunately, been repeated this summer in Colorado and other areas of the country.[1]

But two months later, on the scorched forest floors of Colorado’s Front Range, new aspen trees began sprouting up like crazy.  This is extremely good news as aspen trees in Colorado had been dying rapidly over the past ten years due to severe drought which was at least partially responsible for uptick in forest fires.  Aspens are an important part of healthy forest because they are not as dense as pine trees and firs, and tend to open up forests to light.  And when forests are more open, they are less likely to produce the sort of super fires are difficult to control. 

The cool thing about aspen trees is that their roots are incredibly deep.  Really, really deep.  So deep that even after a super fire when the soil becomes too damaged to support other kinds of trees, aspens are able to grow naturally once the fire is gone.  Even in the midst of a totally burned out forest of ashes and soot, brand new little aspen shoots just take off and grow like crazy.   All those dormant aspen roots needed was a little space, a little light.  It sounds terrible to us that it took a crazy, awful wildfire to give those new trees what they needed to grow.  But once they begin growing, those little aspen trees will be the basis of a healthy, beautiful forest into the future.

I think that is what we are to be as people and as a church.  Every life has dormant times in which we lay low, waiting for the light to lead us into something better.  In those times, we are to remain so deeply rooted in the love of God that we can withstand even the worst wildfires of life that hurt like hell, yet somehow hold deep within the potential for new beginning. 

Toward the end of “The Fantasticks.” the narrator, played by Jerry Orbach, steps into the center of the stage.  As a spotlight shines on him, he says simply:

“There is a curious paradox that no one can explain.

Who understands the secrets of the reaping of the grain?

Who understands why spring is born from winter's laboring pain?

Or why we all must die a bit before we grow again?

I do not know the answer

I merely know it's true”

We do not know why bad things happen.  We do not know why the fire comes or why the harvest fails.  We do not know why our hard labors sometime result in precious little, or why we suddenly find ourselves with blessings that seem to effortlessly fall into our laps. 

But we do know that death is not the last word and never will be.  Resurrection is good news for gardeners everywhere.  Resurrection is good news for parents and friends and lovers and children.  The reality of God’s love is good news for all of us unlikely, ornery people that God has planted in this time and this place, for the restoration of God’s whole garden, which is the whole world.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[1] “Sunlit Sprouts Emerging from Colorado Burn Areas,” The Denver Post, accessed August 15, 2013.  http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_21469126/sunlit-sprouts-emerging-from-colorado-burn-areas#

Ordinary 19C, August 11, 2013 -- Guest Preacher: Alan Olson

No Jesus, Know Fear; Know Jesus, No Fear

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23

¹The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

³Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him.

⁴He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

⁵“Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”

⁶The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah

⁷“Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.

⁸Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.

²²“Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.

²³Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God.”

Luke 12:32-40

³²“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ³⁵“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; ³⁶be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. ³⁷Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.³⁸If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. ³⁹“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

            When I was selecting texts for this morning’s lessons, I had a difficult choice to make. One of the other Old Testament readings in the Lectionary for this week is from the first chapter of Isaiah, and it includes verses 10-13:

1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;

1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

God strikes the same tone in Psalm 50, acknowledging the frequent sacrifices made by Israel, yet rebuking them all the same. The main charge against Israel is that the people are not making their offerings with thanksgiving. Rather, they are just going through the motions—sacrifice is an empty observance and God is not satisfied by this. The people of God have forgotten God; the price for this forgetfulness? God has the right to tear Israel apart. And the ending for today’s reading from Isaiah is about the same, as God says to Israel, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword.” That’s pretty scary stuff.

            This language of charges and rights and judgments almost seems to be borrowed from the courtroom. In fact, this is a common device in the Old Testament. Biblical scholars call this form a covenant lawsuit. God is placing the people Israel on trial for not living up to their obligations. Another place where you may have noticed this is in the Book of Micah, chapter 6, verses 1-8. In that passage, God lists many of the things that God has done for Israel, and then God demands that Israel answer for its shortcomings. I mention this because the answers to the charges that God raises against Israel are remarkably similar. In Micah 6:8, the prophet exhorts Israel to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Similarly, Isaiah instructs Israel to: “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

            It sounds easy, yet Israel seems to have trouble living into these instructions… and so do we. I think part of the problem, which is reinforced by these scriptures, is that God offers us heaping helpings of fear. Fear can be a great motivator, but sometimes it motivates us too well; it distorts the larger picture. For centuries, the Church has taught us that our main purpose here on Earth is to get into Heaven when we die. And if we obey what we’re told in the scriptures, and we live right, then we’ll get in. That’s it! Oh, and we should also be scared of going to Hell. Really, really scared. Fear helped to keep us in line.

            And then some crazy people came along and challenged some of these teachings. Crazy people, like Martin Luther and John Calvin, who didn’t believe in works righteousness, the idea that you or I could work our way into Heaven by doing good deeds or perfectly observing all of God’s commandments—if such a thing were humanly possible. Don’t worry. It’s not. Don’t worry.

            This is how Jesus begins this morning’s lesson from Luke: “Do not be afraid, little flock.” Jesus begins by dialing down the fear: “Do not be afraid, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Wow, that’s really happy and hopeful. Then, instead of telling us to be afraid, Jesus tells us how we should live, and that’s truly frightening: he tells us to sell all our possessions. Sell all our possessions!

            I can’t believe that none of you jumped up and ran out of here. You’re all going to wait to sell all your possessions until after church, right? Yeah, me, too.

            And this is where the widows and the orphans and the thankfulness come back into the picture. What Jesus is talking about, what Isaiah is talking about, what Micah was talking about, and what the Psalmist was talking about was living in a right relationship with God. To do this, we must thank God for the love that God has shown us, and then we must love one another—completely and unconditionally—just as God loves us. We call this agape love. I’m sure you’ve heard this term before.

            A great example of this can be found in Mark 12:29-31, when Jesus answers the scribe’s question, which is the greatest commandment: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

            Caring for the widow and the orphan, providing for the poor, advocating for the homeless, feeding the hungry, these are acts of love for our human family. We all talk about doing these things, and some of us do these things . . . some of the time. So let me ask you the uncomfortable question: When is the last time one of you sold an extra TV set, or an old car, and gave the money to charity? When’s the last time you went out to a restaurant and ate a really expensive meal? Could you have opted for a less expensive mean, and then, maybe made a donation to your local food bank?

            Before you start squirming in your pews, do not be afraid. I am not here to condemn you. I am no holier than any of you. I have also missed countless opportunities for acts of charity; I have failed, time and again, to live into that right relationship with God. And God loves me still, just as God loves each of you. Do not be afraid.

            Jesus is not calling for each of us to sell all our earthly possessions, though he is calling for us to let go of our greed and give freely of ourselves. Greed is an easy trap to fall into. Anxiety and fear can lead us to believe that we won’t have enough: enough food, enough money, enough love. So we hoard them when we can find them. This is a problem. The Apostle Paul might call this idolatry; at the very least, it seems that we are putting goods in the place of God, and in our hoarding, we disregard the needs of others.[1]

            In our disregard for the needs of others, we fail to practice agape love. Our failure works on another level. If our desire to hoard comes from a fear of scarcity, then we are also failing to fully trust in God. We’re not alone in this. Think of the Israelites, wandering through the desert. God led them out of Egypt, sent them manna, yet they complained about the accommodations on the trip. Even worse, they worshipped a golden calf while Moses was up on Mt. Sinai. They were not willing to trust completely in God. I think it’s safe to say that fear can interrupt a healthy relationship with God.

            Yet God did not let the Israelites perish in the desert. As many times as they turned away, God welcomed them back. What’s more, when the people of Israel continued to have trouble living in a right relationship with God, God entered the world in the person of Jesus. God’s only son was sent to teach us how to restore our relationship with God. What an amazing act of grace!

            And that restoration begins with prayer, as we were taught by Jesus. Let’s look at the language of the Lord’s Prayer. I do not ask God to provide for me. No. Collectively, we ask for God to provide for us just what we need—and nothing more! We do not ask for an abundance of resources; we ask for our daily bread. Our daily bread.

            It strikes me that the Lord’s Prayer is also a prayer of trust. By voicing this prayer, we are saying that we trust God to feed us, to take care of our needs. We ask God to provide for everyone; sometimes we are the instruments by which God provides for others, it is part of the cycle of trust and agape love. We trust that God loves us enough to provide for us, and we reflect that love and trust to those who cannot care for themselves. All the time, Jesus reminds us, “Do not fear.” This is the grace of God. “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace,” in the person of Jesus, “my fears relieved.” And with deepest thanksgiving, I say, thanks be to God! Amen!

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[1] Fred B. Craddock. Luke. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990.