The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 25

No Chasms

Proper 21

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16:19-31

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  Jesus tells this parable only Luke’s Gospel.  It’s based on a folk tale that exists in many cultures—the story of one who is rich and one who is poor and how their fortunes are reversed in death.  This parable follows only a few verses after the Gospel passage from last week.  Jesus is still talking about money.  Last week’s parable and this week’s begin with exactly the same words:  “There was a rich man.”

Last week’s parable was very complex and difficult to interpret.  At first glance, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus seems pretty straightforward.  But have you really thought it through?  Does it really sat that if you want to get to heaven you have to be like Lazarus?  Really?  Really like Lazarus?  Poor to the point of starvation and disease?

Throughout the Gospels again and again Jesus does show a preference for the poor.  And he warns against the perils of wealth for those who seek righteousness.  We heard those warnings, too, in today’s Epistle from First Timothy.  Beware an overweening love of money.

But this parable is not about poverty or wealth as the determining factor for where you go after death.   The primary message of this parable is not to say that the rich will always be tormented in death and the poor will receive comfort.

Thinking about that reminded me of competitive wrestlers who are always trying to shave just enough ounces off their body weight so that they can retain their strength but compete in a less competitive weight class.  If I can just get my net worth down another $2,451.63, hopefully it won’t affect my lifestyle, but then I will be poor enough achieve rest in the bosom of Abraham after I die.  That’s not the point of the parable.

If we are meant to identify with anyone in this parable, it is not Lazarus, nor the rich man.  Neither of them is presented as a model for us to follow.  If we are anyone in this parable, we are the rich man’s siblings.  They, after all, like us, are still living.

The message to them of this parable is:  Don’t build chasms between yourselves and others.  Do not spend your life building chasms between yourselves and other people.

The chasm is an important part of the parable.  Abraham says to the rich man:  “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”  The chasm has already been fixed.  Now it cannot be crossed.

The rich man built that chasm in life.  The rich man spent his life building the chasms between himself and Lazarus.  That’s what he did wrong.  That’s the message of this parable…  the message the rich man’s living siblings need to hear. 

In life, the rich man built the chasm between himself and Lazarus.  Every time he walked passed Lazarus at his door without really seeing him.  And that would have been often.  Every time the rich man didn’t really see Lazarus, his neighbor, he built the chasm.  Every time the rich man failed to show compassion for Lazarus’ needs, he built the chasm.  Even in death, the rich man is dismissive of Lazarus, treating him like a slave…  a water boy or messenger.  The rich man built and fixed the chasm.

Don’t build chasms, Jesus says. 

This parable is mostly about money, about a chasm defined by what today we would probably call income disparity, or economic injustice.  As Abraham says, on Jesus’ behalf, Moses and prophets are pretty clear in their teaching about economic injustice.

The Law of Moses as it is written in the book of Leviticus says:  share the harvest with the poor and the transient.

The Law of Moses as it is written Deuteronomy says:  Open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and poor in the land.

Or listen to the Prophets.  Isaiah says:  “Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked cover him… “

As we consider the meaning of this parable for us in our lives today we might interpret it even more broadly.  Every time we fail to see someone else as fully a child of God… we build a chasm between ourselves and them.  Whenever we are indifferent, or overlook, someone else, or treat them (even passively) as somehow less…   we build a chasm.   Whatever the reason…  race, age, intellectual ability, economic status.  Whenever we fail to see or fail to treat someone else as being fully a child of God, we build a chasm.

No chasms, Jesus says.  No chasms, in this life or the next.  No chasms between the children of God.

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 18

Love or Anxiety

Proper 20

Luke 16:1-13

Collect

The parable we heard in this morning’s Gospel is pretty universally considered to be Jesus’ hardest parable.  Hardest to interpret.  There is no way to understand it that seems palatable or fits with our image of Jesus.

There is a general principle in Biblical interpretation that says, basically, that the harder or less comfortable a passage is, the more likely it is to be original or authentic.  No one would have made up something like this that makes Jesus seem so strange…  “the master commended the dishonest manager…”  “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth…”

So Jesus most likely did really tell this parable.  So we should grapple with it.  We should work to try to understand what these words mean for us in our lives.  But the best place to do that is in group Bible study.  This is a complicated, difficult parable.  Study of it needs to be active… interactive, so we can explore it piece by piece and in discussion with others.  We have two Bible study groups here at St. John’s…

I have preached on it in the past (For example, HERE).  I’m not going to today.  I want to focus on the collect.

It’s a particularly good prayer and it has nostalgic interest for me.  It was one of the favorite prayers of an old friend of mine, sort of a surrogate grandmother.  I would visit her and we would do jigsaw puzzles together.  She could quote this prayer word for word and found it a good prayer to live by.

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.

It is an ancient prayer, although apparently new to us in this Prayer Book.  It’s origin is in the 6^th century.  As the Prayer Book commentary says, it  “reflects the tumultuous times of the barbarian invasions…”  It was written at a time when Christians faced serious and violent threats from invading armies.

Like so much of our Prayer Book, its origin is in the Bible.  Colossians 3:2 reads:

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

What really catches my attention in this collect is that it sets up anxiety and love as opposites.  Anxiety about worldly things is at one end of a spectrum.  Love of things heavenly at the other end.  Those are the alternatives.  One or the other.  Anxiety or love. 

One way that makes sense to me is to think of love as cherishing what we have, being grateful for what we have been given.  Anxiety fears to lose what we have.  Anxiety is all about fear.  Fear of loss.

What are you anxious about?  We all have anxieties, large or small.  What is the source of your anxiety?  What are you afraid to lose?

Is it money or possessions?  Mammon?

Are you anxious about losing your health?

Do you fear the loss of your security?  Any kind of security.

Are you afraid of losing someone you love?

Whatever you are afraid to lose…  give it to God.  Place whatever you are anxious about fully into the care and love of God.

I expect for most of us if we are anxious about losing money it might be a good idea to take this instruction literally.  And give more of our money to God.  But mostly I’m talking something spiritual.  Entrust our anxieties to God’s care.  Place those things we are anxious about into the realm of God’s love.

And there’s a wonderful thing:  When we give something or someone to God, we don’t lose them.  We don’t lose what we give to God.  We only lose the anxiety. 

There’s a wonderful prayer we often say at funerals.  It’s not the Prayer Book, but iti’s been around for a long time.  We pray:  Almighty God, “What is thine is ours always, if we are thine.”

What is God’s is ours, if we are God’s. 

If we are God’s.  That’s the other piece of all of this.  We place our fears and anxieties in God’s care.  But we also place ourselves in God’s care.  We are God’s beloved.  We are cherished and cared for by God.

The image that comes to me is a familiar one.  In my imagination I’m standing behind a child and an adult walking along.  The adult is a parent or someone dear to the child.  And they come upon some small danger or uncertainty.  The curb at a street crossing, a large crowd, something loud or frightening.  And the child instinctively reaches up to take the adult’s hand.

We are that child and the adult is God.  Reach for God.  Cling to God.  Hold fast to God.  Hang onto God’s heavenly love, which will never pass away.

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 11

The Really, Really, Really Attentive Shepherd

Proper 19

Luke 15:1-10

Sometimes the titles that we have assigned to Jesus’ parables really get us off track.  The two parables we heard this morning are usually called the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin.  Some of you may have heard in the past that it would be better to call them the parables of the “found” sheep and coin.  And that would be somewhat better, but it’s still not great.

Because the parables aren't primarily about the sheep or the coin.  The sheep and the coin don’t do anything in these parables.  They certainly don’t repent.  To turn these parables into allegories about a sheep or a coin that repents totally misses the mark.

In her book on Jesus’ parables (Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi), Amy-Jill Levine focuses on how Jesus’ parables would have been heard by first century Jewish listeners.

It is unlikely a first-century Jewish listener would hear [these] two parables and conclude that they have something to do with sheep repenting or coins confessing.  Sheep eat, sleep, poop, produce wool, and give milk—but an awareness of sin or a sense of eschatological salvation is not part of ovine nature.

The sheep and the coin are totally passive in these parables.  They are just props.  It is the shepherd and the woman who are active, who are the focus of the stories.

A commentator writing on these parables notes (David Schnasa Jacobsen, HERE):  Action verbs predominate for the shepherd --- leave, go after, finds, lays it on his shoulders, rejoices, comes home, and calls together his friends. The same holds for the woman: light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully, finds, and calls together her friends.

Jesus’ parables are meant to startle us, to bring us up short.  They start in a familiar place but end with an unexpected twist.  They invite us into a familiar world and then reorient our vision.

So what is startling about these parables?  What is unexpected?

That the missing sheep and coin are noticed, that their absence is recognized.  Equally unexpected is that this one sheep and single coin are worth moving heaven and earth to find.

I don’t know how much experience you have with flocks of sheep.  I see them every summer.  Try to picture a flock of a hundred sheep.  Sheep tend to look like rocks; it's hard to tell them apart from a distance.  They congregate in clumps here and there.  Sometimes a sheep or two will wander off or from one clump to another or a group will head off in search of grass.

Now imagine you’re the shepherd.  Maybe you stop for just a minute to help one sheep in some sort of distress, or you look away from the flock for a minute to see if a wolf is coming over the ridge, or maybe you take a short nap in the heat of the day.  Are you going to notice that one of the 100 has wandered out of sight?

That’s what most startling about this parable.  That the lost sheep is noticed, missed.  That’s not the world we live.  Where one unremarkable individual among 99 others is missed.  But it’s the world Jesus invites us to enter in this parable.

And not only is the one sheep missed.  It is worth extraordinary efforts to find.

We might retitle this parable:  “The really, really, really attentive shepherd who cares.”

The shepherd cares for the individual, but also appears to want the flock to be restored as a whole.  This may be a bit of an interpretive stretch.  But it seems like the individual sheep is worth looking for not just as an individual sheep but also for its importance to the flock.  The flock is incomplete without each individual sheep.

One puny, unremarkable sheep among a hundred others. A sheep interested, presumably, only in its next meal.  Not caring whether it is lost or found.  One passive, essentially lifeless, totally indifferent coin of modest value.  Both are missed.  And, apparently worth extraordinary effort…  extraordinary effort that they may be found and restored to their place.

This powerful desire of the shepherd and the woman to find what is lost…  Theologians call it prevenient grace.  The word “prevenient” means  “that which goes before.”  Prevenient grace or mercy is divine grace (care) that precedes human decision.  It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done.  God’s grace is extended to us before we do or think or act or anything.  It’s not dependent upon our choices or actions in any way.  It’s only about God’s care for us.

We are always being sought.  Whether we think we are valuable or worthless, significant or insignificant, faithful or faithless, penitent or prideful.  We are always being sought.  In these parables, the seemingly small or insignificant is missed and worth extraordinary efforts to find.

And once the sheep or the coin is found, then the celebration begins. 

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 4

The Value of Following Jesus

Proper 18

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Luke14:25-33

The image or metaphor that Jeremiah presents in today’s Old Testament reading is a rich and powerful one.  God as potter.  God as artist, creator, shaping and reshaping God’s people as the clay.   Although Jeremiah manages to make it sound like a threat, it is a wonderfully hopeful image.  As one commentator said, in this image we are not finished yet, not fired, not brittle.  God’s creative work in us continues, shaping us for good, as Jeremiah says.

As most of you know, I’ve been preaching from the Old Testament prophets recently.  Remember that image of God, the potter.  But today I want to spend some time with this difficult Gospel passage.

What was Jesus thinking?!!  What was he doing?  Trying to run people off?  Trying to turn people away?

Or trying to turn the Jesus movement into some sort of Army ranger unit where only a tough, select few are included?

Jesus says:  “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Today’s passage concludes with Jesus’ words:  “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Maybe he was just trying to get people’s attention?  More than one commentator thinks that Jesus’ words are hyperbole.

The definition of hyperbole is:  an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally…  a deliberate exaggeration used for effect.

(It’s good to be able to recognize hyperbole during an election cycle…)

Hyperbole.  An extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally…  a deliberate exaggeration used for effect.  In an effort to get peoples’ attention.

And some of the hyperbole may be Luke’s.  The comments in my annotated Bible on this passage say:  “Hate is used in vigorous, vivid hyperbole, the parallel passage in Matthew reflects Jesus’ meaning.”  The parallel passage describing this same event in Matthew isn’t exactly easy, but it’s not as harsh as Luke.  In Matthew, Jesus says: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me versus whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple…

Discipleship is the topic in both of these passages.  Being a disciple of Jesus.  Following Jesus.  I don’t know what sort of connotations discipleship may have for you, but take a step back and think about what it really means.  It means sharing Jesus’ life.  Being with Jesus.  Having some part of the relationship he has of being one with God.  Walking with him, yes, towards the cross.  But sharing the journey of transformation and resurrection beyond the cross.  Sharing Jesus’ life.

These passages in Luke and Matthew are often titled “The Cost of Discipleship.”  That’s very misleading.  It implies that there is a cost to be paid to acquire discipleship.  Discipleship is not a commodity that can be bought.  Nor is it an Army ranger unit where only the strongest, the best, the richest, the smartest… can succeed.  Yes, discipleship is not fluff, a casual hobby to be picked up from time to time…  That is undoubtedly part of Jesus’ message.  That discipleship is serious business and that’s a message we need to hear, too.  But don’t ever fall into thinking…  if I only pay enough, or if only I sacrifice enough, I can purchase the prize.  There is no assigned cost that we must muster, small or large, for the purchase of discipleship. 

If these passages aren’t about outlining the cost of discipleship, what are they about?   As I reflected on the Gospel this week I was thinking about the risk of discipleship.  What are the risks of becoming a disciple of Christ?  It was the examples that Jesus gives in Luke’s version that raise that question for me.  The builder who can’t complete the tower and faces ridicule.  The king who faces certain defeat in battle.  Is it about being mindful of the risks of discipleship?

That is definitely a question worth pondering….  What are we willing to risk to be Jesus’ disciples?  But it’s an odd message for Jesus.  I have to think it’s not Jesus’ main point.  Don’t begin this journey of discipleship if you can’t finish it??  Don’t follow me if you can’t bear the risk??  It’s so contrary to Jesus’ message elsewhere.

For me, the best way to think about these passages is about the value of discipleship.  The value of being disciples of Christ.  Value and cost are very different things, as you know.  That’s true throughout our lives.  Jesus is talking about the value of discipleship.  And he challenges us to acknowledge that we don’t recognize the value of following him.

So to get us to think about the value of discipleship, Jesus talks about other things that we do value.

If we value mother or children more than discipleship, the solution is not to love family less.  The issue is to ask why we don’t love Jesus more.   If we value our family relationships, why do we so little value our relationship with Jesus?

If we value our reputation, our success, our image, so much that we will do anything not to risk or lose them, then we don’t recognize the value of sharing our lives with Jesus in everything we do.

If we cannot imagine anything more valuable than all of our possessions, then we don’t recognize the true value of being disciples of Christ.

It’s good news, amazing news, to think that Jesus offers us something as valuable as discipleship, as the opportunity to share his life with him.

Let us pray that God, the potter, will continue to re-shape our eyes and our hearts and our minds so that we will recognize the true value of being disciples of Christ.