March 24, 2019 Discipleship Luke 10:1-23

            Have you ever had one of those days when everything just went perfectly for you?  I’m sure you have but you probably wish there were more of them!

I feel like the seventy disciples that we read about Jesus sending out in the gospel reading had several back to back days like that.  While everything seems to have worked out perfectly for them, these Bible verses can cause us lots of problems; and not just because we may feel like we have to become like annoying evangelists who bug people by going door to door!

First, let’s look at the problems these pairs of missionaries had to face.  Jesus even says he’s sending them out like lambs into the midst of wolves.  They are to take no money and no provisions.  Jesus apparently doesn’t have much regard for the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared”!  He certainly didn’t issue them tents!  They are to be on the road for this missionary trip and depend upon the hospitality of strangers.

We usually want to slam the door on an evangelist who comes to our door.  How about if that evangelist pair came and asked if they could spend the night, and eat supper with you!

To be fair, hospitality expectations were different in those days.  It was a bit of an expectation to extend hospitality to travelers.

And apparently they should be prepared to stay for several days because Jesus tells them not to move from house to house.  I guess Jesus didn’t want them switching houses if they were getting boxed macaroni and cheese from one house while the smell of steak and lobster tails wafted over the fence of the next door neighbor.

Actually though, you get Jesus’ point.  Your evangelism work is not about manipulating your way into something better.  This was about preparing towns that were on Jesus’ itinerary that he would be coming.

And Jesus tells them that if they are rejected in one town they shouldn’t get too fussed over it.  Just move on to the next.  Notice Jesus doesn’t tell them to curse a town that rejects them.  Just tell them they’ve missed the chance to have the kingdom of God come near.

We need to be clear.  Kingdom of God and eternal life in heaven are not the same thing.  Kingdom of God simply means that God’s reign, God’s means of justice, and God’s love have come to them and they have rejected it.  So just move on.

            If there is anything we should take from this Bible passage it is that – to bring the kingdom of God near. 

No, I’m not suggesting going door to door.  That would backfire.  And don’t annoy people with preaching.  I’ve said before I cringe every time I’m on an airplane and the person seated next to me finds out I’m a pastor and then he or she decides I’m a good target to practice their evangelism spiel on.

No, I mean that wherever you are and whatever you do, let your words and actions bring God’s kingdom to life.  A key part of Luke’s gospel that we haven’t explored yet is agency.  An agent is someone who is empowered to work and make decisions on behalf of someone else.  Luke’s gospel teaches us that we are agents of God’s kingdom, agents of God’s reign.

Our role is to think and act on behalf of God.  Just like the seventy that were sent out, we are to bring the kingdom of God near.

Jesus has some harsh words for those who reject him.  He references Sodom.  You probably have heard of that one from Genesis where God destroys them for their evil ways, primarily their inhospitality; which this passage is again about.

But Jesus also lists other cities: Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.  These are all towns in Galilee who had seen Jesus at work first hand, but they did not respond genuinely to Jesus’ message of salvation.  He says that Tyre and Sidon, both ancient Phoenician seacoast towns (and thus not Jewish) will have it more tolerable on the day of judgment.  Tyre and Sidon were two towns the prophet Isaiah had criticized for their wickedness centuries before.  They had a bad reputation among Jews.  Yet Jesus asserts they would have received him better than Jewish settlements.  They would have redirected themselves towards God’s kingdom.

You can feel the tension and despair over Jewish towns who should have an inside track on what God is doing don’t respond to God’s presence.

I wouldn’t get too alarmed over Jesus saying Capernaum will be brought down to Hades; probably meaning a place of eternal punishment for the wicked.  He is not condemning, just stating a reality.  Those who reject God’s purposes reject their hope.

            At this point it feels like Jesus’ whole public ministry has been a flop.  He grew up in Nazareth.  You’ll remember they rejected him when he went back home.  In fact they got so upset with him they tried to kill him.  He then appears to have made Capernaum his home base.  They’ve apparently not responded to him either.  Other towns haven’t as well.

            How would it feel if you spent years working on something only to have it all fail?  I think it is good for us to remember as we think about Jesus, that during his ministry he was for the most part a failure.  Despite the miracles, and the healings, and the amazing sermons few people’s lives changed.  He was like a great circus act who was forgotten when the show pulled out of town.

            When the seventy return and share how successful they’ve been we can then feel Jesus’ happiness as we read, “At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”  (10:21)

            This isn’t an anti-intellectual statement.  Jesus isn’t saying that anyone above a certain score on an IQ test is doomed to hell.  Notice the last line, “for such was your gracious will.”  Grace does not follow logic and it cannot be limited or controlled.  Those who insist that God must work in ways that make sense to the human mind are close minded.  God is not so limited.

            Finally Jesus tells the disciples how lucky they are.  They get to be on the inside for God’s greatest actions.

            In the mid-week Lenten worship last week we talked about how God’s actions don’t always make sense.  Things like faith, hope, and love cannot be measured or defined by logic.  Yet these are the things of God.

            As we live day to day trying to be disciples, and trying to bring the kingdom of God near, we face many struggles.  Many things don’t add up.  Many things look like failures.  We may wish that we had more confidence and more certainty.  We may wish we could see what the disciples saw.  We may wish we could experience a lot more success for our efforts.  But ours is not to be successful.  Ours is to keep bringing the kingdom near.

            Let me conclude with Jesus’ vivid teaching that I overlooked, his statement that he has given them authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and nothing will hurt you.

            Some churches actually do that!  I’d hate to be an usher there!  But Jesus did not mean it literally.  Snakes, scorpions, Satan, the power of the enemy; these are all descriptions of evil.  He meant that his followers need not fear evil, for God will conquer it.

            Perhaps bringing the kingdom of God near in the face of evil feels like attacking an aircraft carrier with a row boat; a foolish and impossible task.  And indeed it is.

            But faith, hope, and love abide.  They are stronger than the mightiest fortress.  With God’s gracious promises we trust that they will triumph.  And when we fail we know we receive the same grace that we proclaim when we succeed. 

So bring the kingdom of God near.  Fear no evil.  You are God’s agent, but the work is really God’s.

March 17, 2019 Discipleship Luke 9:46-62

            We often imagine Jesus as a kind and gentle person.  Most pictures of him depict mercy, acceptance, and love.  The picture we have in the Gathering Area of the Risen Christ by the Seashore, depicts him grinning with friendliness.  And then we imagine this kind and gentle person meekly being arrested, condemned and executed in a horrific fashion.  It is all so tragic.  That is, until of course, the resurrection on Easter.  Then we have the loving man back.

            But those images of Jesus don’t begin to cover it.  We are all complex people.  We have different moods at different times.  We have a mix of ideas and motives.  Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad.  Sometimes we are patient and kind and sometimes we are short tempered and rough.  Why would we expect Jesus to be forever meek and passive?

            Even so, we think we are supposed to be kind and gentle.  I suppose it’s because we want that same thing from other people.  We aren’t usually rude and harsh.  If you’ve ever broken up with someone I assume you did it gently.  You may have even rehearsed what you were going to say.  And you said things like, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings…”  Or, “It’s not you, but me…”  I assume you’ve never said, “I woke up this morning and decided you’re stupid.  Go away.  I don’t care if I never see your face again.”

            Maybe it falls to you to give people their job evaluations at work.  It’s not fun when you have to give a person bad news, or maybe even fire him or her.  You’re anxious and wish you didn’t have to do it.  You start off by listing their strengths and making them feel valuable.  And maybe with flushed cheeks and embarrassment do you then broach the problems and issues.  Even when someone is guilty of gross misconduct we don’t like to be mean.  I doubt you’ve ever said, “You’re a totally worthless moron.  Clear out your work area and go home.  Oh, and if the door does hit you on the way out, I’ll be glad!”

            Of course there is a difference between being rude and being straightforward, but when being straightforward feels rude we try to mix in as much kindness as possible.

            So when we read in the gospel that James and John want to bring down curses upon a Samaritan village that rejected Jesus we expect Jesus to say something like, “Now guys, God is merciful.  You need to work on changing those negative thoughts into positive opportunities.”  No.  We don’t know what Jesus said, but just that he rebuked them.  Not exactly nice.

            Then we encounter three people who could be disciples.  The first one makes what appears to be a good and sincere offer of devotion, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replies, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

            It’s impossible to know what’s really going on here.  We just don’t have enough information.  Biblical scholars I’ve read all believe the person’s offer to follow wherever he goes was more like a idealistic enthusiasm, and not a solid commitment.  Jesus then bluntly points out a hard truth.  He has no home, no security, and no comforts.  God even provides for the wildlife better than Jesus is, and will be, receiving.

            Have you ever hiked up a mountain?  A hard steep ascent is somewhat thrilling.  It’s challenging and it’s full of anticipation.  But if you have miles of boring walking before you even get to the foot of the mountain you start to wonder if the view from the top will be worth it.  Following Jesus on this journey to Jerusalem may very well be a lot of tedium and boredom.

            The next person we meet is someone Jesus invites into discipleship.  The text says, “To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’”

            Once again, we are short on details.  We want to know more so that we can understand Jesus’ words better.  Most interpreters spiritualize this.  They say that what Jesus really meant was, let the spiritually dead bury the dead; but as for you (who are implicitly being given the chance to be spiritually alive) go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

            I suppose those scholars know Luke better than I do, but I find that lacking.  I often find the thoughts of commentator Joel Green to be more intriguing.  Green suggests that Jesus meant it literally, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”  Which is, of course, impossible.

            Jewish burial customs of the time had a twelve-month mourning process.  When a person died his or her body was placed in a tomb, often a cave or hollow dug in a hillside.  The body would be sealed in there for a year while the body decomposed.  Then, after a year the tomb was reopened.  The bones were collected and reburied in an ossuary or “bone box.”  Joel Green suggests Jesus words mean that let those already dead in the family tomb rebury their own dead. 

            Again, this is impossible.  But it is Jesus’ response to this man who has made an excuse why not to follow Jesus.  He has family obligations.  He needs to stick around to rebury his father’s bones.

            Keep his situation in mind as we look at the next person Jesus invites, “’I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

            Again, harsh words.  But again, Jesus has invited someone and that someone has an excuse for why not to follow.  Surely this person doesn’t have to walk out on the spot and leave his or her family uninformed as to what their going to do.  The key is that it, like the previous situation, is attempting to delay obedience in light of other obligations.

            The words are harsh but the message is clear.  Devotion to Jesus must come first.  It cannot be one of several good things a person does, with each good thing competing for attention.  Sometimes I think we Americans these days exhaust ourselves with all the good stuff we have to keep up with in order to maintain the idea that we are good people.

            How often do “good things” get in the way of true discipleship?

            And let’s make it interesting, and just as real as the obligation of honoring the remains of a dead relative.  Most churches will say that Sunday morning is a time for worship.  It is a time that must be venerated and set aside above all other obligations.  It sounds like righteousness.  But is it?

            Laura Daly, the dean of the Southern Tier Conference, tells congregations, (I’m paraphrasing) “If you haven’t had at least half a dozen visitors come to your church in the last year because you have Sunday morning worship then you can’t claim your Sunday morning worship is serving the kingdom of God.”

            Ouch.  But true.  She isn’t saying their worship is invalid.  She’s saying that preserving the Sunday morning time slot tradition is no longer serving God’s kingdom.  It’s time to move the worship time or put your key evangelism efforts elsewhere.

            This is the kind of challenge Jesus is giving.

            You’re probably sick of hearing me talk about us living in times that churches are declining.  But I don’t think it’s that the church has lost touch or headed down a wrong path.  I think it’s a wake-up call.  We can no longer fool ourselves into thinking that a culture that has built itself around a surface of Christian practice is actually doing God’s work.  It may be.  Or it may not.

            Last week when we read about the Transfiguration the voice from the cloud said, “Listen to him,” meaning Jesus.  That goes for today too.  God is not limited to traditions and practices.  The way of following God and discipleship does not follow patterns.  There are no formulas.  And every time we think there is one, we are definitely wrong.

            But God does not call us to cruel and harsh tasks.  God does not cause our lives to be hurtful, empty, and broken simply for the sake of it.  God would free us from everything that entraps us.  God would free us for adventure.  So, obligations to family brought about by traditions, and the trap of ever needing to protect ourselves from every possible liability, and the enslaving need to keep people happy with us, and many others, can all be removed.

            The world has so many many ways of entrapping us.  God would free us.  May your faith give you the courage and the creativity to be truly free.

March 3, 2019 Healing and Forgiveness Luke 5:12-26

            I believe you all know what karma is.  It’s the belief in Hinduism and Buddhism that if you do bad things they will come back to haunt you.  If you do good things they will come back to reward you.  And if you get through this life without suffering the consequences or receiving the rewards, you’ll get them in the next life.

            As Christians we reject the idea of karma, but we still live the idea that actions have consequences.  If you make healthy choices you should be a healthy person.  If you have unhealthy or dangerous habits sooner or later they’ll catch up to you.  We also like the idea that the punishment should suit the crime.  If you’re going 30mph over the speed limit on the New York State Thru Way you can expect to get a bigger fine than if you’re pulled over for going 5 mph over the speed limit.  Although if you’re going 5 over the speed limit you’re probably going to end up as a new hood ornament on a big truck.

            We believe in justice and fairness, and we aren’t afraid to throw God into the mix too.  Often legal oaths involve swearing before God that you will tell the truth.  The idea being that if you lie you’re calling divine retribution upon yourself.  And if you get away with it in this life you’re surely burn in hell for it in eternity.  Any logical person would tell the truth!

            Keep all that in mind as we look at today’s gospel reading from Luke.  The first verses set the stage for the main scene.  Jesus has become such a famous healer that people from far and wide are coming to see him.  The crowds have gotten so big that not everyone can even get to him.  One day while in a house four very devoted men climb up on the roof, tear it off, and lower their paralyzed friend down to Jesus.

            They get an A+ for devotion, although I wonder how their friend felt about being carried and bumped up onto the roof of the house!

            I wonder what Bruce Allen, our insurance broker, would say if we started having crowds here so big for worship that people started tearing off the roof to get inside?  Oh well, we don’t have to worry about that problem!
            A whole bunch of stuff starts getting mixed together once the man is lowered to Jesus.  Luke’s gospel says, “When [Jesus] saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.’”  Faith is a big part of all that is about to happen, but we have to set that aside for now and come back to it.

            Scribes and Pharisees, religious experts in other words, begin to question what’s going on, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  But Jesus perceives their questions and says, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?”

            I think we easily see that as two different issues.  For us, forgiveness and physical healing are not inextricably linked.  Forgiveness can seem cheap.  We say some words in worship and have communion and that’s it.  It’s all intellectual or emotional, not something we physically feel.  For healing, for physical stuff, you go somewhere else, either a doctor or a hospital.  But remember back to where we started, with karma.  For the people of that day the issues were one and the same.

            Why was that man paralyzed?  The gospel doesn’t tell us.  But it is safe to assume that people figured he must have done something wrong; something to deserve it.  He had sinned and his paralysis was divine punishment.  Or, perhaps his parents sinned and his paralysis was their fault.  Whatever the case, God had ordained that this man would suffer in this way for something wrong that had happened.  It was seen as God’s order.

            So when Jesus says, “…your sins are forgiven you,” this is more than just some traveling preacher making silly proclamations.  This is someone who is challenging the whole order of the world.  He is challenging their ideas of justice and fairness.

            You can’t just tell a paralytic that his sins are forgiven.  No, they’re not.  He’s paralyzed because he sinned.  You can’t just erase the paralysis.  And he’s not truly forgiven as long as he’s paralyzed.  That’s his divine punishment.

            Jesus understands all this clearly.  That is why he shows that he truly has the power to forgive.  Forgiveness means restoration to full life.  He says, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the one who was paralyzed – “I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.”

            That’s more than just about a miraculous healing.  And it’s more than just about forgiveness.  In their minds Jesus just upended the whole way they understand the world.  Where is justice?  Where is fairness?

            Did this man truly repent?  Did he offer the proper sacrifices for forgiveness or make restitution for past wrongs in order to be divinely healed?

            With healings like this suddenly the whole understanding of how the world works and what you can depend upon can’t be depended upon anymore.

            It’s easy to imagine this man as a life-long paralytic who has suffered innocently and he now has wholeness of life.  But we just don’t know.  He could just as likely been a construction worker.  Let’s say it was his job to set up a scaffold beside a high stone wall that was being built.  But he was drunk one day while he was doing it and did a shoddy job.  Then later, when a whole work crew was standing on the scaffold, he among them, the thing collapsed and several people were killed and he was paralyzed.

            Do you see?  We don’t know, but if we did, we might say this man deserves what happened to him.  Let him be a lesson to everyone else!

            And then Jesus heals him and forgives him.  If we take the construction accident scenario a bit further, what about all other families who are now suffering because their loved ones were killed?  How come they don’t get restoration while he gets to walk off without paying the penalty?

            Now of course that’s pure speculation on my part, but I say it to get to the point.  Jesus’ actions potentially upend everything we think we know about goodness and fairness.  Do you see why the religious experts were upset?  What kind of God would do this?  What’s the point of good religious practice and trying to live a good life and be a good person if it doesn’t count for anything?

            The ideas would make us mad too.

            Luke’s gospel is going to return to the ideas of fairness, and especially why do bad things happen to good people, but here he swings our thoughts back to the beginning of the scene.

            When Jesus saw their faith…

            Whose faith?  Is it the faith of the paralyzed man?  No, at least not his alone.  It is referring to the faith of his friends.

            Some would preach that it was the unquestioning faith of all these guys that led to the correct righteousness necessary for the healing to occur.  Faith then becomes about believing without any doubt whatsoever.  And if you don’t get what you want or need then there’s a flaw in your faith.

            There’s a circular trap to that logic, but many Christians believe just that.

            But that is not the faith of these men.  And it is not the type of faith that has to believe without any questions or doubts.  Their faith is one of action driven by relationships.  That is what Jesus is commending.

            Is he seeing these guys have pure motives?  No.  Does he see perfect contrition in the heart of the paralyzed man?  No, that’s not it either.

            He sees people who have oriented their lives toward what God is doing.  And that is forgiveness in and of itself.  Perhaps the key word in this passage is not faith or forgiveness.  It’s not even the healing.  Commentator Joel Green says the key word, and the center of the whole scene is when Jesus calls this paralyzed man “Friend”.  He is a friend of God.

            May we not have our lives bound in issues of fairness and unfairness, or trying to make sense of righteousness.  I’m not saying they’re irrelevant.  They are relevant, but they aren’t ultimate.

Instead, may we build our lives on the ultimate; on being a friend of God, someone in right relationship who turns there no matter whether things are fair or unfair, or seem right or wrong, all is done beside God.