Anxiety

October 30, 2016        Reformation Sunday                           John 8:31-36

Anxiety is a powerful force.  In some sense it rules our lives.  Anxiety is at the root of most if not all psychiatric issues.  How would you feel about a psychiatric hotline that answered with this message:

Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1… repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3,4,5, and 6.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want.  Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are depressed, it doesn’t matter which number you press.  No one will answer.

If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.

(from anxietyguru.net)

Of course psychiatric disorders are nothing to laugh at.  And I’m going to be so bold as to say that what we consider to be normal and healthy about anxiety is also being ruled by a state of fear.  However it is a state of fear so subtle that a normal person would vehemently deny it, no matter what you say.

In our gospel reading Jesus is having a confrontation with some Jewish people.  He tells them that if they believe in him they will be set free.  They say they’re children of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone.  We’re probably supposed to laugh at that because the Jewish people had been enslaved by just about every empire that ever existed in the Middle East.  And right then they were basically the slaves of the Romans.  But this little joke is just opening to door to their real slavery.  Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”  What is this sin he is talking about that they don’t get.  It is the same enslavement that we face, even if we do consider ourselves to be psychiatrically healthy – the slavery to anxiety.

In many ways anxiety makes the economy run.  Without anxiety there would be no interest in being fashionable or cool or successful.  Without anxiety you wouldn’t care how you looked or what other people thought of you.  If it weren’t for anxiety about invasion and terrorism we wouldn’t have a military.  In big and small ways anxiety drives us each and every day.

I’ve talked to a number of senior citizens who said that when they were young they worried about getting established and making it.  Then when they had kids they started worrying about them.  When their kids had kids then they started worrying about their grandkids.  You never get beyond a state of worry of some sort.  You never get beyond anxiety.

Anxiety is a powerful force for evil in the world.  Never underestimate how powerful and clever it is.

Our scripture poetry for today was Psalm 46.  Psalm 46 has a lot to say about anxiety.  Psalm 46 was Martin Luther’s inspiration for writing the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, which we will sing later.  Look at how that psalm begins.  It points us to God as the source for refuge and strength – not our possessions, not our money, not our insurance policies, not our military and not our friends.  It is God and God alone.

What all can threaten us?  Well, there are natural disasters, but the psalm says God is with us in them.  The psalm also brings up war and conquest.  God is with us then too.  The psalm also brings up divine wrath, an interesting thing to do; but are we to fear even that?  No.  God is with us, always, forever: a refuge, a stronghold, a fortress.

Many Christians will take these words and think it means that God will keep you safe in all circumstances.  They think that if God is on your side your life will be good and fun and complete.  I don’t know where they get that idea, because history and the Bible teach something very different.  How many of Jesus’ 12 apostles died of natural deaths?  Only one – St. John, and church tradition tells us that was only because he managed to survive when they tried to poison him to death.

How about St. Paul, the great theologian of our faith?  How safe and normal and secure was his life?  Here’s what he writes in 2 Corinthians 11:

“Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.  Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.  Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure…”  (2 Corinthians 11:24-27)  And he goes on.

Does Paul live to some great old age and enjoy a wonderful retirement?  Nope.  Church tradition says he was beheaded.  Some modern historians think he was captured and killed by bandits.  Whatever the case, this was not a sweet life.  I know I ruffled a few feathers last week when I said God wasn’t too interested in your happiness.  Paul wasn’t exactly a happy man, but he was a whole and fulfilled man.

Let’s turn to the author of A Mighty Fortress.  What was Luther’s life like?  Arrests, trials, a kidnapping, hiding out, rejection and excommunication.  And what seems to me to be worst of all, Martin Luther saw how his writing and preaching and teaching had led to war, riots and rebellions.  In the movie Luther that came out several years ago it suggests that he was aware that over 100,000 people were dead because of him.  That’s not an easy thing to have on your conscious.

At one level Psalm 46 could be called the biggest lie in the Bible.  Yet on another level it reveals a deep and powerful truth:  The Lord of hosts is with you.  The God of Jacob is your refuge. 

Visible or invisible, God is at work in the world.  And God is working for good.  Safe or unsafe, God is with you.  Dead or alive, God is with you.  Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God.

St. Paul wrote about his calamities.  He also wrote about God’s never-failing love.  You’ll remember this passage from Romans 8 from funerals, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of god in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:35-29)

Slaves to anxiety are blind to it, though society may call them healthy and normal.  But you want to be free.  True freedom is not getting to do what you want whenever you want.  True freedom is to be whole in God.  It is to be free of anxiety.  We’ve talked about this many times before.  It is to know that you are God’s forever.  You are loved.  You are safe.  Nothing and no one can touch you.

That will not lead to a life of relaxation and comfort.  It will probably be a life of high adventure.  But it will be rewarding and fulfilling like nothing else.

May you make God as your source of refuge and strength.  And may God protect and keep you every day as his child.  

Law, Gospel and God's Work

October 23, 2016        Pentecost 23                           Luke 18:9-14

The students in confirmation class are asked to take sermon notes.  There’s a form they can use if they wish, and there are three challenging questions on that form:  Did you hear the Law?  Did you hear the Gospel?  And, did you hear how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus affects your life?  Most of them struggle to answer those questions.  That’s okay, they’re deliberately above their level.  Indeed most of us would struggle to answer them.  But those are the goals I seek to achieve as a create sermons.  And those are the basic principles Lutheran theology uses to interpret the Bible and understand all of life.

Let’s start by what is the Law?  When you here that you may think of Moses coming down the mountain with two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them.  Indeed that is somewhat correct.  The law sets up limits and boundaries for our lives.  It creates safety and accountability.

You know well how laws work.  If you’re driving down the New York State Thruway and off in the distance you see the front of a car peeking out from behind a bridge abutment what do you do?  You’re first reaction is to check your speed; and if you’re like most drivers you slow down!  Why, because that is maybe a police car.  If you’re traveling 75 or 80 miles per hour there will be consequences.  The law creates safety by creating limits.  If there were no traffic laws people could drive whatever speed they wanted in whatever direction they wanted!

Lutheran thinking would call this the, “first use of the Law.”

And then Lutheran thinking goes on to say there is a second use of the Law.  The forms the confirmation students use explains this, “Law is that which convicts you, reminds you that you need God.  It may make you feel guilty for the wrong things you have done or makes you realize that something is wrong in the world.”

Next church year we will focus on the Gospel of Matthew.  Matthew’s gospel contains Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount.  People usually think of the beginning of that sermon where Jesus says things like, “Blessed are the poor…  Blessed are those who mourn…  Blessed are the meek…” and so on.  But the second half of the sermon deals with the Law.  Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister you are liable to judgment.’”

He also says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  (And I’m sure the same goes for women looking at men!)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.”

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.”

“Beware of practicing your piety before others.”

“Do not worry about your life…”

And on it goes.  If one part of the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t convict you some other part will.  Sooner or later Jesus convicts everyone of wrongdoing and not being capable of salvation.

Does he do this to make us feel depressed or to feel guilty?  Perhaps, but if so that is a necessary step on a journey.

In our gospel we read Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector.  The tax collector got it.  He knew things were wrong.  He knew he wasn’t living up to God’s expectations of him.  He begs for mercy.  This tax collector was experiencing this second use of the Law.

By contrast there is the Pharisee.  He looks at himself and his life and it all looks good.  He thanks God for it…  God, I thank you that I don’t speed on the Thruway.  I don’t have to speed because I manage my time well.  I make smart decisions.  I married well.  I am dependable, honest and upright.  Thank you God for making me a good person.

This Pharisee is looking at the first use of the Law.  He hasn’t broken any rules.  He does what is right.  Yet he is blind to the larger reality – that despite what he thinks of himself and his life he is also sinful and broken.  He needs to hear the Sermon on the Mount.  He needs to understand that if we think we aren’t broken we still are.  I know I’ve said before: we all sin, quite often we sin in socially appropriate ways and thus the law doesn’t convict us, but it is still a sin.

And let’s look at this Pharisee’s gratitude.  He says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people…”  Now we like to praise gratitude, but is he really grateful?  He’s grateful for his own abilities.  He’s not grateful for God’s abilities.

By contrast the tax collector, even though he does not say thank you to God, he goes home with true gratitude.

The confirmands have the question, “Did you hear the gospel?”  And there is a definition of the gospel, “Gospel is the good news of God’s saving love for you.”  Gospel is knowing that you are saved by God’s abilities, not your own.

And so it all works this way.  First there is a recognition of brokenness.  I’ve read any number of Christian theologians say that if you don’t recognize your need then Christianity has nothing to offer you.  It is in knowing your neediness, your limitations, your failures, your problems that you take the first step of faith.  If you think you have your life together then Christianity’s message to you is nothing but a burden and a pain.  It is an obligation you must do to get to heaven when you die.

But with recognition of sinfulness, when you realize you are hopeless under the demands of the Law, then you turn to God knowing you are broken, powerless and needy.  I often quote Martin Luther’s last written words, “We are beggars.  It is true.” …that from one of the most effective Christian leaders ever.

When you realize then that God raises you back up on your feet despite your brokenness, looks into your eyes and says: So you think you are worthless, do you?  You think you are powerless, do you?  Well, guess what.  You are!  Now, let me do my work; then you are in a place for true gratitude.  The Pharisee thought he was grateful, but his gratitude resided within himself and his own goodness.  The tax collector was truly grateful because it was something from God he didn’t earn or deserve.  That is the gospel.

Brokenness leads to gratitude which leads to authentic faith.  That is the path Jesus’ parable suggests.  That is what Lutheran thinking is doing when it talks about the Law and the Gospel.

It can be hard for a teenager in confirmation to get that.  Maybe they’re popular and have lots of friends fawning all over them.  They don’t feel a broken piece of them exists or could exist.  Maybe they’re unpopular, feel untalented and are bullied.  I suppose that is closer to feeling broken before God, but the God’s wholeness of God’s grace does not instantly lift a person into feeling fantastic about themselves.  Thus to a teenager God’s grace is just a theological concept that gets talked about in church.

I suppose if it is hard for teenagers it is no less hard for adults.  I think it’s all because our world teaches us the false idea that if we do everything right we’ll be happy – or at least we deserve a happy life.  People confuse that idea with God’s teaching.  But that is not God’s teaching.  The Bible is actually full of lessons of unfairness.

God’s work lies at a deeper level.  God isn’t interested in your happiness.  If your life is all happiness, I’m happy for you, but it is not necessarily a sign that God loves you.  What God is really interested in is your brokenness.  That is something our world doesn’t want to admit and doesn’t want to talk about.  But it is your brokenness that opens you to grace.  And it is grace that leads you to gratitude.  And it is gratitude at this level that leads, not exactly to happiness, but to wholeness.  And it is in wholeness through God that God truly works through you.

Will I say, “May you be happy”?  No.  May you be made whole by God.  And may you know the fullness of life that comes through God’s grace.   

Hard Work

October 16, 2016        Pentecost 22                            Luke 18:1-8

            Today, October 16 is designated by the United Nations as World Food Day.  That designation began in 1979 and it is in honor of the foundation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945.  It seems to be an excellent fit for our harvest festival today.

Indeed somewhere I came across a mailing for World Food Day suggesting that the gospel reading with the parable of the unjust judge and persistent widow makes an excellent connection to world hunger.  In the same way that the widow was persistent in working for justice from the judge we too should be persistent in working to end hunger.

I agree that is a creative way to connect everything, and it could work well.  Here for our harvest festival with our abundance I could preach about giving to the food cupboard and hunger related causes.  I could preach that hunger is not just about getting food to people but it is about poverty and justice.  Therefore we should write to our elected representatives and endlessly bug them about hunger, like the widow bugged the judge in the parable. 

I could also preach about how hunger is related healthy ecosystems and sustainability.  I could say that we should all stop buying processed foods wrapped in lots of packaging and instead we should all acquire reusable shopping bags made of recycled materials and go shopping only at farmers markets and buy locally produced in-season fruits and vegetables.

All of this would be good stuff.  And I could pull information from scripture and all sorts of studies backing up my claims.  If I did that maybe you’d think it fallen onto the Green Party bandwagon and just ignore me as a lunatic.  Or maybe I’d make you feel guilty and you’d pray about it for a while until your guilt goes away and you forget.  Or maybe you would give money to the food cupboard, write a letter to your congressional representatives and grab your reusable shopping bag and walk to the public market in Rochester.  And maybe after doing all that you’d have a good feeling inside for being an environmentally sensitive person and a socially active person working on behalf of those less fortunate than yourself.  Yay you. 

But all of that feels like it misses the point, and I don’t think it actually does anything.  All of that is just working harder and harder at the same old things we always do hoping that if we do it all right it will be good. 

I want to take a different approach, although I have no expertise to talk about this and no research to back it up.

A little over a week ago the Daily Messenger ran an article about the potatoes we harvested for our God’s Work Our Hands project.  It was a nice article even if it had lots of inaccuracies.  I couldn’t help snickering at the caption they put under the picture of Ivan Shuler pulling potatoes off a stalk.  The caption read, “Ivan Shuler digs deep for potatoes…”  Okay, but a machine dug out the potatoes.  We just had to pick them up!  Anyway, one of the things they did get right is where I said, “I have a lot of members with highly intellectual jobs who rarely have a chance to get their hands in the dirt.”

Here is my theory: I think we have largely insulated ourselves from most of the raw work that it takes to make our lives possible, but we’ve done it to our detriment.  While I like farming and gardening, most of the food I consume is grown by someone else.  I assume the same goes for you.

When you flip on a light switch do you ever consider what it takes to get power to the light?  Do you think about the wires in the walls, the wires on the streets, and everything back to the power plants?  Plus, do you really know how much energy it takes to light a light bulb?  One of the Boy Scout troops in Victor used to have a stationary bike that ran a generator, which then powered a light bulb.  You had to pedal plenty hard.  We’d all have a richer appreciation of the energy we use if we regularly had to put our own physical strength into generating it.

I think the same goes for travel.  A car makes it effortless.  You look at hills and distances very differently if you’re approaching them on foot or on bicycle.

How hard to you have to work to get hot or cold water from the tap?  Not at all.  These days you don’t even have to turn a knob.  Some faucets you just have to touch or wave your hand underneath!  The only time I ever actually carry water is when my family is out camping.  And more recently I make my kids carry water for me, so I don’t have to carry it then either!

I could go on and on.  While we can say we do work for what we have, I think we’re still pretty separate from it, maybe all of it.  And that affects our appreciation of things. 

If you live in a house I assume you love it.  That’s a good thing.  But how much more would your love and appreciation for it be if you had built it yourself from raw materials.  What if you had physically had to cut down the trees and remove the stumps with just axes and shovels?  What if you had dug out the foundation yourself with a shovel?  What if you had laid the foundation yourself from rocks you had collected?  What if you cut the boards by arm muscle from logs and assembled it yourself?

I think you get the picture.  While we think we appreciate what we have, I don’t think we appreciate it as deeply as if we had actually worked for it – if we could look at what we have and what we eat and say that it has come about by the physical effort of our very own arms and legs our appreciation of those things would be a whole different level; and I think a healthier level.

By many standards my dad had a miserable childhood.  He grew up as a poor farm boy and he didn’t really like summer vacation from school.  Why?  Because summer vacation meant spending time in the family’s fields hoeing lima beans.  My grandfather would supplement the family income every year by growing lima beans that were sold to a local cannery.  All day every day my dad, his siblings and his mother worked in the hot sun doing menial work.  His dad worked in a factory.  Today we would call it child abuse or a violation of child labor laws.  But my dad was learning something deeply significant.  No, it wasn’t teamwork or leadership skills or eye-hand coordination, or anything else we put kids in the hot summer sun these days and call it “sports”.  He was learning that he was a necessary part of his family.  He needed them; and they needed him because every person had essential work to do for survival.  There was nothing artificial about it.

I think giving a person an essential job to do is the best way to deeply instill a sense of self-worth in that person.

The widow in the parable was commendable for her persistence against the unjust judge.  Sometimes I wonder if the biggest threat we face is not an external threat but an internal one; and maybe our persistence needs to be directed there.

Maybe you’re different from me in this regard, but I doubt it.  If you gave me the choice of either weeding lima beans in the hot summer sun all day, or lounging in the shade beside a pool with a cool drink in one hand, you can bet I’m going to choose the pool!  I’m going to choose the pool every time… probably to my cost.  Without realizing it I’d be eroding away my sense of self-worth, and I’d be losing my sense of gratitude; I’d be losing an essential part of faith.

Our harvest festival today is a great celebration.  We should celebrate our bounty and be thankful.  But I fear our thankfulness isn’t as great as it would be if all this stuff came from our own manual labor.

It may seem stupid to ask for hardship.  It may seem stupid to ask for manual labor, but I think it important for us to persistently pray to God to make us whole, to help us to feel worthwhile, and to make us truly know our capabilities.  And then we can’t be afraid of the answers.  They might be hard!  And thus we can’t fear when something hard comes our way.  It is tempting to always take the easy way, but the hard way might be what we need.  May you have the courage and the strength to do and to face whatever it is to truly know wholeness and thankfulness.  And may you be persistent in bugging God until the way becomes clear.  Amen

Gratitude, Faith & Good Order

October 9, 2016          Pentecost 21                           Luke 17:11-19

            In my basement I have a large cabinet with a lot of little wooden draws.  It’s great for sorting and organizing things.  In one row of draws I’ve put different kinds of nails.  In another row of draws there are different kinds of bolts.  One drawer has electrical equipment.  A couple draws have plumbing supplies.  One draw is set aside for tire repairs because I get so many flat tires on my bicycle.  Now my organizational strategy is not rigid.  Some draws are just a hodge-podge.  In one drawer I have and old set of calipers, an insulated liner for a hard hat, a mechanical tachometer and two worn out old baseballs that my dad had as a kid.  I have no idea why that collection of items have landed in that drawer, but obviously I know what’s in there!

Whether we consider ourselves to be neat-nicks or slobs I think we all like to have some order to life.  Putting nails together in one place and bolts together in another place makes it easy to find one when you need one.  It would take forever to find a small nut or washer if I just dumped them all into a bucket with my nails. 

Actually we humans like to organize everything.  Scientifically we organize nature into species and sub-species.  Within species we categorize breeds.  As humans we make distinctions about race.  We live in houses that clearly define inside and outside.  If you own property you have a deed which says exactly what you own and where it is.  There are probably steel pins or concrete markers at the corners that say precisely what is yours and what is your neighbor’s. 

This can all be good and suit us well.  Good boundaries and good organization make a civilization run smoothly and with good order.  But it can also be bad if we think our ideas of order and boundaries are the same as God’s.  If the natural order of things is any indication we see that God loves bounty and diversity but God isn’t overly interested in clear distinctions and crisp boundaries. 

Take Canandaigua Lake as an example.  We humans have clearly defined the north end of the lake.  You can walk through the park on a path or on grass and you can clearly see the distinction between land and water.  There are heavy boulders keeping the end of the lake crisp and clear.  Then go down to the south end of the lake in Naples.   There are no definitions to be found.  The water gets shallower and shallower.  Then there are cattails and water plants.  It slowly transitions to silt and organic matter.  Farther away there is stuff that could be called dirt but it’s still swampy.  And slowly and only eventually do you get to anything that could actually be called land that has trees or could be built upon.

Now I’m not intending to be critical of our human tendencies to want to push back the chaos of nature and create order for ourselves, but we do make a mistake if we think God plays by the same order.

We see that in our gospel reading for today.  Jesus is traveling in the border region between Samaria and Galilee.  Samaria was generally populated by Samaritans and Galilee populated by Jews.  You’ll remember that Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews.  However there really wasn’t much of a distinction between them.  They were basically the same race.  They both hated Roman rule.  They believed in the same God and had virtually the same beliefs and even scriptures.  But they had created serious distinctions.  One of the biggest distinctions was where to worship God.  Jews said God was properly worshiped on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem.  Samaritans said God was properly worshipped on Mt. Gerizim; about 30 miles north of Jerusalem in Samarian territory.  And so their feud went down through the centuries.

Commentator Joel Green makes an interesting point about these ten lepers and it is one that we easily miss.  Ten lepers approach Jesus keeping their distance.  They knew that had to keep their distance because true leprosy was a contagious and deadly disease.  There was no treatment in those days and so if you contracted it you had to go to a priest to be examined.  If the priest determined that it was indeed leprosy then you had to leave your village and go out and live by yourself; until you died from the disease.  Enough people had leprosy that leper colonies would form.

Now just about any skin condition was called leprosy so if it cleared up on its own or if by some miracle you actually recovered you had to go back to a priest and be re-examined.  If the priest decided that you were indeed well then you could return to your home.

So Jesus tells these ten lepers, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  But this is in-between territory.  Are these lepers Jews or Samaritans.  Without thinking we assume they are all Jews, but in fact they aren’t.  Notice that Jesus does not say which priests they should go see and to which temple.  Should they go to Jerusalem or to Mt. Gerizim? 

As Luke tells the story only when the Samaritan comes to give thanks do we realize this is a mixed crowd.  And before we think this is about a foreigner being grateful while the citizens were not grateful to God, remember that we should think the way they thought.  For a devout Jew or a devout Samaritan the place you wanted to go to in order to be thankful to God for something was the temple.  It would be fitting and appropriate for a Jew who experienced a miracle to travel to the temple to give thanks to God there.  While they believed that God could be everywhere the temple is where you found God most clearly and powerfully.

Perhaps the Jews who did not return to Jesus were selfish and ungrateful for what God had done.  Or perhaps they were going to the temple to show God their gratitude there.  We don’t know.  We do know, however, that along the way some revelation of faith came to the Samaritan.  He realized faith was not about a place it was about a person – Jesus.  The center of his faith is now Jesus, not Mt. Gerizim, nor Jerusalem.

I think that takes us back to where we began.  God is not a God of crisp boundaries and clear definitions.  To the Jews God wanted worship in Jerusalem and not Mt. Gerizim.  To the Samaritans God wanted worship on Mt. Gerizim and not Jerusalem.  We discover in reality that the whole distinction these religions had created amongst themselves was completely artificial and not at all what God had in mind.

We have to be very careful lest we place our definitions upon God.  Quite likely they are our rules, not God’s.  While God certainly wants good and constructive things from us God is not therefore bound by every definition we use to create good order to our lives. 

We want to have the faith realization of the Samaritan.  God had acted.  God had done something miraculous and amazing for his life.  He discovered that gratitude to God was more important than human order, and that gratitude may actually be the center of faith.

When we talk about faith people often think of your belief system.  I like to say that faith is about trust and a relationship more than intellectual beliefs.  But perhaps this experience of the Samaritan should cause us to shift these ideas.  Perhaps faith and gratitude are what go hand in hand. 

In reflecting on this story R. Alan Culpepper has noted, “Gratitude may be the purest measure of one’s character and spiritual condition.”  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 9, Pg. 327)  He makes a good argument.  Life itself is a precious gift.  Health is a gift.  Friendship with others and family connections are an incredible grace to be treasured and held in gratitude.

Gratitude reveals a humility of spirit and an awareness of God’s work.  We are not self-made individuals beholden to no one and in a place to make demands of God.  Our creation was the work of our parents, not our own.  A community reared us.  Our society gives us a place and a sense of value.  Even if we are the most productive and upright of citizens we still receive generously from those around us and our God.  We are blessed daily in ways we seldom perceive and cannot repay.  To be ungrateful is to blind.  To be grateful is to have faith.

May God give you sight of your blessings and sense of gratitude for them.  And may you rejoice in those blessings and celebrate them so that you can see beyond human boundaries and into the kingdom of God.

More Faith

October 2, 2016 Pentecost 20 Luke 17:1-10
If you were here last week you may remember the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  There we had a rich man who wore fine clothes and feasted sumptuously every day.  Meanwhile a poor man named Lazarus lay sick and starving outside his gate.  Both men die.  The rich man is being tormented but Lazarus is in peace and comfort.  We concluded by talking about the way riches can so easily blind people, and the same dynamics happen around us and in our lives as well.  The whole thing was crippling to hear and very guilt inducing.
Our gospel reading this week picks up exactly where we left off last week and continues the conversation.  Our translations get us off on the wrong foot.  They try to make good English out of the Greek, but it just isn’t possible.  Our English translations read,  “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come!’”  Grammatically bad, but more literal, it would be, “He said to his disciples, ‘it is impossible for scandals not to come.’”
In other words, all that stuff that we felt guilty about last week is basically inevitable.  It is impossible to live up to what we have to live up to.  You’re going to fail God.  Period.  You’re going to fail and you’re going to fail in really big ways.  So Jesus goes on, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck a you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”  The image of a millstone was ludicrous.  This would be an upper millstone, round with a funnel shaped hole on top that would spin on a stationary stone on the ground.  Upper millstones could be three or four feet across, so just imagine someone with their head poking through the funnel shape hole of a round stone three or four feet across.  The stone alone would crush them on land.  It’s ludicrous to picture someone with one around their neck in water.
Who are these “little ones” who would stumble?  Jesus doesn’t say specifically but it appears as if he means anyone who’s struggling to be a good disciple yet lead astray by someone else’s words or actions.
Jesus goes on to talking about rebuking disciples who sin, and if there is repentance you must forgive, even if it is seven times a day.
There’s no wonder the disciples say to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”  I imagine them to be panicking.  Jesus has talked about humility, bearing a cross, forgiving endlessly, the hopeless traps set by the world, the evil of money and more.  The disciples feel like it’s hopeless.  No one can live up to all of this.  It’s impossible.  What it takes to truly be righteous before God is just far too great.
The confirmands taking sermon notes have the question on their form, “Did you hear the Law?”  In theological terms the Law is anything that makes you realize that you and the world are broken, and that you need God.  It turns you to God knowing that you are hopelessly broken and that you need grace.  This idea is not to make us feel depressed about ourselves; not at all.  It is an honest acknowledgement of reality, and one that points us in the right direction.
The disciples’ plea for help is actually a sign of a deepening faith.  Look at their choices.  They could turn to the world’s ways for help.  Many people do.  They could just ignore Jesus and walk away.  Many people do that too.  They could be like the religious leaders and decide to not just reject Jesus but also try to do him in.  Or they could turn to Jesus for help.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of their choice to turn to Jesus.  For as Jesus will describe, faith is not a quantity to be measured.  It is a disposition of life that constantly turns to God.
As I said a moment ago, it starts with recognizing the impossibility of your situation – and really realizing it; not in just some academic way, but really knowing it.
Two weeks ago I did a funeral for an elderly man who had died.  He had been an electrical engineer and worked on nuclear submarines.  All of his children were highly scientific thinkers.  His one son was a mathematician who worked on computer algorithms for missile guidance systems.  He spoke at the funeral and talked about how he wanted it to all make sense.  He wished life and death and God could be simplified to mathematical predictable formulas, but ultimately he couldn’t figure it out.  In fact, he couldn’t figure out anything.  He was at a place of truly knowing the impossibility of the situation.  Though he didn’t use the words of the disciples, he was basically asking the same thing: increase my faith!
Let’s keep all of that in mind as we turn to the final words of Jesus that we read today, “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’?  Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”
Interpreted the wrong way and this makes last week’s gospel reading a bed of roses!  Interpreted the wrong way and you’d think God is incredibly cruel and harsh – to demand the impossible during life and then when it is all done expect us to say, “We are worthless slaves; we have only done what we ought to have done!”  Who wants to serve a God like that?  Who would want to have eternal life under such circumstances?  I certainly wouldn’t!  So what does this mean?
We should never impose our American understanding upon the Bible.  American slavery was very different than biblical slavery.  American slavery was a whole lot worse – among the cruelest forms slavery has ever taken.  In biblical times slaves could be very powerful people, and despite being the property of someone they also often had tremendous freedoms and sometimes great responsibility.  It was typical for a slave in the Roman empire to be someone captured in battle.  After a long period of slavery – often about 30 years – a slave would be set free.  And freedom meant receiving the full rights and citizenship of Romans.  Yes, slavery could be incredibly cruel.  A master could do whatever he wanted to his slaves and it didn’t matter.  But slavery was often a way to get ahead.
A master never owed a slave anything.  A slave could not make demands of his or her master.  And we really have no right to make demands of God.  We cannot say, “I’ve been good.  I’ve been righteous.  God, you owe me.  I deserve this…”
Though many people do feel that way, that is missing the point of grace.  True joy will come in faith when we realize the God’s favor and blessing are matters of grace.  They cannot be earned.  It is in hopelessness, then faith turning us toward God, then realizing God’s grace that we find true joy.
Perhaps we would not say, “We are just worthless slaves.  We did nothing more than was expected of us.”  But perhaps we would say, “I’m just grateful to be loved by God!  I’m grateful to be forgiven endlessly.  Therefore I understand the call to forgive endlessly too, and if I do, well, then I guess I’ve succeeded in one place, but not others.
I like this poem by Elizabethan era poet John Donne:
Wilt thou forgive that sin, by which I’ve won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I think all of these teachings that Jesus has given which we’ve been reading for weeks and weeks have been pushing us to recognize our brokenness.  The confirmation class will call this the “law” on their sermon notes forms.  Jesus has been pushing us to realize our hopelessness in the hope that we will turn that hopelessness toward him, which is an act of real faith.  From there God’s grace is not cheap, but we realize how costly it is for God to forgive us.  And since it comes freely we can then more fully rejoice.

Blind to Need

September 25, 2016        Pentecost 19                                      Luke 16:19-31

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is a powerful parable with a lot of deep imagery, and I want to explore it as our sermon today.  But to set it up let’s start with our first reading from the prophet Amos.  There Amos is speaking against the rich and powerful in his nation.  Their luxurious lifestyles are coming at the expense of the poor around them and Amos wants them to know that God is not pleased.  However wealth has a way of blinding people to what they are doing.  The passage from Amos makes me think of a passage from Barbara Kingsolver’s book The Poisonwood Bible and I’ve included that quote in the back of your worship bulletin.  She shares the thoughts of missionary wife Orleanna Price:

 “It wasn’t just me; there were crimes strewn six ways to Sunday, and I had my own mouths to feed.  I didn’t know.  I had no life of my own.

“And you’ll say I did.  You’ll say I walked across Africa with my wrists unshackled, and now I am one more soul walking free in a white skin, wearing some thread of stolen goods: cotton or diamonds, freedom at the very least, prosperity.  Some of us know how we came by our fortune, and some of us don’t, but we wear it all the same.  There’s only one question worth asking now:  How do we aim to live with it?

“…  I know people.  Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.”

(Pg. 9)

Indeed wealth can cause incredible blindness, as we’ll see in Jesus’ parable.

                Jesus says there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen.  In those days having fine white linen was a sign of wealth.  I won’t get into the bleaching process they used.  Let’s just say it took a lot of effort.

But getting white cloth was nothing to having purple cloth.  Purple embellishments were one thing, purple clothes were an extreme.  Yet this rich man appears to have worn white as an undergarment and purple over top.  Commentator Joel Green notes that dressing like this was a sign of the highest opulence.

I’m reminded of when I had a co-op job in college.  My work required me to make frequent trips into the Pennsylvania State Capitol building in Harrisburg.  One of the times I went there was a Rolls Royce stretch limo parked right out front in the no parking zone at the bottom of the grand granite staircase.  It’s the only Rolls Royce stretch limousine I’ve ever seen.  A uniformed chauffeur stood by the car.  The license plate was a vanity plate with a name I recognized – the richest real estate developer in the region.

Now of course there was absolutely no need for him to have a Rolls Royce stretch limousine with his name on the license plate, but he could do it; and he wanted everyone to know it was him.  That is the level of wealth of the rich man in the parable.

By contrast we have Lazarus.  An interesting bit of trivia, Lazarus is the only character Jesus gives a name to in all of his parables.  What is Lazarus dressed in?  Jesus doesn’t give a description, but he is effectively ‘dressed’ in sores.

Dogs surround Lazarus.  In most of the artwork I see about this scene the dogs look like loveable puppies who are having pity on this poor wretch of a man.  But that’s not what Jesus intended.  These dogs are mongrels who only hang around because they are starving and when Lazarus dies they can eat him.

What’s next but Lazarus does die.  The rich man dies too, and he is buried.  No mention is made of Lazarus’ burial so we can assume the mongrels got their meal.  Not only is Jesus calling to mind something disgusting to his hearers they also know that for a Jewish person to not be buried is proof of being cursed by God.  So Lazarus would be seen as being divinely cursed and rejected.

The rich man goes to Hades.  Presumably Lazarus does too, but he is comfortably with Abraham.  The rich man is being tormented.  We need to remind ourselves of some terms and places here.  The word “hades” shows up twice in Luke’s gospel and it is used 10 times in the New Testament.  In early Christian thought hades was a shadowy place of waiting for souls after they die; the equivalent of Sheol in the Old Testament.  By contrast “Gehenna,” usually translated “hell” is used once in Luke and 13 times in the New Testament.  The image of Gehenna was rooted in the Hinnom Valley to the south of Jerusalem, a place of garbage and with a reputation for pagan human sacrifices.  In the New Testament Gehenna was the pre-existent and eternal fiery abyss of destruction.

So Lazarus and the rich man are in Hades but the rich man is getting a foretaste of hell.  Has this changed his attitude?  Not one bit!  Has he been humbled?  No.  He calls out to Abraham and asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his living family members with a warning.

Notice how deep this rich man arrogance goes.  We discover that he not only recognizes Lazarus, but that he’s known his name all along.  And even in death he still things Lazarus is a lesser to him; someone who can be ordered about.

Not only can Lazarus be ordered about, but the rich man assumes he can make commands to his ancestor Abraham and Abraham should do his bidding too!  Even in torment this rich man still acts like he is in charge, perhaps even of God.

To show just how blind wealth makes people Abraham replies, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone rises from the dead.”  Of course no spoiler alert is needed here – we know the end of the story.  Someone will rise from the dead.  Will the wealthy listen?  No.

Wealth can render people completely and totally blind.  The real problem is, we can hardly escape being anywhere but among the rich. 

Our culture has wrapped itself in protection to keep people from seeing the real impacts of their wealth.  Have you ever been in any of the factories that make the clothing you are wearing right now?  Did you ever tour the fields or groves that produce the food that is in your cupboard and refrigerator?  Have you ever toured a landfill, or an abandoned mine, or a wastewater treatment plant?  Perhaps yes, but you get the point.  We create layers of protection around ourselves so that we do not have to experience the raw work of what it takes to create our lifestyles; nor do we have to experience the impact of our waste.  For most people problems like this are theoretical and distant, not real.

I’ve said before that when I walk through Eastview Mall I can’t help but feel like a citizen of the capital in the Hunger Games books, and the mall is filled with the work of the districts all gathered together for my convenience. 

I think we should take advice from our second reading and listen well to it, because it fits us.  The verses are 1 Timothy 6:17-19.  (You'll have to look it up in your own Bible because printing them here would be a copyright violation.)

Clever and Creative Faith

September 18, 2016    Pentecost 18                            Luke 16:1-13

I think we’ve all read the Bible and come across portions we don’t understand.  Then, if we’re smart, we turn to a biblical commentary and we can read what biblical experts say about a passage.  But there are a number of passages like our gospel reading for today.  Turn to a commentary hoping for an explanation and you’ll probably be more confused than when you started!  It is as if the experts are struggling too.  Indeed many biblical experts confess this passage has them stumped, and so they can’t help you.

I do believe Joel Green’s thoughts in the Ninct commentary series do actually get to the heart of the matter.  If you want to read about it in detail you can borrow the book.

As always, we have to keep Jesus’ teaching in context.  We’re continuing on from last week where Jesus is giving parables about lost things.  If you were here you may remember we talked about one in a hundred sheep lost, and one in ten coins lost, and one of two sons lost.  In the end each was found and there was rejoicing.

Whenever you lose something important you are anxious until you find it again.  The more important it is the more anxious you are.  Nobody gets too fussed about losing a cheap pen.  But lose your driver’s license or a credit card and you may go into a panic.  When you find it there is great relief.

We want to keep all of that in the back of our minds as we listen to this next parable, the parable of the Dishonest Manager.  If Jesus were walking around New York State today he may have had the dishonest manager be a politician in Albany.  The politician is corrupt – no surprise there.  He makes lots of back room deals and trades inside information.  Give money to his campaign and you can be sure to win a fat contract for your company when he’s elected.

But then he finds out he’s being investigated.  He knows he’s guilty.  He’s going to lose his office for sure, maybe even go to jail.  He does not see himself making a living in a job that requires him to say, “Would you like fries with that?”  So while there is still time, before the investigation really begins and his assets are frozen he takes action.

Except instead of deciding to go straight he becomes even more corrupt.  He’s going to make all sorts of deals, do all sorts of favors and share all sorts of information so that when he does go down, lots of people owe him favors.  And he’s going to cash in on them then.  And worst case scenario, he goes to jail, then he’ll be infamous enough that when he writes his book it’ll be sure to sell well.

We hate this guy.  He disgusts us.  Though we all know that politics is dirty business and there’s a lot of deal making that goes on and a lot of times when politicians have to choose the least-worst option, this guy is just outright corrupt and sleazy; and he relishes in it.

We’d expect Jesus to say this guy is the worst of the worst.  We expect Jesus to tell his followers never to become like this.  This is what happens when morals and ethics and boundaries just erode away completely.

And then Jesus commends the guy.

Jesus calls on his followers to emulate this guy.

We go looking in our Bibles for the pages that are missing.  Surely something’s gotten lost.  We must have started one story and then accidentally concluded another.

But no.  This is the parable; concluding with, “And I tell you; make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

Keep in mind the context of Jesus words.  We’re following three parables about lost things that are recovered.  You search diligently for something that is lost.  You can’t rest until you’ve found it.  Is your discipleship the same way?

I’ve heard a contrast made between theologian Reinhold Neibuhr and Martin Luther King Junior.  Neibuhr was an American theologian, ethicist, and commentator on American politics.  He often said critical things but he had this belief that humanity was too corrupt to ever really change or improve.  He believed that that work was ultimately God’s and that we could do nothing.  So ultimately Neibuhr was content to sit in his office of Union Theological Seminary in New York City and write his critiques of America.

How many of you have ever heard of Reinhold Neibuhr?

Martin Luther King Junior knew the same things, but he wasn’t content to sit in an office and offer critiques.  Like him or not, agree with him or not, he acted.  He acted against all odds.  He acted tirelessly until he was murdered.  Which intelligent, capable man actually made a difference?  I know you’ve all heard of Martin Luther King.  Like his even more famous namesake on the global scale, Dr. Martin Luther the 16^th century church reformer, he wouldn’t ever rest as long as God’s world was broken.  While Martin Luther died of natural causes he escaped execution numerous times.

Jesus’ followers can quickly become lazy.  They can say that only God can fix problems, so why should we really try.  The dishonest manager in the parable was going to use every bit of shrewdness and cunning and power he had to get things done – crooked or not.  It is that attitude Jesus wants all of us to have in faith.

For centuries American Christians have considered the church to be a holy and righteous place.  Christians were to do things that were prim and proper, things that were socially superior to the common rabble.  A book of etiquette was considered as much a teacher of godliness as the Bible.  Coming to worship was a time to put on your best clothes and be on your absolute best behavior.

Now, does the Bible actually teach any of that?  Nope.  But for centuries the church was filled exactly with the Pharisees and Sadducees that conflicted with Jesus so often.  Today many people’s first thought when it comes to church is perfect families sitting in rows of hard benches listening attentively to a sermon about good morals.  And it turns them off.

I’m always amused to watch people walk by our booth when we’re at Hang Around Victor Day.  People will walk down the sidewalk but then as soon as they see a church booth they step to the far side of the sidewalk to get as far away from us as possible.  It is as if the church is a contagious disease.  Actually, they’ve had too many bad experiences with Jesus talk.  They don’t want to be pulled into an awkward conversation about Jesus and faith and salvation.

I was at a back to school party recently.  The school kids were playing in the yard and the adults were gathered on the deck.  I overheard one of the adults mention something about their growth in faith and their church priorities and I immediately noticed people stepping away from him.  They dropped their eyes.  They started looking away.  They wanted to talk to someone else – anything but this Christian faith talk.

Such is the case for spreading the love of God which gives strength, meaning and purpose.

You know what usually draws people to our Hang Around Victor Day booth?  Something that offends my mother to no end;  the beer brewing group.  It happened this year also.  We were setting up and people were keeping their distance.  One simple mention of getting the St. John’s Brewers display set up and everyone was drawn to us like we were magnetic.  Instead of turning away awkwardly they initiated conversations with us.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about our brewing group.  Alcohol gets lots of people in trouble.  Addictions are serious and I always want this to be a safe place for everyone.  And yet in our culture home brewing is a novelty.  It is a novelty that can open doors to faith.  It is a novelty that breaks down stereotypes of churches filled with righteous people who only talk about Jesus.  In other words, it is clever.  It is creative.  It is the type of thinking Jesus is commending in his parable.

I do not think true faith is about moral or righteous living.  I think true faith is knowing God’s world is broken.  People aren’t connected and God’s family is incomplete.  It is not resting until it is fixed, even though you know it is impossible.  It is about seeking and struggling and trying because you just can’t sit back and let the brokenness be.

We say, “God’s Work Our Hands” at the end of every service.  We know our hands are not capable of fixing the world.  What can we really do?  And yet we the work anyway.  Because, by God, through us, God’s work is done.  God’s world is being restored.  God’s family is growing and becoming complete.  Whether we see it or not, we do not rest until God’s work is done.