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A sermon preached on August 29th, 2010 based upon Luke 14:1, 7-14

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

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. ⁸‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; ⁹and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. ¹¹For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’

There’s been a lot in the news lately that raises up for me the question of how Christian should relate to Moslems.   Garnering the most attention has been the controversy over the plans to build an Islamic cultural center near the site of ground zero in New York City, which pollsters tell us the initial response of most Americans is to oppose.  This is a complicated issue charged with a lot of powerful feelings, over which intelligent, well-intentioned people can disagree. 

But some of the stuff coming up in the news is just plain bizarre, like the polls that tell us a growing number of Americans actually believe President Obama is Moslem, in spite of his consistent practices and professions by which he identifies himself as a Christian. 

Then there is the pastor in Florida who has gotten attention by calling for a national burn-the-Quaran day to be held on September 11^th, with the notion that this would somehow be a proper way to remember those who lost their lives on that day. 

Like the Bible, the Quaran is a big book, and if you search inside you can find passages that could inspire someone with violent tendencies to attack non-Moslems.  

For instance, when you come across a perverse verse like this one:  “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”  you might well be tempted to burn the book.  Oh.  My mistake.  The verse I just read actually comes from our Bible; Psalm 137:9 to be precise.

And that’s the point.  If you haven’t spent much times reading the dark corners of the Bible – the verses that don’t ever come up in the Sunday lectionary readings – you might not be aware of the incendiary stuff that is there. 

For instance, there is the curious story tucked away in 2Kings 2 about the time the prophet Elisha gets mocked for being bold by some children.  Elisha curses the children in the name of the Lord, at which point two she-bears come out of the forest and maul forty-two children to death.  (I’ve thought about using this story in a children’s sermon to make the point it’s not a good idea to mock bald guys, but I think you would agree, it’s best not to go there. 

And lest you think that the bizarre parts of the Bible are only found in the Old Testament, consider a story found in Acts 5.  Things have been moving along nicely up until that point.  The Holy Spirit is blessing the early church, and its growing by leaps and bounds, with everybody sharing all their possessions so that no one is in want (a practice sounding a bit like communism.)  But then we hear about this church couple that sell a piece of land and secretly hold back some of the money they receive for themselves, rather than turn it all over to the apostles.   Peter calls the husband into his presence, tells him he has lied to God, and promptly the man is struck dead.  Three hours later the wife comes in, is informed of the same judgment, and she too falls dead. 

As tempting as it may be, I will never use this story for a stewardship sermon.  

And so my point is, everybody’s sacred scriptures has a dark side, and we wouldn’t appreciate some Imam in Saudi Arabia calling for a national burn the Bible day because our more distressing scripture passages. And so by the basic principle of the golden rule, the Florida pastor’s idea is, to say the least, ill advised. 

Anyway, it was with this whole question of how Christians should relate to Moslems on my mind that I read this morning’s Gospel lesson.  Jesus is invited to the house of a Pharisee for a dinner party, and while he is there, he offers some words of advice, which amount to two basic points.

First, don’t get stuck in the obsession people often have of focusing on their personal status.   Don’t be all about self-promotion, where your life is defined by an endless quest to climb higher and higher up the social ladder.  It’s a big mistake.  Aspire instead to be humble, with your life focused on being used is service of something greater than your little self. 

And second, make a point of going out of your way to help people who are destitute – people who can’t repay you for you generosity. 

These are, I think we would all agree, two very good and noble teachings, but it is worth pointing out they are hardly unique to Jesus.  Similar ideas are found in the Quoran of Islam as well as in Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. 

Which points out that there is a lot of common ground to be found in the teachings (at their best) of the great religious traditions.   They all teach some form of the golden rule; they all teach humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service. 

All of which begs the question, what, then is special about Christianity?  In answering this we would point to Christianity’s unique claims about Jesus:  specifically, that he was in some sense God-incarnate, that he died a sacrificial death on behalf of all people, that he rose from the dead.  Islam doesn’t make such claims on behalf of Mohammed, nor Judaism about Moses, or Buddhism about the Buddha. 

Christianity, at its heart is about relationship with a person, specifically Jesus.  The idea is for Jesus to personally mentor us. 

If we’re going to have a personal relationship with this guy then we are obliged to get to know him as best we can; spend lots of time figuring out what this Jesus cares about – the kind of life he is trying to mentor us into.

As I said before, we find that many of the values that Jesus taught are shared by other religious traditions.   The one thing you can say about Jesus is he has this tendency to take these values further, to a more extreme place, despite the associations that the word “extremist” evokes these days. 

For instance, not only did he teach the golden rule; he went further, emphasizing the love of enemies.   He talked about going the second mile, turning the other cheek, about forgiving without limits. 

And the central event of the old, old story of his love involves Jesus being so dedicated to this way of life that he refused to forsake it when doing so meant he was required to die an excruciatingly painful, violent death on a cross.  To the end of his life he refused to get involved in the turf wars that ravage our world – all the jockeying for position and power that leads to so much brutality and violence. 

And his extremism in this regard puts a burden on our shoulders when it comes to how we are to deal with people of other faiths.   

There is a little detail in this morning’s story that is significant and easily overlooked, and that is the fact that Jesus was in the home of a Pharisee in the first place.  

Well before this, the tension and conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees has been growing intensely.  On a number of occasions they’ve criticized him for healing on the Sabbath.  Jesus himself has already begun to read the writing on the walls, telling his disciples that he will die at the hands of religious authorities, of which the Pharisees were a part.

The Pharisees aren’t what you would call  “Jesus’ people” – the people with whom he would be most readily at ease.  Jesus and the Pharisees represent, in a sense, two diverging religious traditions.  (The Pharisees have become for us something of a stereotype in regard to the judgmental, condemning persona.  They did, in fact, represent some of the best of religion in terms of the generation of good deeds.) 

Nonetheless, despite the awkwardness, here Jesus is at their dinner party.  Why?  Because they have invited him, and it would be rude to reject their hospitality (another value honored in all great religious traditions.)  An opportunity is given to Jesus to have a personal encounter over a dinner table with those with whom he has had disagreements, and he will not pass it up.  In a world where our instinct tends to be to avoid people we don’t agree with and hang with “our kind of people”, this really is truly remarkable.

There is a story about a renegade Baptist preacher named Will Campbell who worked on behalf of civil rights in the deep south during the fifties and sixties.   As time passed, his ministry often led him to care for the poor white folks who got caught up in the violence of the KKK.  

One time there was a murder trial taking place in which a poor white man was on trial for the brutal murder of a black man.   During the course of the trial, Campbell split his time between the man on trial and his family, and the grieving family of the victim of the murder.  

A reporter noticed this, and confronted Campbell about his behavior at the trial.   “This is a contradiction.  You can’t be on the murderer’s side as well as on the side of the family of his victim.   How do you explain your actions?”

The reporter continued to badger Campbell with his seeming inconsistency until finally Campbell lost his patience with the man:  “I’m doing this because I’m an (expletive, expletive) Christian!!! That’s why!”

Jesus refuses to acknowledge the lines of division drawn by the world, and as his followers, we are obliged to do the same.  

A quarter of Americans say they know “nothing at all” about Islam, the Pew Research Center found this month, and of non-Muslims polled, 58 percent said they don’t know any Muslims.

Pastor Mike Slaughter in  “Change the World” – the book our bishop has recommended we read — quotes a letter he received from a man saying he used to call himself a Christian, but wasn’t so sure he wanted to claim that word anymore.  The man works in the engineering department of a local university:

“I work with so many people from so many different cultures, religions, and backgrounds, and many of them I have found to be beautiful people—people that I love with all of my heart and soul and people that I call my family.  One of them is a Muslim, yet so many fault me for accepting this person because of his religion.  We share the human experience!”

Not surprisingly, a Gallup survey last year found that Americans who don’t personally know any Muslims were twice as likely to admit to “a great deal” of anti-Muslim prejudice.

This is similar to the experience of Americans with gay and Lesbian people.  Generally speaking, the people who are quick to condemn gay people are people who don’t personally know a gay person.  Fortunately, the situation is changing, since most people these days have someone either in their family or in their work place who have had the courage to come out.    Unfortunately, the exception to this trend tends to be in a majority of churches, where it can often be mighty difficult for a straight person to encounter an openly gay person.

My auto mechanic over the past 18 years is a faithful Moslem named Sohail.  He’s also one of the best people I know in Parsippany.  In a line of work that provides ample opportunity to rip people off, I have never known him to do so.  He is conscious of the fact that God is watching how he treats people, and on occasion goes out of his way to do good deeds for people who can’t repay him.  In his garage he employs people who are at least nominally Hindu and Christian, providing an appealing model of people of different faiths getting along together. 

I am pretty sure that Sohail is better at remembering God in the course of his day than I am.  Five times a day his faith requires that he retreat for five minutes into a back room in his greasy garage to lay down his prayer mat and say his prayers.  In the midst of what is a very stressful line of work, Sohail’s prayer times regularly remind him for whom he’s really working.

When I hear broad generalizations spoken about Moslems rejoicing over Americans’ grief and tragedy, I remember Sohail, and know the stereotype doesn’t hold.  Though there are Moslems who have done some pretty evil things in the name of their religion, Sohail’s faith has been a vehicle by which to be a better human being.  The same can be said for people who call themselves “Christian.”

In so far as Christianity at its heart is about a personal relationship, it values personal relationships in general.   Earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus tells the well-known story about a man who getting beaten up and left half-dead at the side of the road.  The priest and the Levite pass the man by, refusing to engage in a personal relationship with him.  Finally a Samaritan comes by and shows compassion on the man. 

If we were looking for a contemporary example of what Jesus was trying to get at in his story, we could do no better than to have the Samaritan be a Moslem. 

The most critical religious struggles of our age are not really taking place between the great religious traditions as they are happening within these traditions themselves.  The struggle is between the fundamentalist versions and the moderate versions that emphasize the common core values that resonate with the golden rule. 

The group seeking to build near (not on) Ground Zero is from that moderate wing of Islam, intentionally seeking dialogue with other faiths. They are not the people who blew up the world trade center. 

Perhaps, if I were to respond simply as an American, I might well come down on the side of those who say that the associations are unavoidable and therefore the Islamic Center is an affront to the memories of those who died.   Maybe.

But unfortunately, I am obliged to see things first as a follower of Jesus, and so, if they build the center and they invite me over for dinner, I am obliged to go and share in the opportunity to be with them in friendship.

A sermon preached on August 22, 2010 based upon Luke 13:10 – 17.

Our Gospel story this morning has a lot packed into it.   Let’s quickly review the story, then probe more deeply into what took place.  As is his custom, Jesus gathers on the Sabbath with the community in the town in which he is visiting.  As he is teaching in the synagogue, his attention is drawn to a woman who is bent over with an affliction, which has, it turns out, caused her suffering for 18 long years.  Jesus calls her to come forward, and then says to her, “Woman, you are freed of your affliction.”  He places his hands upon her, and at once she stands up straight and praises God.

Now the president of the synagogue is not pleased by what has happened and begins to yell at the ordinary people in the synagogue, telling them that they have six days each week to come looking for healing; they shouldn’t be coming to be healed on the Sabbath.   Jesus in turn lashes into the president and presumably the other leaders in the synagogue calling them hypocrites, pointing out that if they had an ox or donkey tethered on the Sabbath, they would surely untie it and lead it to water to drink.  How much more so, he asks, should this daughter of Abraham who has been in bondage to Satan for eighteen years be set free if the opportunity avails itself on the Sabbath?  With that the crowd began to rejoice.

A question arises immediately about this story:  why didn’t the president of the synagogue rejoice when something so unmistakably good took place — the healing of a woman who has suffered for eighteen long years?  He would say that he was taking a stand on a sacred principle:   God has commanded that no work be done on the Sabbath; healing is a kind of work, and therefore it must be prohibited.

Does the president of the synagogue really believe this?  I think this is a key question, because it gets at the way we human beings can say one thing, even believe what we are saying to some extent, and yet, be motivated by something all together different.  It gets at our capacity for self-deception, which is another way of describing hypocrisy.

As we ponder the story, it becomes clear that the thing the president claims he is upset about isn’t really what he’s upset at, even though there probably is a part of him that believes it is so.  The real issue is one of power:  the president feels his power being threatened on two levels:  First, this visiting Rabbi named Jesus is exercising an innate authority and power which leads him to feel that his authority and power is diminished.  And second, as expressed in the poor woman being able to stand up straight for the first time in eighteen years, the little people are being empowered, and the president’s sense of power is dependent upon their subservience.  The underlying assumption is one that is alien to the kingdom of God:  that there is only a limited amount of power to go around, and if you have some, my power is diminished.

The hypocrisy of this man is revealed by the fact that he unleashes his anger at the little people rather than at Jesus.   A fascinating detail of this story is that unlike a lot of other healing stories, the woman is a totally passive agent in her healing.   The initiative is all with Jesus.  Contrast this to the story, for instance, of the woman who came to Jesus determined to touch the hem of his garment in order to be made whole.   In that case, Jesus commended her for her faith.  In this morning’s story, there is no mention of the woman’s faith.   Apparently she was so beaten down after eighteen years of bondage and oppression that she is not even capable of the initiative involved in faith.  There is an implication here that the woman’s physical affliction is related to an emotional, spiritual oppression that she has experienced within this community where the people with the power have a vested interest in keeping her down.

So all the iniative is with Jesus, and if the principle at stake is keeping the Sabbath free from work, then Jesus is the one who should receive the onslaught.  The man lashes out instead at the people because, on the one hand, he feels the need to “put the people in their place” to reinforce his sense of superiority.  He has a perverse need to cripple the people.  On the other hand, the classic bully dynamics are at work here:  the president senses that Jesus has the power to kick his butt.   Better, in his mind, to bully the ones who won’t fight back.

But Jesus sees through the hypocrisy and takes the bully down anyway.

So, on a personal level, what are we to make of this story?  With who are we invited to identify?  It seems to me that there are three different people with whom we can identify.

First, we can identify with the woman.  The story reminds us that God is for us, not against us.  The God revealed in Jesus is not a god that wants us to go through life crippled, weighed down by guilt and shame.   God wants us to have life and have it abundantly.  A lot of people have picked up the mistaken notion that it somehow pleases

God to see people reduced to timidity through the afflictions of their life.  Hardly.

We have all fallen short of the glory of God, and as an early church father put it, “The glory of God is human beings fully alive.”  It does not bring glory to God to live small, cramped, crippled lives.  The story invites us to consider the places in our lives where we are being a mere shadow of our true selves, the child of God made in the image and likeness of God.

The story also invites us to contemplate the ways in which we can play the part of Jesus in the lives of others.   Jesus began his ministry in Luke’s Gospel by reading a passage from Isaiah in which the one speaking states that he has come to set the captives free and liberate those who are oppressed.  This, Jesus declares, is his mission statement.   How can we, individually and together as the body of Christ, be about this work on behalf of the bent-over people we meet in this world?

I heard a story in which a woman described a momentary interaction that changed her life.  She had been in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man.  She felt dependent upon this man, and a part of her assumed that his constant criticisms and put-downs of her were somehow justified.   She accepted the premise that she was defective, inferior to this man.

She recounts how one day she was standing with the man waiting for light to change at a New York City street corner.  A building across the way caught her attention and she made a comment about the beauty of the architecture.

In response, the man adopted a condescending tone he commonly took with the woman, showing off his knowledge of the history of architecture, belittling the building’s design, and by implication, belittling the woman herself.

What neither of them had noticed was the presence of a third person, a woman known to neither of them, who stood there waiting for the light to change, overhearing the entire exchange.  Abruptly, the woman turned to the belittled woman and said, “You are right. 

That truly is an extraordinarily beautiful building.”  And then, turning directly to the man, she added, “And you, sir, are a pompous ass!”

With that the light changed, and the woman strode off, leaving them both stunned.  The woman telling the story said that something changed for her in that moment.  Catching a glimpse of their relationship through the eyes of this third party, it was as if a spell were broken, and she saw the sickness of her relationship to this man who felt the need

to perpetually put her down.  Shortly after that she broke off her relationship with him, despite his pleas as well as insults with which he tried to persuade her not to leave him.

The third person, and perhaps the character we may feel the most resistance to identify with, is the president of the synagogue, who in is also the man at the streetlight as well.

There’s that old story I am fond of telling of the man who is down on his hands and knees under a streetlight at night searching for something.  Another man comes by and asks him what he is looking for.  “My house key.  I lost my house key.”

The second man gets down on his hands and knees and proceeds to search as well.  After about five minutes without any success the man asks, “So, where exactly did you lose your key?”

“Oh, I lost the key halfway down the block, but the light is better here.”

The light may be better in identifying with the woman in her need to be healed, and with Jesus, in his ministry of empowerment.   But perhaps it is in the darkness of our own hearts where the real searching is requried.

We all cripple others at times, perhaps especially the people we profess to love the most.  Can we dare to look at the ways we do this?  Here are a couple of ways we might recognize:

We fall into the pattern of living as bookkeepers, keeping track of all the things we have done for the other, regularly finding subtle ways of letting the other know of the magnitude of their indebtedness to us (by our calculations, at least.)

Somebody proposes an idea, and instinctively we begin thinking about all the reasons why the idea won’t work.   We may claim that we’re just being practical realists.  But could there be a motivation on a deeper, darker level that feels the need to tear down the idea simply because it wasn’t our idea, feeling threatened by the glory others (and not ourselves) might receive in the implementation of the idea?

Do we ever catch ourselves stuck in a posture of criticism and judgment, habitually focusing on the faults and flaws of others?  We may try to justify our posture by pointing all the more vehemently at the other’s damaging shortcomings, but could it be that the real reason we are taking this stance is because we figure a good offense is the best defense.   If I can keep the focus on what is wrong with others I won’t have to admit all the stuff that’s wrong with me.  Jesus was well aware of this kind of self-deception when he asked why we paid attention to the speck in the eye of our neighbor while overlooking the log in our own.

The posture of criticism and judgment expresses, in its own way, a deformity — a kind of bondage from which we need to be set free.  The president in the synagogue also needs to be healed, though often times his need for healing is the hardest kind to admit.  A big theme of the Gospel story is that it was the good, reputable people who conspired to have Jesus crucified.  To the end, they were determined to believe that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with them selves.

Our bishop has asked the pastors of the conference to read a book and instigate conversations about the book within our congregations.  The book is entitled, “Change the World:  Recvoering the Message and Mission of Jesus,” written by a pastor in Ohio named Mike Slaughter.

In the introduction there is a section entitled “Something is not working,” in which he points to the all too familiar statistics of decline for the United Methodist Church as well as other mainline churches in America.  He goes on to reference some polling data in which young people ages 16 to 35 were asked to associate words with the Christian Church. Here are the three most commonly referenced words:  1) Anti-homosexual; 2) Judgmental; and 3) hypocritical.

Ouch!   No wonder we are in decline! How did the Church get so far away from Jesus and come to be seen more like the Pharisees who constantly did battle with him?

Lead us home, Jesus.  Lead us home.

A sermon preached on August 8, 2010 based upon Hebrews 11:1-3

“Now faith is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen… By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”  (Hebrew 11:1, 3)

The deepest reality, asserts the letter to Hebrews, is one that is invisible, eternal.  The world we can see and touch depends upon the unseen order. 

The assertion at the heart of faith can’t be proved, or disproved.   Smart people can make arguments for or against the likelihood of such a reality, but they can’t finally prove it, one way or another.  That’s why it’s called faith. So when we’re talking about having faith, the size of our brains doesn’t matter much.  Trusting doesn’t arise from our intellects. 

One thing though:  the truth affirmed by faith can’t be experienced without intentionally setting out to live as if it were true. 

An old joke:  A circus ringmaster and a clown are watching from below as the circus’ new high wire acrobat is practicing above them.  He rides a bicycle and then a unicycle along the wire.  Now he is pushing a wheelbarrow. 

“They say he’s the greatest hire wire artist the world has ever known.  You think that’s true?” asks the ringmaster.

“Surely, he is the greatest there ever was, and ever will be.”

“I don’t know, we got a lot of people coming to night to see him perform.  You think he’ll come through?”

“I have no doubt.  He could do these tricks in his sleep.”

“Absolutely certain?”

“Absolutely!”

“Well, that’s really good, because tonight I want you riding in the wheelbarrow.”

“Nope.  Not in my contract,” said the clown.

There is, of course, a tremendous difference between believing in someone, and putting your life in that person’s hands.  It matters little whether we say we believe in God and Jesus if we aren’t willing to put our trust in them. 

It is worth noting that in the Gospels the disciples rarely exhibited much faith.   Jesus would say, “O ye of little faith, why did you doubt?”  They weren’t willing to get in the wheelbarrow. 

This means that although we may use the word “faith” routinely, that doesn’t mean that we necessarily have seen much of it lived out, at least in the radical way Jesus was calling people

If we were looking for a succinct expression of the Gospel message at the core, we might not do much better than the first verse of our Gospel lesson, where Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid, little flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Sweet and simple.  Faith is about trusting the Creator’s good intentions.   There is a lot that is left unexplained in this verse.  What, for instance, does it mean to be given “the kingdom?”  Is the kingdom something here and now, or off in the distance, perhaps not fully realized until after we die?  The scriptures seem to intentionally keep the answer to this ambiguous. 

The letter to the Hebrews goes on to list some heroes from scriptures who lived out faith.   People like Abraham and Sarah, who received a very concrete fulfillment of the promises of the Lord when late in life, Sarah, who had to that moment been barren, found herself expecting.   And yet, the letter goes on to point out, they died without seeing fulfillment of what had been promised.   “They were strangers and foreigners on the earth” waiting for a heavenly home.

Early on in Jesus’ ministry there were countless signs of the presence of the kingdom here and now:  people were healed, hungry people fed, lives transformed.   

At the end, however, when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene shortly before his torture and death, the fulfillment of the Father’s promise clearly awaited a world beyond this one. 

We often get confused about the nature of faith.   I read a story about a man who traveled to Calcutta, India in order to spend three months in the presence of Mother Teresa.   He felt an urgent need to figure out what it was God wanted him to be doing. 

At his first meeting with Mother Teresa, she asked him, “What would you like me to do for you?”  He answered, “Pray for me.”

“Fine,” she answered.  “I will do that.  What would you like me to pray for?”

“Clarity,” he answered.  “I want clarity.”

“No,” she answered, “that his one thing I cannot pray for.”

“Why not?” he asked.  “You surely have it?”

“I have never had clarity,” she answered.  “What I have had is trust.  I will pray for you that you will come to have trust.”

Faith isn’t clarity.  We’re talking about things we can’t see.  Abraham and Sarah left home, trusting the call of God, but not knowing where they were going. 

I have two children who recently graduated from college.   The one whom I might have anticipated having more uncertainly following graduation fell into a wonderful situation in grad school – a path seeming to open up before him.   The one who appeared more practical in her approach to life is struggling to find her way forward.   I am reminded that what she needs is faith/trust.  Without faith you can’t take the next step forward into a path that is not yet clear, and it is in taking that next step, and the one after that, one and then the one after that, that the way begins to be revealed. 

If we are afraid of being on the wrong path, afraid we’re making the wrong decision, we will never be able to move forward.  

So what if Jesus is right, and our greatest need isn’t for more money, a better job, a clean bill of health, the right lover, but what we most need is more faith. 

In order to grow in faith we need to face the places where we are faithless.   We need to identify the areas where there is a recording playing over and over in our head reminding us of all the things that could go wrong.  Ah, yes, this is where I need do whatever it takes to try and crawl into the wheelbarrow. 

Paul offered another succinct summation of the Gospel when he declared, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  Who can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?”  (Romans 8:28)  Paul  goes on to say that “All things work for good for those who love God…” which is another way of saying that on a certain level it is not possible to make a mistake, even though we may in the small picture make tons of them.  God has a way of working through our mistakes.  Nothing – including our own ignorance about the way forward – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  

Al came home from the hospital yesterday after a successful transplant of bone marrow.   I saw him up at the hospital shortly before he came home.  I noticed a card on his wall behind him with a lovely picture looking up to a blue sky through a rock chasm.   I commented on it, and Al told me that the chaplain’s office had dropped it off, and he had liked it, and so he had put it up on the wall. 

When I picked it up to read it I recognized it as a prayer I had read  thirty years ago in seminary by Thomas Merton.  I had kept a copy over the years.  Here is how the prayer begins:

I have no idea where I am going.

I don not see the road ahead of me. 

This past March 1^st Al came over to the church in the morning to help in the kitchen with the hospitality for a bunch of clergy who were meeting in our building.   He began feeling really badly and called his wife Gail, who came and took him to the hospital.  In short order he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.   He spent the next month in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy. 

We really don’t have any idea where we are going.

The prayer continues. 

 I cannot know for certain where it will end. 

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you.  And hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart form that desire. 

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

 Amen.

A sermon preached on August 1st, 2010, based upon Luke 12:13 - 21.

Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ ¹⁴But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ ¹⁵And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ ¹⁶Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?”¹⁸Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ²⁰But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” ²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

There are two characters we encounter through Jesus in this morning’s Gospel lesson.   Neither of them are what we typically think of as a bad guy.  No mention is made of their lying or cheating or stealing.   They are simply people consumed with issues pertaining to money.

One is a character Jesus created, a rich farmer who has filled his barns with grain, and having done so, is now confronted with the question of what it is he will devote himself to moving forward.  He decides:  building bigger barns and the storage of even more grain, with the thought that somewhere down the road he will really be able to enjoy life.

Jesus calls this man a fool, declaring that he has no assurance that his life will last beyond today.

The other character is the actual man Jesus met, who seems to have inspired Jesus to tell the story about the man with his bigger barns.   This man comes to Jesus asking for him to resolve a dispute with his brother over the inheritance.  In all likelihood, the situation that he was dealing with was one with which most of us would empathize; he could be left destitute.  He’s being cut out of the inheritance.  Perhaps this is an illusion to the laws of the day which gave the lion’s share of the inheritance to the eldest son.  

The man, however, gets rebuked by Jesus, who refuses to play the role of arbiter.  He precedes to lecture everybody present about the dangers of greed:  “Be on guard against every kind of greed.”

One of the unintended consequences of this passage and others like it is that we have come to feel real shy in church about talking about money.   Money seems a shameful topic to discuss.  So we end up in the church with a situation that resembles the Emperor’s New Clothes.   Most everybody is worrying about money, but everybody’s pretending it isn’t so.  

So in the hope of achieving something akin to what the little boy accomplished when he declared, “The emperor has no clothes!” I have a confession to make:  I spend a great deal of time worrying about money; more so than I used to.   My wife and I have accumulated significant debts, primarily around our kids’ education.  There are times when I fantasize about what it would be like to have the money we’re paying off educational loans with to spend on luxury cars (in contrast to the piece of junk I do in fact drive) or better, faster computers (with reliable printers), or on exotic vacations. 

I know its possible to second guess the choices we’ve made, to argue, say that children need work to pay their own way through college to appreciate what they have, and that may be a valid point. But for the most part we’re comfortable with the decisions we’ve made about investing in our children’s education.

Nonetheless,  I spend a great deal of time thinking about money.   I check my online banking account a couple of times a day.  I worry about having enough money to pay our debts, and about the inordinate interest rates we’re paying. I worry about having enough money to pay the taxes without having to go into our retirement savings. 

I worry, even though I realize there are a whole lot of people worse off than me; people without jobs, people in fear of losing their homes, people with medical bills they can’t pay, people without retirement savings.  

I realize I’m not alone in these kinds of worries.  The impression I have is that most people worry about money, even those of us who would seem to have enough, like the man in in Jesus’ story focused on the bigger barns.  

There is something weird about money whereby it can take possession of us, consuming our mental energy, demanding a kind of devotion, and becoming a kind of god in our lives.   

So my object in this sermon is a rather modest one, to simply bring this subject out into the open, to recognize the hold money has on us, and to see if together we can begin to find a way out from the death grip we often find ourselves in.  I know that generally speaking the only time you hear money discussed in church is when you the implicit message is that you are a failure because you haven’t given enough money to the church.  But that’s not the conversation I’m looking to initiate this morning.   

A starting point is to recognize the lies that our culture promotes about happiness and the meaning of life.   As an example, take the whole Lebron James spectacle earlier this summer.   The bottom line for Lebron, and in the eyes of most commentators, seem to come down to two things:  How much money could Lebron make, and where would he have the best chance of winning championships.  

In the end, on the mockery that was the TV show in which he announced his decision, Lebron described how he’d had to ignore all the voices that were telling him what to do, and base his decision on what was best for himself (and of course, the obligatory nod to his “family”, though how his decision had anything to do with the needs of his family wasn’t apparent.)  

For the most part, the criteria Lebron put forth on which to make his decision wasn’t challenged.  But it should have been done.

What about the whole business of “In which situation can I do the most good?” (to which it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that remaining in his hometown of economically-depressed Cleveland would have been the answer.)

I got to spend some time with Bart this week, who recently was discharged fromteh  Navy following four and a half years of service in various places, including Afghansitan.  The impression Bart gave me was that the two best things he experienced in the Navy was this:   

1) The profound sense of a family he developed with the fellow soldiers with whom he served; that they were like brothers and sisters for whom he would be willing to sacrifice for, even die for. 

2) The opportunities he had to do some good in this world, which happened primarily when he was deployed in Ghana and Liberia, building medical clinics that truly benefited the people living there. 

What would it mean to shape lives around those two things:  building truly caring communities where people are devoted to one another, and doing something that really made a difference in the lives of those who are less fortunate?

In contrast, too often our lives are shaped by an American obsession with independence and self-reliance, where a good neighbor is one who doesn’t bother you, and by the notion that happiness is found in the accumulation of wealth and possessions.  

Jesus said, “Be on guard against all kinds of greed.”   Now I know that I wouldn’t generally be categorized as a greedy person in the usual sense of the word.  But I suspect that the amount of time and energy I devote to worrying over money would be one of the more subtle kinds of greed to which Jesus was alluding.   It’s a kind of bondage.  

During the children’s sermon, I had the kids give out five dollar bills of my money to all the adults present.  (Fortunately, it being a mid-summer Sunday, there were less of you present than might have been.  That’ll teach you for missing church!)  I enjoyed giving the money away; I hope you will too.  

Your assignment is to pray over the money, and to ask God who you should give it to this coming week.   I intend it to be a little spiritual experiment.  Do you trust God to lead you to someone who needs the money, or specifically, who needs what the gesture of giving this small amount of money would mean to them?   How does it feel to give away in contrast to what might feel like the habitual posture of clutching tightly to what you have?     

Let me know how it goes.

A sermon preached on July 25th, 2010 based upon Luke 11:1 – 13.

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ ²He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father,^* hallowed be your name.
   Your kingdom come.^* 
3   Give us each day our daily bread.^* 
4   And forgive us our sins,
     for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
   And do not bring us to the time of trial.’^*

5 And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.”⁷And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” ⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

9 ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for^* a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit^* to those who ask him!’

There was this laboratory experiment I heard of years ago in which a fair-sized fish known as the wall-eyed pike was inside  a glass container filled with water.   A clear pane of glass was placed down the center dividing the container into two sections. The wall-eyed pike was in one side; on the other was the smaller fish that were its natural prey.   The experiment was kind of cruel; repeatedly the bigger fish would lunge forward anticipating dinner, only to be repelled by the glass panel.  After being rebuffed numerous times, the wall-eyed pike would essentially give up, swimming in repetitive agitated circles.

At this point the experimenters would remove the glass panel.  Now the smaller fish swam freely throughout the container, brushing up beside the larger fish’s gills.   The wall-eyed pike, however makes no attempt to eat them.  Having experienced a door that would not open so many times before, it now starved to death, in spite of an abundance of available food.  

I was reminded of this experiment when my sister Alison told me this past week about Gus, the 700 pound polar bear in the central park zoo.  (We drove together for over 1200 miles this past week in order to visit our father who lives in North Carolina; with so much time to fill, an endless array of topics get discussed.) In general, polar bears in zoos are not happy campers, more so than other animals, because, it turns out, they are very smart.  A while back it was noticed that Gus was obsessively swimming laps in his cage for hours on end, a sign of boredom if not downright depression. 

The zoo keepers attempted a variety of things to spice up Gus’ life.  In general, it helped Gus’ demeanor to increase the opportunities he had for exploration, which, of course, are limited within the confines of a zoo cage.   One thing that seemed to help in particular was if Gus had to put in some work to get his food.  In one case they devised a little stream in his cage where live fish swam, requiring Gus resurrect his instinctual fishing abilities.  It also helped if Gus’s food came wrapped up tightly, requiring Gus put in some effort ripping open his supper.  Apparently, food served on the proverbial silver platter didn’t make for a happy polar bear. 

Particularly given Gus’ native intelligence, he needed challenges in life.  Spoon fed meals left him empty, spiritually speaking.

We are not so very different from polar bears, or even from wall-eyed pikes for that matter.   Do you ever feel like you’ve experienced so many doors that won’t open that you’re tempted to give up? 

Our Gospel lesson from Luke includes some familiar material; it is interesting, however to notice what Luke has done with it in contrast to Matthew.  Our lesson begins with a stream-lined version of what we call “The Lord’s Prayer,” but whereas Matthew presents the more familiar version as part of an extended sermon, Luke has Jesus teaching the prayer in response to a question asked him by one of his disciples.  Noticing how much time Jesus spent by himself praying, the disciple asks, “Teach us to pray.”  It’s a subtle thing, but perhaps significant, that Luke has the disciples acting less passively.  They take some initiative in this interaction.  

Now, there is one verse of the Lord’s prayer that can come across a bit pat:   “Give us this day our daily bread.”  It can sound like all we’ve got to do is ask God for supper and it will just show up, with no effort on our part, like Gus receiving his meat without having to put in any work.   Which, of course, we all know isn’t how it really works.  But the verse can suggest this is how its supposed to work.  

Following the streamlined Lord’s prayer, Luke has Jesus go in a different direction from the one he follows up with in Matthew.   Luke inserts this peculiar little story that once again involves taking initiative.  A friend on a journey (an adventure, a quest of his own) shows up unexpectedly in the middle of the night asking for a place to stay. Hospitality is a big, big deal in middle-eastern culture.  The man can’t turn his friend away; in fact, it is assumed that a guest will have food set before him, particularly a hungry guest who has been walking all day.

Unfortunately, the man doesn’t have any food, but he’s determined to come up with some food, so he goes over to a friend’s house and knocks on the door, waking him from a sound sleep.   Through the locked door he explains his dilemma to his groggy friend — how he needs to borrow three loaves of bread to set before his unexpected guest.

At this point, we assume that if the man has gone to this length, surely the friend – if he is in fact a friend – will get up and open the door, and hand over the requested three loaves.    But he doesn’t.  “Go away!” he cries, hoping to quickly fall back asleep, his little ones snuggled close beside him. 

(In the telling, I suspect the story would have struck Jesus’ listeners as being pretty funny, like he’s doing stand-up.)

Nonetheless, the man refuses to give up, and eventually he wears down the so-called friend with his persistence.  Eventually he gets out of bed, unlocks the door, and hands over the bread the man needs. 

It is at this point that Luke inserts the familiar lines about ask, and it will be given to you; and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.    In this context, although the words are reassuring – you will be given, you will find, you will have the door opened –- they nonetheless imply significant effort.  You’ve got to go through the process of asking, seeking, and knocking. Don’t be surprised if a few doors get slammed in your face; don’t give up. You ‘ve got to be persistent, perseverant.

Certain characters that Jesus encountered and took a liking to come to mind:  the four friends who hoisted their paralyzed friend up on the roof, tearing a hole to lower him to Jesus, after the crowd at the door made it impossible to enter.  Bartimaeus the blind beggar who refuses to quit calling to Jesus when the crowd tells him to knock off the racket.  The woman with the flow of blood who doesn’t give up after twelve years of pursuing healing, who decides to go where she isn’t welcome in order to touch the hem of Jesus garment. 

And then there is the character that Jesus himself makes up later in the Luke’s Gospel – the poor widow who comes to the unjust judge in pursuit of justice, getting told by the crooked judge to get lost, but who eventually wears the judge down with her persistent knocking at his door. 

In all of these instances Jesus commends a quality he calls “faith”, which in these contexts seem to have a lot in common with persistence and a refusal to give up. 

Sometimes we wonder why didn’t God make life easier.  Why do we seem to smack into so many glass walls; why are there so many doors slammed shut?  Why didn’t God just provide us with everything we need without all the asking, seeking and knocking?

The implication here is that there is an inherent value to the quest, and without it, something essential is lost.  We are made for a higher purpose than that of wall-eyed pikes.  It is not good to be a couch potato, notwithstanding all the advertising that would suggest otherwise. 

I’ve mentioned before that when I was a kid there was a time when sports meant everything to me.   I wanted to be a professional athlete when I grew up.  When I hit adolescence, however, my experience in the world of sports didn’t go so well.  Eventually, I sort of gave up (like a wall-eyed pike?), justifying my abandonment of sports by telling myself that sports aren’t really as important as so many people make them out to be; that sports are in fact, rather trivial.   There was some truth to these rationalizations, but it didn’t change the fact that in some sense I had given up, and as a result sports I kept finding myself back on the athletic field in my dreams at nights for decades to come. 

Now as you may know I have this almost 15 year old son Bobby who has inherited my innate attraction to sports – soccer specifically; he wants to be a professional goalkeeper when he grows up. 

I am quite conscious that like so many other dads with children in sports, my own unresolved sports issues are a part of what is going on in my interaction with my son around sports. I am aware that there can be serious problems with this, but with some intentionality, I hope that both of us can come out the better for it. 

If you were to ask myself or probably any other sports dad what it is we want for our kids in sports, the quickest, most honest, and least thought through answer would probably be this:  We want our kids to be winners.   We want them to go out there and succeed, and be showered with glorious accolades.

With a bit of reflection, however, I recognize that this isn’t what I truly want most out of sport for my son.   As evidence of the foolishness of this desire by itself I present exhibit A:  Lawrence Taylor.  Those of you who are football fans recognize the name instantly, perhaps the greatest linebacker who ever played the game.  Lawrence Taylor was just naturally talented.   He didn’t start playing football until he was 15.  Six years later he was the number two draft choice of the entire NFL draft, going to the New York Giants, where he instantly became the best defensive player in the league, leading the Giants to two super bowl trophies.   Lawrence Taylor rarely lifted weights; he didn’t have to, he was just naturally strong.  He didn’t have to train hard;  it all came so easily to him.  

Apparently boredom was an issue for Lawrence, because along the way he got heavy into drugs, which didn’t seem to get in the way with his competing on the football field. But even his extraordinary athletic giftedness couldn’t hold off the aging process, and eventually he was compelled to retire.   In retirement there wasn’t much for him to do but to live in the past of his glory days. Having never achieved anything that hadn’t come easily for him, he was at a loss for how to chart new territories in retirement.  He was arrested several times for drug-related crimes.   Presently, Lawrence Taylor is on trial for the rape of a minor. 

So much for having life come to you on a silver platter. 

And so it isn’t simply success and glory I want for my son in sports; I want him to learn the lessons that sports at their best can teach.  There are several lessons for sure.  There’s the value of discipline in working to bring forth the best that you are capable of.  There is good sportsmanship and the value of what it means to be a part of a team.  

But for me, the deepest lesson sports has to teach, which is, I am sure, related to all the others is this:  the value of simple perseverance.   The capacity to try, try again if at first you don’t succeed.  The ability to get up off the mat (to throw in a boxing metaphor.)   This includes the humility to take an honest look at oneself when things don’t go well, and to change what needs to be changed in your approach. 

I am proud of my son Bobby.  When I think about it, what I am most proud about isn’t the success he’s known, which has been significant.  What I am most proud of is the fact that there have been a number of times in his soccer experience when it has not gone well; when it hasn’t been much fun, when a part of him was probably tempted to quit.  There are times when walking away from something may well be the wise choice, but Bobby really loves playing soccer, and in each instance I’ve witnessed him move through the difficult time, discovering a determination to try again, to recommit himself to bring forth the most of his God-given talents. 

This is a lesson that can be reapplied in every other arena of life.  Consider intimate relationships, for instance.   If your inclination is to give up when the going gets tough, what will happen to the most important relationships of your life when they enter a difficult stretch, as they inevitably will.  

While I was in North Carolina this past week, Bobby underwent a five-day “lock-in” at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark with all the other in-coming freshmen.  The folks who run the school understand about the lessons of perseverance. They put the boys through what amounts to a rite of passage through which they learn the traditions of the school, bond together, and come to a sense of belonging.   The week is designed to be hard, very hard, sort of like basic training in the army.   The boys sleep on the floor of gymnasium, have no free time, and undergo experiences that are both physically demanding and emotionally humbling. 

When Sarah and I picked him up on Friday afternoon, Bobby was absolutely exhausted.  “It was awful! It was terrible!” he exclaimed with a smile, in between giving bear hugs to all the new friends he had made.  Sarah and I were so proud of him.

A sermon preached on July 18th, 2010, based upon Luke 10:38 – 42.

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;⁴²there is need of only one thing.^* Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’

This familiar Gospel story is often turned into a debate about which it is better to be: a Martha — a doer, an organizer, a person who jumps in and does what needs getting done, or Mary, the quiet, inward soul that ponders the meaning of it all, preferring simply being rather than doing.  But if the rebuke that Martha receives from Jesus implies that the ponderers are preferred, then heaven help us, because nothing would get done. 

The dichotomy, however, is false.   The way to which Jesus calls us involves both doing and being.  The parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ directly precedes this story, in which Jesus concludes by declaring, “Go and do likewise.”  There is much to be done in this world, and perhaps Martha in her efforts at providing hospitality for Jesus is in her own way trying to emulate the Good Samaritan who cares for the wounded stranger at the side of the road. 

The issue at hand here is one of discernment; the capacity to pay attention to what is called for in a given moment.   

A key to the story is found in the opening words:  “Now as they went on their way…”   Jesus has recently begun moving in a particular direction; he is headed to Jerusalem, where he knows he will die.  He has attempted a couple of times to talk to his disciples about this fact, but they haven’t been much interested in listening, because, of course, the information is terribly distressing. 

My son Andrew showed me this powerful documentary entitled “Touching the Void” that recounts the story of two men who climbed a steep mountain peak in Peru that no one had previously ever succeeded in climbing.  On the way down, things went badly; first bad weather, and then one of the men severely breaks his leg.   His companion tries lowering him down the mountain by rope, but he ends up falling into a deep dark crevice.  Amazingly, he manages to slowly make his way through the deep darkness, and then slowly make his way down the mountainside, despite extraordinary pain and great dehydration. 

The man described how he was convinced he was going to die.   He said that the reason he continued to make his way down the mountain wasn’t because he held out hope of survival; he simply didn’t want to die alone.  I was struck by this.  He didn’t want to die alone.  He needed to have another human being fully present to him as he made that final journey into the abyss.  

It was, I believe no different for Jesus. Approaching his death, he needed to have friends who could be fully present to him in the struggle he was embracing.  Mary, in contrast to her sister Martha, understood this, perhaps not intellectually so much as within her heart. In John’s version of this story she goes so far as to anoint Jesus’ body with expensive ointment, preparing his body for death.  Others find her action incomprehensible, but Jesus is deeply grateful.   Thanks to Mary’s capacity for being present, he doesn’t feel so terribly alone. 

Now if what Jesus had most needed at that time was a good home cooked meal to sustain his hungry body, then Martha would have been the one who had discerned what the moment called for. But his needs were for the soul food of someone who would sit quietly and to listen to whatever he needed to say.  Martha, bless her heart, is doing a lot of helpful stuff, but she is missing the ‘one thing necessary,’ to be fully attentive to the person of Jesus.

We all know the sense of urgency that we find in interactions with someone we love whom we know to not long for this world.  The time spent together is precious, demanding full presence. There may be some practical things to be done for such a person, providing a drink of water, straightening a pillow, making a phone call.   But beyond particular practical actions, what is needed is simply is for us to be mindfully present.   

We’re also familiar with what happens inside us when someone we know who appeared healthy and strong suddenly dies.  We find ourselves replaying in our minds the last moments we shared with the person.  When we were living through those moments they appeared to us as insignificant.  But in the context of their death, the remembered moments take on extraordinary intensity.   We regret that at the time, we weren’t more fully present to what was happening. 

The truth is, of course, that we all are dying, that the days we have on this earth are numbered, and if we could be conscious of this fact, our daily interactions with one another would take enter a depth that is generally lacking.

The question is not whether it is better to be a Mary or a Martha, but how to be both.   How do we accomplish things in this world without becoming anxious and troubled about many things, how to be present to the mundane tasks that life calls us to. 

A rather ordinary man who left behind a rather extraordinary spiritual legacy was a monk known as Brother Lawrence, who lived in the 17th century France.  His early life was spent as a soldier at war, an experience that profoundly shaped him.  He sustained injuries from which he nearly died, and for the rest of his long life, suffered from the after effects of the injury. 

But as is often the case, the trauma of the war seems to have served as a catalyst for his deepening spiritually.  He entered a monastery, where he served a very practical role within the community, that of cook. He “practiced the presence of God”; developing an ability for keeping his heart open to God moment by moment, which caught the attention of his companions. 

Brother Lawrence’s biographer described him this way:

“It was observed, that even in the busiest times in the kitchen, Brother Lawrence still preserved his recollection and heavenly-mindedness. He was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its turn with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquility of spirit. ‘The time of work,’ said he, ‘does not with me differ from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Supper.’”

The famous ‘love’ chapter in 1Corinthians 13 expresses a similar idea.  We can do all kinds of good deeds, but if it isn’t love that is motivating our actions, then in a certain sense everything we do will be undermined. 

And love flows both ways; it involves both giving and receiving.  Some of us are distinctly uncomfortable with being in the posture of receiving.  Perhaps such was the case with Martha.  She felt in control as long as she was in her mind the giver in the situation.  Sometimes true discernment of a moment leads us into the posture of the one who is receiving. 

About twenty five years ago David Turner gave me an article by Eugene Peterson the ideas of which stayed with me through the years.  The title of the article was, “The Unbusy Pastor”, which began with Peterson declaring that any solicitations that came to him in the mail addressed to the “busy Pastor” were immediately deposited in the wastebasket.  He refused to give his attention to anything that appealed to what he considered his worst self. 

What we think of as being “busy”, was in Peterson’s mind the mark of betrayal his vocation as a pastor.  He said that in being faithful to his calling he wanted to be about three things:  He wanted to be a pastor who is immersed in Scripture and the distinctive world view shaped therein; he wanted to be a pastor who prays, spending time cultivating a relationship with the great mystery that is God, and he wanted to be a pastor who listens.  When his parishioners spoke with him, he didn’t want to be so preoccupied with busyness that he couldn’t listen deeply to what they were attempting to reveal to him in their words. 

I have rarely succeeded in being faithful to this vision of what the vocation of the pastor is all about.  But it has stayed with me to haunt me as often find myself, like Martha, “anxious and troubled about many things”, and losing track of the “one thing needful.”

What Peterson was saying about the vocation of the pastor can be applied to the vocation of all Christians.  We are called be present to God and one another, so that what we do can arise out of love. 

I want to conclude with a remarkable story I heard this past week.  It starts off sounding like the set up for joke, with a priest, a rabbi, and two Protestant ministers on board a boat.  The boat was the USS Dorchester; the date was February 3, 1943, and about 900 American servicemen were on board in a troop transport.  About 1 a.m. in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the ship was stuck by a torpedo fired by a German submarine

This account was recited at a medal ceremony for the families of the four clergymen: 

“Chaos ensued – fire, smoke, and the screaming of the wounded. Fear filled the air. Some men panicked and jumped into the waters without life jackets; others were frozen in fear and refused to leave the sinking vessel. Taking on water rapidly, the ship began listing to starboard. Overcrowded lifeboats capsized, and rafts drifted away before anyone could reach them.

“In the midst of the confusion and terror, four chaplains – Protestant Ministers George Lansing Fox and Clark Poling, a Catholic Priest, Father John Washington, and Rabbi Alex Goode – moved about the ship, exuding composure while calming frightened men, irecting bewildered soldiers to lifeboats, and distributing life jackets with calm precision. Soon, the supply of jackets was exhausted, yet four young soldiers, afraid and without life vests, stood waiting.

“Without hesitation, the chaplains removed their own life jackets and gave them to the young soldiers. Then, according to one survivor, the four chaplains joined some of the other men trapped onboard for prayers that “sounded like a babble of English, Hebrew and Latin.”

“These four men of faith had given away their only means of saving themselves in order to save others. Men rowing away from the sinking ship in lifeboats saw the chaplains clinging to each other on the slanting deck. Their arms were linked together and their heads were bowed as they prayed to the one God whom each of them loved and served.

“The Dorchester sank beneath the icy waters of the North Atlantic, carrying with it the four chaplains and some 675 servicemen.”

It’s a very powerful image offered by these four clergymen of different faiths united in their witness, each in their own distinct way calling attention to the presence of the holy in the face of impending death.  Like Martha they did what they could on a practical level, handing out life jackets until there were no more.  In the end, however, the impact of their witness came down to their prayerful presence and the sense of calm they embodied in the midst of overwhelming anxiety.

A sermon preached on July 11, 2010 based upon Luke 10:25 -37. 

Sometimes the challenge in preaching is to take an obscure, seemingly opaque passage of scripture and unearth hidden meanings.   With this morning’s scripture, we have the opposite challenge — a passage so familiar it can be tough for the story to come to life for us. The familiarity is such that pretty much everybody in our culture is acquainted with the expression the story inspires – the “good Samaritan” — which serves as a short hand interpretation of its meaning:  If you want to be good, do like the Samaritan did, caring for people we encounter who are in need. 

It may be surprising to realize that the term “good Samaritan” never actually occurs in the story.  Not only that, but in another Gospel story when a man addresses Jesus as “Good Teacher,” Jesus cuts him off saying, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”   In this morning’s story, once again Jesus seems to be challenging our basic notions regarding “good” and “bad” people by having the guy who does the good deed be a Samaritan, a group of people that Jesus’ listeners would have routinely thought of as “bad.”

Here is an interesting detail of our story:  there are five characters, four of which are identified as members of sub-groups of role and culture.  The priest, the Levite, the Samaritan and the innkeeper.   The only character who isn’t identified in terms of a category is the man who lies dying at the side of the road.   All that matters is that he’s a human being, for God’s sake.  

It’s pretty much impossible to avoid categorizing people.  A census of our country is taking place as we speak, which is all about categorizing the people of our nation. 

There was a funny Saturday Night Live skit recently in which Tina Fey plays a census worker who knocks on the door of an apartment.   An old woman played by Betty White of Golden Girls, opens the door.  The census worker introduces herself and proceeds with her questions.       

“How many people live here?”

“None.”

“None?  You don’t live here?”

“Oh, you mean including me?  Three.”

Confused, the census worker proceeds by asking the woman to describe her race or ethnic origin, to which she begins giving a rambling answer.  The worker cuts her off.

“No, I mean, would you identify yourself as ‘White’, ‘Black’, ‘Hispanic’, ‘Pacific Islander’…”

“Pacific Islander!” says the old woman happily.  “Let’s try that!”

The census worker asks the old woman what her name is, and she gives an usual Swedish-sounding name.

“How do you spell that?” she asks.

“S – M – I – T – H.”

Finally she asks the old woman if anybody else lives there with her part time.

“Oh yes,” she answers.  “There’s Fluffy, Princess, Tiger, Socks…”

“Maam, these are people and not cats?”

“Well, sometimes when they’re lying in my lap and I look into their big eyes, I think there’s just no way of telling.”

Exasperated, the census worker gives up.  “Well, we’re done.  Thank you for your time.”

“Good day, sir,” replies the old woman.   She turns and reenters her apartment.  “Fluffy, get down from there!” she snaps.  A man who appears to be a street person steps forward from her apartment.

“I was just chasing some mice,” he says, nuzzling the old woman.    

When we hear Jesus’ story, our first response it to approach it like a census worker, trying to categorize ourselves and the people we know in terms of the characters in the story.  Who is the priest?  Who is the Levite?  Who is the Samaritan?

If we let the story get inside of us however, we find ourselves responding more like Betty White messing with the categories.   We realize we are, in fact all of the characters:  We are the Priest, the Levite, the Samaritan.  We are even the man dying at the side of the road. 

In the end, the thing that distinguishes the Samaritan in this moment of time is simply that he comes near to the man lying at the side of the road.  The others keep their distance.  In doing so, he reminds us of Moses, who, in the midst of doing the routine of his job turns aside to draw near to a bush that was burning but not consumed, and doing so, has an encounter with the Living God. 

‘Coming near’ is what the Gospel is about.  God chooses to come near to us, which is the meaning of ‘Emmanuel’.  God puts on flesh to draw near to us, sharing in stinking stables, aching bellies, the cold of the night, and everything else we human beings experience through our flesh and blood.  

Last week our Gospel lesson was a passage that comes earlier in the tenth chapter of Luke, in which Jesus sends his followers out into the world to live the Gospel life.   They are to draw near to people, finding accommodations through the hospitality of strangers.  The only message they are given to proclaim is this: “The Kingdom of God has drawn near.”

Christianity is not so much a set of beliefs, rather, it’s a way of life to which Jesus calls those who would follow him.  Often, however, we become pre-occupied with having the ‘right answer.”  Jesus told his story in response to a lawyer who wanted  the ‘right answer. ’ 

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he asked.

Jesus doesn’t answer the question; instead, he directs the man back to the scriptures and asks him what he finds there. The lawyer says that from his reading he has concluded that what is needed is to love God and to love his neighbor. 

Good answer, says Jesus.  “Do this and you will live.”

Right answers in and of themselves don’t matter much.  There is a big difference between knowing that love is the answer and embodying love. 

So the practical question we are left with in the end is how can we move towards living more often in the manner of the Samaritan who, in that particular moment, was willing to draw near to the mystery of the other, who in this instance happens to be lying at the side of the road.   In the end, this is the only sort of life that is real.

The only way to become more like the Samaritan is to recognize that we are quite capable of passing by the man at the side of road, and therefore we have no basis upon which to judge anybody.  It comes from the growing awareness that we are the man dying at the side of the road. 

In the end, our only hope is realizing that we’re all in this together.  There is a story I once heard about a farm community in the Midwest where a young girl got lost one day out in the corn fields.  As word spread, the whole community got caught up in the anxiety about the lost, little girl, and everyone joined in the search.  As the sun set without locating the girl, someone realized what they needed to do.  “Let’s all join hands, and make long sweeps of the fields together.”  They did so, and before long they had located the girl, exhausted, having fallen asleep beneath the corn stalks. 

We’re all in this together, so let us draw near and join hands.  The story that Jesus told values human bodies.  Bodies can feel pain and neglect, but they can also experience the sensations of beauty and love.  Bodies can reach out and clasp hands.

I want to finish this morning by describing a performance art piece my son Andrew told me about that was created on the streets of Denver.  I’m not sure exactly what it means or how it applies, but the images of the piece are striking. 

We often think of art as being something humans do with inanimate objects, but this piece of art involved human beings as well.   The designers of the piece built a clear plastic box about the height of a human being.  At shoulder level on two sides of the box there was a hole large enough for a person to reach his or her hand inside. 

Inside the box was a beautiful, ornate glass sphere, too large to pass through the holes.  

The box was placed on a city sidewalk.   The performance art piece began with someone standing beside the box, her arm extended inside.  In her upturned hand was the glass sphere.   If she lets go of the sphere in order to remove her arm, the beautiful sphere will fall and shatter on the sidewalk. 

What happens?  Well, over time another person comes to her assistance.  He or she reaches into the box from the other side, takes the sphere in their hand, thereby freeing the woman to remove her arm.  And so it goes. 

The art piece got me thinking about a study done at the seminary in Princeton, the results of which didn’t speak so well about human beings, or at least, aspiring preachers.   A bunch of theological students were told to prepare a sermon on, of all things, the story of the “Good Samaritan”.   They then were told to walk across the campus to a certain building where a group of people would be waiting for them to deliver the sermon.   On their way, they passed a man sprawled on the ground, feigning a heart attack.  

You guessed it.  The vast majority of the students passed the man in order to reach their destination on time where they were expected to deliver the sermon about the man who stopped to help the man dying at the side of the road. 

In the case of the performance art piece on the streets of Denver, the impression given of human beings was more hopeful.   Despite the fact that over time holding the glass sphere became rather uncomfortable, it remained held in the air endlessly, supported by a great network of strangers who came together to relieve one another.   Everyone who participated in the network was involved in both offering help and asking for help.  All the persons who drew near in response to a plea for assistance felt an obligation to continue to hold the sphere in the air, honoring the legacy of those who had stood there before them.  No one was willing to let the glass sphere fall to the sidewalk in order to find relief. 

We are the man dying at the side of the road.  We are the Samaritan drawing near to do what he can.   We are all in this together.

A sermon preached on July 4, 2010 based upon Luke 10:1 -11, 17 – 20.

Our Gospel lesson recounts the travel instructions Jesus gave seventy of his followers as he sent them out into the world.  One chapter earlier Jesus had given similar instructions to the twelve disciples. A way of life is being described here that is at the heart of Christianity.   There is a lot packed into these words of Jesus, so I want to take them a couple of verses at a time:

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way.’ (Luke 10:1-3a)

There is this common misconception that sees Christianity as being primarily a set of beliefs.  In this view, the criteria for whether or not you are a Christian is based upon whether you can say you believe certain things:  that Jesus is the son of God, that he was born of a virgin, that he died for your sins: stuff like that. But to see Christianity this way is really unfortunate because it overlooks the fact that Christianity is first off a distinctive way of living in the world. In the book of Acts, in fact, the earliest expression used for Christians were “people of the way” – the way of Jesus.

It’s a way of life that is undergirded by certain beliefs, but if we publicly profess traditional Christian beliefs and then altogether fail to live the way of life that Jesus calls us to, then we should be brought up on false advertising charges.  The beliefs resonate with a distinctive way of life or else the beliefs are meaningless. In its original New Testament form, Christianity was a lot like Alcoholics Anonymous.  The 12 steps don’t present much in the way of theological belief, referring only to “a higher power however you conceive of it.”  The key is living the life described in the 12 steps.  Believing in the 12 steps but not practicing them is meaningless.

One of my heroes is St. Francis of Assisi. Jesus’ traveling instructions were pretty central to Francis and the order of Fransicans he established.   He practiced radical simplicity and  went forth offering God’s peace.  Francis once said, “Go into the world and preach the Gospel.  Use words if you have to.”  The idea being that the Gospel is best expressed in a way of life.

“The harvest is plentiful,” said Jesus, “but the laborers are few.”

There’s a story in the summer edition of The Upper Room in which a middle aged woman describes how late one night late she accidently locked herself out of her home in a semi-rural community, forcing her to drive some distance to a friend’s house where a second pair of her house keys were stored.

As she was driving down a lonely, dark road, she happened to pass a girl of about 14 or 15 walking alone down the side of the road.  The girl out alone in the cold caught the woman’s attention, but she was long accustomed to the idea that you don’t stop for strangers, especially late at night, so she continued down the road.   But the urge to go back stayed with, becoming, she said, like a physical ache in her chest. And so she did.

“I probably shouldn’t be offering you a ride, and you probably shouldn’t be accepting one, but do you need a ride?”

The girl was clearly in some sort of distress.   She gratefully accepted the woman’s offer of a ride, asking to be taken somewhere she could make a phone call.  The woman took her to a store that was open all night, asking the security guard there to keep an eye on her.

The woman writes that when she looked into the girl’s eyes she had this distinct inner impression that she’d never experienced before that she was at that moment the answer to somebody’s prayers for this young girl.

It led her to reflect on the fact that if she hadn’t managed to get herself locked out of her house, she wouldn’t have been out on that lonely road late at night to be there for that girl.  It wasn’t that God had intentionally locked her out of her house, but rather that God used her little misstep to bring about something good – that God is always looking to do this sort of thing, and that if you trust this, you don’t have to get all stressed over the missteps we all invariably make in life.   You just have to be open to the leadings of the Spirit.

The harvest is plentiful, said Jesus; there are endless array of wondrous moments to experience grace and love, opportunities, if we are just willing to be a laborer, where God can make something good happen.  But too often we miss this abundant harvest, perhaps because of our preoccupation with safety.

‘See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…’ (Luke 10:3b – 4)

It is important to travel light as we go through life. Most of us have way too much stuff, and it just bogs us down.  It is not true that the one with the most stuff at the end wins.   Simplify.

But that’s not what I want to focus on in these verses.

These two lines don’t seem to fit together in our usual way of thinking.  On the one hand, Jesus is right up front in acknowledging that there are plenty of wolves out there waiting to eat us up. There really are dangers in the world into which he sends us.  There is good reason to think twice about stopping to pick up strangers late at night.

And yet in the very next line, Jesus goes on to tell us not to take along with the sort of stuff by which we might seek to take away the risk involved.

Which is to say, there is something about taking risks in the face of danger that is really important.

Going camping this past week with my family got me thinking about two words that are linked together:

Safety and risk.

The camping we did was pretty tame; nonetheless, there were mild risks involved in comparison to the option of staying at home behind locked doors at night.  Who knows for sure what looms out there in the darkness of the woods?  And yet embracing that bit of risk is a significant part of what it is that makes the experience of camping worth doing.  Embracing the risk brings an intensity, a certain aliveness that we could not find inside our safe houses.

There is a legitimate need to feel safe in this world.   A central part of what it means to be a parent is to create a home where a child can feel safe from the threats of this world.  And yet, if all the child ever feels is safe, the child will never grow. We need both safety and risk in our lives.

We have a tendency in our culture, however to be obsessed with safety, as though the purpose of life is to do away with all possible risks. But to be absolutely safe is to be dead. Or to put it another way, the safest possible place in this world is the grave.   So “the way” to which Jesus calls us is one in which we willing embrace risk.

If we are preoccupied with safety we will close ourselves off from experiencing the living God.  God is calling us on an adventure, and without risk, there is no adventure.

Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.  (Luke 10:5)

Whenever we encounter someone and dare to reach out to them in peace, there is a risk involved.  There is no guarantee your offer of friendship will be received.   Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

There are good-hearted people in this world, and there are people in this world whose hearts are closed down.  (There are good-hearted people whose hearts at any given moment have temporarily closed down for a whole host of reasons.)

Where are good hearted people found? Everywhere, in all races, cultures, religions, genders, sexual orientations, whatever.  Where are people with closed hearts found?  Everywhere, in all races, cultures, religions, genders, sexual orientations, whatever.

Where does prejudice come from?  It arises having an encounter with a person of a particular demographic and having that encounter go badly for whatever reason, and then proceeding to generalize about all people of that demographic. Resorting to prejudice is connected to our preoccupation with safety.  It allows us to close down the world, making it smaller and smaller, thereby reducing the risk of rejection.

If your offer of peace is rejected, Jesus tells us not to get strung out about it; don’t generalize about all people (or types of people), simply move on to the next person. Your peace is not lost; it comes back to you.

But what a difference it would make if we could approach every person we met with an intention of blessing them with our peace?

‘Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ‘ (Luke 10:6)

There are two things that catch my attention here.

First, live graciously.   We are to eceive what others give us with gratitude and humility.  We are not supposed to get bent out of shape with the idea that we’re indebted to them for their help.  If we come to another person offering peace we have given them something wonderful, even if they end up doing what seems like the heavy lifting in the interaction.  We don’t have to grovel in feelings of indebtedness.  Human beings were put on this earth to help one another.  If someone else helps us, we have given them an opportunity to fulfill their purpose in life.

Secondly, Jesus counsels us not to get succored into the perpetual search for greener pastures.  We are to strive for contentment with what we have, or we will never really live our lives in the present moment.   Our lives are doomed if we succumb to the trap of thinking real living will only happen after we make an upgrade.

Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”  But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”(Luke 10:7 – 11)

The only message Jesus instructs his followers to deliver is pretty simple:  “The kingdom of God has come near you.”  That which we most need, most desire is not far off at the end of a rainbow; it isn’t waiting for us at the end of retirement or at the end of a mortgage or at the end of whatever.  It isn’t waiting for us when we meet the perfect lover or find the perfect job. It is right here now, whether or not we acknowledge it.

So the seventy followers went off on their own to have adventures.  After a time they return to Jesus, bubbling over with what they have experienced.

The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. (Luke 10:17-19)

The followers are absolutely stunned by all the good stuff that happened when they went into the world with the intention of putting into practice what Jesus had instructed.  They’ve embraced risk, let go and trusted God’s presence right here, right now in their lives.  They’ve met all kinds of people and offered them peace, and more often than not the peace has been welcomed.

Jesus confirms that this is so.

When we enter into this way of life, there is a certain sense in which the power of evil is broken in our lives — we can’t be harmed.  That doesn’t mean nothing bad will ever happen to us.  It means you enter into this place where evil can’t take us over.   Our souls remain intact, come what may. But then comes this final line:

‘Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ (Luke 10:20)

When we get in tune with God; when we begin to learn what it means to go with the flow, travel lightly, keeping our hearts open, expectedly looking for what God is doing in our lives, then lo and behold we discover a degree of success in this world we had not known was possible. We find doors opening, help offered, opportunities arising.

But a danger arises when we begin to focus our hearts on the success itself.

On the television you can often find something called “the prosperity Gospel” put forth by preachers.  It contains a partial truth.  There is a lot of stuff in life that will go better when we are in tune with God.  But there are times when God calls us in a way that will feel any thing but prosperous.   To recognize this truth we need look no farther than the cross.   A great deal of the ministry of Jesus was characterized by prosperity and a joyful serendipity.   But the larger story contains what looked in the eyes of the world very much like defeat.   It was only in the mystery of the resurrection that the horrific defeat of the cross was transformed into something immensely wonderful.

Jesus tells us to focus our hearts not on success but rather on what he calls “having our names written in heaven,” which I take to mean living with a sense of integrity that our lives are consistent; that our beliefs and our actions reflect the Gospel.  It means going through life without letting the world close down our hearts.

Along with my son Bobby I spend a great deal of time within the world of sports; specifically sharing in my son’s passion for soccer.  Of course, we’ve been watching the world cup.  We rooted for the US National Team, but after they lost to Ghana, we began rooting for Ghana, the only African nation to advance.   This past week we watched as Ghana played valiantly against Uruguay, taking a tie into the final minute of overtime.   In the final seconds, a Ghana player took a shot that was headed into the goal, stopped only when a Uruguay player intentionally stopped the ball with his hands, forcing a penalty kick.   The star of the Ghana team lined up to take the kick.  All he needed to do was sink the shot and his team would advance to the semi-finals, to the great delight of the entire continent of Africa.   After 120 minutes of non-stop running, however, his legs were exhausted.  He hit the cross bar, missing the kick, sending the game into a penalty kick shoot-out.  Uruguay won the shootout.

It was agonizing, to say the least.   To play so valiantly, only to fall in defeat — the disappointment was oceanic.

Watching this with Bobby, it raised the question of how does an athlete give his or her all while accepting the possibility that in the world of sports, more often than not one’s best will not be enough.  Sports can be heartbreaking.   How to you go forth to compete accepting the risk involved that theartbreak is quite possible?  This is, perhaps, the greatest lesson that sports have to offer, and one that in turn applies to ever other arena in life.  How do you love at all knowing that your love may well break your heart?  The answer is reflected in the words of Jesus that we are to care more about having our names written in heaven than we are about being a success.  Success and failure is so fleeting in this world.  Integrity of heart is what matters in the end.

A sermon preached by Bob Keller on June 27, 2010 based upon Luke 9: 51 – 62.

Mother Teresa said, “One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”

Being here with you, as it does every Sunday, fills me with joy and, according to Mother Teresa should negate the need for me to preach, but I’m going to go ahead and preach anyway because I know how disappointed you’d be if I said, “Service is over. You can go home now.”

The bright, warm days that we’ve had over this past week took me back many years.  I was about 12 or 13, I guess, and I had a paper route delivering the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in my hometown of Turtle Creek, PA.  I liked getting up at 4:30 in the morning on those bright summer days because I knew I would see Patty Kane.  Patty was an old man in the mid-1960’s so he must have been born in the late 1800’s. 

What I liked about seeing Patty on those mornings was that I could hear him well before I saw him.  My paper route took me through the downtown, or as we called it – downstreet, section of our small town.  It was an area of storefronts with two, three or four stories of apartments above them.  It formed a kind of canyon that amplified any sounds made during those still, quiet hours before most of the world awoke.  Patty would sit on one of the benches in the small park in front of the elementary school and play Irish tunes on his harmonica.  Often I would deliberately walk slowly just so I could take in the joy of the music being produced by this old man.

When I would finally reach the bench where Patty sat, I would ask “What are you doing, Patty.”  I tried to call him Mr. Kane, but he told me that all of his friends called him Patty and he asked me to call him by that.  I never knew anyone that called him Mr. Kane.

He always responded that he was waiting for his paper.  I always made sure I gave him an unwrinkled paper and was kind of relieved that I wouldn’t have to walk up the three flights of stairs to his apartment to drop the paper at his doorstep.

As I would get ready to leave I would always ask, “Feeling OK today, Patty?”  His response would always be, “I woke up on the right side of the grass today so I guess I’m OK!”  He would share a smile with me and that always made me smile back. 

That little exchange would warm my heart and put a lift in my step that frustrated my attempts to walk slowly so I could hear his music as long as possible.

I’m so glad that I had that memory come back to me this week because it was a frustrating and, in some ways, a frightening week for me.

It was about a month or so ago that Pastor Jeff asked if I would fill in for him today so he could spend some time with his son Andrew who is visiting from Colorado.  Of course I agreed and checked the lectionary for today.  Did you hear the passage that Linda read for us this morning?  I put it away and tried to forget about it.  I couldn’t.  The Jesus in this passage isn’t the loving, accepting, warm-hearted, joyful Jesus that I like to think about.  This isn’t the Jesus that offers me eternal hope.  This Jesus wants something from me.  My frustration came from questioning my ability to give it to Him.  My fright came from questioning my desire to give it to Him.

In just a few sentences, Luke tells us of Jesus’ encounters with three “potential” disciples and the demands He places on them.  Let’s look at them.

The first man that Jesus meets says, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  How many of us would say that?  How many of us could say that?  Could we have known then where Jesus was going?  If we did know, would we have been willing to follow?  Jesus “set His face” toward Jerusalem.  He was headed to fulfill His mission – death on the cross.  Would we have followed?

And what was required to follow?  Just everything!  No less than everything!  Jesus said to this man, “You better know what you’re getting into, because you better be willing to give up everything!”  Foxes have their holes, birds have their nests, but I don’t even have a place to lay my head.”

Jesus left heaven, His throne in glory, to come to the earth and live and die for us. He exchanged wealth for poverty. He left the ivory palace and came to a crude cattle shed. He exchanged kingship to become a servant.

He had no earthly security. He was loaned accommodation by those who loved Him. He borrowed a coin to tell a story. He borrowed a donkey to ride into Jerusalem and fulfill prophecy. He was even buried in a borrowed tomb! He gave up everything when He came and stood by you and me.

It’s not the security of possessions or money. It’s the security of God’s faithfulness, and a life beyond this one that NOTHING can take away! Though the Christian has nothing to his name in this life, he is more secure than the richest and most powerful of men.  Jesus was asking this first man to count the cost – following Me may cost you everything!

In Luke chapter 5 we read just a few weeks ago about Jesus getting into the boat with Simon to preach.  When He finished preaching, He told Simon to put out from shore and cast the nets.  Simon wasn’t happy with Jesus’ request.  He was tired, but he did as he was told.  They had such a catch that the boats started to sink.  When they got the boats to shore everyone, including James and John – Simon’s partners, was astounded at the catch.  Then Jesus told Simon to follow Him.  And they dropped everything – the catch, their nets, their boats – and they followed.  Following Him may cost you everything!

The second man that Jesus met didn’t offer to follow.  Instead, he was called by Jesus.  He said, “Follow me.”

“Yeah, Jesus.  Sounds like a really good plan you got going there, but let me go bury my old man first.  Yeah.  That’s it.  I gotta bury my Dad first.”

Now there are two possibilities here:

Jews in that day buried their dead right away.  If this man’s father had just died, it’s highly unlikely that the man would have been anywhere other than making funeral arrangements.  If the man’s father had died previously, the man would be in a mourning period of up to a year until his father’s bones could be removed from the grave and placed in a small box for final entombment.

The other possibility is that the man’s father was elderly and it was the responsibility of the child to care for the parents, especially the father, in their old age.  In this case there could have been no timeline for the man to follow Jesus.

For all we know, if the man had agreed to follow, Jesus may have led him back to his father and who knows what might have happened.  Funny things happened when Jesus got around dead people. Remember, dead folks had trouble staying dead around him.  Jesus is not insensitive around those who grieve.  In Scripture He has a way of turning their sorrow into joy.

The bottom line is the man was saying, “I’d like to follow, just not right now.  Maybe later after _________  and you can fill in the blank.”  And don’t we do that?  I’ll follow Jesus after I finish my education, after my career gets established, after the kids are grown up,  after my nest egg is set, after I find a church that I like, after, after, after…..

You might as well say after the Cubs win the World Series!

Jesus can’t wait that long!  We’ve got to be willing to leave it behind and go.

The third man wanted an opportunity to say goodbye to his family and friends first.  Now here’s another example where it helps to know the customs of the time.  Farewells weren’t done quickly or quietly.  This man was likely telling Jesus that he would follow, but like guy #2, it was going to take a while.  Farewells took time.  Parties, probably several of them, were held for those going on long journeys. 

Jesus told him to “forget about it” when He said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

A straight furrow can not be plowed if you’re looking behind you.  What good is said about those that looked back?  Think of Lot’s wife, Judas and Demas who loved the world and deserted Paul. 

Consider the cost of following Jesus.  Be willing to do it now, and don’t look back.  That’s what Jesus has asked in this passage.

And that’s why I was frightened this week.  Jesus isn’t interested in our excuses.  He is interested in our obedience.  He will take care of the rest if we will just let him.

Because we are no longer talking about what we believe, but the way we live.  These three men said they wanted to follow Jesus, but they couldn’t do what he asked them to do.  How can you follow someone if you can’t or won’t do what they ask?  Think of how long you would last at your job if you showed up one day and said, “I believe in the company and its mission statement and its products and its services, but I will no longer do what you ask me to do.”  Bye-bye now!

Jesus said I do not care what you believe if you are not willing to do what I am telling you to do.  God sees this a lot, I’ll bet.  In fact, that’s just about each and every one of us.

What are the two greatest commandments?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.
And Love your neighbor as yourself, or better yet, as I have loved you.

That eliminates a lot of us right there.

And those are supposed to be the easy two.  That is the limbo stick set at 6 feet off the ground.  It shouldn’t be too hard to get under that one.
Yet, here we are…

How do we meet that measure that Jesus has set for us; with our fears and doubts and excuses, or our trust and obedience? 

The rewards for service to Jesus are great, but the demands of that service are equally stringent.  Are we ready to give up everything for Him?  Remember those early disciples.  They had no idea who Jesus was.  They didn’t know where they were going or the harsh realities of what would be required of them.  Yet they followed, and 2,000 years later we still marvel at the magnificence of what God did in the lives of these men through his Son Jesus Christ.
And we still wait, hope, and pray that he will do it again through us.

When Jesus says, “Follow me,” are we ready to say, “Here I am Lord.”

I’ve asked Barb to help us out here by playing the tune to what our response should be:

Here I am Lord

Is it I Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night

I will go Lord

If you lead me

I will hold your people in my heart.

Please pray with me:

Lord, we want to be your disciples and to do what you ask of us.  Please open our ears and our hearts to hear what you would have us do so that our lives may testify to our belief in You.  Help us to follow even if we don’t understand all the time. Help us to want to be used by you for the greatest hunger is to be left unused.  Let us not ask what we want to do with our lives, but to ask what you can do with our lives.  In your precious name we pray.  Amen

A sermon preached on Father’s Day, June 20th, 2010.

What do we know about the relationship Jesus had with Joseph, his earthly father?  Not a whole lot.  

In the Christmas story, Matthew tells us that had it not been for an intervention by an angel of the Lord, Jesus might well have grown up with out a dad.  In the early drama of Jesus’ life, Joseph’s role seems to have been primarily that of protector, following the leadings of God given him in dreams to safeguard his son from the threats on his life posed by King Herod. 

We know Joseph was a carpenter, and so presumably as a young child Jesus would have spent time around his Dad at work in his shop.   And this is a wonderful thing for a kid to do, absorbing his or her dad’s energy as he does whatever it is he does.

 For the most part, it’s quite different these days.  Ever since the industrial revolution, more often than not children rarely get to see their dads at work.   When I was a boy, my dad left early in the morning to catch a train to go off to an office in New York City.   He’d carry a briefcase with papers I couldn’t make sense of, and occasionally I’d hear him talk on the phone with guys named “Frank”, but from these obscure clues I could glean little insight into what it was my dad did when he went to “work.”

The only story we have from Jesus’ childhood suggests that his relationship to his parents was not without tension, and as such, it was like the relationship of any other child to their parents.  Luke tells us of how when Jesus was twelve, an apparently feeling the need to separate himself from his parents, he wandered off on a family trip to Jerusalem without bothering to tell them where he was going.  After three days of frantic searchings, Jesus’ mom and dad finally find him in the temple:

When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’

Evidently, his parents didn’t always “get” Jesus; his peculiar ways left them at times scratching their heads and not a little bit annoyed.

(The boy Jesus) said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’  (Luke 2:48 -49)

I hear a sting in these words.  Apparently, on at least this one occasion, Jesus, feeling smothered, rebelled against his parents’ authority, wounding them with his need to be separate.  

Joseph was most likely a good deal older than Mary, and we hear no further mention of him in the Gospels after this rather painful incident that took place when Jesus was 12.   In all likelihood, Joseph died well before Jesus began his ministry, and perhaps even while Jesus was still an adolescent struggling to find his way.   (I wonder if Jesus ever regretted the harshness of the words he had spoken to his father that day back in the temple.)

I’ve been thinking this week about some basic questions about what it means to be a father.  I mean:  What exactly IS a father?  We come in so many different shapes and sizes, styles and demeanors.  

Is there a difference between the love of a father, and the love of a mother? Oftentimes we assume that over and beyond the obvious differences they embody in terms of anatomy there is something inherently different between fathers and mothers.   But when we get to thinking about what those differences are, well, the distinctions get fuzzier under closer examination.  

There is, for instance, a traditional stereotype regarding mothers and fathers in which the domain of mothers is seen to be the home.  Their presence there conveys safety, nurture, and unconditional love. The domain of fathers, in contrast, is seen to be the larger world beyond the home:  they go forth into the world to earn a living and provide for the family.  Fathers serve as the children’s guide as they begin to move beyond the safety of the home.  

The masculine love of a father is viewed as more demanding — challenging the child to take risks, to become independent and strong.  Whereas the mother’s love is seen as unconditional, the father’s love is viewed as having certain conditions to it:  It is a love that to some extent must be earned as the child goes forth to meet the challenges presented by the larger world.  

In past generations these sorts of generalizations made more sense:  The work world was primarily the domain of men and the homes the domain of women, but as we all know, so much in this regard has changed, especially in recent years.

As far as we know, Jesus never had any biological children (though as scholars have pointed out, in the culture in which Jesus lived it would have been extremely unusual for a man of his age NOT to have a wife and children.)

Nonetheless, as we all know fathering isn’t something done only by biological fathers.  Jesus was a father of a sort to his disciples and to the others to whom he mentored and ministered.   And what we see in the example Jesus set nearly two thousand years before gender roles would begin to shift so dramatically, is that Jesus often broke out of the cultural stereotypes of what a father — or for that matter, a man — was about.

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. (Mark 10:13 – 16)

So tender towards the little children; so affectionate, so accepting.  The disciples had assumed that children don’t belong in Jesus’ work world.  But clearly he does have a place for them there. 

Jesus conjured up that compelling story about the rebellious son who goes off to the far country to squander his father’s money.  Penniless, the young man heads home assuming he’s lost his father’s love by his reckless behavior — that his only hope is to begin a long, difficult process of earning back his father’s love back.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”  But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”   (Luke 15:20 – 24)

A father who loves unconditionally, like a mother, casting aside his concern for what others would consider a lack dignity in order to embrace his long lost son come home. 

And yet there are other stories where we see Jesus playing the part of the father who demands the child put in more of an effort; take greater risks, show some balls, so to speak.  

Immediately (Jesus) made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.

And early in the morning (Jesus) came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’  And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.’Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’    He said,  ‘Come.’

So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’  (Matthew 14:22 – 31)

In other words, ‘You have it in you, kid.! You’re not living up to your potential.  I expect more out of you than what you’re giving.’

On occasion Jesus would rebuke the disciples, chastise them.  When he needs to, he’s quite capable of kicking butt.  He drives home the message that in life we need courage, and courage doesn’t mean having no fear, but rather facing our fears as best we can – doing what needs to be done in spite of our fears.

And so Jesus embodied both traditionally feminine and masculine qualities; unconditional love, AND a love that challenges us, disciplines us, pushes to grow in our capacity to take responsibility for that which is ours to take.  

When you think about it, this isn’t surprising.   God is intent to bring forth the innate wholeness with which we were created.  We read in the first chapter of the Bible that

God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.   (Genesis 1:27)

God, according to the creation story, is neither strictly masculine, nor strictly feminine, but both, and if we are to shine forth God’s image we will embrace both our masculine and feminine qualities. 

But we human fathers aren’t perfect; which is to say we’re human. 

My kids showed me this video on youtube that went “viral” as they say in which a family is driving in their car, with mom and dad in the front,  and three kids – two daughters, maybe nine and seven and a two year old brother in a car seat —  in the back seat.  The girls beg their parents to put on the pop song, “All the Single Ladies” by Beyoncé.  The parents oblige, and the girls begin singing along with energetic hand movements.   Happily, the little brother begins mimicking his big sisters until the father says, “You’re not a single Lady, pal,” in response to which the little boy immediately stops, looks crestfallen, and slowly begins to cry.   While one sister tries to console her little brother, the other looks at her dad with total irritation for being such a party pooper.  The dad quickly realizes he’s blown it; tries to tell his son he can be a “single lady” if he wants to, but it’s too late; the damage is done.   The father looks into the camera and says, “I’m a horrible father.”  

He isn’t a horrible father – far from it – but even good fathers blow it on occasion. 

Sometimes we’re absent when our children need us to be present, and sometimes we’re hard when they need us to be soft, and soft when they need us to be hard.

Sometimes we’re clueless, with little understanding of the unique person God has made our child to be and therefore can’t provide much help in their quest to become that person.

Sometimes we can’t resist the temptation to try and make our children over into our image – a walking monument to ourselves.  

Sometimes we have little tolerance for ourselves when we are broken, confused and hurting, and in turn find ourselves intolerable to our children’s failures and pain. 

Sometimes we don’t know how to take responsibility in the ways we need to take responsibility and so what hope do we have to show our kids how to take responsibility for their lives?

Sometimes we grew up without much fathering ourselves and so there are times when we are trying to be a good dad when we feel ourselves to be play acting — making it up as we go.

Which is simply to say that we’re all in this humanity thing together. 

Joseph, although he may well have been a good father, wasn’t a perfect father, and indeed, if he did in fact die early on in Jesus’ life, Joseph was in part an absent father, and so I suspect that Jesus himself carried some “father wounds” into this world, just like the rest of us. 

And one way to understand the Gospel message that Jesus came preaching is to grab hold of the idea that the power behind the universe is trying to father us; that the one who called us into existence loves us more than we know.  Sometimes this love comes to us as unconditional acceptance and sometimes it comes to us as a rebuke that says “You can do better than that.”

Perhaps it was this truth that Jesus saw clearly that day he gathered at the river with so many poor slobs like you and me, submitting himself to the masculine ministry of John the Baptizer, letting himself be dunked to enact death by drowning. 

And just as (Jesus) was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.   And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’  (Mark 1:10 – 11)

And lest Jesus or anybody else get the idea that the love with which God in heaven loved him was nothing more than a warm and fuzzy love, that strong, fathering love proceeded to drive Jesus out into the wilderness for what amounted to Spiritual boot camp: 

 He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.  (Mark 1:12-13)