On Shrewd Management; a sermon for the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16.1-13

Jesus also said to the disciples, “A certain rich man heard that his household manager was wasting his estate. ² He called the manager in and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give me a report of your administration because you can no longer serve as my manager.’

³ “The household manager said to himself, What will I do now that my master is firing me as his manager? I’m not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. ⁴ I know what I’ll do so that, when I am removed from my management position, people will welcome me into their houses.

⁵ “One by one, the manager sent for each person who owed his master money. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ He said, ‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil.’ l The manager said to him, ‘Take your contract, sit down quickly, and write four hundred fifty gallons.’ ⁷ Then the manager said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘One thousand bushels of wheat.’ m He said, ‘Take your contract and write eight hundred.’

⁸ “The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted cleverly. People who belong to this world are more clever in dealing with their peers than are people who belong to the light. ⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves so that when it’s gone, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

¹⁰ “ Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much, and the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much. ¹¹ If you haven’t been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² If you haven’t been faithful with someone else’s property, who will give you your own? ¹³ No household servant can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. ”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Nine out of ten theologians agree: This is the most difficult of all parables to deal with.

Set aside the last four verses: proverbs that seek to make sense of what come before, probable redactions, later additions that may or may not be the words of Jesus, but most likely were not spoken by Jesus when he uttered this parable.

I am, of course, uttering the idea that the Bible is written by different authors at different times. I know that it’s an unpopular idea here. That’s fine. Plenty of ideas are unpopular. Plenty of ideas seem to threaten faith, but in the end, the only thing that threatens faith is the inability to stand up to questions.

But that’s beside the point.

The point I’m making is that this is a really difficult parable. Plenty of people smarter and more well-versed than I have lost sleep trying to make sense of it, because it is so contradictory to good sense, and so contradictory to what Jesus tells the disciples in so many other situations.

What is this about?

Jesus is talking to the disciples. In a few verses, he’ll be talking to the Pharisees again, just as he has been previously. Maybe they’re around. Maybe they’re not. But now he’s talking to the disciples, people with whom he most readily shares words of grace and hope and peace, and also, increasingly, words of foreboding and warning.

He tells this strange, strange story.

A rich man hears a rumor, a story about the man who manages his estate, or at least his household, which might be more minor than the estate itself, or he might be responsible for the rich man’s everything. We don’t know.

There’s a lot about this story we just don’t know. That’s why so much of it makes so little sense.

This manager is doing something, or is rumored to be doing something, or to have done something, to waste the rich man’s estate.

So the rich man fires him.

No, actually, there’s a little more grace here. The rich man gives him another chance, a chance to prove himself. He asks the manager to give a report, to be accountable for his management, to give evidence whether he is or is not, as rumored, “wasting his estate”.

Now, because there are so many holes in the story, we don’t know what prompts the manager to react the way he does. He thinks he’s getting fired. Is it because he’s actually guilty, or is it because the rich man’s reputation is so fierce and unforgiving that the manager already knows that his is a hopeless cause?

Again, we don’t know.

But he does this thing. This really weird thing.

He shorts the debt of every person who owes his master money. Maybe he’s just writing off interest, or maybe he’s writing off his own cut, or maybe he really is cutting off some of the original debt. We don’t know. We also don’t know why he writes off different percentages of different debts.

Although we do know that these are massive debts. These are debts that would themselves pay for pretty big land portions. This is big money he’s writing off.

The point, he says, is that once his master finally fires him, which he would surely do after this last piece of mismanagement, this bit of cunning will get him in good with the debtors. For a little while, at least, after he loses his everything, he gets a few couches to crash on.

But no. The master says, man, that’s pretty shrewd. Way to go, dude.

End of story.

Boom.

You can read whatever you like out of the last few verses, which make several of their own completely separate points about what, exactly, the point of the parable actually is. Or maybe they just stand on their own.

We don’t know.

Again.

See what a mess this parable is? How I don’t want to have to deal with it? Give me Sodom and Gomorrah, for Pete’s sake; this thing is crazy!

This isn’t the way Jesus talks.

So what’s going on?

There’s cunning. There’s shrewdness. There’s dishonesty.

But do you know what else there is?

There’s forgiveness. There’s generosity. There’s this weird writeoff of debt. In fact, if the subtext of forgiveness is as present in the master’s reaction as it seems, there are two separate writeoffs of debt:

the several opportunities that the manager takes to write off debts that don’t seem to be his own,

and the one opportunity that the manager seems to take to forgive the manager’s debt.

<pause>

Do y’all remember this bit?

If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.

That seems a pretty important thing to manage. That’s a pretty massive thing to be responsible for.

Forgiveness.

Look how our Master showers it on us. Look how extravagant, how wasteful. Look how eagerly our Master writes off our debts.

And God tells us to forgive, too. And it is God who gives us the model of forgiveness.

Forgiveness that is practically endless. Forgiveness that is unstoppable. Forgiveness that is urgent. Forgiveness that is complete. Forgiveness that forgives everything. Forgiveness that forgives everyone.

Shrewd forgiveness, maybe. Clever, maybe. But extravagant. Generous.

Crazy generous.

And it’s a crazy responsibility to have. But, after all:

If you haven’t been faithful with someone else’s property, who will give you your own?

Are we being called to exercise mercy and forgiveness faithfully because it is specifically not ours to give?

Isn’t it time to prove, not necessarily that we are worthy, but that we are willing to hear the call to act like the one who calls us, to forgive and reconcile and welcome as willingly and extravagantly as Jesus? Isn’t it time?

If you think maybe, just maybe, it is, then hear Christ calling you today to manage what God has given you; the only gift that truly matters: forgiveness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Slow Path

This was going to be a typical morning:

• Get cleaned up.
• Get my wife and youngest out the door.
• Get the other kids fed, dressed, cleaned up, packed, and out the door (whew!).
• Walk the kids to school.

That's one of the beautiful things about living where we do. Sure, we live on a major highway (for Scott County, Virginia) right in the middle of town, but that also puts us less than a quarter of a mile from the elementary school. If it's not pouring or freezing, walking to school is much less hassle than getting two kids in the car, buckled (one of them can't do this herself), and burning the gas to get out of the driveway and up the hill to the school.

So we walk. We walk all the way to the front entrance of the school. I get to hug and kiss the kids and remind them to make it a good day, and I typically exchange a few words with the teacher on bus duty.

It's a small town. I know quite a few of the teachers already.

Today, the teacher on duty was the sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She was stressed because she had just found out that she wouldn't be able to gather the FCA for their morning devotions, because the faculty member who was supposed to relieve her from bus duty at that time was not available.

If I were she, I'd have noticed in previous days that the local Methodist preacher walked his kids to school, and he'd be a great person to corner. That may or may not be exactly what happened, but in any case, she asked me to lead the morning devotion, and I said, "Sure".

I'm glad I did. Yeah, my morning run was a half hour later, and so was my celebration of Morning Prayer, but I got to hear the testimony of two brilliant young people. I got to see the witness of about two dozen sixth- and seventh-graders who showed up, sat on cold metal picnic tables on one of the cooler mornings that the late Summer has brought us, and decided to begin this day with a word and with prayer.

If I had driven the kids to school, that probably wouldn't have happened.

I know not everybody has the luxury of living within walking distance of their children's school, but everybody has chances we don't take, probably every day, to take the slow path; to stop, as it were, and smell the roses; to stop and make ourselves available for God's spontaneity.

I, for one, am glad I did. I think I'll keep walking.

Joy Breaks Out; a sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15.1-10

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. ² The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

³ Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives.

⁸ “ Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? ⁹ When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life. ”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

When we turn on the news, we’ve found out that war has broken out.

When we sit down to dinner, a fight breaks out.

When Wall Street’s crimes come to light, protests break out.

I want to live in a world in which peace breaks out.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

But that doesn’t happen in our world, does it?

Jesus is clearly talking about the Kingdom of God today, not the kingdoms of humankind.

I left my entire flock to fend for themselves and found the one that was lost! Let’s break out in joy!

I’ve found the one coin I’d lost! Let’s break out in joy!

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around! Let’s break out in joy!

That’s just not our automatic response.

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around. Yeah, let’s see how long that lasts. Let’s hound her until she slips. Let’s leer over her so the weight of being watched is so overwhelming she can’t help but collapse.

And then let’s go back to our churchy friends and complain about how people can’t change, about how she was always a hopeless cause, about how we don’t want her kind of people here anyway.

I get so sick of that.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to live in God’s Kingdom.

Because I believe it’s happening today. The problem is that we get so caught up in our snobbery and navel-gazing that we can’t recognize where God is moving.

And when we’re caught up in our own stuff, whether it’s our judgment or our busyness or our worries or anything else, we aren’t looking around to see God’s Kingdom. We aren’t looking around to see where God is moving.

I believe heaven is, though. I believe that God is well aware where lives are being changed. I believe the heavenly court is keenly attuned to transformation happening in the world. I believe the Holy Spirit is seeping into lives that are awakening to grace.

I believe joy is breaking out in heaven.

And here we are, worried about how bad things are getting, clamoring about how the latest event in the news was proclaimed in Daniel or Revelation, as though nobody’s done that before.

The Church is supposed to be the place that proclaims Christ’s resurrection, but today we’re just the worrywarts of creation.

We are the very wall keeping people away from God’s Kingdom.

We are the ones keeping joy away from people.

I don’t want to proclaim that life any more. I don’t want to live in that world anymore.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see a Church that welcomes sinners and eats with them.

I want to see a Church that not only houses meetings, which we don’t, but provides for people suffering from the disease of addiction.

I want to see a Church that will embrace you whether you’re wearing a three-piece tailored suit or a pair of donated, ratty jeans and an AC-DC tee-shirt.

I want to see a Church that won’t pick a fight with you because you’re a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Socialist.

I want to see a Church that celebrates color.

I want to see a Church that affirms the grace in everyone, and celebrates the call of God to everyone who has recognized the work of grace in them.

I want to see how the world, which only knows a judging, hypocritical, snobbish, navel-gazing, closed-door Church; I want to see how that world reacts when it sees this welcoming, affirming, celebrating, listening Church and realizes, “Holy cow! That’s what Jesus has been on about this whole time!”

I want to see how the Church goes viral again when that happens. (Do we know that term?) I want to see how the Church becomes so insanely popular and respected again that we don’t know what to do with all the people who are recognizing Jesus in us.

I want to live in a world that is changed by the love of Jesus, that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is reshaped into the image of God.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

It’s a difference that happens in subtle shifts, you know. In every moment, we face a choice to welcome or reject, to celebrate or to mourn, excitement or apathy, screaming or listening.

And each time we make those choices, we subsequently choose to either break in or block God’s Kingdom.

If we are going to take seriously our prayer, “thy Kingdom come”, then we need to not only expect that it’s coming, but we need to make it happen.

We spend hours, days, probably years of our lives complaining about how the world is going against God, but the people who are really blocking the Kingdom are the people sitting right here in this God-box.

I don’t want to live in a world in which the Church is blocking God, because then God is going to forsake the Church and speak and act through someone else.

I’m not in the business of breaking the Church. I’m in the business of helping her come back to her calling. And maybe, at this point, that means doing CPR and administering electric shock to the Church’s heart.

And we know how frequently CPR actually works, right?

I’m tired of being part of a dying Church, y’all. I don’t want to live in a world so full of hate and shouting.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see God’s Kingdom coming today.

That’s my choice today. I can’t sit back and watch the Church die any more. I need the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit. I need the heart-restart of Jesus.

“ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

Yeah. Good. Let’s do that.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The Importance of Touch; a sermon for the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 13.10-17

¹⁰ Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. ¹¹ A woman was there who had been disabled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. ¹² When he saw her, Jesus called her to him and said, “ Woman, you are set free from your sickness. ” ¹³ He placed his hands on her and she straightened up at once and praised God.

¹⁴ The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “ There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath day. ”

¹⁵ The Lord replied, “ Hypocrites! Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink? ¹⁶ Then isn’t it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day? ” ¹⁷ When he said these things, all his opponents were put to shame, but all those in the crowd rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing.

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

Jesus was a troublemaker.

I say, “was”. “Is”. Jesus is a troublemaker.

But he’s consistently causing trouble by showing and expecting mercy.

He expects mercy out of the godly, the Temple hierarchy. They don’t appreciate that. They want him to just play by the rules.

He shows mercy to those who are hurting and oppressed and forgotten and lost.

And sometimes that’s not a problem. But sometimes, in the eyes of the Temple hierarchy, he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like today.

It’s the Sabbath. It’s Saturday; the day of rest. Hebrew law says you don’t work on Saturday. It’s a really big deal, just like not working on Sunday is a big deal to some people today.

And there are really strict definitions of work in the Hebrew law. And there’s room for interpretation, just like in any legal system.

And Jesus is in the Synagogue, doing the every-Saturday church thing because Jesus is a good Jew (don’t forget that). He’s such a good Jew and an amazing scholar (because who knows the Law and the Prophets better than the Word who inspired them?) that he’s in the Synagogue teaching.

Which is a thing that some people do as work now.

So, to our minds, Jesus is in the Synagogue, on Saturday, working.

Now, that would bother us, probably, who are more sensitive to a modern definition of “work” and who are concerned about strict adherence to the Sabbath laws.

But it doesn’t bother first-century Jewish legal experts.

What bothers them is when Jesus happens to glance across the room, mid-midrash, and spot this poor woman who’s standing out specifically because she’s not standing out. She’s hunched over and broken.

And Jesus (all compassion; pure, unbounded joy) calls her to him.

Girl, eighteen years is far too long. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Be free now.

And then, he touches her.

Now, be honest with yourself. When you encounter someone who is in any way less than attractive, disfigured, is your first impulse to touch her?

That’s a terrible bias we tend to have. And I don’t want to explore its source, at least not now, but I want to recognize that what Jesus is doing is exactly what we’ll prefer not to.

This hunched-over, disfigured, dispirited woman; he touches her.

And that, Luke says, is when she straightens up and begins to praise!

Because Jesus touches her.

I thank God that we are past the prudish Victorian era, with formalized emotion and its rules against touch. I thank God that we are past the extreme response of the sexual revolution, that we are now coming into some sort of balance, something between prudish restriction and impulsive liberty.

But some of us are still afraid of touch.

Even though touch is healing. Even though study after study has shown how important touch is. Even though teacher after teacher has learned how powerful a touch on the shoulder is. Even though parent after parent has known how important is a kiss on the forehead.

Touch.

Plenty of people are afraid, at least in the developed world, to touch because of sanitation risks. The advertising world batters us with products to kill away every organic particle that anyone else might breathe or high-five onto us.

That’s something we have to get over

A) because the risk, seriously, isn’t as high as commercials would have us think, and

B) because Jesus shows us that touch is healing.

Seriously, what do we have to be afraid of? I mean, if we really believe what we say we believe, what real harm can a little germ do to us anyway? Remember that it was while Paul was imprisoned, of all things, when he said:

²¹ Because for me, living serves Christ and dying is even better. ²² If I continue to live in this world, I get results from my work. ²³ But I don’t know what I prefer. I’m torn between the two because I want to leave this life and be with Christ, which is far better. ²⁴ However, it’s more important for me to stay in this world for your sake.

We serve a Christ who isn’t afraid to get involved with people. We serve a Christ who touches the lepers, the sick, the unclean. We serve a Christ who tells his disciples to rip the grave clothes off a man dead four days! Gross!

But we serve a Creator who creates for us every moment of our lives, not just the civilized stuff of polite conversation.

We are all human. And God creates us, inside and out, from birth to death, from table to toilet, and loves us in and for every moment.

What more do we have to fear, we who are so much the same in so many ways?

We celebrate saints and prophets who deal with the fear of heeding their call in many different ways. Who deal with the fear of facing different kinds of people who are so unlike them.

Consider Jeremiah, to whom the Lord says:

⁵ “ Before I created you in the womb I knew you;

before you were born I set you apart;

I made you a prophet to the nations. ”

⁶ “ Ah, LORD God, ” I said, “ I don’t know how to speak

because I’m only a child. ”

⁷ The LORD responded,

“ Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’

Where I send you, you must go;

what I tell you, you must say.

⁸ Don’t be afraid of them,

because I’m with you to rescue you, ”

declares the LORD .

And what does God do to give Jeremiah a word to speak? Something we wouldn’t dare today. Something mothers only do with their children when they’re young. Something we reserve only for oral hygenists.

⁹ Then the LORD stretched out his hand,

touched my mouth, and said to me,

“ I’m putting my words in your mouth.

God is still touching us today. Jeremiah is pretty amazing, but that calling is something we receive today, too. God is still touching our mouths, inspiring us, putting divine words into us.

And if God will so intimately touch us, then shouldn’t we be so bold as to touch others?

After all, touching others is touching what is holy.

Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

What do you think? Are you willing to put aside the fear and the stigma of touch, of encountering people who might not otherwise be “worth your time”, and be the touch of Christ for them? Because you might just find Christ touching you, too.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Cost of Freedom; a sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 9.51-62

⁵¹ As the time approached when Jesus was to be taken up into heaven, he determined to go to Jerusalem. ⁵² He sent messengers on ahead of him. Along the way, they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival, ⁵³ but the Samaritan villagers refused to welcome him because he was determined to go to Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ When the disciples James and John saw this, they said, “ Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to consume them? ” ⁵⁵ But Jesus turned and spoke sternly to them, ⁵⁶ and they went on to another village.

⁵⁷ As Jesus and his disciples traveled along the road, someone said to him, “ I will follow you wherever you go. ”

⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “ Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One y has no place to lay his head. ”

⁵⁹ Then Jesus said to someone else, “ Follow me. ”

He replied, “ Lord, first let me go and bury my father. ”

⁶⁰ Jesus said to him, “ Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom. ”

⁶¹ Someone else said to Jesus, “ I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those in my house. ”

⁶² Jesus said to him, “ No one who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for God’s kingdom. ”

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

As we prepare for Fireworks and Flag Flying day, I find it appropriate to offer a word about freedom.

And by a curious coincidence (if we believe in coincidence), our readings today also say something about freedom and the nature of following Jesus.

How about that?

We are living in a region and in a time in which freedom has a very specific, political context, and the word is really hard to understand apart from that context. Freedom means the right to free and fair elections, the right to determine our own destiny, the right to property and prosperity, the right to speak our mind in the public sphere.

It’s a kind of freedom that we believe must be defended through the threat of violence, and so we also protect the right to bear arms in the interest of maintaining a well-regulated militia.

Which is not, of course, the same as every propertied person owning a firearm to defend his land, home, and family. A well-regulated militia is not the same as anarchy.

But I digress. Already.

Paul shares this proverb with us:

Christ has set us free for freedom. Therefore, stand firm and don’t submit to the bondage of slavery again.

But what kind of slavery are we talking about? Not the kind that leads to throwing crates of British tea into the Boston harbor. Not the kind that led to the Civil War.

Paul is very specific about the kinds of things that own us:

sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, ²⁰ idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, ²¹ jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that.

I love how earthy, how real the CEB is here, by the way. We aren’t hiding behind more abstract words like “licentiousness” or “factions”. “Doing whatever feels good” and “group rivalry” are so much more clear.

Freedom in Christ has nothing to do with what we’ll be celebrating this week. The freedom we celebrate this week often leads to any number of the actions in Paul’s list, in fact. That’s why so much of the world despises us. We are a hypocritical and fundamentally greedy, lustful people. We use our political freedom as a pass for corruption and idolatry. We use our capitalistic ideology as a pass for oppressing the very people God swears to protect.

And setting ourselves against the people God swears to protect does not put us in a very tenable position, folks.

Just how long do we think we can hold out when we pit ourselves against God?

Church, we have to do better.

We have to forsake shallow political freedom and greed-based ideology for the sake of freedom in Christ.

And that freedom doesn’t look like the kind of freedom we understand. Listen again to how Jesus responds to the various people who want to follow him:

⁵⁷ As Jesus and his disciples traveled along the road, someone said to him, “ I will follow you wherever you go. ”

⁵⁸ Jesus replied, “ Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One y has no place to lay his head. ”

⁵⁹ Then Jesus said to someone else, “ Follow me. ”

He replied, “ Lord, first let me go and bury my father. ”

⁶⁰ Jesus said to him, “ Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom. ”

⁶¹ Someone else said to Jesus, “ I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those in my house. ”

⁶² Jesus said to him, “ No one who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for God’s kingdom. ”

Does that sound like freedom to you?

What kind of expectation does Jesus have of us? Homelessness, neglect of the dead, abandoning our families. That doesn’t sound like compassion and understanding. It doesn’t sound like family values. It doesn’t even sound like Torah.

But it does sound contextually appropriate.

Today’s reading is introduced:

As the time approached when Jesus was to be taken up into heaven, he determined to go to Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51 is exactly that point at which the gospel turns toward the cross. Luke’s “carefully ordered account”

 takes on a fundamentally different tone here. It gets darker, more foreboding, more grave.

It’s no wonder Jesus would be warning people off now. He knows what’s coming. He knows what’s in store. And he knows that there will be no one who’s capable of following him all the way to the cross.

No one.

Everyone leaves him.

But we’re still called to try. And we’re promised things greater than the blessing of Elisha if we will try.

Elijah said to Elisha, “ What do you want me to do for you before I’m taken away from you? ”

Elisha said, “ Let me have twice your spirit. ”

The risk of staying behind, getting caught up in our own stuff, neglecting the call to follow, is missing that blessing. The risk we take in slavery to idolatry and greed is to miss out on freedom and power.

But isn’t the blessing worth the risk?

Because if we would forsake our burdens, our greed, our idolatry, and choose to follow Christ along the difficult, painful road to the cross, we would also find Jesus bringing us the rest of the way to freedom.

If we will follow Christ as far as our mortal being will allow, Christ will take us beyond the pain and beyond the fear. Christ will take us to glory.

Not just the glory that’s got three syllables in our pulpits (“guh-law-ree!”). Christ will take us into the active, present, right-now glory of bringing the Kingdom of God today. Harvesting and sharing the fruits of the Spirit that Paul reminds us:

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control

And oh, that’s good news, friends. That’s Jesus bringing blessing through us. That’s Jesus making us his own hands and feet. That’s Jesus reaching out through us and making us bringers of salvation and healing and forgiveness.

That’s Jesus reaching through us and offering real, true, lasting freedom.

Forget the barbecue and the flags and the fireworks, y’all. If you want to celebrate and bring true freedom today, come join me, and together we’ll make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God Will Find You; a sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 8.26-39

²⁶ Jesus and his disciples sailed to the Gerasenes’ land, which is across the lake from Galilee. ²⁷ As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, a certain man met him. The man was from the city and was possessed by demons. For a long time, he had lived among the tombs, naked and homeless. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he shrieked and fell down before him. Then he shouted, “ What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me! ” ²⁹ He said this because Jesus had already commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had taken possession of him, so he would be bound with leg irons and chains and placed under guard. But he would break his restraints, and the demon would force him into the wilderness.

³⁰ Jesus asked him, “ What is your name? ”

“ Legion, ” he replied, because many demons had entered him. ³¹ They pleaded with him not to order them to go back into the abyss.t³² A large herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs. Jesus gave them permission, ³³ and the demons left the man and entered the pigs. The herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned.

³⁴ When those who tended the pigs saw what happened, they ran away and told the story in the city and in the countryside. ³⁵ People came to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone. He was sitting at Jesus’ feet, fully dressed and completely sane. They were filled with awe. ³⁶ Those people who had actually seen what had happened told them how the demon-possessed man had been delivered. ³⁷ Then everyone gathered from the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave their area because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and returned across the lake. ³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone begged to come along with Jesus as one of his disciples. Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “ Return home and tell the story of what God has done for you. ” So he went throughout the city proclaiming what Jesus had done for him.

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to you,

LORD , my rock and my redeemer.

At certain points in the Church’s history, the practice of anathematizing or ostracizing people has been put in place for folk who didn’t fit the mold or who caused trouble. Today, in some circles, it’s called shunning or the very polite “removing the right hand of fellowship”.

In fact, I have a colleague whose church had so much trouble out of one member that they had to gather before she could arrive and lock the door on her before she could come in.

We’re usually a little more subtle when we don’t want to welcome someone into our fellowship.

A little. Not a lot.

We stop talking to someone. We talk about them so they can hear us. Our conversation with them turns venomous.

It’s a little less obvious than locking someone out of the church, but it’s a lot more hurtful.

But sometimes we do make it clear to someone just how unwelcome they are. We close them out of our church, out of our family, out of our circle of friends. We exclude them in every possible way until it is very clear to them that the little box that remains for them to abide in is the only place they are welcome to be.

That’s what had happened to the man with the Legion within him. His behavior was so unwelcome that he was bound in chains until he could bear it no longer and fled away from that toxic environment into the wilderness.

See, if that doesn’t sound familiar, we might need to spend more time in self-reflection. Thinking about how we treat our neighbors. Because I can guarantee that each of us who has made it halfway through childhood has either experienced ostracism or practiced it on someone else.

Usually both.

And sometimes it’s because of a situation like Elijah’s, although not necessarily so extreme.

King Ahab’s wife Jezebel has threatened Elijah with his life, and he is on the run. He goes on his own into exile, a day’s journey into the desert, and there he doesn’t bemoan his situation. He bemoans his behavior.

“ It’s more than enough, LORD ! Take my life because I’m no better than my ancestors. ”

And under a solitary broom bush, exhausted by fear and flight, he sleeps.

Now, I need to pause for an aside here.

We often teach our children that God is watching us like Santa Claus.

You know that old song that’s such a terrible threat wrapped in such a pleasant little tune:

You better watch out

You better not cry

Better not pout

I'm telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town

Exactly what kind of goblin or troll are we trying to make Santa out to be?

For that matter, what kind of goblin or troll are we trying to make God out to be?

You’d better be on your best behavior or God’s going to take your life in the middle of the night!

God will find you!

Holy cow, y’all, let’s read our Bibles for a larger picture. Because the kind of God we find in today’s readings is a lot more prevalent than the bad-goblin kind of god we talk about in language of hellfire and damnation.

Elijah is sleeping deep in the desert under a lone broom bush when somebody finds him:

Hey, Eli! <Tap Tap Tap> Wake up. Eat something.

And again.

Hey, Eli! <Tap Tap Tap> Wake up. Eat something. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you.

Now, when that happens to our patriarchs, particularly to Abraham, the author is vague in describing the messenger. Is it God? Is it a messenger of God, an angel?

The author of Elijah’s story is more specific, because after Elijah journeys on a little farther, it is specifically the Lord who says:

“Why are you here, Elijah?”

See? It’s not God’s voice saying, “Elijah, you’ve run away because your faith isn’t strong enough. I’m going to smite you now!”

“Why are you here, Elijah?”

I tend to think that’s a reflective question.

Elijah, what’s brought you here? Are you sure it’s what you were claiming and what’s making you feel so guilty?

I think it’s reflective because God doesn’t give Elijah an answer. Maybe the answer isn’t simple. It’s not tweet-length, that’s for sure.

I’ve been very passionate for the LORD God of heavenly forces because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have torn down your altars, and they have murdered your prophets with the sword. I’m the only one left, and now they want to take my life too!

In the CEB, that’s 262 characters. That’s two tweets long.

In today’s terms, that’s no simple answer.

So God finds Elijah, nourishes him for forty days, and sends him back out with a job to do.

Just like Jesus finds the man on the side of the lake, clears away his deep trouble, and tells him:

Return home and tell the story of what God has done for you.

God doesn’t find him to admonish him for letting himself become a house for demons. God finds him to heal his wounded, worn-out, possessed, unwelcomed spirit.

God doesn’t find Elijah to strike him down like the prophets of Baal. God finds Elijah to give him sustenance for the rest of his difficult journey.

Friends, God is longing for us to realize today that God is finding us to offer us comfort, peace, reconciliation, joy.

I should say that we all need some of that.

And some of us need to recognize that God is longing to make soul-finders of us, too: people who find the broken, the battered, the road-weary, the possessed, the unwelcomed. God wants to work through us to find them and love them back to Jesus.

If that’s a call you think you can handle today, then I welcome you to come and accept it. If you simply need the reminder of God’s welcome of you today, God is offering it. Now is the time.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.