Patience and Persistence: a sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18.1-8

18 Jesus was telling them a parable about their need to pray continuously and not to be discouraged. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. 3  In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him, asking, ‘Give me justice in this case against my adversary.’ 4  For a while he refused but finally said to himself, I don’t fear God or respect people, 5  but I will give this widow justice because she keeps bothering me. Otherwise, there will be no end to her coming here and embarrassing me.” 6 The Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7  Won’t God provide justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he be slow to help them? 8  I tell you, he will give them justice quickly. But when the Human One comes, will he find faithfulness on earth?”

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

It strikes me as odd that Luke introduces the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge by telling us what it’s about: Pray continuously and don’t be discouraged.

If he’s just going to lay it out, I don’t really need to be here, do I? Can I just go home and grill hot dogs?

Pray continuously… don’t be discouraged.… But when the Human One (the Son of Man; the Eternal Creator Become Flesh) comes, will he find faithfulness on earth?

Are those connected? Because it feels disjointed. Wouldn’t you want to encourage people positively instead of sowing the seed of doubt?

Will the Human One find faithfulness on earth? Will there be anyone left to witness? Are any of these disciples and followers really good enough to endure?

That last sentence is so disjointed that I wonder if we’ve had the ending quotation mark in the wrong place for years. I wonder if those are Luke’s words commenting on Jesus’s parable.

Remember, friends, there’s no punctuation in the original Greek. Or spacing. Or capitalization.

Will the Human One find faithfulness on earth?

The question is strong and pointed enough on its own, of course. And our other readings today have something to say about what will come of the human race, specifically of God’s people, as humanity continues to age.

Paul warns Timothy to “continue with the things you have learned and found convincing”

 because “There will come a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. They will collect teachers who say what they want to hear because they are self-centered. They will turn their back on the truth and turn to myths.”

Our temptation, of course, is to read these verses and think, “That’s right! People are teaching all sorts of unsound doctrine and turning others away from Jesus.” And the assumption is that I have the sound doctrine and I have the authority and know-how to turn people back to Jesus.

Well…

1) If you’ve got the know-how, why aren’t you doing it? And,

2) What makes you right and other Christians wrong? Aren’t you reading the same Bible?

It’s a little weird, actually. There’s this really personal bit in Paul’s letter to Timothy. It’s a direct address, unlike Paul’s other letters to Corinth and Ephesus and all the other churches.

Paul encourages Timothy to continue in the things that he learned and that he found convincing.

Gosh, it’s almost as if Paul is encouraging Timothy to think for himself. As if Timothy should think critically when he confronts something outside his comfort zone, which the story of a resurrected Messiah no doubt was.

Critical thinking is outside of the comfort zone of the modern Church, which is reverting back to the Dark Ages and teaching that we should just shut up and listen to multi-millionaire megachurch pastors who play politics with some of the most dangerous and powerful criminals in Washington. Don’t think for yourself. Don’t try to make sense of the Bible. Just understand it the way I’m telling you and everything’s going to be alright.

Continue with the things you have learned and found convincing.

The prophet Jeremiah looks forward to a day when we won’t even need the Bible or the Torah or even prophets like him anymore. He shares this vision:

This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins.

That sounds like a pretty wonderful day, doesn’t it? A day when God waves a magic God-wand over the people, maybe after getting rid of all the heretics and pagans, and all God’s people suddenly just know God.

Except Jeremiah isn’t actually that specific.

He doesn’t point to this being a magic moment. He just says it’s coming. God is going to inscribe the Word on our hearts. Engrave it. You don’t do that with a pencil. This is a Word God is carving onto the people of God. It’s a Word that can never be erased or painted over.

Have you seen trees people have carved into decades ago? Some are better at covering up those wounds than others. There’s one huge Beech at Wesley Woods that kids have carved on for probably six decades. That fine Beech bark has grown around the carvings, scabbing and swelling but maintaining the marks that professed love and joy and playfulness in what must have seemed like harmless vandalism. It has made those marks as permanent as the tree. They will outlive all the original authors and only finally pass when the tree has fallen and crumbled back into the soil.

That’s the kind of mark God is writing on our hearts.

It’s not about memorizing verses or being able to drop names like Methuselah or Matthias. It’s not about knowing how many books or verses there are, or how many times Jesus said, “amen”.

It’s about God’s grace written on your heart.

And that’s not something that happened when Pastor JoeBob dunked you in Copper Creek. That’s something that happened when God imagined you, when your first divine blueprint was drawn. God’s Word written on your heart has never not been there. It’s written in your fundamental structure, probably encoded in your DNA.

It’s God’s grace calling you, teaching you without words what’s good and what’s bad, what’s right and what’s wrong, how to decide when the decision seems impossible, or when it seems the lesser of two evils.

You see, God is never like the Unjust Judge. God always listens. God is always with us. God’s grace is ever calling us.

But we aren’t always like the widow. We give up easily. We forget about Emmanuel, God ever present, never looking away, always calling to us, the Word of Creation written on our hearts.

I suspect that the real danger of failing at persistence is that when we give up, it’s not God who forgets; it’s us. If we stop begging for justice, God is still working for us. “Will [God] be slow to help them?” Jesus asks,

I tell you, he will give them justice quickly.

But people are hard to change, and if you haven’t noticed, ours isn’t a God who delights in manhandling people. God is a much more understanding Parent than I could ever hope to be. God hints, nudges, suggests, loves us into justice and mercy and forgiveness. God is nurturing us into perfection.

With all the people God has to change to work toward out good, and, for that matter, to their own, is it any wonder that the Kingdom comes in anything but baby steps?

We are going to have to learn to be patient. God’s Kingdom doesn’t come overnight. It comes with every heart that is nudged and nurtured closer to God’s heart.

So let God start with you today. Let God turn you around. Let God remind you of the Word of Creation, written on your heart that is made in God’s own image, purchased at the highest cost.

Because God loves you that much, too much to let you go, too much to give up on you. Let God turn you around today and bring the Kingdom through you, and through all the wonderful gifts with which our loving Creator has uniquely blessed you.

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

Living in Exile: a sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17.11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with skin diseases approached him. Keeping their distance from him, 13 they raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, show us mercy!”

14 When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they left, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice. 16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus replied, “Weren’t ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18  No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?” 19 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

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

Because it felt awkward, at best, to share on World Communion Sunday, I skipped over a very important reading last week, but I think it begins to move us in the right direction today.

And I’ll be sharing this reading from the New Revised Standard Version this week for the same reason most of y’all read the King James: I like the way it sounds.

This is Psalm 137, a Psalm of lament. Hear the poet’s tears this morning:

1 By the rivers of Babylon—
   there we sat down and there we wept
   when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
   we hung up our harps.
3 For there our captors
   asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
   ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ 

4 How could we sing the Lord’s song
   in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
   let my right hand wither!
6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
   if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
   above my highest joy. 

7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
   the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down!
   Down to its foundations!’
8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
   Happy shall they be who pay you back
   what you have done to us!
9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones
   and dash them against the rock!

We have a tendency, in the Church, to face tragedy and loss by claiming that “We’ll get through this” or that “God won’t give us more than we can handle”, but folks, that’s just not always true. Sometimes, we don’t get through it. Sometimes, grief breaks us down completely. Sometimes, we don’t come out stronger on the other side. Sometimes, we don’t get to the other side at all.

That doesn’t mean we’re not good enough. It means that what has happened to us was simply more than we could bear.

And philosophies like those also move us away from the healthy, God-given practice of lament.

It’s really simple:

When grief is overwhelming, recognize it.

When things look hopeless, name them so.

When the only response is tears, let them come.

When it seems like things couldn’t possibly get worse, but you’re afraid they will, say so.

Lament is not laying blame on God. Lament is not self-pity. Lament is not anything to be ashamed of.

Lament is recognizing when things are bad - really bad - and claiming the emotional response that naturally follows.

Sometimes, the grief does us in. Sometimes, it really is too much to handle. But grief is like any wound: if we can survive it, it will heal. The bleeding will stop; the pain will subside; we will find a new normal; we will begin to notice joy instead of fear.

The lament of the Psalmist reflects the experience of the powerful people of Judah, conquered and taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar. What they see is hopelessness, nothing but grief in the midst of the loss of everything they knew as home.

But from the home that remains, a voice calls out to them: the prophet Jeremiah still remaining among the powerless and the lost of Judah, offering a word of hope from broken Jerusalem:

4 The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. 7 Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.

Now, the cynic in me reads these words and thinks, Well, of course Jeremiah doesn’t want to build any hope of return in the exiles. He and the people who remain in the land are now free to usurp the exiles’ place, to take power for themselves. Why should any of them want the exiles to remain?

But I don’t suppose the argument matters either to Jeremiah or to the exiles. They are a conquered people, fully aware that a more powerful force than Judah has them under its thumb. The possibility of return is so far removed from their reality that it is not even a dream, not even a glimmer of hope; it is an impossibility.

This is where you are, then, God tells the exiles.

You’re not going anywhere, and you need to get that through your heads.

So, in the midst of your grief, you’re going to have to go on living.

Not only that, but you’re going to have to support the place where you are. You’re going to have to not only support it, but you’re going to have to learn to love it.

Because this funny thing happens when we pray earnestly, honestly, sincerely for someone. It’s a thing that doesn’t happen if we pray against something. Do you see the difference? Have you experienced the difference?

Have you ever told someone, I’m going to pray for you, and then you’ve gone and prayed that God turns them to your way of thinking, your way of living, your ideas, your theology, your benefit instead of theirs? It’s an antagonistic prayer. It’s a prayer that assumes I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s a prayer that is, ultimately, against someone else.

That’s not praying for someone. If you’re going to pray against someone, you oughta at least be honest about it.

Wow, I really hate what you’re doing/saying/acting out right now; I’m going to pray against you.

That’s not what God instructs the exiles to do.

Pray for them.

Pray for the welfare of that city. Pray for its well-being. Pray for its prosperity. Pray for its people to fall in love, to enjoy life, to find their calling, to live fulfilled lives.

Pray for the things that are important to them.

Pray for their joy.

Because you’re there, God says, and they’re in charge. If they’re miserable, they’re going to make your lives miserable, too.

Remember: If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Same rule applies to empires like Babylon.

An empire won’t put up with a troubled state or an insurrectionist for long. Consider what Rome did to Jesus.

Friends I find this relevant because we are exiles.

This place, as the song goes, is not our home.

But we’re called to make the best of it. Because our home is coming. In fact, every time we bless the place in which we live, every time we bless the people who order our lives, we bring our home closer. We bring God’s Kingdom closer.

We are exiles.

We seek a better home. We are brought into God’s household not as citizens or even as sojourners with permanent resident status, but as children of God, joint heirs with Christ, the Son. Our Kingdom isn’t just a political system, the only beneficent empire in history, but our Kingdom is family.

And here, we’re just exiles.

And every time we proclaim love in the face of hatred;

every time we proclaim forgiveness in the face of injury;

every time we proclaim faith in the face of doubt;

every time we proclaim hope in the face of despair;

every time we shine light into the darkness;

every time we share joy in the face of sadness;

we not only proclaim, but we bring God’s Kingdom, our family, into clear focus.

Even living in exile like they did, we proclaim to the lepers, Welcome! God desires your healing! It doesn’t matter if you’re Samaritan, Galilean, Zionist, Roman, slave, free, woman, man, child, elder; God is with you and God loves you and God will heal you.

There is a time for grieving, and there is a time for proclaiming joy.

And even in exile, there is space for joy. When we survive this exile, when we fully realize God’s eternal Kingdom, there will be space for joy.

So let that joy spill over today. Share it in this broken world. Stop sharing fear, because fear isn’t part of God’s Kingdom. Stop sharing anger, because anger isn’t part of God’s Kingdom.

Start sharing thankfulness. Start sharing mercy. Start sharing love. Start sharing forgiveness.

And through you, God will break through the darkness and fear of this world and bring in the eternal Kingdom of the family of God.

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

a sermon for World Communion Sunday

2 Timothy 1.1-14

1 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, to promote the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.

2 To Timothy, my dear child.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

3 I’m grateful to God, whom I serve with a good conscience as my ancestors did. I constantly remember you in my prayers day and night. 4 When I remember your tears, I long to see you so that I can be filled with happiness. 5 I’m reminded of your authentic faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I’m sure that this faith is also inside you. 6 Because of this, I’m reminding you to revive God’s gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled.

8 So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord or of me, his prisoner. Instead, share the suffering for the good news, depending on God’s power. 9 God is the one who saved and called us with a holy calling. This wasn’t based on what we have done, but it was based on his own purpose and grace that he gave us in Christ Jesus before time began. 10 Now his grace is revealed through the appearance of our savior, Christ Jesus. He destroyed death and brought life and immortality into clear focus through the good news. 11 I was appointed a messenger, apostle, and teacher of this good news. 12 This is also why I’m suffering the way I do, but I’m not ashamed. I know the one in whom I’ve placed my trust. I’m convinced that God is powerful enough to protect what he has placed in my trust until that day. 13 Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you heard from me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 Protect this good thing that has been placed in your trust through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

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

Once upon a time, there was God. God, out of loneliness or boredom or curiosity or pure artistic flair, decided to create.

And there was stuff. And God, whose opinion is infallible, said it was good.

And there were a whole bunch of mornings and evenings; a lot of days.

And then, somewhere between 3000 and a few trillion years later, there was this guy named Jesus. He was the kind of guy we’d expect to be a jihadist today, because we’re big fans of racial profiling, and he was of half-middle eastern descent.

The other half of his ancestry was God.

This Jesus guy walked around, did the kind of stuff that only God can do, and tried to convince people to be nice to each other for a change, for which blasphemy and insurrection he was assassinated on a cross.

His followers saw him walking around a few days later and started telling people about it.

And the Church was born.

This Church did a lot of things, not the least of which was to multiply like a household of rabbits.

They broke bread together, each time discovering that the bread and the wine they were consuming were, in fact, that Jesus guy still finding a way to get into their heads and hearts.

They thought that was so cool that they kept doing it. They were known for it. They did it so often, and made that connection between bread and body, cup and blood, so definitively that people started calling them cannibals.

But that didn’t stop them.

Even when the reformers started ripping the Church into different groups, they didn’t stop. Every time they got together, they proclaimed and shared the body and blood of Jesus.

Nothing stopped that practice, and the Church was enriched and maintained, even during her darkest hours, by so physically, so fundamentally taking Jesus into their bodies that every cell, every neural pathway was shaped by Jesus.

Maybe that’s a little glorified, but it is, in fact, the practices of the Church that keep her being what she is: the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.

In every age, people recognized how important that practice was.

But then something weird happened. America. Westward expansion. The unavailability of clergy to preside over the table. People had made the practice into such a ritual that they were afraid to celebrate the meal without an official.

So churches started receiving Jesus only when a circuit-riding pastor would happen into town, and that happened only infrequently. And that circuit-wide practice of communing over the body and blood became a practice itself.

The meal was no longer the regular nourishment of the Church; it was a special occasion.

And even when pastors started to become available for local congregations again, they had long forgotten how important, how vital that reminder of Jesus inside them was. They kept up the practice only occasionally, at special events, maybe quarterly.

And that is one reason why the Church is withering today. We have lost our grip on so many of the things that the Church once knew was so important, so vital, so life-giving.

Paul writes to Timothy and advises him:

Protect this good thing that has been placed in your trust through the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

And he is speaking of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and him crucified, resurrected. But that’s because the practices of the early Church were easier to continue than the theology. The story kept having to be re-told, and still does, every time we share it.

But today, two millennia on, we have lost touch with so much. The Church isn’t relevant to younger generations because we’ve become preoccupied with growth and money.

We’ve forgotten our roots.

So today, let’s reclaim the foundation of our faith and practice. Today, on World Communion Sunday, let’s join with congregations of all stripes and flavors, all around the world, and remind ourselves just how beautiful, just how relevant, just how powerful Jesus-inside-us still is.

Let’s commune together friends. Let Jesus bring us back to life.

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.