A Rooted Faith

 February 21 2021

Luke 9:18-36

         As we have discussed before, the church, like the time we live in, has seasons. We had the season of Advent, those four weeks before Christmas, and then, of course we had the season of Christmas which as the song reminds us only lasts twelve days. Then, following Christmas, the Church has the season of Epiphany, which is the season where now that Jesus has arrived we take time to figure out just who this Jesus is. In Epiphany we want to have this A-ha moment where we suddenly have a glimpse of just who this Jesus is. This, of course is captured really well in the first verses of our scripture for today where Jesus, after he had finished his prayer, turned and asked his disciples two questions. The first question was, “who do the crowds say  that I am? And the second question which hit more close to home asked, “Who do you say that I am?” So, very much like us, the disciples have had a time, a season to follow Jesus around, to listen to him, to watch him perform miracles and exorcisms, and saw how the word that Jesus spoke proved worthy of its promise.What Jesus understood and what the church has also understood is that we must first understand just who Jesus is and then and only then will his mission be properly understood.

         This brings us to the next season of the church which is called Lent after the lengthening of days. It begins seven weeks before Easter on what we know as Ash Wednesday and it has been traditionally a time of preparation for those who would be baptized on Easter morning, those rising to new life on the Sunday when the rising of Jesus to new life is celebrated. But in order to successfully make it to Easter what must first be encountered is the cross. In fact, what this season is primarily about is preparing ourselves to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, to know that if there is a cross for Jesus then there is a cross for us as well. Jesus anticipated our natural reluctance to accept that suffering and death may be required of those who accepted his word. He tells his disciple a parable, a story laid alongside the teachings of Jesus that is given to help us understand the teachings of Jesus in a deeper way. The main parable of Jesus is the parable of the sower, found in the eighth chapter of Luke where we read about the man who went out to sow some seed. Some of the seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it. And some seed fell on rocky soil and as it grew up it withered away because it had no moisture. And some seed fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. But some seed fell onto good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. Now when we hear this story it might be hard to figure out just what any of this has to do with Jesus, the cross and the season of Lent but hold on it will soon make sense because Jesus goes on to explain this story. Further in that eighth chapter of Luke, Jesus tells his disciples that the seed that is being sown is the word of God. The seed along the path is the word that is heard  but instead of remaining long in these peoples hearts, the devil comes and quickly snatches the word away so that they might  not believe and be saved. This is what we have been learning about in the previous messages is that the word God gives to us is his command for us to do unto others as we would want others to do to us. The devil snatches this word from our hearts when he tells us the lie that there are those we cannot love because of who they are. This is called the victim mentality that it is because of what others have done this is what determines what we will do. When we follow this thinking then we become a slave because it is always someone else who gets to decide what we will do and who we will love. This is where the the devil wants to bring us through his lies to this place where we are slaves to sin. Yet what Gods word calls us to do is the freedom of loving others even those who do not love us.

         We need to understand how the devil takes God’s word from our hearts in order to understand what is meant by the seed that has fallen on rocky soil and as it grew it withered away because it had no moisture. Jesus explains that these are those people who hear the word and receive it with joy. But they have no root; they believe for a while and in times of testing they fall away. In Matthews version of this same parable, this time of testing is further described as being tribulation persecution on account of the word. If you go further and look up the original Greek you find that the word, “tribulation” was in fact, a threes sided tool for threshing grain. To thresh grain you have to rub the grain, put it under pressure so that the chaff, the hard outer shell is rubbed away from the inner heart of the grain. So, tribulation in a similar manner means that because of the word of God in our hearts we may find ourselves under pressure. The second word that Matthew’s version gives us is persecution which in the original Greek is a term that means to be hunted down. So, it is not hard to comprehend that it is a difficult calling we are under when we treasure the word of God in our hearts. The question we must ask ourselves is, are we able to endure to the end? Now, I don’t believe that Jesus taught his disciples and us this just to throw cold water on our enthusiasm that comes with being a follower of Jesus. No, if you listen closely he tells us what is needed in order to survive the trials and the sufferings. It is easier to hear in Matthews version where Jesus says that the reason some will fall away when trials and sufferings come is that they have no root in them. This then is the real purpose of this season of Lent to examine ourselves to see just how is our root system. If we are going to follow Jesus all the way to Calvary, if what happened to him can and may happen to us then in order for us to not fall away under pressure we had better have deep roots; shallow roots will do us no good when the heat of the day is upon us.

         This of course just begs the question, what does it mean for us to have deep roots? Well, fortunately for us, this image of being a well rooted plant has occurred elsewhere in scripture, in the first Psalm and in the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah, where we read, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. They are like a tree planted by water that sends its roots out by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”So, the key that we find here is that those who are like trees who have sent out deep roots by the stream are those who trust the Lord. So, it is not enough to hear the word of God and to receive that word in your heart you also must put your faith in God, trusting in his word no matter what. The other key words found in this passage from Jeremiah are fear and anxiety the very roots of sinful behavior. These will not be a problem as long as one goes deep in their faith of God. Lastly, what also happens is that this tree with deep well-watered roots will not cease to bear fruit. This fruit as we find in the fifteenth chapter of John’s gospel are the good works which bring glory to our Heavenly Father, the fruits that are the very marks of a disciple of Jesus.

         So, when we stand back and look at what we know so far what we discover is that the word of God calls us to love others, to do to others as we would have them do to us. We are not to blame others but instead we are called to be responsible people who will love no matter what. Further, if God brings us to a place where loving others requires we suffer and even give up our life we will be able to do so because we have a deep trust in God, that because of his unchanging nature our lives are safe with him doing what he calls us to do.This is the understanding that we are to wrestle with during this season of Lent. In our scripture for today we see the season of Epiphany, the season where we want the light to go on so that we can at last know just who this Jesus is at last given an answer that Jesus is indeed the Christ of God, the one anointed by God by the Holy Spirit.We remember the baptism of Jesus where we are told that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove and a voice was heard from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Now even though this was a very public witness to who Jesus was, what Jesus wanted to know is if anyone had really accepted that this was true. Jesus first asked his disciples who the crowds said that he was and the crowds thought that Jesus was much like a prophet but could go no further than that. Then Jesus turned and pointed the question towards his disciples. We can only imagine the nervous squirming that came upon them until Simon Peter broke the silence by blurting out that he knew that Jesus was indeed the anointed one of God.

         It was at this point, when the disciples know who Jesus is, when this is finally brought out into the light, that the story takes a turn because at this moment is when Jesus announces that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. So, while the disciples now plainly knew that Jesus was the anointed one of God, what Jesus next revealed about his future was nothing like what they had expected or hoped God’s anointed one would be like. He was not going to be the long awaited king in the lineage of David who would unite the people of Israel in their uprising against the Roman occupation. No, instead of these disciples being leaders and warriors in the fight against Rome, Jesus instead tells them they must every day be prepared to take upon themselves the scourge of suffering, shame and death at the hands of their hated enemy. How very opposite from what they had expected! So, here they were those who had received the word of God with joy and the question for them no us would they remain, could they endure this way of Jesus, a way of being that none of them saw coming? Jesus in no uncertain terms told his students that in order to remain with him meant that they had to say, “No” to their self, their aspirations, their hopes, their longings, drawing their life from the well of their poisonous hatred and instead put upon their shoulders the dreaded crossbeam. There could be no retaliation, no seeking revenge and most importantly no fear at the worst that Rome could do to them. No, this is the time when they would need a deep abiding trust in the God they professed to know. The call Jesus makes to daily carry this crossbeam meant that they had to be always ready, to be prepared, to have deep roots, trusting that even though it would seem to be so counter-intuitive to the ways of the world that this way was the way that led to life. As Jesus asked them, “What does a person gain if they end up with the whole world but they lose or forfeit themselves? In other words, if God would grant that they could be victorious over the Romans and then they could go on by the help of God to be victorious over every country in the world what would they have gained because in the end they would end up being exactly like the very countries they had defeated. Who they were, the people God had rescued and redeemed to be a kingdom of priests to God, this self that God had so desired for them would be lost as they became just yet another power hungry country attempting to control the world by fear. No, this is the way of death; the way of life is the way of love, the way that knows that it is good that overcomes evil and not the other way around.

         This is why Jesus insisted that they and those of us who also follow him, that we take up our cross every day. We are to be ready, our roots sunk deep in our trust of God, to not demand that God preserve our life when we are called to give our life but to trust in the certainty of God, that in his hands is the safest place for our hands to be. Without this certainty, Jesus warns us in the parable of the sower we will fall away. The word translated here as “fall away” is the word skandalon and it means to hit our foot against a stone which causes us to stumble and fall. This is interesting wording that Jesus uses, a stone of stumbling in a parable about the lack of roots caused by what else, stones. But I believe that he used this wording to point us back to an important scripture where skandalon is used. In the eighth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet tells us, “Do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a skandalon …and many shall stumble on it.” You see, when we take up our cross, we are saying is that we do so only because of our fear of God. All the other fears that the world can conjure up no longer affect us.We have this fear of God  because we are the people who know the kind of world that our God is bringing about, a world where each person cares for the other just as if they care for themselves. We stand in awe of God how he is bringing forth the victory that is bringing this world to its joyous conclusion. What we fear is that when at long last God is his power brings forth this world in all this glory that we will not be a part of it. This is why we are not ashamed of Jesus and his words which call us to stand unaffected by the all the fears produced at the hands of the world. We stand in fear and awe of God and his victory that will one day as Jesus tells us arrive in a moment of great glory.

         Now we can only imagine how very mind blowing this teaching must have been to those first disciples. I say this because even now two thousand years later this teaching of Jesus still shakes the foundation of how we believe we must live in the world. With these teachings of Jesus swirling in their minds, eight days later Simon, James and John follow Jesus up on the mountain side to pray. Luke’s nod to eight days points our minds to the resurrection which happened on Sunday, the first day after the seven days of the week, the seven days of creation, the eighth day the day of the new creation. It was there in the dim light of that evening that while they were praying, the appearance of the face of Jesus was dramatically changed. Luke records that the face of Jesus was altered, the exact words are that his face became other, or another.  Then we are told that the clothing of Jesus became dazzling white, the shining of the very glory of God. Suddenly, there were two men talking to Jesus who appeared with him in glory. They spoke with Jesus about his departure, his exodus which Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem. The word exodus is very important here as it helps us understand that what Jesus was going to Jerusalem to lead his people through his death into the Promised Land of resurrection. In this way Jesus would provide a way for the whole world, to be led out of slavery into freedom.

         Now it is a very human element to the story to find out that all the while this most amazing and miraculous event is happening in his midst, Simon Peter, who had so bravely confessed to who Jesus really was is found to be fast asleep. Simon Peter  upon waking tried to say something profound but his words just came off as awkward and clumsy. Then as in days of old, in the days of the tabernacle, there on the mountain came a cloud, the cloud of the presence of God. We are told that as the cloud overshadowed them , the disciples were afraid, the fear of God had gripped a hold of them. Out of this cloud, where sight was of no use, there came a voice, the same voice heard before at the baptism of Jesus, a voice saying the very words spoken at the baptism of Jesus, “This is my Son, my beloved, my chosen”. But added to these words were a command, “Listen to him.” Here was the beginning of the great commandment found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy,”Listen”. What follows is that the people of Israel are to love God with all of their heart, and all of their soul and all of their might. But there on the mountain this command is replaced by, “Listen to him, my Son my beloved.” This is the way God would be loved through our obedience to his Son. And what the Son speaks of is love. The images of Moses and Elijah call forth the Law and the Prophets and as Jesus taught these two hang on this, that we do unto others as we would want done to us. In the face of the other, the next person we encounter, this we remember is the face of Jesus. This encounter with glory was given to strengthen the faith of the disciples and us as well so that our roots grow deep in our trust of God. To his glory! Amen!

 

Forgiven, much?

 February 14 2021

Luke 7:36-50

         One of the things that Jennifer have in common is our love of reading. So, it just figures that if you have two people in a house that there is going to be a lot of books. On top of that we have also passed on this love of reading to our three children which means even more books. I say all this to help explain that when I tell you that we are redoing our library at home that this is a really big deal, like eight six foot high bookshelves full of books, big deal.We are sorting through all of them and moving them to the room down the hall which we feel will make a better place for an office and library. Now, not all of these books are Jennifer’s and my books; some of them belonged to our kids, Sarah and Matt who when they moved into their own home needed time to get settled in before tackling their share of the books.So, last Saturday they came over and had a big time looking through the books they had left behind trying to figure out which ones to take and which ones to get rid of. As we were going through all of these books, Sarah turned to me and held up a book and said, “Dad this is a book that you got for me.” First of all, it made me happy that she remembered and secondly it made me happy that the book had an influence on her. You see, the subject of the book was feminism. Now, it might surprise some people that a pastor would give encourage his daughters to be feminist but what I always tried to remind them is that the worlds first feminist was in fact Jesus. That might cause some people to be a little surprised but before Jesus women were treated rather poorly even among the people of Israel, God’s own people. It was Jesus though, how he lived and the lessons he taught who witnessed to the reality that he loved women just as equally as he did any man. This is what I want my two daughters to remember that as followers of Jesus they don’t have to believe that they are any less in the eyes of God.

         We see this attitude of Jesus in todays scripture where in Luke we are told a story about Jesus and a woman and how in a surprising twist it is this woman, who turns out to be the one who loves with the greater love not the Pharisee who believed that he was more righteous than anyone else. The story centers around a dinner party with Jesus the honored guest or so it seems.Simon, The Pharisee throwing the shindig, Simon, wasn’t holding the dinner to honor Jesus as much as he was wanted to invite Jesus over to figure out just what was his angle. Just who did this Jesus think that he was? Didn’t Jesus know that righteousness looked like the life that he, Simon was living? And why did so many people believe that this Jesus was some sort of a prophet? Had they never read the prophets for if they had certainly they would have figured out that this Jesus was no prophet. All these thoughts were swirling through the mind of Simon as he sent out word to Jesus that he should stop over some night for some food and conversation.

         This story then is a good one for us, followers of Jesus who are in this season of Epiphany, a season when we are trying much like Simon, to figure out once again just who Jesus is. Sometimes it seems that we have known Jesus for so long that nothing about him surprises us but I believe that Jesus should be one who is endlessly surprising us and if not surprising us at least challenging us. Last week we heard the core of Jesus’ teaching, that to be truly free means that we must live responsibly, that we must respond in love no matter who it is, a friend or an enemy who stands in need of the love we are able to give. How can this teaching of Jesus not surprise us and challenge us every time we hear it? It is easy to overthink what Jesus teaches us to the point where we might just want to avoid people rather than be faced with the possibility that the next person we meet demands that we extend extravagant love to them as God has first done so to us. Yet this is of course not what Jesus expects and we must remember that if Jesus sets the standard then he also will be the one who will empower us to achieve that standard. This is the tie in with today’s scripture story for what should have caught our ear upon reading it was that Jesus said that the woman in our story had loved much. This is exactly the standard Jesus expects of us, the way of true freedom. This is why we should lean in and listen close to what Jesus has to teach us today.

         As we previously have said, the story begins with Simon the Pharisee who is trying to figure out just who Jesus is so he invites Jesus over to dinner. Now when we talk of having someone over for dinner what we imagine this being is a group of people sitting on chairs around a table upon which that main course is situated in the middle of the table to be passed around until all are served. But in the days of Jesus when they ate they would sit on pillows or couches situated around a low table. Jesus and the others at the table would have been reclining on these pillows or couches with their heads toward the serving area. Their feet would extend out towards the wall of the room. We have to understand this so when we read that a woman of the city crashed the party and began to wash the feet of Jesus we don’t somehow think that she is crawling under the table. That would just be weird but of course what she did do was plenty weird enough. We are told that this woman when she heard that Jesus was invited to eat at the house of Simon she decided to go and meet Jesus there to demonstrate her love for him. Now, we have to understand the risk this woman was taking just considering this act. I mean, the Pharisees were some of the meanest and cruelest people to those they labeled as “sinners”. Yet, in spite of knowing this this woman entered the house of Simon, a flask of perfume in hand, moving slowly against the wall until she came to the feet of Jesus. Overwhelmed with emotion when at long last being able to be in the presence of Jesus she began to weep uncontrollably, the tears flooding down her cheeks. She knelt down, her face just inches from the feet of Jesus which were caked with the dirt and dust Jesus had walked in all day. As her tears fell upon the feet of Jesus she watched as they began to run down his feet carrying the dirt away.  Having no towel with which to dry away the tears that had fallen upon the feet of Jesus she did the unthinkable, she unbound her hair and used her long tresses to wipe away the tears she had shed upon the feet of this one she had loved so much. Then she lowered her head even further and with trembling lips softly kissed the feet of Jesus. She broke the seal on the alabaster flask of of sweet smelling ointment and poured the contents out upon the feet of Jesus, anointing them in an act of extravagant love, the heady fragrance filling the air of the dining room of Simon’s house.

         Now, this act of extravagant love was one of those moments that most likely lasted only a very short while yet to those in that room watching such an unbelievable act so outside of the social norms of the day, it most likely seemed to last far too long. There was most likely much nervous whispering and fidgeting going on as this woman intruded into their rigid and uptight gathering. So it seems fitting that Simon, the good little Pharisee would speak for the rest of everyone else when he exclaimed, “If this man were a prophet he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” We have to remember that as the honored guest of Simon, Jesus would have been sitting at Simons right hand at the head of the table. Apparently Simon didn’t even care that what he had said might be offensive to the person who is sitting right beside him. Simon just knows that good prophets don’t touch bad girls. You can tell from what Simon has said that his world is a world categorized into neat little classifications; there is a certain sort of woman, and  there are prophets and there are pretenders. There are sinners and then there are good people who are just like Simon.

         Now Jesus had every right to be offended at Simon’s questioning of his character, his insinuating that Jesus was nothing at all like a prophet yet Jesus did not take the bait. Instead Jesus very politely asked Simon if he could tell a story to which Simon said of course, go ahead tell me a story. The story Jesus told was about a man who loaned out money to desperate people perhaps like a banker but probably more like a loan shark. This guy had two people he had loaned out money to, one he loaned out fifty bucks and another he loaned out five hundred bucks. Now, both of these people he had loaned money to ran into some trouble and found that they we not going to be able to pay back the money that had been lent to them. Now the money lender had some options. He could have them thrown into debtors prison where they would stay until family members or friends could scrounge up enough money to pay off the debt or he could do the unthinkable and simply write off the loan. This last option is what this banker did for both of the people that he had loaned his money to. Now at this point in the story, Jesus turns to Simon and asks him a question: Simon which of these two people would love the banker more, the one who had been forgiven fifty bucks or the one who had been forgiven five hundred bucks? Simon is like, “Well, duh, the one who had been forgiven the five hundred bucks Jesus, that’s the one who would have been the most grateful to the baker for forgiving his loan.” To this Jesus replied to Simon, “You have judged rightly.” Now, at this point Simon has no idea that Jesus the honored guest is about to bring shame upon him and his arrogant attitude.  Jesus turns to the woman. Jesus looks at this one that everyone else is trying very hard to ignore but to Jesus she is the one upon whom everyone’s focus should be. Jesus asks the rest of those in the room, “Do you see this woman?” No longer would he allow her to be invisible to those who had judged her unworthy of being in their presence. Jesus wants them to see her, to see what she has done at great cost to her. “Do you see”, asks Jesus, “Do you see how she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Do you see Simon that she has done what you should have done but failed to do.” Again Jesus asked,  “Do you see her? She has not ceased to kiss my feet but you Simon have not shown be the most basic hospitality of a kiss when I arrived.” And yet once again Jesus asked them, “Do you see her? She has anointed my feet  with ointment but you Simon have not given me the customary anointing when I entered your house.” After these searing questions Jesus comes to the “therefore”, the conclusion that has to be understood from these actions of this woman they assumed to be not worthy of being in their presence. What they should have been able to figure out is that this woman’s sins that were many have been forgiven. How did Jesus come to that conclusion? Jesus said that it was obvious that has been forgiven much because she has loved much. Just like the person who owed five hundred dollars who when he finds that he is unable to pay off his loan discovers that his banker  is willing to wipe out his loan responds with great gratitude so too this woman who had many sins also responds with overwhelming love towards Jesus. Now, this idea also goes the other way as well. The one who is forgiven little, loves little.

         The question that the rest of the guests had after this teaching of Jesus was just who is this that forgives sins? This is a question that seems to be a failure to get the point Jesus is trying to make. All Jesus did was to affirm just what was obvious about this woman that through her actions it was obvious that her sins were forgiven. What the question of Simon and his guests revealed is that what concerned them was the scandal of God’s forgiveness. If it was true that this woman,  a woman of this sort  can be forgiven  just as Simon had been forgiven then what would happen to all these neat and tidy classifications that they held for the people in their society. If all are forgiven then what would happen to the pride they had in their righteousness, a righteousness that they believed put them on a higher plane than these so called sinners? This was their true concern with Jesus being one who could forgive sins, it was a concern that this reality that they had built was in danger of collapsing.

         Now, we must remember about this story is that it was meant for those of us who follow Jesus. This story is not just supposed to make us want to shake our heads at the way that Simon treated this woman who had been forgiven much but it is to make us examine ourselves and ask which one am I, one who is forgiven much or forgiven little? It is obvious from the story that whether one is forgiven a lot or a little is in all actuality how one perceives their own forgiveness of their sin. So in this story we have two distinct ways that people are affected by their sin. The first question then is just how do we define sin? Well, perhaps the best thumbnail sketch of what is meant by sin is given to us by Paul at the end of the fourteenth chapter of Romans where Paul simply states that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. I believe that what Paul is getting at is that when we do not have faithful confidence in God then we will find that we will be controlled by anxiety and worry; this is the real root of all sin. It is this underlying anxiety, this uncertainty of life that makes us search for who or what we can place our faith in, what it is that we can believe in to make our worry cease.For those like Simon they turn inward and place their faith in their own abilities and possibilities which results in life inwardly turned, a life filled with pride.  In cases such as Simon’s their concern is knowing just how much forgiveness is needed, how much love is expected to convince God to be on their side, to be the guarantee for them that their plans will succeed. So they are forgiven little and they love little because they are concerned with doing just what is the least they can do to move God to lend his power to their cause.

How different it is for those like this woman who crashed Simon’s party. For her and people like her, in their anxiety and worry, they look to ease their pain by placing their faith in other people. This of course will lead her and people like her to find themselves in relationships where they are used, abused and manipulated. So, for them when they hear of this news that there is a God and that he is willing to let go of the past in order to have a future with them and that this God only desires to have a relationship that sets people free, for them this is good news indeed. For this woman and those like her, God’s forgiveness brings hope into their hopeless situation and having been set free from this they quite naturally respond with gratitude and out of this gratitude comes a great love. For them it is not about having God on their side but it is rather to have been found on the side of God, this is what at long last sets them free from their worry and anxiety. 

The question then remains, just what will it take for Simon to discover that he too has been forgiven much so that he too might be set free to love much? The answer is that in his confrontation with Jesus he will discover the God he believes in, the God who can be manipulated to serve the prideful plans of those who want God to be on their side is in all actuality no God at all. Simon and those like him must acknowledge that this God that they believed in was in fact a false god, a god who did not exist and in their worshipping this god for them they in fact have committed a grave sin against the one true living God. And in that moment of realization of knowing that in worshipping a false god that they deserved death they will at long last realize also that there is God’s forgiveness, making a way for them to come to him and live. This is when they too will be found to be those who understand that they have been forgiven much and out of gratitude of the life they have been given they will love much as well. So, in this story of the woman who crashed Simon’s party, we find not only judgment against Simon and his prideful attitude but we also find in this woman’s behavior the hope of extravagant love that awaits all who experience the great forgiveness of God. To his glory! Amen

 

 

Free Indeed

 January 31 2021

Luke 6:20-49

         One of the great things about our life together as a church family is that we sing together. I mean, have you ever stopped to consider just where else do people sing together except church and perhaps a karaoke bar? The thing about singing is that there is something about a song that sticks in your mind like nothing else and a song can take you to back to places you haven’t been to for a long time. So, the hymns we sing each week to praise our God are part of our collective memory, they are part of what unites us. That being said though since they can be such a powerful way of affecting who we are we have to be careful that the message the hymns communicate to us send the right message or else they could be a means of reenforcing perhaps a wrong belief. Those who write the hymns we sing may not always get it right. I say all this to speak about a hymn most of us love to sing, “My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less”. I agree with most of the song that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus and his righteousness but what I take issue with is the use of the imagery of standing on the solid rock and all the other ground being sinking sand. Now what’s my problem you might ask? Well, as we read in todays scripture there is a very important part of story that has gotten mixed up. I mean as Jesus teaches us here and in the seventh chapter of Matthew, it isn’t about just choosing Jesus and standing  on Jesus or with Jesus because he is the solid rock. No, what makes the difference between a life that is built on a solid rock or being built on sinking sand is that a person hears the words of Jesus and does them.I’m more than a little bothered that in the song nowhere is there any mention of the teaching of Jesus, or how important it is to listen to those teachings or how once we hear what Jesus teaches we then have to actually do what Jesus teaches because then and only then will we be standing on solid ground. This hymn implies that all is necessary to have a life on solid ground is for us to place our faith in Jesus. Just trust in Jesus, in his righteousness that’s the ticket to solid ground living and it sounds correct until we actually find where this imagery of solid rocks and sinking sand comes from that is when we run into a problem. Now, the hymn reflects the Protestant over correction of emphasizing faith alone but as Jesus himself tells us in the sixth chapter of Luke, we can have faith that confesses that he is Lord, but what Jesus expects is that we do what he tells us. This is what is meant by having faith that we trust that what teaches us is the right way to live and because we have faith that his teachings are true we are going to actually live them out.  All of this is kind of glossed over in the hymn, “My Hope is Built on nothing less”. I still like the song but I also realize that the songwriter has used an image from the Bible without fully realizing what it meant. The bottom line is that we have to let our biblical knowledge inform our hymns instead of the other way around.

         So, that concludes my rant on the hymn, “My Hope is Built on nothing Less”. But the question remains is just why is it so important for us to do what Jesus teaches us to do instead of just passively confessing a statement of faith and letting it go at that? Well, as we will find out, actively doing what Jesus calls us to do is a very important part of the equation. To understand just why this is so we have to to remember that in the previous chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus had an encounter with a fisherman named Simon. Jesus was preaching the word of God to the crowd which had become so large along the shores of the Sea of Galilee that Jesus got in Simons fishing boat and asked him to go a little ways off shore so that Jesus could continue teaching the people. Then as you might recall,  after the people left Jesus told Simon to put his boats out into deep water because there Simon would be able to find an abundance of fish. Simon at first objected having fished all night catching nothing but then he agreed to trust the word Jesus spoke. What Simon discovered is that the word of Jesus was true; they caught so many fish that their nets began to break and the boats were in danger of sinking. Simon realized in that moment that Jesus was a man of God, and he confessed his sin. Jesus then told him to not be afraid but from that moment on Simon would be catching men. As we learned last week, this meant that Simon would, through his words and actions, witness to an understanding and wisdom of trusting the word of God so that those whose attention were caught by what he did might come to learn the understanding and wisdom that Simon possessed. In this way, the devil could no longer snatch the word of God out of their hearts after they had heard that word of God spoken to them by Jesus because now they knew the wisdom of God’s word for their life.

         So, this in a nutshell is what has come before our scripture for today. There Jesus said he was going to make out of Simon and his friends James and John, people who would be able to catch people, capture the attention of those who watched them. And here, in the sixth chapter is their training on how to be those who catch people, how to live a life that captures the attention of those who hear them and watch them. What is implied in all of this is that there are two different approaches to life, the way that the world is living and another way, the way of God.  These two ways of life are so vastly different that to live the way of God is to live a life that is noticeable, a life that stands apart from how the rest of the world lives. So, in knowing this then we begin to understand the importance of doing what is taught because it is only in the doing that we are different. Only as we are different can we capture the attention of the people around us so that through the sharing of this understanding and wisdom of why we live the way that we do the devil can no longer capture them by stealing God’s word from their heart.

         Now what Jesus teaches us in this sixth chapter of Luke is not a radical departure from the wisdom and understanding found in  the essence of Jewish teaching found in what we call the Torah. I recently completed a study of the book of Leviticus written by Rabbi Johnathon Sacks which was very fascinating. His teachings helped me immensely understand the teachings of Jesus. One of the big ideas that I took away from my study of Leviticus is that as Rabbi Sacks explains it, is that in the face of suffering and loss there are two questions that can be asked that can lead to quite different outcomes. The first question is that we ask ourselves, have I done anything that has gotten me into this situation and if so what must I do to correct it.In other words, what is my next move? This is the way of personal responsibility. The second question people might ask is this: Who did this to me? This is the question that leads to what is called victim culture. Some one else is to blame. It is not I that is who is at fault but it is rather some external cause this is why I find myself in predicament I find myself in. This kind of thinking is very dangerous because it leads people to see themselves and others not as subjects but rather as objects. As objects, people who ask this question are people who see themselves as people who have things done to them instead of people who see themselves as people who can do something. The end result of this thinking is a person ends up with anger, resentment, rage and a sense of injustice. This way of life where we blame others always leads to slavery because when we blame others we are in effect stating that it is the person we blame who has control of our life not us.Instead of people of actions we instead become people of reactions. It is the way not of justice but the way of vengeance. Now, I say all this because this way, the way of blaming others is the way of the world. It creates a situation where people who see themselves as victims seek out victims on which to blame their conflicts upon, someone they can be responsible for the problems that they face as a community.

         This is exactly the world in which Jesus came to transform. The way Jesus transforms our world is by teaching us that no matter what we always have a choice, we alone are responsible for our life and no one else. As Moses told the people of Israel in the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life…” We hear echos of these words of Moses in the teachings of Jesus in this sixth chapter of Luke, as Jesus begins with the words,”Blessed are…” Now, if you stand back and look at the description of the person Jesus describes as blessed, you discover something pretty interesting. Listen to how Jesus describes the one who is blessed. They are poor, which in the Greek, this word means one who crouches, cowers who is bent over and destitute. They are not only poor but they are also hungry, weeping, hated, excluded, insulted, and rejected. For us, this is a description of what we would call a victim. These are people we would expect to want to blame someone one for the mess they have themselves in. These are the ones that Jesus states are blessed, the ones that God has knelt down and offered his very self to them. This is what is meant by the term, “blessed”. This is exactly what Isaiah records in the fifty seventh chapter of his book that God dwells with those who are broken, those who have a lowly spirit. God dwells with them to revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart of the contrite”.When we are told that God is with the lowly to revive their spirit, this means that God is with them to give power to their life, and when he revives the heart this means that God is with them to give them the courage to move forward from where they are at. This is why they are blessed because God is with them to empower them to act.

         In contrast, those on which Jesus announces his woe upon are those who are rich, those who have abundance, fully resourced, those who full, those who are laughing, the people others speak well of. These are the ones Jesus tells us will grieve because it is they who will be hungry and weep. In context with what Jesus is teaching here, what wealth is seen as is a solution to the suffering experienced by those Jesus describes as being blessed. Those who are rich have done so in order to insulate themselves from the suffering of the world, to create their own private heaven here on earth. Yet by walling themselves off from the suffering of the world they also wall themselves off from God. The reason for this is something God had already taught his people found in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. There God warns his people that when they enter the Promised Land that when they enjoyed their life there they were not to say in their hearts, “My power and my might have gotten  me this wealth”. You shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth…” You see what wealth does is that it makes one forget God. This is what Jesus says should be the reason the rich should grieve is they have already received their consolation. The word translated here as “consolation” is the same word used in the gospel of John to describe the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the helper and comforter. So instead of finding help and comfort through the Holy Spirit the rich find this help and comfort in their riches. So while Jesus advocates personal responsibility and the ability to make choices, choosing to escape suffering through creating ones own personal heaven here on earth is not the choice to make because it will only end up being a source of grief in the end.

         So what is the right choice to make? The right choice in every circumstance is to love. Jesus can command us to love because the love he speaks of is not an emotion, something that is unable for someone else to cause us to feel but rather to love as something we do. The basis of this action is to simply to do others that which we would want done to us. In other words, in every person’s face we must be able to see our own face, to see them as not the cause of our pain but rather the focus of our care. This means as Paul teaches in the twelfth chapter of Romans, if our enemy is hungry you feed them; if your enemy is thirsty you give them something to drink. Why would we do this? We give food and drink to our enemy because obviously we eat when we are hungry and we grab something to drink when we are thirsty. So, these are the choices we make; we choose to bless others why, because we have been blessed, we pray for those who harm us because we have been prayed for. We choose to give and to not hold back in giving because in this way we state our freedom to choose. This is what sets us a part from a world held in slavery to sin, a slavery that comes through blaming others. Why do sinners only love those who love them? They only love those who love them because everyone else is someone that they blame for their suffering and problems. Why do sinners do good to those who do good to them? They do good to those who do them good because everyone else is the source of the bad that they experience. Such is the way of slavery but the way of Jesus is the way where we know we always have a choice to love, this is the way of freedom. Unlike the slavery of sin whose wages are death the wages of the life of Jesus is life, a life as a child of God. This life is not about judging others or condemning others which is yet again a way to separate ourselves from others and make excuses as to why a person is not worthy of our love. But the life Jesus calls us to is a life of choosing to make no excuses, to love extravagantly, a love of good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. This is the way of God; this is the way of our teacher, Jesus. So, our ability to love others is always within us not with the person we are called to love. This means when we fail to love them it is not because of the speck in their eye but rather it is the log in our eye that has caused us to be unable to see them as a person worthy of our love.

         This then is how we are to be known, our reputation as being the fruit of a good God, the good fruit. The good we do comes out of what we treasure in our hearts, the treasure of a good God, who is worthy of all that we are, worthy to be served by all that we do. Why is God worthy of our life? God is worthy of our life because we were worthy of his love while we were yet sinners. God so loved, he made a choice to love, the world, a people enslaved to an idea that others should dictate how they should love, the very enslavement of sin, and to this world God out of love gave the most precious gift of his Son, Jesus. Jesus loved us with the greatest love of all. He made a choice; he was no victim. He made a choice to love us and he acted upon that love by laying down his life. It was always love that controlled his destiny. Through Jesus we at long last understand how much God treasured us and now in return we treasure him in our hearts and out of this treasure our lives are to produce good, the same goodness of God. 

         This understanding that we are free to choose, even in the most wretched of conditions, we are free to choose this is the understanding, the wisdom that catches the attention of a world held in slavery.It is when we realize that when we are poor, downtrodden,  excluded, insulted and rejected this is when God draws near to empower us and encourage us to make the right choice to love. The wrong choice is to withdraw into our own self-made heaven on earth using the resources God has given us to care for the suffering of others in order that we might insulate ourselves from suffering. No, the right choice is always to love, to see in the others face the very face of ourselves no matter the cost, no matter the hurt, no matter the pain. In doing so we defeat the Devil who desires nothing more than to keep us enslaved in a life blaming others, thinking of ourselves as victims filled with anger, resentment and a burning sense of injustice.

         The sad thing about understanding what Jesus is teaching us is that I am not sure just how many Christians really understand it. I seem to sense that there are many followers of Christ who seem to be busier playing the blame game then they are busy loving others. Part of being free is to be brutally honest  about how we are doing accepting the responsibility for our own life. My prayer is that the Lord will bless you with an honest assessment of just how you are doing in loving others as God has first loved us, so that you may experience the great freedom promised to you by Jesus. Amen.