What Is It That You Treasure?

 March 7 2021

Luke 15

         I have to say that I probably like football way too much because February has felt like a month long withdrawal period for me. I mean, now that there isn’t football to watch what I am supposed to let grab my attention? It doesn’t help that I am at the age where I have no patience for a lot of what is being promoted by all the streaming services. There is nothing fun about realizing that you have wasted two precious hours of your life because you took the bait and watched what was supposed to be a really great show. So, after much searching I’ve settled for watching murder mystery shows from the BBC of all things. One of the things I enjoy about them is that for the most part the characters all have a high degree of civility which is kind of refreshing these days. But really draws me in is how the detectives have to sort through all the various clues and subjects to figure out just who really is the guilty party. I wondered just why I found this so appealing and then one day it hit me that this searching through clues to figure out the mystery of the truth is really what I do any time I encounter the stories of the scriptures.

         Nowhere is this searching and being patient in trying to determine the truth more needed than in stories like our story for today, the story of the Prodigal Son. We have to be so grateful for Luke because he alone has given us such great stories such as this one and the story of the Good Samaritan because these stories stir in the hearts of people in such a way that they have become well known stories in the general public where those who know them may not even realize where these stories have come from. That stories such as the Prodigal Son are so well known can be thought of as being a good thing but this universal knowledge could also be a two-edged sword, in that being so well known people may think they know what this story is about but in all reality they may very well not have a clue as to the story’s true intent. I mean think about it, as the title implies, the story is about a son but in fact the story is actually about two sons and in the context in which the story is told it is actually the other son, the older one that the story is all about. The story has also been labeled with this adjective, prodigal, which is a word that few people even know what it means. What prodigal means is someone who spends lavishly and wastefully. In our every day language we might say that prodigal is a person who spends money like its going out of style.That being said it seems like the whole focus is on this one son who is a big spender yet we have to ask ourselves is this what the story is all about? Is this the truth of the story which Jesus told or perhaps is the real truth of this story found by looking at the clues that may have been missed in our haste of believing that we already know exactly what this story is all about. I have seen from watching murder mystery shows that this is a very dangerous thing to do.

         Another important part of the story that cannot be forgotten is its context. Jesus told this story on his way to Jerusalem where as he told his disciples he was to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day, be raised. And further, Jesus tells us that all who follow him must deny themselves take up their cross daily and follow him. In other words, not only is there a cross for Jesus there is a cross for us as well. This is the reason for this Lenten season that we are in, a time to examine ourselves to see if, as we have spoken of earlier, our roots go deep in our faith of God so that when tribulation and suffering come that we do not wither away in the heat of the moment. This is what Jesus teaches us in his parable of the sower. After we receive his word with joy we must then put our roots deep in our trust of God so that by faith we can endure all the way to the end and not stumble when called to suffer on account of the word. We have to keep this in mind as we read the story of what we call the Prodigal Son.

         With all that in mind, let’s try and listen to the story of the Prodigal Son as if for the first time. The story begins with Luke telling us that the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus. Now, we can read this rather matter-of-factly, oh, yes, those tax collectors, those sinners, but doesn’t everyone have a list of people who are in that category? I mean for us it is not tax collectors but drawing near to tax season we may want to put the IRS in this category. But if you stop and think about just who is the worst person you can think this is who you should put in the story here in order to understand just what the big deal was with the Pharisees and the scribes, the upright, uptight so called good people who were absolutely not one of the sinners.A few weeks ago we read from the eighth chapter of Isaiah of how skandalon was a stone that stuck up out of the ground that a person tripped on and how Isaiah described God as being such a stone for some people. This is what we are seeing with these Pharisees and scribes who thought they had God all figured out. If God was with Jesus and if God really didn’t mind hanging out with those kinds of people, then this was something about God that was going to make them get tripped up and do a header into the pavement. Jesus, of course, knew this that is why he stops his journey for a little storytelling.

         The stories Jesus begins with all center on the theme of lost and found. The first story is about a lost coin. Now, most of us wouldn’t get too excited about finding any coins which got lost in the couch cushions except if we had a sudden craving for something off the dollar menu but if instead, we had lost a twenty dollar bill or a check someone had paid us with, yes, we might get seriously our search for it. 

         The second story Jesus tells is about a lost sheep which most of us can’t relate to because most of us don’t have any sheep that could get lost. But if we remember that sheep in those days were very much like pets to their owners again we instantly understand what the search is all about. Our dog, Mazy, who rules our house came up missing a while back and it was a horrible experience. I had been out working on our driveway and had gone to the shed to get a shovel and of course she tagged along and then I finished up my work, put the shovel away and went into the house and it dawned on me that Mazy was no longer shadowing me about. So, I waited a couple of hours because she sometimes goes on extended travels, but when it was going on four hours since her appearance, I knew something was wrong. So, yes, much like the lost sheep, I searched everywhere, walking more than I have in a long time but having no luck finding her whereabouts. Exhausted, I returned home and laid down for a bit, pretty upset having no clue what might have happened to her. Our son, Matt came and continued the search and he searched around the house, and in doing so he heard a very faint cry coming from the shed. Apparently Mazy had gone in there to hunt for the critter eating my grass seed and I shut the door on her not realizing she had gone in there. So, yes there was much rejoicing when what was lost was finally found.

         So, after these two stories for a warm up to the main event, Jesus finally gets to the grand finally, a story of a father with two, not one, sons.As we listen to this story with fresh ears we must ask ourselves just what has been lost and subsequently, what has been found? Let’s not just jump to conclusions but in the fashion of the best of all murder mysteries let’s let all the clues be found and then and only then should we render a verdict. The story begins with the younger son, going to his father, and asking his father for the share of the property that is coming to him. This sounds simple enough until we realize that what he is asking for is his inheritance, something that would only be given to him upon the death of his father. Are you beginning to see what is being implied here? The son is in essence telling his father, I wish you were dead so that I might receive what is going to be mine. To put it in our language, he was telling his Dad to “drop dead”. I can only imagine the collective gasp of the crowd as they heard the son’s request. Now, if the son’s request was not shocking enough the father’s response was perhaps even more shocking because instead of giving the son a smack upside the head, the father gives in to the son’s request. The father divides up the property and then sells the property in order to give the son his share. This would a great travesty in that day because a person’s property was a sacred trust given to one’s family when they had entered into the Promised Land.Yet, even so the father went ahead and fulfilled the wish of his younger son. So, this son has this pretty big wad of cash and so he heads off to spend it like there was no tomorrow, what we might say was spending it in a prodigal manner. We are not shocked then to hear Jesus tell us that soon the money was gone. Those in the crowd must have cheered when they had heard of this son’s demise. If it wasn’t bad enough that the son was broke, we are also told that a famine came across the country he was in so it wasn’t like he could find a job anywhere. Finally, he took a job tending pigs, which to a Jewish boy was about as low as you could go. And not only that, he was so hungry that the pig food was looking pretty good. Well, at this point he begins to come to his senses and he thinks, why am I here starving when I know that my Dad’s servants have got plenty to eat. Why don’t I just go home and ask my Dad to hire me on so that I can begin to pay him back what I owe him. Now, he knows this is a long shot because he had treated his Dad pretty badly when he had left.

         At this point I imagine the crowd is thinking that this story is a pretty good tale, the young arrogant kid gets what he deserves and what they hope is that after he travels home his Father will at last do what he should have done and kick his son to the curb, or worse. But yet again, the story takes a dramatic unexpected twist. Jesus tells them that when the son is a long way off that the father sees him and he is jumping off the porch and he is sprinting down the road, his long robe hiked up so he doesn’t trip, his bare legs exposed for all to see. You see, the elders, such as the father never ran; they moved with poise and the weight of their position. So, why in the world is the father doing such a thing? Well, what isn’t obvious to us was probably evident to those first listeners to this story of Jesus. What Jesus doesn’t speak of that everyone would have known about is the community in which this father and his sons were a part of. The community, this village, knew that they were the ones who had a responsibility to keep order. They would have no trouble remembering that in the twenty first chapter of Deuteronomy that if a family had a son who was stubborn and rebellious, someone who was obviously a glutton and a drunkard that they could bring that son before the community and the community would stone them to death. Yes, it seems harsh, but it was a way for a community to keep order, to keep son’s from becoming a disgrace not only to their parents but also their community. So, the father has to run and meet the son before he gets to the village gates or there was a good chance that they would take care of the son as they had wanted to do so for a long time. The father does not want harm to come to his son so he reaches his son while on the road. As Jesus tells us, the father felt compassion, the word in Greek meaning to hurt in your guts, this is depths of this father’s love for his son. The son at this moment reaches in his pocket with his little speech all prepared, and begins, “Father…”, but surprisingly the father could care less. The father instead calls for his servants to bring the best robe, bring a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. This is the father’s way of telling the community, through which they must pass to go back home, that they are not to lay a hand upon the son as the son has been accepted back by the father and the fathers mark is upon the son.

         Now it is right here that I believe we should hit the pause button on our story to think about what just happened. Have you figured out what was lost but now is found? Most of the time people will just go, duh, this is a no brainer, it’s the father who has lost his son and now has found him. But, in the other stories, the one who has lost a coin or a sheep, they are the ones who got up and went searching for it. The father never went in search of his son, though; isn’t that interesting. No, I believe that it was the son who realized that he had lost something, that he had lost the most precious thing that he had ever had, his relationship with his father. When the son realized his loss, he decided to go and see if he could find this relationship even if upon finding that relationship he would be a servant because a relationship with his father meant that at least he would have enough to eat. There is the tension of not knowing if he would find this relationship because of the mess he had made when he had left but even so he had to go and search for it because it was what he valued most. Now, another thing which becomes evident is that the son’s confession of wrong doesn’t even play a part in the story. No, we might say that forgiveness actually comes before any acknowledgement on the son’s part. We might say that the father, portraying God, offers forgiveness even before there is sin to be forgiven. In other words, forgiveness has always been a possibility because of God being a God of steadfast love and faithfulness. Because God is responsible for our care he loves us whether we love him or we don’t. This is what we see when the rebellious son returns home and his father wraps his arms around his son and kisses his son’s neck. The father does so because this is who he is not because of anything on the part of the son. One more thing we learn from the story so far is that the father protects the son, at a cost of shame to himself, in order that the son might live. The community represents the law; the father represents mercy and grace. The community represents what the son deserved; the father represents the unexpected gift that saves his son. When the father states that the son was dead but is now alive this was more than just a metaphorical statement. The reality is that the son was in grave danger had the father not intervened.

         Well, all is well, the story ends with a party and an abundance of roast beef sandwiches for all. Or is there more. If we stop here it would be like telling a joke without the punchline.  It is this last part that is the reason for the whole story. Jesus tells us that while the fathers party for his son was going on the older son was out in the field. When the older son found out about the party, the older son was angry and refused to go in. Right here we must again pause the story. Do you see that now it is the older son who is being the rebellious disobedient son? In response to this flagrant anger at his father, the father does the unexpected. Instead of telling his servants to grab his older son by the scruff of the neck and drag him to the party, the father himself goes to the son and pleads for him to come and celebrate. When the older son responds he tells his father what a fine son he has been, how little he has ever asked for from his father, a certain dig against his brother who had asked for his full inheritance. Not only that but the older brother also slanders his younger brother accusing him of spending his money on prostitutes. What becomes clear is that what bothers this older brother is that the younger brother had not received what was demanded by the law, a certain death. Yet what the older son does not realize is that ironically enough, that because of his rebellion at his fathers orders to come to the party, it is now he, the older son who stands under the same judgment as his brother. The only difference is that through his actions, the older son proves that he treasures the law and judgment more than he treasures the relationship with his father.In refusing his father’s pleading, the older brother remains under judgment while the younger son who had found the treasure he had lost stands forgiven. The older son who had always been with the father never knew what a treasure he had so it was never apparent that he had ever lost this most precious gift. 

         So, what is the message we need as we prepare for the cross? The message is that the treasure we should always seek for is the treasure of a relationship with our Heavenly Father; this is the treasure worth giving our very life for. And secondly, the only thing that can keep us from experiencing the joy of our fathers forgiveness is our own refusal to forgive those we feel are unworthy of being forgiven and in doing so we will find ourselves standing out side the joy of eternal life. Amen!

         

 

Remembering Life

 February 28 2021

Luke 13:1-30

         As many people know, I grew up on farm. I also farmed myself for twenty years raising pigs until they no longer smelled like money and instead they just smelled. I say all this, to try and provide some context when I tell you that this past week, the old barn that had been the constant throughout has been taken down. It had lived a good long life but it just had become too expensive to keep it up and maintain it. Now, its no shock that I am saddened by its departure but as I thought about it what made that old barn precious to me was not the structure itself but it was instead the memories that were made in that place. I have memories of building forts with hay bales up in the mow and of learning the lesson that if you got yourself up there you’re going to have to get yourself down. That old barn was where I learned to care for animals.  Before I was able to walk, my Mom would take me with her to tend to the turkey chicks that lived in the barn that would eventually grow to be somebodies Thanksgiving dinner. As I got older, the barn housed a little bit of everything, beef cattle and pigs. The barn was where I used to milk a cow after school and where I got to help my sister’s horse to birth her foal. I could go on, and tell of more unpleasant memories such as hauling manure too many times to count but even so, good and bad, I have memories, memories which become stories that are who I am. So, even though the barn is now gone, the memories that happened in that place remain and I realize that these memories are the real treasure that I hold on to.

         So, when you learn that in scripture, the way that God’s people were to act and live is directly tied to memory, I can empathize with this idea. Memories are precious to all of us and God in his infinite wisdom has directly tied how we act and live on this act of remembrance because God knew that when we treasure our memories we will also treasure the way that God desires us to act.

         This way that God desires us to act is at the forefront of what this season of Lent is all about. This is our second week in the season of Lent and as we learned last week, Lent is the season where we follow Jesus all the way to Calvary. But not just Calvary, not just the cross but to go further to witness the empty tomb, the victory of Jesus over sin and death. Yet, to experience the joy of Easter we must also endure the suffering, pain and death of Good Friday; it is impossible to experience one without the other. As Jesus carried his cross, as he laid down his life as the greatest act of love, so too to follow him means that we must also carry our cross and be willing to endure the suffering and persecution that comes with being a follower of Christ. The question is this then, are we ready to go the distance with Jesus? This is why this Lenten season is so important because this is when we once again examine ourselves and see if we are indeed battle ready.  Jesus spoke to the dangers of this season when in his most famous parable, the parable of the sower, Jesus compared some of those who had received his word as seeds that had fallen on rocky ground that quickly sprouted but because they had no roots they  withered and died. These Jesus tells us are people who receive the word with joy yet because they have no root in themselves when suffering and persecution happen on account of the word they stumble and become a scandal. Jesus tells this parable not to point fingers at those who those who falter but rather he tells us this as a warning that it is not enough for us to receive his word with joy we also need to have a faith that is deeply rooted, to have an udder confidence in God so that when we suffer, when we are persecuted, when following Christ results in the losing of our life we can do so without hesitation because we know all be well with this God we believe in. So, this season of Lent is the season where we put our roots deep, to know more and more that God is our source of life and to develop a closer more confident relationship with him.

         In the first week of Lent, we heard the story of how, one night,  Jesus went up on the mountain with three of his disciples to pray. As Jesus was praying we are told of how he began to glow with the glory of God, and Jesus was transfigured, changed his face became like that of the Other. Then there were beside Jesus, Moses and Elijah who were talking with him about the journey Jesus was going to undertake, his exodus to Jerusalem. And if all this was not enough, there came a voice from heaven, the voice of the Heavenly Father, declaring that Jesus was his beloved chosen Son; listen to him. This word,”listen” is the first part of the great command found in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. There, listen is followed by the commands that we are to love God with all of our hearts, all of our souls and all of our minds. But here in the story of the transfiguration, the word “listen” is followed “to him” In other words, to love God is now equal with listening to Jesus. What Jesus was saying was that we must love one another, even our enemies, to be even willing to lay down our lives if necessary. So, what we learned in the first week of Lent is that in order for us to love God we must love each other, even our enemies, to treat all we meet in the same manner we would want to be treated. There can be no separation of our love of God and our love of each other. When faced with loving the next person we meet we can have confidence that in doing so we are loving God.

         Today, in our second week of Lent I believe as I stated earlier that the lesson to be learned has to do very much with memory yet I am also aware that this is not readily evident. No, what is evident when you look over this section of scripture is the theme that ties them together is death, judgment and life. Did you come to that conclusion as we read what Luke has recorded for us? I mean death is pretty evident in the first set of stories in this thirteenth chapter as we hear about how some men from Galilee had come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and how Pilate had them killed at approximately the same time as their sacrifices were slain. Now, we have to read between the lines to understand that these men from Galilee were most likely zealots, men who wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire. They had come to Jerusalem to plan and plot their insurrection and Pilate had caught wind of what they were up to. They had offered their sacrifices in hopes God would look favorable on their actions but instead they found themselves sacrificed as well. The people who had gathered around Jesus told Jesus about this story to which Jesus replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? Right here Jesus tears open the real reason as to why they told this story which was to tell a tale about some really bad sinners. I mean, if they hadn’t sinned in some way would they have died like they did? To this Jesus answers an absolute,”No”. The suffering of these Galileans at the hand of Pilate was no indication that they were anymore sinful than anyone else. Then Jesus adds words that should have caught his audiences attention and ours as well when he says, “But unless you repent, you will all like wise perish.” Jesus goes on to tell them his own story about eighteen people who had been killed constructed a tower in Jerusalem. Jesus asked the crowd around him, “Were these people worse offenders than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? Jesus asks this question because he knew that this was the mindset of those who had gathered around him. To those who had this mindset he had a word, “Repent”. In other words, this mindset that thought the manner in which people died indicated whether or not just how sinful people were is not of God. No, it is not how people died that indicated their sinfulness but rather how they lived, this was the real issue, the real indicator of a person’s sinfulness. This is why Jesus told them they had to repent because as long as they continued to look for sinfulness in the dead they were going to miss their own sinfulness in their living. Are you beginning to see the themes of death, judgment and life?

         Well, if you didn’t see it in this first story I hope you catch it in the next story, a parable Jesus tells the crowd concerning a fig tree. A man had planted a fig tree and he had high hopes of eating some sweet delicious figs off of that tree but alas for three straight years he had been disappointed. So, he ordered his gardener to fire up the chainsaw and cut it down. Now, the gardener must have been a fairly optimistic fellow because he pleads with the owner to let him work on this tree another year, put some manure around it, give it some TLC then if it bears fruit then great but if it doesn’t bear fruit then bye bye tree. So, what was the criteria as to what made the tree a good tree or a bad tree? The criteria was whether or not the tree bore fruit.How the tree lived, whether or not during its lifetime it bore the fruit that was expected this is what was important. Judgment and the following death only came if and when the tree was found to not have any fruit.  Now, if anyone in the crowd had any sense at all to them they would hav figured out that God expected their life to bear fruit otherwise at some point there would come a time when a judgment call would have to be made because just like with trees unless we bear fruit we are as good as dead. As Jesus himself tells us in the fifteenth chapter of John’ gospel, every branch that does not bear fruit the vinedresser, our Heavenly Father, takes away. So, again what is important is how we live not the manner in which we die, just as Jesus had earlier said, this is what is important.

         Now, it is here in Luke’s account that Luke places a story about Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath while he was in the middle of teaching in the synagogue.  It wouldn’t seem so strange that Luke has written it like he did if he hadn’t at the end of this miracle story continued with the same theme that we need to live a life that bears fruit. So, it seems as if Luke has sandwiched this miracle on the Sabbath right in the middle of teachings about life, death and judgment. Naturally, it has to make us curious just why Luke would do something like this? With this in mind then we are going to look for clues as to what Luke is trying to point us to as we study this miracle performed by Jesus on the Sabbath.

         The story tells us that while Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath he was interrupted by a woman who had a disabling, weak, spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. Now, I want to pause the story here and ask just how did Jesus know and how is it that Luke records that this woman had a weak, disabling, spirit for eighteen years? The only way of knowing such personal information is that Jesus, in the midst of his teaching stops and approaches this woman and begins to have a conversation with her. The implication of her having as what is described as a weak, disabling, spirit is that even though she has the will to stand erect her body will not cooperate. Once again this is very interesting because this is the very way that Paul describes our sinful situation, that we may will to do good but our flesh, out bodies just don’t get it done. So, Jesus says to this women who is unable to stand erect “Woman you are freed from your disability.” Further, Jesus touches her, placing his hands upon her, perhaps to steady her as she begins to straighten her back after such a long time looking down. When at last she stood tall once again she, of course began to praise and glorify God. Now, you would think that the people in the synagogue would have gotten into this holy wonderful moment but no, as Luke records it they were indignant.The leader of the synagogue scolded Jesus, “ There are six days on which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed not on the Sabbath day,”It is right here that you realize that something has been forgotten.  First, what was forgotten was that loving God and loving others is the first and greatest command. All other commands are given to create and develop the mindset whereby the greatest command will get done. We begin to see this in what Jesus teaches us next when he tells the leader of the synagogue and all those who support him, that they are are nothing more than mere actors putting on a good holy face when they are nothing at all like that. Didn’t they even remember that on the Sabbath they were allowed to untie their oxen and their donkeys and lead them to water? So, why would there be anything wrong with with allowing this daughter of Abraham who had been bound by Satan for eighteen years to be set free on the Sabbath? So, what Jesus is emphasizing about the Sabbath is this element of freedom and rightfully so. In the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, we hear Moses recite the Ten Commandments. What is interesting is that the reason for observing the Sabbath has been changed from what was given at Mt. Sinai. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus we first hear of the Ten Commandments. There the reason given for keeping the Sabbath is that in six days the Lord created heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy. But when the people of God prepared themselves to enter the Promised Land, the reason they were told to observe the Sabbath was that the people were to remember that they had once been slaves  in the Land of Egypt and the Lord had brought them out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord God commanded them to keep the Sabbath day. Now, it is uncertain why there was this change from the time when the Ten Commandments were first received until this reading in the book of Deuteronomy but it may have something to do with the great emphasis in Deuteronomy on justice and righteousness. This way of rightly dealing with people had was to be born out of a memory, the memory of being a slave, the memory of a God who had heard their cry, a memory of being set free. This was a memory of the gift of God’s deliverance, his grace.God in his grace had set them free so that they could be responsible, not seeing themselves any longer as victims but rather as people able to choose life.They were also to remember that in their dealings with strangers they had once been strangers down in Egypt. They were to use their memories of living in a strange country, what it felt to be the outsider there in order for them to empathize with others and to begin relationships. This is what they were to remember every Sabbath day. This is what the leader of the Sabbath had forgotten, that this holy day was about freedom and that there was no better day to have a woman set free from her enslavement than right there on that Sabbath day.

         I think this is what Luke was attempting to do, is to let his audience know that God had given them a wonderful gift in this special day called the Sabbath. This was their day to stop and remember that God in his grace had set them free from slavery, the slavery of sin where they blamed everyone else for the reason for their lack of love.  God had set them free, just as he had very visibly set this woman free so that they could love without any concern for themselves. This is what the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven are all about. In order for the tiny mustard seed to become a great plant it had to die. Only by dying to what it was, a seed, could it become what God created it to be, a great plant. In the same way, the leaven had to be lost within a large measure of flour so that by not remaining what it was, a small lump, it could become what it was meant to be, a great loaf of bread. This is the beauty of the freedom that God has given to us, the freedom to give our whole self, even unto what looks like death in order to become the greatness that God has designed us to be.

         So, knowing this then Luke brings us once again back to the themes that he has began with death, judgment and life by having someone ask Jesus, “Will those who are saved be few? Jesus answers by saying that we are to strive and enter by the narrow door. It is not easy to understand what Jesus means by this saying but in Matthews version of the same teaching it is easy to understand that to enter the narrow door is to love our enemies, to love others in the same way that God loves, caring even for the just and the unjust.Again, we can only love like this when we remember what it feels like to be a stranger, to be unwanted, unloved, and misunderstood. When we remember these feelings then we will be able to place ourselves in their shoes and seek to understand and love those who are different than us, even those who are opposite of who we are. Only when we love like this can Jesus state that we are people that he knows, people who may enter in and eat at the great banquet at the end of time. So let us remember that it is not how we die but rather it is how we live; this is what truly matters. Amen!

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.