Bible Math Class

Matthew 18:21-35

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents

was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Welcome to Bible Math Class.  I am your professor, the Rev. NOT-Doctor Erik Karas.  This class of Bible Math begins with Jesus telling Peter he needs to forgive “77 times” which sounds like a lot, but in Bible Math, “7” is not a literal number.  It’s a symbolic number which means… “the perfect amount” and “77” is symbolic for… and this is technical language… the “super-perfect” amount.  Jesus was telling Peter that he needed to forgive others the “super-perfect” amount of times… in other words he needed to forgive others the way God forgives him… no matter how many times it might take.  

Our Bible math class moves next to the accompanying parable.  We start with the second slave first.  He owed the first slave 100 denarii, but what’s a denarii?  A denarius (singular) was a day’s wages for a field worker, so in Massachusetts the minimum wage is $15 an hour, so working for 8 hours…  that’s 120 bucks… times 100 and the second slave owes the first one 12 grand.  In Connecticut he’d owe close to 14 grand, where the minimum wage is linked to inflation automatically.  Either way… that’s an Ouch!  

THAT, however, is peanuts when we turn our mathematical eye to the first slave who owed his King 10,000 Talents… but… what’s a Talent?  Well, it takes 6000 Denarii to make just ONE Talent… so 6000 times $12,000 equals $720,000.  That’s just for ONE Talent.  But this guy owed 10,000 Talents!!  This guy owed the king 7.2… BBBBBB Billion dollars!  That’s more than the GDP of around 40 COUNTRIES in today’s money!  If that slave tried to pay back that debt to his king (without interest mind you) at even a million dollars a year, it would take him 7200 years to pay what he owed.  

Jesus is using Bible Math in this parable to do what Bible Math in parables always does… it shocks us into learning something about the way God works.  Jesus uses this “can’t wrap your mind around it” amount of money… more than the GDP of entire countries… to show us the mind blowing extent of God’s forgiveness.  When we pray the Lord’s prayer and it says, in one version, “Forgive us our debts” THIS is the level of debt it talks about God forgiving!  This lesson in Bible Math is teaching us that there is absolutely, positively, no possible way for any of us to do anything, anything, ANYTHING that God would not or could not forgive.

But now we need to go back to the second slave and his encounter with the first slave over his debt of a measly 12 grand.  Even though the first guy had just been forgiven his 7.2 BILLION dollar debt, he refused to pass on the same compassion, grace, and forgiveness with the same generosity that he had first received.  Jesus added this part to the parable because he knew very well that we’d all very much like RECEIVING God’s unlimited, unconditional forgiveness, love and compassion BUT we’d also have TERRIBLE TROUBLE passing it on to others, even at a minuscule fraction of what we first received.  

Jesus knew that even though the King in the parable was into radical forgiveness, the rest of us humans tend all too often to want to sprinkle in some retribution with any forgiveness we might give.  But this part of the parable is here to remind us that passing on less than the unconditional love, grace, and generosity of forgiveness that we’ve first received is not the Way, the Truth or the Life. 

It’s not the Way because IF we only pass on only a portion of what we’ve received, then we will inevitably find that it is US who are not free.  It will be US who remain tortured.  Not tortured by God in some cosmic hot place, but by the simple truth that when we don’t let all the debt, all the hurt, all the pain, and all the resentment go, the part we hold onto just grinds away inside of us.  We churn it over and over in our minds.  We work ourselves up into a lather.  We torture ourselves and it feels… well… like hell.  

Jesus gets his point across here very clearly… the more we forgive… the more we let go of the wrongs that have been done to us… the more we strive to be generous, even when others have not been generous with us… the more we will experience the freedom, fullness, and abundance of life God created us to live.  The tighter we hold those resentments, the longer we grind those grudges, the more we look to get even, the more hold back the compassion, generosity and love we have first been given by God, the more our lives will feel like hell.  

But how do you genuinely let it all go?   How do you let all that hurt go?  It’s really, REALLY hard!  This parable tells us the answer is found in community.  We can’t do it alone.  We ALL need help living toward that Divine level of forgiveness.  We ALL need help dying to our brokenness, our woundedness, our past hurts and rising toward being ever more generous, compassionate and forgiving.  

And that is exactly the homework this Bible Math class gives us.  To sit together and acknowledge with one another our shared old hurts, pains, and wounds.  To listen to one another as we get those hurts up and out and discover we are not alone.  To encourage one another as we practice generosity, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion for the people around us.  Because living out of an equation of forgiveness, gratitude, and generosity rather than the equation of resentment, condemnation, and retribution will lead us each day toward a much less tortured, and infinitely more abundant, life.  Amen. 

Turning Away From Christian Nationalism

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Last week, Peter was sure Jesus was driving the bus in the direction he had been taught and expected the Messiah to drive the bus.  Toward rallying the people, raising an army, expelling the Romans, and sitting on the throne as King of Israel!  That’s why last week we heard him say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  This week, Jesus dramatically turned the bus away from the direction Peter had been taught and expected the Messiah to go, and Peter’s reaction to that shocking development was, “God, forbid it!”  

This week Jesus turned the bus toward sacrifice rather than power… toward peace rather than violence… toward the Kingdom of Heaven and not toward a Kingdom of Israel.  To Peter all that sounded like horrible woke nonsense!  It was weak!  What Peter expected… what Peter wanted… what Peter understood to be the ONLY thing the Messiah could be about, was embracing the world’s form of power… might makes right and power over, to make Israel an independent, religious nation with the Messiah occupying a throne that was religious, political and military.  Peter wouldn’t have used the term, but what he expected… what he wanted… was what we would call today… Christian Nationalism.      

Jesus saying that the way to change the world for GOOD, was for him to go to Jerusalem, be tortured, and die did not feel like a winning strategy to Peter!  Today, in our country, people STILL don’t see how sacrificial love could ever be a winning strategy either!  Today, we’ve all seen or read the stories of self professed Christians, who, when they are shown what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount say, “the world just doesn’t work that way any more”.  They say “that idea is weak” and instead of turning themselves to follow Jesus, they like Peter, insist that Jesus turn and follow them.  Christian Nationalists today insist that Power Over and Might Makes Right is the only way forward and as long as they slap a Jesus sticker on whatever means they use to achieve that end, no matter how cruel it might be, the ends justify the means and they are certain it will meet with Divine approval.  That’s Christian Nationalism.

What that creates is a “Christian” Nation where the words of Jesus have been completely expunged.  What that creates a “Christian” Nation where the Gospel is not just ignored, but actively demonized.  What that creates is a “Christian” nation without a welcome for the stranger, without the hungry being fed, without the sick being healed, without the oppressed being freed, without the sword being put away, and certainly without all our possessions sold and the money given to the poor.  What that creates is a nation filled with people who only care for themselves and for those who look, think, and believe the exact, same way.  

But Jesus and the Gospel insist on the direct opposite… Jesus and the Gospel insist that the outsider comes first… the foreigner, the stranger, the down trodden, the oppressed and the sinner… Jesus and the Gospel insists they come first!  Jesus pushes on that idea so hard that at one point he says we need to put the other first so much it looks like we are hating our own mother and father!  Of course Jesus isn’t asking us to hate our parents but he uses that shocking language to warn us that we must not let our little loves… our love for those who look, think, believe, and act just like us… get in the way of the big love to which we are called… the love for the outsider, the stranger, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.     

The Jesus truth is that we can not love God and hate other people.  We can not love God and abuse the immigrant.  We can not love God and oppress the poor.  We can not love God and bully and exclude the outcast.  Each and every one of our neighbors bears the Divine image.  In our neighbor is nothing less than the face of God and Jesus makes it completely clear that our neighbors include every single human being starting with the ones we find hardest to love!  

Jesus acknowledges that driving the bus in that direction will lead to suffering.  He calls us to drive in that direction anyway.  Jesus admits that driving that direction will lead to sacrifice.  He calls us to drive that direction anyway.  Jesus calls us to drive in that direction, not because he demands sacrifice or wants us to suffer, but because he knows the direction we need to go to affect the change this world so desperately needs is very hard and incredibly painful, and yet THAT is the Way to, as Bishop Curry always said, “change the world from the nightmare it too often is, into the dream that God intends it to be.”  

Peter was, in his way, the very first Christian Nationalist.  He demanded that Jesus follow his ways… the ways of the world… the ways of might makes right and power over.  Jesus’ response to Peter’s demand was, “Get behind me Satan!”  

Today, Christian Nationalists continue to demand that Jesus’ name be attached to the ways of the world… to might makes right and power over.  But to those demands, Jesus’ own words once again ring out, “Get behind me Satan!”  

May the Christian Nationalists of today hear Jesus’ rebuke and turn around as Peter eventually did, and instead of demanding the Messiah follow them, return to a life of following the Messiah… walking in Jesus’ footsteps… no matter how strange or how woke they might look and follow Jesus no matter where Jesus leads. Amen.

Jesus Said the "D" Word!

Matthew 15:10-28

Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Did you hear what Jesus just called that poor woman?  

He called her the “D” word.  

In the U.S. that would be like calling someone a…  well… I can’t say THAT word in church!  In Ireland, from what I’ve learned, it would be like calling someone a… well, I can’t say that word in church either!  

Let’s just say that what Jesus called that poor woman was one of the most vile, nasty slurs you could call another person in that culture.  So what was Jesus thinking?  

Maybe what he was thinking, was that if he wanted even a chance to get through to these hard headed Pharisees, he was going to need to change tactics.  

He was going to need to get clever… get tricksy… get cute.  

Maybe what he was doing was baiting a hook with a nice, juicy slur that the Pharisees’ just couldn’t resist.  

You see, at the beginning of this reading, Jesus had argued with those same Pharisees about hand washing… 

and he had gotten nowhere.

 

The argument hadn’t really been about soap and water.  It had been about who is drawn inside God’s circle and who is left out.  

The Pharisees were certain that only people born to good Jewish parents and who followed their version of the faith could be drawn inside God’s circle.  For the Pharisees, this Canaanite woman had the wrong parents.  She had NO chance of EVER being drawn inside God’s circle.  

Jesus had tried to talk reason,  “It’s what comes out of you that God really cares about”, he told them.  

“It's how you love God and love your neighbors that really matters.”  

But it was like talking to a brick wall.  That’s when I think maybe Jesus changed tactics and went for shock value!  

“Woman, you're a dog”!

Well, that’s what the Pharisees would have called her and when Jesus said it, it had to have gotten the Pharisee’s attention.  “Oh, look” they would have said, “Jesus has FINALLY come to his senses!  He’s finally coming around to our way of thinking.”  

But then…when every last one of them was finally paying close attention…Jesus set the hook, 

"Woman great is your faith!”  

Jesus had baited and hooked the Pharisees!   

Can you imagine their shock?  Jesus had challenged them to go from seeing God’s circle of love drawn only around a few who looked, sounded, behaved, and believed just like them, to seeing God’s circle of love being drawn around ALL OF HUMANITY!  

That must have hit them like a ton of bricks!  The sort of dramatic change Jesus was suggesting is HARD!  

It’s hard, because when we think about drawing a circle that big… which includes SO many… it is easy to give into the fear that if we go and include all of THEM… there won’t be enough for all of US!  

Can there really be enough of God’s love for so many?  Will I still have enough… if all of THEM are included too?  

The fear of scarcity is a powerful fear.    

But as Christians we believe there IS enough of God’s love for ALL, even to overflowing… abundantly far more than we could ever ask or imagine!  

And personally, I like it when the circles of God’s love include ALL, because those kinds of enormously large circles end up including everyone… 

even bald Americans looking for a bargain holiday in Ireland!  

It’s a lot of change to swallow though.  Many people continue to struggle with including ALL.  The Pharisees continued to have trouble including ALL and around the world, people continue to have terrible trouble with the idea that God includes ALL and that God has made enough for ALL.  

Wherever people struggle to include ALL, at the root of it all… 

IS FEAR.  

Fear that there won’t be enough if we draw the sort of circle that include all of THEM?  

We’ve all seen what happens when people are afraid.  Fear-filled people end up doing horribly hate-filled things.  The fear lights the fire, the lies stir the anger, the hatred raises the heat, and then the violence boils over the top.  

All of that in a vain attempt to keep those they would label as “dogs” out of a circle which Jesus insists includes no fewer than ALL.

But here’s the thing.  All those fear-fueled, hate-filled attempts to keep people out?  They’re all already too late!  

In Christ’s death and resurrection, Jesus drew the circle of God's love so it already includes ALL!  On that first Easter morning, Jesus let every single one of us dogs in!  

Every single one!  

His death and resurrection cut a hole in the fence so big that even the biggest and mangiest of us dogs who are missing almost all of our hair, now all have a place at God's Table!  

ALL of US and ALL of THEM have been drawn inside God's circle.  ALL are included in the grace, love, healing and wholeness that God intends for all of creation.  

The truth of this lesson is that ALL are welcome in God’s Kingdom.  God sent his Son, not just to suggest it or to argue for it, but to make it happen with his life, death and resurrection.  

Now, you and I, as followers of the One who has drawn a circle so large it includes all of creation... WE are called to do the same… to draw our circles ever larger… 

until God’s Kingdom comes and God's will is done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.

Get Up! Get Out! Get Walking!

Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

When people hear this story, they remember the part about Jesus walking on water.  They remember the part about Peter’s brave, arrogant, bold, stupid, whatever-you-want-to-call-it move… asking Jesus to have him come out and meet him on the water.  They remember Peter getting out of the boat and they remember Peter sinking like the Rock he’s named after!  The part I think that people DON’T remember is that just after Peter got out of the boat, but before he sank, Peter WALKED ON WATER.  

People hardly ever remember that part.  Yes, he did eventually end up with the sea in his sandals, but between his boat and his bath… there was a distance, maybe it was only a step or two… and there was a time… maybe it was only a second or two… but there was a moment… when Peter WALKED ON WATER!  Sure it wasn’t that long but how many of you have ever walked on water for even ONE step?  For even ONE second?  That’s what I thought!  

That’s why I think that when Jesus reached down and pulled Peter up out of the water, he didn’t say to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” with a disgusted, derisive, disappointment.  I think when Jesus reached down and pulled him up Jesus said “you of little faith, why did you doubt” with a chuckle that said, “Peter!  You had “Little Faith!”… and… as we all know… “Little Faith” is enough to MOVE MOUNTAINS and YOUR “Little Faith” was letting you LITERALLY WALK ON THE WATER!  That was SO cool!  You were DOING it!  The evidence of your success was right there at your feet my guy!  You were literally watching it with your own two eyes… that’s why for the life of me, I can’t imagine how you could doubt?”

You see, Peter had come by his faith, NOT through his own reason or strength, but by way of a gift from the Holy Spirit (Peter was very Lutheran in that way) AND while the faith he had been given was indeed “Little”… it was still not an amount of faith to be sneezed at!

So I think Peter deserves a lot more credit than he typically gets in this story because Peter CALLED out from the boat… He GOT out of the boat… and he WALKED out in faith from that boat to Jesus.  Yes, it’s true, he only made it one or two steps.  YES, it’s true, the next step he took was particularly moist, but Peter didn’t just sit in the boat, resting on his big, fat, faith!  He got up!  He got out!  He got walking!  

Jesus wasn’t upset with Peter.  We know that because Jesus didn’t kick Peter off the team after he sank.  He didn’t even send Peter home after having to tell him “Get behind me Satan.”  Even after Peter denied him three times, Jesus didn’t kick him to the curb.  That’s because what Jesus valued most in Peter was that He got up!  He got out!  He got walking!  And he kept doing it no matter how many times he fumbled and ended up all wet along the way.  

 

Those who have told us that Peter was a failure have done us a great disservice.  Those who have told us NOT to be like Peter have led us astray.  I think it is actually time for us as individuals to be MORE like Peter!  To fearlessly embrace the gift of “Little Faith” that we’ve been given… a faith which has the power to move mountains… and I think it is time for each of us as individuals to, like Peter… to Get up!  Get out!  Get walking! 

In fact… Peter, the Rock on whom Jesus built his WHOLE Church, should really be the WHOLE Church’s model for these stormy times!  In these days when the world looks SO dark, when we feel alone and far from land… when we’re being battered by waves and have the with the wind against us, the Church does NOT need to be spending additional time sitting inside our boats, sitting on our cushions… NO!  It is in these dark, lonely, wave battered and wind blown times that we need to, more than ever, follow Peter’s lead and as a WHOLE Church, GET UP!  GET OUT! and GET WALKING together toward doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.  And that gift of “Little Faith” that we’ve been given by the Holy Spirit has given us all we need to walk out into the chaos of this world, loving God and loving neighbor all along the way.  In fact we have been given abundantly far more than we could ever ask or imagine to do just that.  

Peter GOT UP!  GOT OUT!  and GOT WALKING!  And even in his sinking, he’s shown us that when WE choose to get up, get out, and get walking, the darkness, the storms, the waves and the winds of this world will not overpower us… because Jesus is there to make sure we don’t drown!  

It is time for us as individuals and for us as the Church to embrace the little faith we’ve been given and get up, get out, and get walking and as we get walking we might just end up surprised to look back and find that the good we have been doing along the Way is no less miraculous than walking on water.  Amen.