Evangelism Chairs

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?” Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

I will admit that sometimes we get a reading and it needs to be run through a translator.  Not just from Hebrew or Greek into English, but also to translate it from a very different time and a very different culture. Sometimes the Scripture uses lingo from the time or even intentionally coded language that needs to be unraveled. Sometimes it just seems to be impossible to make heads or tails of any part of it.

But that’s not what we get today in that lesson from Hebrews is it? It very clearly translates into English and it is free from innuendo, cultural winks, nods, or coded language. It just says flat out, “Let mutual love continue.” Boom! Done! Continue doing what is in the other’s best interest. That’s it. Just do it. Oh and that the “mutual” part reminds us to take our turn gratefully receiving that sort of love too.  Both giving AND receiving that sort of love is critical. It’s really just that straightforward. Let mutual love continue. Good idea!

The same is true of “showing hospitality to strangers.” Not exactly some sort of hard-to-grasp theological concept. It’s not like we’re trying to wrap our minds around the mystery of the Trinity here. It really is just, “Show hospitality to strangers”… just that. Somebody drives by you wave. Somebody stops in you invite them to sit down and find them a drink and a snack. This Scripture looks, at first glance, like it’s about sharing snacks with people. Turns out… upon further research... IT’S ABOUT SHARING SNACKS WITH PEOPLE! Again… good idea!

Then “remember those who are in prison and being tortured.” This really is just telling us to close our eyes, imagine we are in prison or being tortured and wonder, “what would I really appreciate if that were me?” Then try to do that thing you just imagined! No symbolic dragons or mysterious numbered beasts here. Just a straight up call to use human empathy. This really does just say, “Empathy… GOOD!”

After that you get to the marriage bed part. That too… not coded language. Sleeping around… not good for anyone and NOT what they meant by the “mutual love” thing. Then there’s the part about avoiding a “love of money” which very clearly says it’s the LOVE of money that’s the problem. LOVE is something we share with God and others.  Money, clearly being neither a god NOR a people, is not something to love. We can earn it, buy things with it, give it to others, thankfully receive it, but Love it? That’s a clear “NOPE”, there.

And the last part of that lesson just makes an already really straightforward lesson even more straightforward. God is always with us. Fact! Look for people who have lives that look full of meaning, purpose and contentment and try to live like they do. Smart! Remember that the love of Christ… that unconditional, all inclusive, radically forgiving and welcoming love of Christ… does not change. What it LOOKS LIKE to share that unlimited, unconditional, all inclusive love of Christ in our actions and in our words might change with culture and time… it might require a little work… maybe even some sacrifice... but loving others the way Christ loves us? THAT, doesn’t change and THAT is what makes God happy. Happy God? Again… Good!

It’s crystal clear. It isn’t culturally or linguistically or historically impossible to understand. It is, in fact, DIRT SIMPLE… and I for one, continually insist on trying to make it harder... all... the... time! More research. More books. Get a consultant. Attend a workshop. Organize a meeting about it. Form a new organization. Write a grant, hire an intern, write a doctoral thesis. At the VERY least we need to form a commission or a task force, write a resolution for Synod Assembly AND Diocesan Convention and memorialize all of this to the national church bodies for them to consider at their Triennial Conventions so they too can begin a decades-long study on it as well! Right?

OR, the Holy Spirit gently suggests, you could just put a few chairs along a trail or in front of the church, sit down, and see who stops by. Get them something to drink. Maybe a snack. Listen to their story. Hear their joys and sorrows, hopes and fears. Close our eyes and imagine how they might be feeling and do whatever pops into your mind to make their sit just a tiny more comfortable.  Really? Yeah, I suppose we could do that.  

It dawned on me this week, with the subtlety of a 2x4 to the noggin, that in the last couple of years, I have connected with more “strangers”… done more successful “evangelism” if you want to use that dirty, scary, church word… simply by sitting outside in a chair than I ever have using any other sort of program or scheme or even highly researched church growth solution! More than all the other more complicated “strategies” combined, just SITTING and letting mutual love continue and showing hospitality to strangers… THAT’S THE STUFF THAT ACTUALLY WORKS! Could it be that this very clear, very straightforward lesson from Hebrews really IS just that straightforward? Just that clear? Could it really be that letting mutual love continue and welcoming in the stranger… all while sitting in a folding chair or a rainbow colored Adirondack chair, REALLY is as complicated as it gets!?

I know, believe me, I know! It sounds WAY too easy. But I’ve seen it happen! Just this week I saw it again! Right out there on the lawn! But I know me, and maybe you’re a bit like me.  So, it’s very likely I will soon try to make all of this more complicated. But in the mean time, I think I’m just going to sit out there, let mutual love continue, welcome the stranger. Maybe  entertain an angel... who knows? And if you want to give it a try, it really is just as simple as sitting outside in a chair.  Amen.

One Seventh & Six Sevenths

Isaiah 58:9b-14

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

This week, both Isaiah and Jesus are talking about the Sabbath. Now, you might think the Sabbath started when Moses came down the mountain with that crazy glowing tan and a couple of tablets, but it actually goes back to the very beginning when God finished all the work of creation in six days and THEN, on the seventh day God rested, blessed the day, and made it Holy.  But why did God rest on that seventh day? Was God tired? Were the Patriots playing? Did God wrench the Divine back creating the Himalayas? NO! It’s God! God didn’t NEED to rest… God was MODELING for US how to live as humans in this new creation! As a species we didn’t really take the Divine hint back then… and frankly we haven’t gotten much better since. So… God wrote it down and Moses brought it down the mountain!

Now, contrary to some folks idea, the ten commandments aren’t God’s way of keeping us from having fun. They are meant to be the manufacturer’s instruction manual for being human in God’s creation. These commandments were MEANT to be a gift… our operators manual… so we didn’t have to just GUESS how to live the life we were created to live. They’re also not random either. They’re in that order on purpose with the top part of the list full of instructions for how humans would best interact with God and the bottom part of the list for how humans would best interact with other humans.

Now notice, that the one about the SABBATH… the one we’re particularly interested in today… is smack dab in the middle of the two sections. That’s not an accident. THAT’s because it is BOTH about how we interact with God AND how we relate to other people. This commandment is BOTH about Loving God AND Loving Neighbor.

It is absolutely a guide for our relationship with God. It IS meant to tell us that spending 1/7th of our lives plugged into God is part of our human design. Some people get very distracted by what that 1/7th of our time has to look like or on what day and hour it begins and ends or whether you should be able to buy beer or not, but I think God cares WAY more that we simply understand that when we plug ourselves into God for 1/7th of our lives, our lives simply run better!

But the God-oriented dimension of this commandment wasn’t the main trouble that Isaiah or Jesus had. And even though church attendance is down in our country, I really don’t think the God-oriented dimension is our biggest trouble with this commandment either. The real trouble is forgetting that the Sabbath ALSO has an equally important dimension that tells us to how we are to live with our neighbors as well. What Isaiah saw in his time was a people who were trying to connect with God for 1/7th of their lives, BUT who spent the other 6/7ths of their time living in opposition to God’s ways in how they treated their neighbors.

In the passage for today, Isaiah makes it inescapably clear that the specific injustice happening in that other 6/7ths of their lives was an economic injustice. It’s the “yoke” of unjust economic practices filled with selfishness, greed, indifference and exploitation piled onto the most vulnerable in the community, like a yoke on an ox… that was the problem. An oppressive economic “yoke” turns out to NOT be the way to “love your neighbor” and God tells the people through Isaiah that until you remove that yoke, all of your worship will be just talking to the Divine hand! If you want to show your love for God in 1/7th of your life, then make sure you are showing your love for your neighbor in the other 6/7ths!

Sabbath is not just meant to connect us to God, but it is also equally meant to be a check on our own selfishness for the good of our community. The thing that will truly “delight” the LORD, this passage tells us, is a community formed around economic justice… a community that notices the neighbor, not just as individuals noticing the needs of other individuals, but as the community as a whole noticing the needs of the neighbor in ways that inform and then transform community policy and are put to action for the benefit of the WHOLE community.

The people in Isaiah’s day… the leader of the synagogue in Jesus’ day and I think a whole lot of us, including me… We all seem to continually get sucked into this place of self indulgence, where we begin to believe that WE can buy, earn, construct, or manipulate the world around us so that we will really be living! We slide into this notion, that with enough effort and good ideas, we can find a way to live in the world that’s a BETTER way to live than the way God designed us to live. But guess Who turns out to be better at knowing how humans can really live the abundant lives they were created to live? Yeah, that One! The One who gave us a commandment that reminds us that the best way to connect to God for 1/7th of our lives, is to love our neighbor and create a neighbor-loving community out there in the other 6/7ths of our lives. THAT is what will Delight the LORD, and the Delight of the Lord is the best, and ONLY way we have, to really have life and live it abundantly! Amen.

Elmer's Toaster

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 12^th Chapter

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!  Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

  father against son

    and son against father,

  mother against daughter

    and daughter against mother,

  mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

    and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.   And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.  You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

Elmer Snodgrass’ living room, looked “almost” normal. I say “almost” because, there was… this toaster. Yes, a toaster... silver with two slots where you and I would put the bread. But into Elmer’s toaster, there was a light bulb screwed into each of the slots. As we sat down, Elmer reached over and pushed down the lever. Nothing happened and Elmer gave the toaster a disgusted look. These days it would not have phased me and I would have never asked, but early in my pastoral career I had to learn many things the hard way…. including not to ask about things like shiny, silver, toasters with a couple of sixty watt-ers screwed into the slots. But back then I just couldn’t stand it, “Elmer, why are there light bulbs screwed into that toaster?”

“Well,” said Elmer with a nostalgic air, “When electricity came to town no one really had any idea what to do with it. It was new… strange… no instructions. The town just got electricity one day and electrical stuff showed up on the train the next. People just had to try different things to figure it out but my great grandpa… he KNEW the truth from the start! He KNEW you were supposed to screw the light bulbs into these slots and you would get light. Nobody believed my great grandpa, but he kept trying it until the day he died.”

“So he tried to get light from a toaster… his whole life?” I asked. “Yup, his whole life. Of course, he only lived that one day after electricity came to town. You see he wanted to read in the bathtub, so he set the toaster with the light bulbs on the side of the tub for light… tubs are slippery… And well... You know my great grandpa is a town hero because of that. No one’s ever taken bath with a toaster since… saved countless lives, my great grandpa did.”

“After his heroic death,” Elmer went on, “his son took up the cause and kept trying to get light by screwing light bulbs into toasters. He passed on the mission to my father who has now passed it on to me. People keep saying it won’t work, but it’s our tradition! Every Snodgrass has sworn to keep trying until we get a toaster to light up a light bulb.” “So, you’ve tried to get light by screwing a light bulb into a toaster for four generations?” I asked. “Yup, and nobody’s gonna tell ME that light bulbs don’t go into toasters. You aren’t! Are you?” asked Elmer. “Oh, no!” I said, with newfound wisdom. Then Elmer added, “But I won’t take a bath with a toaster…I’m not stupid.”

The lesson of Elmer’s story is the same as the lesson from the Gospel, “change burns like fire… or maybe it burns like a toaster in the bathtub.” Either way, it wasn’t that the Snodgrass family needed to do what they had always done MORE faithfully. What they needed to do was something ENTIRELY different! But for Elmer, logic wasn’t a part of this any more. It was tradition! It was “How Snodgrasses had always done it!” and it connected him with his family through the generations and even the THOUGHT of betraying his family like that burned like fire.

In the Bible translation called The Message, the first part of this lesson goes like this: “I’ve come to start a fire on earth - how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right side up!” Jesus came to change everything. Turn the world right-side-up so that the world would work as God created it to work… with grace and love and justice, not just for the wealthy few, but for those on the margins as well. To make that happen meant changing the world from the empire it had become, where only a few had everything and the many had nothing. It meant changing the world from what it WAS… into the Kingdom of God... where everyone had enough. THAT sort of change, Jesus knew, would feel like fire to those who had grown used to the world as it was. For those who had everything it would burn for sure… but it would even feel like fire to those who had the most to gain from the change as well. Even they, Jesus knew, would be upset, because even for them, right-side-up would be an enormous change from the up-side-down they had grown used to for generations. For everyone… change is hard.

This story then, is both thousands of years old and as new as today’s headlines. You can feel it, can’t you? We live in the middle of the burning fire of an up-side-down world being turned right-side-up. Traditions of racism, might makes right, money equalling power, toxic masculinity, white supremacy and all the rest are burning harder than ever to keep the world as it is, rather than have the world work as God created it to work. The change from up-side-down to right-side-up burns like fire.

So how do we live in this world that burns with fire with every headline? First, we need to remember what that burn is all about and hold onto the hope that the burn we feel is God at work changing the world! Next we need to remind one another that only God has the power to make God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven.” You and I?  We can’t raise the dead or to turn the world right-side-up... but that burn means God is on it!

Once we remember that, we can set aside our worries about turning the world all on our own and get busy doing what we DO have the power to do in the world. Because while we can’t raise the dead or turn the whole world right side up, we DO have the power to create little, beautiful windows for others to glimpse the Kingdom of God wherever we find ourselves in each moment of our lives. Wherever we are, we have the power to create tiny, little, islands of  what God’s Kingdom is all about... places of peace, love, compassion, and kindness even in the most mundane places, even in the midst of a world on fire. We are called to do that individually, as we walk through our regular days AND we’re called to do that together as larger and larger circles as part of the Body of Christ. Rainbow chairs on our lawn become a window to God’s Kingdom.  Solar on our roof.  Together with Old Parish a giant A-frame on the AT becomes a window for us to show hikers a glimpse of God’s Kingdom.  

God’s got the whole world in those Divine hands and is changing it from up-side-down to right side up.  God’s got that.  Really.  Our part is to fill each other’s lives, and the lives of the people around us, with peace, love and hope, even in the middle of a world on fire. Our bit, together with whoever else wants to play with us… is to shine a brighter and brighter beacon of light… of hope.  To shine a light in the darkness for people who are overwhelmed with a world on fire.  To welcome them into our little corner of kindness, peace and hope and together pull back the curtains on that few so each day, that vision of the Kingdom of God grows larger and larger until the day God has finished making the up side down, right side up. Amen.

Away! Zoom!

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

It looks like it’s about the money! It’s not about the money. So, let’s go to the Midrash! What’s Midrash, you ask? I’m glad you asked! Midrash is a story, told by a wise and ancient Rabbi which fills in the gaps in a Bible story and helps explain its meaning. The Midrash for this story is different though… mostly because I wrote it and I’m not a Rabbi.  I also wrote it on Tuesday which doesn’t make it exactly ancient, but hopefully it will help nevertheless. It goes like this:

Chuck and Earl were brothers. Chuck was older, but only because Earl had finally succeeded in kicking him out of the womb where Chuck had hogged the warm spot for nine-whole-months! But being older, even by just a few minutes, meant that Chuck inherited the entire family property. But NOW, with Jesus in town, Earl saw his chance! If Earl could convince Jesus to get that warm-spot-hogging-Chuck there to split the inheritance… well, he had PLANS! And those plans started with a Porsche 918 Spyder. Not because it was a hybrid… even though it was… but because it went from 0 to 60 in 2.2 seconds and THAT was the speed he wanted to get away from the farm! Away from the family! Away from that little town! Away from the nosey, niggling, neighbors! And away from Chuck! Away, away, away!

Chuck, as you might imagine was not keen to divide the farm he had just inherited. He had plans of his own! A new tractor with GPS navigation, air conditioning and bluetooth! A new home on a distant corner of the estate with central air and a VERY high wall with a push button gate, so that he could be away from the farm! Away from the family! Away from that little town! Away from the nosey, niggling, neighbors! And away from EARL! Away, away, away!

So in this ancient Midrash (which goes all the way back to Tuesday) Jesus tells the brothers to divide the inheritance and Earl buys the Porsche 918 Spyder and off he goes from 0-60 in 2.2 seconds! Away from the farm! Away from the family! Away from that little town! Away from the nosey, niggling, neighbors! And away from CHUCK! Off to Vegas… to the lights, the gambling, the shows and all the rest that Vegas has to offer to a young man, fresh off the farm, with a new inheritance, a Porsche 918 Spyder, and a desire to get AWAY!

Chuck, on the other hand, couldn’t buy everything right away because of having to divide things with EARL, but he buys the GPS tractor which helps him plant bumper crop after bumper crop, which leads to needing new barns, then the new house, then his WALL… so he too, can finally live AWAY from the farm. Away from the family! Away from that little town! Away from the nosey, niggling, neighbors! And mostly, AWAY from EARL!

Well, as parables and Midrash often go, in addition to being away from his family, that little town, those nosey, niggling, neighbors and Chuck… Vegas soon helped Earl AWAY from the remainder of his inheritance and AWAY from owning a Porsche 918 Spyder. Soon, at his new job, he found himself splitting a snack with a pig, and in that moment it occurred to him that living AWAY from his family, community, the niggling neighbors, and even Chuck, didn’t really feel very much like really living after all. Earl, you see, had finally figured out he was lost… some might even say “prodigal.”

In stark contrast, as parables and Midrash often go, Chuck tended the farm and by all the world’s measures had made it an enormous success… filling up new barns and sitting in luxury behind a big wall with an automatic gate, eating, drinking and being merry in the air conditioning… away from the farm, away from the family, away from that little town, away from the nosey, niggling, neighbors and away from EARL. But he too soon discovered that EVEN with ALL that he had… he wasn’t really living either. Chuck too discovered that he was lost… some might even say that he too, was “prodigal.”

You see, both parable and ancient Midrash (which goes all the way back to Tuesday) teach us, that REALLY living is never about the destination… never about getting to a place or having a particular amount. Living life… REALLY living life, is ALWAYS and ONLY about the DIRECTION in which WE CHOOSE TO LIVE each moment of every day. Earl and Chuck, in living AWAY lives, found that they weren’t ever really living at all.

Now, real life isn’t as clear cut as parables or even ancient Midrash (which goes all the way back to Tuesday). So in real life none of us lives completely AWAY from the people we love or  what we value, or completely TOWARD them either. But the lesson from both parable and Midrash is that you and I would be wise to take time to honestly look at the direction in which we’re living as we walk through each day. In what parts of our lives are we living an AWAY life? Is it with family or neighbors? Is it with strangers or foreigners or those who are different? Where are we living an AWAY life with our money, with our possessions… or our passions, knowledge, time, or gifts? This parable and the ancient Midrash (that goes all the way back to Tuesday) makes it clear… Living in an AWAY direction, isn’t really living!

So, if you are looking to live the abundant, meaning, and purpose-filled life we’ve all been created to live… (and I hope you are!) Then the DIRECTION you are looking for is TOWARD… TOWARD what Jesus shows us and tells us is most important… TOWARD relationship with God and neighbor, TOWARD community... even community that inevitably includes those nosey, niggling, neighbors. It means generously moving TOWARD the stranger, foreigner and the different. Couragiously moving TOWARD the lost, the lonely and the last. Because when we live our lives moving TOWARD the other… we inevitably find that we are living our lives TOWARD God as well… and THAT has always been the best direction for really living… going all the way back. Even long before Tuesday. Amen.