Close the Frappin' Door!

Matthew 11:2-11

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

In my house growing up we had a front door which was the one with a door bell, a back door which was a sliding glass door and the frappin’ door which went out to the garage.  I knew it was called that because my dad was always telling me to, “CLOSE THE FRAPPIN’ DOOR!”  One sure way to make my dad loose his ever lovin’ mind was to not answer that yes or no question with either a “yes” or a “no.” 

“Did you leave the door open”?  Well, of course I had left the door open BUT there was always a reason so I'd skip the answer and head straight to the explanation.  "I had to bring in a load of stuff from the garage."  Dad didn't want to hear it.  "Did you leave the door open?"  "I was just going out for a minute and I knew my arms would be full and I couldn't turn the knob."  "DID YOU LEAVE THE FRAPPIN' DOOR OPEN?"  When he called the door by it's full name I knew his head was near exploding so I would relent, "Yes," I would finally say.  "Thank you!" he replied.  These days as a parent with kids, I totally understand his frustration with both the question not being answered and the frappin' door being left open. 

Jesus obviously didn’t grow up in my house, because in today’s lesson, John the Baptist asked Jesus a “yes or no” question.  “Are you the one we have been waiting for or are we supposed to keep on waiting.”  Jesus did not give a “yes or no” answer.  Instead Jesus said, “Tell John that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.”  In my house that just would not have flown, but for whatever reason, Jesus’ strange and roundabout answer seemed to work for John.

I think the reason it worked is that John saw in Jesus’ answer the same kind of action that he had been calling people to do when he was preaching in the desert.  Out in the desert, John called people not just to THINK about their lives or even just SAY they wanted to change but to put those thoughts and words into ACTIONS.  The word “repent,” literally means to turn around and go another way.   For John, thoughts, ideas and words were fine, but ACTION was the thing that mattered.  So when Jesus responded to John’s question with the ACTIONS he had been doing, that spoke louder to John than words ever could... and you have to admit, it was an impressive list of actions.  

People were given sight.   Now keep in mind, it’s not just that people were physically healed of legal blindness but even more than that; people were healed of their inability to see God at work in their lives and in the world.  

The lame walk.  Again, people weren’t just physically healed of their inability to use their legs but more importantly, people were healed of their fear of going out into the world and doing what God was calling them to do.    

Lepers were cleaned.  Not only were people with a skin condition healed, but all people who were considered unfit, unwelcome, and unclean for any reason; race, gender, their past, their politics, who they loved, their class... ALL people who had been the outcasts, the forgotten and the lost were now welcomed, included and made to feel worthy.  

The deaf hear.  Not only were the physical connections made in people’s ears, but more importantly, people’s minds were being opened to finally hear and truly understand that God was at work, that God loved all of creation and God was making sure that all of creation would be together again.  

The dead were raised.  Not just were dead people given a new life, like the woman’s son or Lazarus.  But people who were never considered part of God’s promise before, people outside the family of Abraham, would finally be included and given the abundant life that comes from God, a life that begins now and never, ever ends! 

And finally (Jesus left most important for last, which is how they made lists like this back in Jesus’ day) the poor have Good News brought to them.  The Good News isn’t just that God sent Jesus.  It’s also God’s vision for how the world is supposed to work... it’s supposed to be a place where those who now struggle to feed their families, find a place to live and heat their homes will have what they need to live.  No one will have too much and everyone will have enough.  On top of that it also means that all of us who are poor in spirit, who’s faith is at times, not exactly overflowing with confidence and unconditional trust, will have God’s infinite and unconditional love brought right to where we live.  For me, God coming to me is really Good News, because when I’m struggling with believing and find it hard to see God at work in the world, the LAST thing I need is someone telling me to go “find Jesus”, or “get saved” or “make yourself right with God.”

That’s the Good News of this lesson, but there is some hard news here as well.  The hard news is that you and I, as followers of Jesus, are called to keep those same actions moving and happening now in our world.  Jesus healed our blindness.  We’re now being called to see the people in our community who have been forgotten.  Jesus healed our lameness.  We’re now being called not just to wait here for people to come to us, but take God’s love out to folks wherever they might be.  Jesus welcomed us no matter what baggage we were carrying.  We’re now being called to welcome others that have been left out because of their baggage.  Our deafness is healed.  Now, we’re being called to hear not just a person cry for help in an emergency, but also to hear how the world needs to change so every day isn’t an emergency.  We’ve been given new life in Christ.  We’re now being called to bring life to others not so much with words but with our actions. 

I don’t know about you, but the part about God’s love coming to me sounds really good... it is just the message of hope I need in these dark, winter days... but that next part about me turning around and bringing God’s love out to others.... well, especially in these dark, cold, winter days that seems pretty overwhelming.  I’m from a long line of stoic, Swedish, rarely smiling, easy chair sitting, bland food eating, keep to yourself kind of folk and it’s cold, dark and depressing out there these days.   Hearing that Jesus has taken away all my good excuses to stay in my easy chair and away from people I don't know... well, it’s uncomfortable to hear.  

It is uncomfortable.  It’s overwhelming.  It’s actually a bit scary to be honest, but it really is what God is calling us to do.  The only thing I can tell you that might help is that we aren’t called to do it alone.  Jesus did not ask us to take on the world’s problems individually.  Instead we are called to do it as a community... as the Body of Christ... so as our eyes are opened together and as we begin to see the forgotten around us... as we hear of our neighbor’s hurts and hopes... as we help each other to get up and bring those neighbors God’s radical and unconditional love, compassion and acceptance...as we together welcome all people in spite of their baggage to join us in making the world into the place of God’s vision, I have just a little more advice...lean on one another and remind one another of God's infinite, unconditional love and then, on your way out into the world, remember... Close the Frappin’ Door!  Amen.

Where's the Kaboom!

Matthew 24: 36-44

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Kate is a pastor friend of mine who lives in Maryland.  A few years ago she met a guy.  They fell in love and he asked her to marry him and she said yes!  They set the date for their wedding.  May 21, 2011.  Soon after setting the date, Kate Googled her special date and found that Harold Camping, President of Family Stations Inc. had determined that there was incontrovertible Biblical evidence that May 21, 2011 would be the end of the world!

Well, it turned out that we all enjoyed her wedding.  We did go outside at the appointed hour and, who would have thunk it!  Nothing happened!  Jesus, Paul and all the early Christians suspected that the end would be “soon” but never offered a date.  Instead they advised us to live each day ready for Christ’s return.  “Soon,” however, took longer than people thought it should, and ever since then folks have been unsuccessfully predicting the end.  Here’s just the smallest sampling of a few of the more interesting failures:

• 90 - Saint Clement
• 400 - St. Martin of Tours 
• 500 - The antipope Hippolytus (round numbers are popular.)
• 992 - Good Friday and the Annunciation fell on the same day and the Germans thought that would be the end.
• 1000 – Lots of panic…another round number and lots of people gave their stuff to the church in preparation for the end.  By the way, the Church didn’t give it back when it turned 1001.
• 1179 –  based on the alignment of planets
• 1284 – Pope Innocent III predicted the end by adding 666 to the year Islam was founded.
• 1496 – which was 1500 years after Jesus was born.
• 1533 – which was 1500 years after Jesus’ death, Melchior Hoffman predicts the New Jerusalem to come to Strasburg Germany.
• 1669 – the Old Believers in Russia predicted the end and 20,000 people burned themselves to death to avoid the antichrist.
• 1794 – Charles Wesley liked this year for the end.
• 1832 – 1890 - Joseph Smith founder of the Mormon church predicted the end before he turned 85.  He would have been 85 in 1890 if he hadn’t died in 1844, which, it seems he also didn’t see coming.  
• March 21, 1843 – William Miller of the Millerites predicted this day.  
• October 22, 1844 – William Miller’s second try, billed as “The Great Anticipation” is now remembered in history as “The Great Disappointment”.
• 1850 and beyond – Ellen White founder of the Seventh Day Adventists predicted the end a lot.  
• 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994 were all dates for the end predicted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• 1919 – Meterologist Albert Porta predicted the conjunction of 6 planets would generate a magnetic field that would explode the sun.  
• April 22, 1959 – Florence Houteff, founder of the Branch Davidians predicted this end.  Only a few members remained when this didn’t happen.
• 1960 – based on secrets hidden in the dimensions of the great pyramids.
• 1981 – Predicted by  Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
• 1982 – Predicted by Pat Robertson.  (and people still listen to him)
• 1988 – Hal Lindsey author of the "The Late Great Planet Earth" predicted the end this year, and 2007 and now 2018.
• 1994 – Harold Camping  (Yes, the same guy)
• 2000 – Y2K…enough said.
• March 24, 2002 – Paul Smirnov predicts God will destroy the world with an asteroid hitting the Oscars ceremony.  Later that year he tried October 26 and when that didn’t work Nov. 8.
• March 21, 2008 – The Lord’s Witnesses predicted this date which was 666 Hebrew months after the founding of the U.N. the world didn’t end and the U.N. didn’t take over the world.  
• 2009 – Jerry Falwell predicted in 1999 that the end would be in the next ten years.  

And THAT is just the highlight reel!  When I looked at all the end of the world predictions I could find, just in my lifetime there were almost 70!  In spite of the lesson we read today telling us nobody knows, not even JESUS knows, people still try to predict it and they do it because they really, really want to be in control.  They WANT to be in control but the reality is that we aren’t in any more control of our lives today than the people were in Jesus’ day. 

Back then, two people would be working in the field and one would just die, right there, for no apparent reason.  Back then a couple of people would be working at the mill and one would drop dead and the other wouldn’t.  There was no reason why it was one instead of the other and there was no way to predict that it was about to happen.  That’s how life was back in the days of Jesus and you know what… it really hasn’t changed, has it?  

When I was a volunteer fire fighter I saw people every time I was paged out that had not been able to predict the day before that they would need a firefighter or an EMT the day we pulled up in the truck.  A young, apparently healthy person suddenly had a massive heart attack.  A family returned home from eating dinner out to find their home burned to the ground.  They simply had no way to know!  Like the lesson says, “if the owner of the house would have known in what part of the night the thief was going to break in, they would have stopped it.”  If that women knew she was going to have a massive heart her husband would have driven her to the hospital before it happened.  If that family knew their house was going catch on fire that night they wouldn’t have gone out for dinner and stayed home with fire extinguishers at the ready.

No matter how badly we hate it, the fact remains that we are not in control.  We don’t know when the end will be and what Jesus is trying to tell us here in this lesson, is that we don’t really NEED to know.  The fact is, only God knows and confidentially I've got to tell you, God can and does handle it without our help.

Knowing you aren’t in control can either drive you crazy or it can set you free.  God intended our not knowing to set us free.  Because we have been freed of needing to know about that end of the world stuff, then we can take all the time we would have used worrying about that and use it doing what God has called us to be doing out in the world.  We can be ready for Jesus to return someday in the future by being ready for Jesus to return right now and that means living this life we’ve been given doing what God has called us to do.

So what is it that we have been called to do?  Well, as we start this new year with Matthew’s Gospel, we’re going to hear that Matthew tends to be pretty clear about what God is calling us to do with all that free time we now have since we gave up worrying about the end of the world.

We are to bear fruit - both telling people about how God wants our world to work and practicing the radical forgiveness, love and inclusion that Jesus taught to try and make the world work that way.

We are to worship God and live in community.  Private rooms may be good for prayer but God says we need each other and when a few of us get together, Christ is with us, and we’re all better for the company. 

We are to teach each other God’s way of living in this world, which Jesus neatly summed up as “loving God and loving neighbor.”

We are to practice good stewardship; caring for one another and the earth we have been given and get rid of the things that compete with God for our attention and allegiance.

We are called to work for justice to be done in the world.  To be merciful; lift up the lowly, care for the poor, the widows and the orphans.  Work against poverty, ostracism, hunger, disease, demons and debt; the things that prevent others from having the life God intends.  

We are called to be pure in heart; to have an integrity that can be seen by others.  To say what we mean and act on what we believe and finally to be peacemakers; working for reconciliation in our community and in our world. 

It turns out that we have quite a lot God would like us to do.  We really don’t have any extra time to worry about the end of the world in the future or rehash what’s happened in the past.  All it seems we have time for is living our lives to the fullest right now and Advent is meant to be a season to remind us of that and remind us again to let God take care of the rest.  Amen.   

Re-membering A Wonderful World

Luke 23:33-43

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

When I was in seminary, my wife Kelly was working and our daughter Hanna went to day care.  Every day her class listened to a thing she called a “big black CD” of Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a Wonderful World” before nap time.  She could sing every word and I bet she still can!  They played that song so much I joked that they were going to wear the grooves out of that “big black CD.” 

So, what is the song you loved and played so much you were in danger of wearing the grooves out of the record (or the digital equivalent)?  Now, how did it feel when you first heard a different version of that song?  

It’s hard, isn’t it?  When you’re used to hearing the needle in one particular groove, it’s hard to allow the needle to drop in another spot.  Reading scripture can be like that too.  With a familiar story like this one it’s easy to just drop the needle in the old familiar groove and let it play.  

But this week the needle wouldn’t go in that old familiar groove for me, it kept skipping to a new groove and that new groove is the word “remember.”  The thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief since the Romans didn’t crucify thieves, they only crucified terrorists or revolutionary heros who are, after all, the same people seen from different perspectives)  That guy asked, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”  

When I think of the word “remember” the first thing that pops into my head is that word’s opposite, which is “forget.”  But when I think about that guy dying on a cross next to Jesus, I have a hard time believing that all he wanted from him was for Jesus to think nice thoughts about him once he got settled on his throne at the right hand of God.  

I don’t think that guy wanted Jesus to simply “not forget him.”  I think he wanted.... I think what he desperately needed... was not to be remembered (as in the opposite of being forgotten) but to be RE-membered (as in the opposite of being DIS-membered).  

Now, of course the guy on the cross beside Jesus was not being physically dismembered, but he was being cut off in almost every other way you could imagine.  Cut off from his family, from his community, from his faith, from his dignity, from his self-worth, from his identity, from his hopes, from his dreams, from his future and of course from his life.  

That thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) didn’t need Jesus to just think of him fondly in the sweet by and by.  That thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) needed someone to pick up the pieces of his horribly Dis-membered life and RE-member him... He needed someone to put him back together, to make him whole again and he believed Jesus had the power to do that.  

I believe when Jesus told him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” Jesus didn’t just mean he’d have fond memories of this guy from his throne of glory.  I believe Jesus meant that he would be whole again... be fully RE-membered in a way that I don’t think any of us can fully comprehend.    

Now most of us, and I might even venture to say all of us will not have our lives ended by crucifixion, but I’m just as sure that each one of us has experienced being Dis-membered in our lives; cut off from life with a spouse, cut off from a career, cut off from children or relatives or friends or health or hopes or dreams or you name it and because we’ve been DIS-membered in our lives we too could desperately use more than to be fondly remembered from time to time... We too could use some real RE-membering!  The Good News of today is that we have been promised exactly that!  No matter how Dis-Membered we have become, the infinite and unconditional love of God in Christ will RE-member us in ways we can not fully appreciate and being RE-membered will be Paradise!

To me, that’s some amazing grace... So far, I really like this new groove on this big black CD!  But there’s more to this song, and the next verse to this song is a little more challenging.  As followers of Jesus, as followers of the one who promises to RE-member us no matter how DIS-membered we’ve become, we too are called to be RE-member-ers as well.  

As individual disciples of Jesus, the original “RE-Member-er,” each one of us is called to do more for those around us who are hurting than to simply think fondly of them from time to time.  Our call is to open our eyes no matter what might be going on in our lives and see those around us who are hurting.  We are certainly to remember them in the prayers of our hearts and minds but it can’t stop there.  We are being called to live out those prayers with our hands and the rest of our being as well... to not just remember them, but to do all we can to RE-Member them; to help them gather up the pieces of their lives when they have been torn apart and help to put them back together... to help to make them whole.

There is one more verse to this song and it speaks to us together as a congregation; a congregation in a particular community in a particular time.  It speaks to us and calls us as a church to look out at our community and not just remember it in our hearts and prayers but to see where things like hunger, homelessness, poverty, addiction and being paid less than a living wage Dis-members our community.  It calls us then to not only remember our community in our hearts and with our prayers but to also actively work to RE-member it where is has been Dis-membered.  

The thief on the cross (who wasn’t a thief) asked Jesus to RE-member him.  The people in our lives, when they experience the hurts, losses and pains that are a part of life need us as individuals to RE-member them and our community looks to us as a church and needs us as a congregation to RE-member them as well.  

May we never be satisfied with only remembering.  May thinking kindly about and holding in prayer those who have been forgotten in our lives and our community never be the end.  May we instead bravely open our eyes and see those who have been Dis-membered and then work with our hearts and prayers but also our hands and the rest of our being to RE-member them so that one day we might all experience fully the Wonderful World in which God created all of us to live.  Amen.

The Ford Finger of Doom!

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

⁶Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. ⁷For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you,⁸and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. ⁹This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. ¹⁰For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. ¹¹For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. ¹²Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.¹³Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

In every Indiana Jones movie, it seems like Indy has to dig, fight, scratch and wade

through some difficult, dangerous and sometimes really disgusting stuff in order to get to finally uncover the treasure.  For us today, we are going to have to do some digging, scratching and wading through some nasty, smelly and just plain rotten biblical interpretation that’s been piled on top of this lesson over the years in order to get to the real treasure that lies inside.

 

Just like Indiana Jones, the first step in uncovering the treasure is to have a good understanding of history.  The apostle Paul came to the city of Thessaloniki somewhere

around 50 A.D.  He settled into the life of the town and began his work starting a new church.  Once the church was up and going, Paul left to continue his mission.  One of the things Paul believed very strongly and obviously instilled in the people of Thessaloniki was that Jesus was going to return.  We believe that too, but Paul assumed it was going to happen, literally ANY day.  

Understanding this is a really important clue to finding the treasure in this lesson.  Paul fully expected when he woke up every day to see Jesus smiling down on him with a cup of coffee in his hand.  OK, I added the coffee part, but the rest of it is exactly what Paul taught and the people believed him.    

After Paul left town, the new Christians tried to be faithful.  But the reality is that they were new to the faith; there was a lot they didn’t know.  They tried their best, but without Paul around and with the extremely limited cell service in Northern Greece at the time, they couldn't quickly get ahold of him so differences of opinion among the members of the church cropped up.  One of the things that they disagreed on was how exactly they were to wait for Jesus to return. 

Without good cell service the Thessalonians were forced to send Paul a letter asking for help.  We don’t have that letter, but we do have the letter Paul sent in reply.  Going on Paul’s reply we can figure out that apparently one group thought the faithful way to wait for Jesus was to keep doing the normal things they had done before.  Of course, now as Christians, they were to do those things in ways that intentionally showed their love of God and neighbor to the world.  The other group felt that the faithful way to wait was to stop doing what they had done before in order to show how much they fully trusted in Jesus’ immanent return (which remember, according to what Paul told them, was going to happen later today or tomorrow at the latest).

Over the years, Paul's really helpful response to their honest question about the most

faithful way to wait for Jesus' return has been buried under some horribly bad, stinky biblical interpretation worse than any Indiana Jones style snake filled Egyptian tomb, spider filled cave or rat filled Italian sewer.  What they have done, especially with verse 10, is to horribly contort this passage so that they can try to convince the world that God wants us to allow or even force people who don’t or even can’t work to go hungry.    

In seemingly every Harrison Ford movie, at some point, the character's anger comes to a head and as he confronts that person he points at them with what is known as "the

Ford Finger of Doom."  If you've seen a Harrison Form film, you know that look and   THAT is the look I have for the folks who use this lesson in that horribly wrong, horribly cruel way.  Simply put, this passage does NOT, NOT, NOT say anything of the sort!  Paul did NOT tell the Thessalonians to let children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed or underemployed go hungry if they didn’t put in a full day’s work.  Throughout all of scripture; through the Law, the wisdom literature, the prophets, the psalms, the Gospels and the letters, both individuals and governments are called by God explicitly over and over again to feed the hungry, care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the disabled.  To twist this passage to say otherwise is just really bad Biblical interpretation at best and deserves the Ford Finger of Doom at the very least!

The real treasure of this lesson that gets hidden by that kind of bad biblical interpretation is that Paul did actually give us clear direction in how to live our lives while we wait for God to wrap everything up.  Specifically, we are to do our normal everyday stuff, in the normal everyday places life takes us, but NOW, as followers of Jesus, we are called to do those regular things in a way that allows our love of God and and our love of neighbor to shine through our regular lives in a way that God promises will transform the ordinary into something extraordinary!  Martin Luther said, “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God. If your job is shoveling manure, then do your best and shovel that manure for the glory of God.”  I’ll let you decide who today shovels the greatest tonnage of manure for a living, but if they are indeed followers of Jesus, then they too are called to do their job in a way that allows the Christian unconditional love of God and neighbor to shine through in all that they do!

Faithful waiting turns out to mean living fully in the gift that is each and every present moment we are given.  Most of us probably won't just sit down on the lawn waiting for Jesus to return, but most of us will spend some or maybe even a bunch of the precious time that is our present, overanalyzing the things in our past and worrying about things that might happen in the future.  I know I’ve done it a lot in my life.  But worrying about the past or fretting about the future isn’t what faithful waiting looks like and it isn’t at all what gives us life.  Henry Nouwen, a Catholic Priest and all around smart guy writes, 

“The real enemies of our lives are the “oughts” and the “ifs.”  They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future.  But real life takes place in the here and the now.  God is a God of the present.  God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful or painful…. That’s why Jesus came to wipe away the burden of the past and the worries for the future.  He wants us to discover God right where we are, here and now.”

The real treasure in this lesson is the truth that God’s deepest desire is for us to really and actively live!  By living our lives, not in the unalterable past or in the unpredictable future but by loving God and loving our neighbor in every moment of the present, we will discover the abundant life God created for us all to live.  Then, in living that abundant life, which is so different than the way so much of the world lives... by putting the needs of others before our own needs, we will not only experience the joy God created for us to have in our present, but we will join with God in transforming the whole world into the place of joy, love, compassion, grace and justice God is determined creation will become.  Amen.

Why THAT Painting?

Luke 20: 27-38

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Priests, pastors, bartenders and apparently seafood shack fry cooks all seem to be blessed in at least one similar way.  We all hear wonderful stories. 

Peter has been a regular for the last two summers at The Shack and he shared the story of growing up on one half of an old Quaker farm.  Andrew and Betsy Wyeth owned the other half.

The day after Christmas in 1960, Peter was in Andy’s studio (he calls him Andy) and Andy told him to “have a good look” at the paintings in the room.  That’s when Andy sprung “The Game” on him for the first time, “Peter, the house is on fire, which one painting do you grab on the way out?”  

Peter pointed to one particular painting.  

“Good,” said Andy, “now tell me WHY you chose that one.”  Peter shared that he said something about the young bull’s coat and the wall matching, but that, apparently, was not the end of what Andy was looking for from Peter.

He says that, “Andy’s eyes narrowed down until he was squinting, almost glaring, at me... he was standing close to me and he suddenly looked very fierce to the ten-year old me.”

“Peter,” Andy said, very directly, “I mean I want you to REALLY tell me WHY you like this one.”  

It was Andrew Wyeth’s fierce, squinting challenge for Peter to leave the surface, the place most of us spend much of our lives, and dive into the infinite... into the Holy... into the eternal MORE.

It was the beginning of a journey for Peter... not a physical journey, but one that challenged him, and from what I’ve come to know of him, continues to challenge him to never stop journeying further into the ever deepening questions of life.

The question the Sadducees asked Jesus in today’s Gospel was not meant to challenge anyone to go deeper into anything... it was meant to accomplish the exact opposite... to stop Jesus from continuing to invite people to go deeper into the infinite... into the Holy... into the MORE.  For the Sadducees, there was no journey.  They were there.    

As Jesus pivoted to answer the question which the Sadducees had set as a trap, in my minds eye, I picture Jesus with Andy’s eyes, looking at Sadducees much like Peter describes Andy looking at him in his story; eyes narrowed down until he was squinting, almost glaring... standing close and suddenly looking fierce, Jesus said to the Sadducees and the other religious and political leaders of his day, “I want you to REALLY tell me WHY. Why do you insist on limits and on death when God is always and all about the infinite and LIFE!?  Why?”

The Sadducees were basically a denomination of Judaism.  A big part of their belief led them to only accept the first five books of the Scriptures; that meant no prophets, no history, no psalms, no proverbs and none of the new ideas found in those places... things like angels and the resurrection of the dead.  They were the wealthy, powerful traditionalists of their day.  They didn’t want to hear there was anything wrong with what they believed or the way they lived and saw no reason for anything to change.  

You can see why they weren’t big fans of Jesus.  Jesus not only talked about “new” religious ideas they didn’t believe in, like resurrection and angels but he also talked about other, even more pointed ideas from the wisdom literature and the prophets... he talked a lot about Biblical justice... the notion that God wants the poor lifted up, demands the hungry have enough to eat, insists the sick be cared for and the outcasts be brought back into the community.

Jesus’ insistence that God aches for all of creation not just to live, but to live abundantly and his further insistence that it is each one of us who is called to bring that abundant life to our neighbors was just way too much for the Sadducees to take.   

It was too much because Jesus wasn’t only challenging the way they looked at their religious lives, he was challenging the way they looked at the social, the political, the business parts of life... every, single, aspect of their very comfortable, very stable and very traditional everyday lives.  He was challenging them to leave the security and familiarity of the surface where they had always existed before, and go deeper, journey farther... to see the world through God’s eyes... to see God’s vision for creation and hear God’s deepest desire that God’s will be done, “on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Now, there is a long and rich Christian tradition of being pretty hard on Chief Priests, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees; the religious and political leaders who opposed Jesus... much of it well deserved.  But before we come down too hard on these Sadducees, we should probably keep in mind that they were considered among the most faithful people of their day.  When the rest of the world was messing around on the Lord’s Day, THEY were the ones who were faithfully in worship.  THEY were the keepers of tradition while everyone else chased after every new fangled idea and program, THEY were, well, in a way, a lot like us.    

When Jesus turned to stare at them 2000 years ago, as I imagine, with narrowing, squinting... almost glaring eyes... he challenged the people of that time who had become the settled, established, set religious and political leaders of the world.

He challenged them to take up the journey they had set aside, the journey God created them to take and to again dive deeply into the infinite that is God’s love for all of creation.  His challenge for them was to once again embrace God’s vision of not just existing from day to day on the surface, but diving deeply into God’s love and compassion for all of creation and daring them to really and fully LIVE!

Just as Wyeth challenged Peter that day after Christmas in 1960 to go deeper with his intense question of “Why, would you take THAT painting?” Jesus challenged the world then, and challenges us today to ask the questions that will open us up to God’s Holy and Infinite MORE.

Do the questions we ask of ourselves invite us... even compel us... deeper on that journey toward the vision of the abundant life that God wants for us and all of creation?  Or do the questions we ask ourselves stop us from looking more deeply into the eternal because we have become too content floating comfortably on the surface of life?

May each of us as individuals be open to the questions that challenge us to go deeper.  May we as the people of God open ourselves together to a never ending journey of faith, helping one another to see the surprising ways God is working all around us, in us and through us each and every day.  May we all choose, both as individuals and as the people of God, to dive each and every day ever deeper into the abundant life God created for all of creation to LIVE.  Amen. 

Thanks goes to Peter Ralston, one of the people I was meant to meet on my journey through Maine.  The paintings I've included are by Andrew Wyeth.  The photographs, including Andy's portraits, are by Peter Ralston.  Peter's gallery in Rockport has both Wyeth's work and Peter's available for you to see.   Stop by in person if you're in the area. Peter's also a great storyteller. For more visit www.ralstongallery.com.

Flaw, Fault, and Faux Pas Filled Faith

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 17^th Chapter

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"  The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'?  Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'?  Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

I love the disciples.  For totally the wrong reasons, I admit, but I love them.  I love them because they always seem to mess up and when they mess up it makes me feel better about my discipleship.  It’s schadenfreude... feeling good because, well, at least I’m not as bad as THOSE guys!  I’m far from perfect as a disciple, but at least I never wanted to rain fire on a village who didn’t welcome Jesus or tell Jesus “God forbid you go to Jerusalem!”

So, when I read this lesson I thought right away, (shaking my head and chuckling to myself) you disciples; not even faith the size of a mustard seed!  Who DOESN’T have at least THAT much faith?  But then I didn’t just read the lesson, I HEARD what Jesus was saying.   I heard Jesus say, “If you, Erik, had faith the size of the tiny, minute, minuscule, little, itty bitty size of a mustard seed the YOU'D be able to uproot a tree with your words and plant that tree in the ocean.”  And I thought, “Oh, no!  I can’t do that!  I can’t talk to a tree and get it to uproot itself and then fly over to the ocean and plant itself in the sea.  I can’t do that!  And what’s worse is right now I literally live a block from the ocean... I would only have to make the tree fly like a block and a half to get it to the ocean and I STILL can’t do it!  So my faith too, is smaller than a mustard seed!”

When it comes to seed sized faith, I never thought I had the largest out there, after all the largest seed is the sea coconut which can weigh up to about 90 pounds, but I also never thought I had the smallest seed sized faith either, which would be a rain forest orchid seed that weighs only 1/35,000,000th of an ounce!  I’ve never thought I had the biggest faith out there, but I did always think I had faith at least a little bigger than a mustard seed.  Maybe lima bean sized, or green pea sized, but now I don’t know how big my faith is.... celery seed size, maybe?  lettuce seed?  Maybe it really is only orchid seed sized.  I don’t think there is any way to really know!

And THAT, I think, was exactly what Jesus was trying to do.  When Jesus compared faith to the size of a seed, something people buy and sell as a spice, he was making his first important point about faith.  Faith isn’t like a seed!  It’s not a commodity you can order up by the pound from Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit or anybody else in the market.  In this first part of the parable the disciples thought that they needed to be first filled with faith in order to do the good things that Jesus did out in the world.  With that in mind, they came to Jesus for a faith fill-up.  Jesus let them know that you don’t get faith the same way you pick up a bottle of mustard seed or cumin at the market.

So faith isn’t a commodity.  What is it?  In the last 300 years or so, since the Enlightenment, the most widespread idea of what faith is all about is believing something that is unprovable or unbelievable.  In Jesus’ day though, faith was less about the ability to confess a belief in something unseen and more about a person’s life becoming radically centered in God.  Faith was more about loyalty, allegiance and a radical trust in God that would guide a person’s way of living in the world.  Faith was a trust in God’s love and care so complete there was no room for fear or anxiety.  It was seeing yourself, the people around you and all of creation as God sees them and then living our lives out of that vision.    

In the second part of this parable Jesus let the disciples know that thinking they needed faith BEFORE they went out to do God’s work in the world was wrong as well.  To show them their second wrong-ness, Jesus described a scene where a master and a slave are interacting.  In the story Jesus tells, however, the roles of the master and the slave are reversed and in this story the master serves the slave.  Jesus is trying to get the disciples to understand that their notion that they have to get faith BEFORE they do God’s work out in the world is just as backwards as a master serving a slave.  

It’s as if we’ve sat down at a restaurant table, snapped our fingers and placed our order with the One we’ve assumed is our waiter.  “Would you be good enough to bring me a heaping helping of faith please?  And I’ll have a cocktail while you get that ready.”  The disciples told themselves and I think we tell ourselves, that as soon as God gets here with our faith and we get sufficiently filled up on faith, THEN (and only then) will we be ready to go out into the world and do the things God would like us to do.

Here’s another way to illustrate that same idea....I’ve always wanted to play the guitar.  I don’t know how to play the guitar SO what I would REALLY like is for someone... God, Jesus, the spirit of Les Paul... someone to give me, or increase in me, or fill me up with “talent,” “chops” or even “mad guitar skills”... whatever it is that will allow me to play the guitar and THEN, filled with talent, chops and mad skills, I’ll go do good things in the world like play at church, camps and nursing homes.  But that’s not the way it works, is it?  If I really wanted to increase my ability to play the guitar... if I really wanted “chops” or “talent” or “mad guitar skills” what’s the only way to do that?  Yeah!  I’ve got to go PLAY the guitar!  

Jesus is telling us that if we want to be FULL of faith, if we want to have our lives radically centered in God, the way to do that is to start living it!  To spend our time focusing on the things and the people God is most concerned with in the world... the poor and poverty, the hungry, the lost, the last and the forgotten.  If we want to see our lives filled with faith we need to work at seeing the world and it’s people, their joys, their sadness and all of creation through God’s eyes and live our lives concerned with the same stuff that God is most concerned with.... unconditional love, compassion and justice.  In short, if we want to be full of faith, the way to do that is to go out there and start living faith-FULL-y! 

But what if we don't do it right, or perfectly or make mistakes and end up making things worse?  We need to remember that Jesus sent those first disciples, the ones I love for always being so wrong, out into the world with all of their imperfections perfectly in tact.  Jesus isn’t looking for the perfect or doctrinally correct or ideologically pure... just for the best we can do in each particular moment.  Sometimes what we can do in that moment will be awesome and more often than not, quite short of awesome.  But we cannot allow that to be a reason not to try.  Even if it looks and feels and sounds as clumsy as me trying to learn a new chord on the guitar, Jesus says we need to just go!  Go and live faithfully... feed the hungry in all the ways people are hungry; advocate for justice so the pay for a day’s hard work is actually enough to buy what you need to live; heal the sick in body, mind and spirit; visit those who are in prison in all the ways we humans find ourselves imprisoned ... because it is only in our living as faithfully as we can in the moment... flaws, faults and faux pas included that we will find ourselves filled with faith.  Amen.

It's Not "Just Lunch"

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke the 14^th Chapter.

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. ⁷When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.

⁸When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; ⁹and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. ¹¹For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

       ¹²He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

He told them a parable.  With those five words Jesus changes everything.  Without those words this would be a nice lesson about how we should really try to have a little humility in our lives; about good manners and the social graces; about not having a big head.  Without those five words this would just be a very nice guide to being charitable and kind to those who are less fortunate.  Without those five words it would be a non-confrontational, non-controversial, easy to preach, easy to hear story that made no waves and ruffled no feathers.  But there they are... He told them a parable... and because this is a parable... the luncheon... it’s not just lunch, the dinner... not really about the evening meal and the banquet Jesus is REALLY talking about doesn’t involve a choice between chicken and fish.  

Jesus used parables to tell folks things that he knew would be hard for them to hear.  He set a hard to hear truth in the middle of a more comfortable, more familiar story like eating lunch or attending a wedding banquet.  That way he could gently invite them into a story and slowly work around to the hard truth they probably wouldn’t have sat still to hear if he had told it to them directly.  

Because that’s the way Jesus’ parables work, they tend to get more challenging the deeper into them you go, so I think we better start like Jesus did, with just a light lunch.  For lunch, Jesus says invite the poor, lame, crippled and blind.  I’m sure you know someone who has had experience with life when the ends don’t meet; where worries about money and bills haunt them in the night.  We all know someone who is fighting a life threatening disease, struggling with an injury, lives with constant pain or battles with the darkness of depression.  

Those are the folks Jesus is concerned with here, but this lunch is a parable, and the harder to hear idea Jesus is trying to communicate here is that we will have trouble living life to the fullest when people around us are having trouble simply living.  Just finding a person who is hungry and paying for them to have a one time meal is good, but it doesn’t meet Jesus’ deeper concern.  Community is his deeper concern and Jesus is challenging us to open ourselves here to new long term relationships...to seek out those who are hungry or hurting and not just help them find momentary relief, but to make them a part of our everyday lives and work with them to eliminate not just the symptoms of their hurt, but the cause of their pain at the source.  

The flip side of this parable may be even harder for many of us because this parable also challenges us when WE become the ones struggling with bills or pain or darkness to be more open about our pains and fears, our worries and our darkness, to set aside our pride and allow ourselves to be drawn more deeply into other’s lives, to be drawn deeper into community and not to go it alone.

You can see how Jesus works with his parables.  He first invites us into a story... “Hey, it’s just lunch” but then it turns out to be a lot more than “just lunch” and now Jesus is about to draw us even deeper into the story by inviting us to a banquet.  When Jesus talks about banquets and when Jesus specifically talks about wedding banquets in his parables he’s trying to tell us something about the Kingdom of God.  Now, keep in mind, when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he isn’t talking about something that happens after we die.  He’s not talking about a place “up there” or “out there” or something that exists only on a spiritual level.  

When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he is talking about this world, because the Kingdom of God is here in our everyday, figure out dinner, commute to work, pick up kids and do homework world... he’s talking about changing our world where a relatively few people have much and many, many, many others don’t even come close to having enough into the Kingdom of God.  Do you remember when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray?  Jesus told them, among other things, to pray, “Thy Kingdom Come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  What Jesus was telling his disciples to pray for and what we pray for every week with that prayer is for that banquet, for God’s Kingdom, to happen here... we’re praying for nothing less than for the whole world to be transformed into heaven on earth.  

The author and Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan describes the Kingdom of God as our world transformed into one of peace, banquet and equality.  While all too often the human way of changing things is done with violence, God’s Kingdom is grown through peace; as we hear in Micah, Isaiah and Joel, God’s desire is for our world to become a place were swords are beaten into plows and spears are turned into pruning hooks.  While the normal human ways of living in the world often leads to great disparities, with a few having way more than they need and many, many, many people struggling with far too little, God’s Kingdom is one of a great banquet, like the one described by Isaiah as a feast with meats rich with marrow and well aged wines strained clear... a world where everyone has enough.  And while our human ways of living all to often offer overwhelming opportunity to a few and put up social and political systems that keep others from ever having a chance, God’s Kingdom moves everyone to a place at the table where everyone has equal worth and status.  

You can see how this sermon would have been a lot easier if Jesus hadn’t, “told them a parable.”  Just the IDEA of the Kingdom of God alone is one that has a tendency, as the saying goes, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  I for one would have loved for Jesus to be a bit less challenging for my interview sermon, but easy was not what Jesus was going for and he’s not quite finished making things all parable-ly and difficult for us either.   

Take a look at the end of this lesson again, remembering that “giving a banquet” is code for changing the world.  Now, who is it that Jesus is having give this banquet?  Jesus says, “When you give a banquet.”  Yup, Jesus says this is our banquet to give... it is our world to change.  At first that might seem overwhelming but it isn’t meant to be.  Jesus isn’t asking us to do this all on our own, but we’re not supposed to wait for God to do it alone either.  God is looking for us to collaborate on this and, as Martin Luther King said 50 years ago, bend the arc of the moral universe slowly toward justice.  

One last food metaphor may just help us understand our part in all of this.  This metaphor comes from the pinnacle of Lutheran stereotypes - the pot luck supper.  With the stereotypical Lutheran pot luck no one person provides the entire banquet.  Each brings their specialty... some bring Jell-O colored to match the season of the church year, others the green bean casseroles, some the fried chicken and others bring brownies, baked goods and bars.  

In the same way, God is challenging us to imagine what would happen if every faith community had it’s own Kingdom of God speciality dish.  If each faith community in the world worked to push just one small piece of our world to work more like the Kingdom of God... Then imagine what would happen if we brought our small, but wonderful pot luck specialties together; shared them with one another and with the world.  Together we could make a banquet.

May all of you... you from Bethany who have been gracious enough to invite me in for the day and you, the folks from Faith, continue to perfect your congregation’s Kingdom of God pot luck specialties.  May you both find that piece of the world you feel called to change from the way it works now, into the way God would have it work.  May you both bend the arc of the universe toward justice and then get together with each other and with other faith communities of all different shapes and sizes and flavors and join your specialties and bend that arc further still until one day we all look up from our meal together and realize our banquet has become the Kingdom of God.  Amen.