Monthly Archives: October 2019

Inter-Connected

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A Sermon for 27 October 2019 – Reformation Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Luke 18:9-14. Listen for God’s word to us.

“Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

I learned the story this week of two women. Mrs. R. and Ms. M.[1]

Mrs. R. had a beautiful-looking life! Born and raised in a picture-perfect suburb with sprawling lawns and quiet streets just east of a mid-sized, mid-western city. Mrs. R was proud of her 6-bedroom home. One for her and her prominent lawyer-husband. One for each of her 4 teenage children. One extra, for just in case. Every afternoon, her children gathered in their large bonus room around their huge flat-screen TV to watch the latest my-baby-daddy-done-me-wrong talk show. Mrs. R. was proud of the fact she had spent her life in the beautiful little borough in which she had grown up. All was right with the world because her children attended the same AP-class-offering high school which she did. They too were on track for whatever ivy league college they wanted. It was true that her youngest child was a constant bother to Mrs. R., but that had more to do with her daughter’s stubborn, break-the-rules nature, Mrs. R. reasoned, than with the fact they almost lost her as a preemie. Unaware, somewhere deep-down in her unconscious, the anxiety of those early months still haunted Mrs. R. So that any who might have known their whole history easily would have seen it was a classic case of attachment disorder – something primal seizing Mrs. R. to protect herself from the potential of the greatest loss. Mrs. R. had aspired to be a reporter – she liked to be in the know. She had all the makings for a promising career – had it not been for the even deeper desire to build a beautiful-looking life with a successful man who was able to provide a stable income for Mrs. R. to be able to do what her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her great-grandmother before them did. Make a home from her home so she’d be there every moment for her children in their youngest years. Only when they got older would she venture out to try writing for the suburb’s local newspaper instead of following any dream for something like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes she fantasized of having followed classmates to jobs in the big city. But for the most part, Mrs. R. felt safe in a prescribed pattern. She liked the rules. She believed everyone else had to follow them too. Everything thing from what color the homes in their neighborhood were allowed to be, to who got rewarded with opportunities due to their connections around town. Like her, for instance, who because of her upbringing knew pretty much everyone who was anyone. She hosted them each year at her annual Christmas party – to be sure they all kept well-connected. Just in case the need ever arose to call in the kinds of favors Mrs. R. routinely called in. She reasoned it was so she might find out the truth she needed to know – for her reporter job, of course; not for any gain of her own. She pursed her lips at others a lot and never really knew what her teenagers were up to. They didn’t come to her often. Mrs. R. never even noticed. Not that it really mattered – at least to her. Everything looked beautiful. They had it all! Until the day it all came tumbling down.

She would trace the trouble back to the day her path crossed with Ms. M. Ms. M. who was an artist – what sort of profession was that, Mrs. R. often wondered!? Ms. M. had no roots. Well, she actually did; but Ms. M. was the kind of person who preferred to move around. From a young age she had shown interest in taking pictures. She loved to capture those moments that would take your breath away. She was daring and bold so that she did things with photographs few would think to do. She dove into her work – spending hours at a time on each project. Working a few odd jobs on the side to provide enough money for food, rent, utilities. An occasional splurge at the local thrift shop for a new-to-her shirt or pants for her budding, bright teenage daughter. Ms. M. never talked of a father. Had actually never been with a man, but had come by the pregnancy of her daughter in a bizarre twist of financial desperation while at art school that started her down the path of becoming a surrogate for a wealthy couple who had crossed Ms. M.’s path years before. No one knew this, however, least of all her daughter. Everyone just assumed Ms. M. was a free-spirit. Had a bad break up. Or was just another unwed mother. Ms. M. kept pretty much to herself so that no one ever learned the truth. The interesting thing was, Ms. M. was interesting. She had the sort of quiet, unassuming confidence that drew others to her. Time and again, Mrs. R.’s own children turned to Ms. M. After all, Ms. M. never judged, as Mrs. R. always did. Ms. M. was never preachy, as Mrs. R. always was. Ms. M. just provided space. The kind of acceptance that allowed teens who were trying to figure out life, a place where they could tell the truth – the whole truth about why they did what they did. What really was going on. How their hearts were breaking and that for which their young spirits hoped. To the outsider – and especially to Mrs. R., it looked like Ms. M. was a dismal failure – hardly scraping by in their unfurnished, rented duplex. We’re talking mattress on the floor for Ms. M.’s own bed. Overstuffed pillows instead of a couch. No TV and only a rickety old table in the kitchen with two brightly colored chairs so at least they could eat the latest concoction Ms. M. whipped up from whatever sale items she found at the grocery. Mrs. R. roller her eyes in disdain every time she thought about life in that little duplex. Ms. M. just meandered along. Not really worried about what anyone else thought. Ensuring those who turned to her for help always found welcome as she had when she was young and needed it the most. . . . Two very different women. Which one, do you think, climbed in bed each night fully satisfied?

Until we are humbled, something in us seems almost innate, doesn’t it? To look upon others. Seeing them, judgmentally, as others – not nearly as good as ourselves. Jesus told a story about that. A parable, unique to the gospel of Luke, in which Jesus tried to drive home a point about “some who trust in themselves that they are righteous and regard others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). Two men, Jesus’ story starts. One a Pharisee. Another a tax collector. One a perceived saint. Another a perceived sinner. So much has been written about Pharisees. Ones with which Jesus appears to be in conflict over and over again in the gospels. Did you know that the name Pharisee is believed to have it’s roots in a Hebrew word meaning separate or detached (https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/pharisees). Christian history has done a poor job by pointing fingers at the Pharisees – a sect of Jewish religious leaders during Jesus’ day. Thinking they were a big problem. I can’t believe Jesus’ protest of them had anything at all to do with their being Jewish. Jesus himself was Jewish. Nor must he have cared that they really cared about the rules. It’s recorded in the gospel of Matthew that he himself once claimed he came not to banish the law but to fulfill it – to show how to live its essence. The First Century historian Josephus writes that “the Pharisees maintained a simple lifestyle, were affectionate and harmonious in their dealings with others, especially respectful to their elders, and quite influential throughout the land of Israel although at the time of Herod they numbered only about six thousand” (Ibid.). I can’t believe Jesus had a problem at all with Pharisees who went about living in such a way. The problem, according to Jesus’ parable, just as with Mrs. R. and Ms. M., has to do with the blindness of the particular man proud of his separateness. So exalted in who he believed himself to be that he stood in the Temple for prayers proclaiming: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people” (Luke 18:11). God, I thank you that I am separate. Special. Better than others like thieves, rogues, adulterers, you fill in the blank. Can you believe such a prayer?

Christ lived among us to show us the way God sees. No matter our human tendency to categorize, separate, cast judgement; the Christ sees inter-connection. A web of human life. The Divine Spirit of God living in all and through all. Certainly, we can block the Spirit of God from flowing through us – with things like our unbridled anger, our out of control fear, our inner shame, and our bitter feelings towards others. With these at the helm, we literally find ourselves cut off from others and God and our deepest selves. We separate ourselves through our own attitudes and actions. In the Christian tradition, we call that separation sin. The travesty that breaks the right, inter-connected relationships for which we were made. It’s one thing to try to live rightly, God knows we won’t always get it right. It’s another thing altogether to dwell in the disposition of the man who gave thanks to God that he wasn’t like others. To be puffed up as something separate. Missing the truth altogether.

No matter the cacophony of cultural voices trying to convince we’re not like one another. Honesty about our inter-connection is the consciousness to which we are called. It’s a different way of seeing the world. Another lens through which we are to look. Jesus did his best to teach us in all he said and did. Maybe someday we’ll get it right and at last enter into the joy of the eternal kingdom. The Way to which all are called.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)

[1] To see what happens to Mrs. R. and Ms. M, read the novel Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng.

The Gratitude of One

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20 October 2019

A reading from the gospel of Luke 17:11-19. Listen for God’s word to us.

“On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.””

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

How many things do you do each week without even thinking about them? In a whole day most of us brush our teeth, make our coffee (or tea), turn on cars or TVs or computers or I-Pads, without thinking one bit about what we are doing. Whether to brush side-to-side or up-n-down. Whether to add two lumps or one. Where to put in the key – or if you have a newer model, whether to press the brake before pushing the button. Our days are filled with so many things we just do so that we really don’t have to engage our brains to think about how to do it – unless something suddenly goes wrong. Then we’re on high alert to trouble shoot. Just getting out of bed to get ready for our day involves so many rote actions so that it’s difficult to tabulate how many similar thought-less things we do each week.

I’m pretty sure I know one thing most all of us do each week without a whole lot of thought at all – at least if we’re in worship on Sundays and have been for any length of time in our lives. “The Doxology.” Often it seems more like a seventh inning stretch or a throw away transition to get the offering plates up to the front before getting on with the final hymn and charge for the week.

Praise. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God, all creatures here below; Praise God above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!” (Glory to God, 2013; No. 606). I’ve served churches who routinely used No. 607 and messed me up each week with the words: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Christ, all people here below; Praise Holy Spirit evermore; Praise Triune God, whom we adore.” I never did get it right – because each week the ushers handed me the offering plates to put up in the chancel area and if I didn’t have the bulletin to remind me of those words, I’d end up just singing, “Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon” – a hymn trick a retired old pastor once taught me when I stood next to him to lead worship twice every week for about five years.

“The Doxology.” If you stop to think about it, it’s kinda radical. I mean where else in our world today would people willingly open their wallets to kiss their money goodbye without the exchange of a tangible product placed in their hands to take with them. And then get up to joyfully sing: “Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow???!!!” . . . Maybe we’ve been through seasons in our lives when “The Doxology” brings tears to our eyes. If, say, you’ve just lost your job and the bills keep coming in – but somehow the money to pay them turns up too. Maybe then you joyfully jump up to sing “Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Perhaps if you’ve been through some sort of prolonged, life-threatening illness, or are going through one right now, but find yourself still standing; maybe then thankfully singing: “Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow” moves your spirit deeply. If a difficulty is passing and we feel a little bit like we can breathe again after the loss, or the crisis, or the intense season of life that has taken its toll. Maybe then we truly mean it when the words tumble out of out of mouths: “Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Or maybe we are the kind of people who have matured enough in life to know that all good things flow from the loving heart of a gracious Creator. We’ve lived long enough to be a people of gratitude because we can look back and see the sustaining tracings of God’s finger all over the messiness of our lives. So we joyfully praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

Gratitude changes us, doesn’t it? A few years ago, I learned of a popular gratitude guru named Louise Hay Launching what would become a multi-million dollar writing career in her mid-forties, Louise reports that “at 55 I ventured into the world of computers . . . At 60, I had my first garden (and) enrolled in a children’s art class (to begin) to paint. At 70 and 80,” she writes, “I was more creative” than ever (Louise Hay newsletter email, 5 October 2016). And she once professed that nearing 90, her life continued to get richer and fuller (Ibid.). It certainly looked to be so as just a few months before her death, she still radiated joy! Her message is pretty simple: live grateful! Affirm the miracle of our bodies. Celebrate this incredible world in which we live. Rejoice with each passing year! I would add: know the One to thank and do so every day! Gratitude literally keeps our bodies healthier. It makes our spirits lighter. It allows our minds to be at peace. It makes us people others enjoy being around. After all, who wants to sit next to the sour puss? Who wants to let the arteries of our own hearts clog up from begrudged living? Who wants to craft a life around the belief that everything is solely up to us – instead of knowing our lives are wonderfully inter-dependent with the amazing gift of grace? Gratitude is just the better way to live.

Jesus should have said it that bluntly. Though we probably wouldn’t understand without the beauty of a real-life illustration. Like the time when ten desperate ones whose bodies are wrecked with disease – whose spirits likely are languishing as laws kept them isolated away from healthy people, even the loved ones of their own families. Ten people, who probably have been treated much more like eye-sores than human beings with feelings and hopes and dreams; ten seek out Jesus to beg for mercy. This is one of those instances in which I wish Jesus would have gotten closer. I wish he would have stopped in his tracks, walk right up to the group, lay his hands upon them to declare them instantly healed. For whatever reason he doesn’t – at least not according to the story as it is recorded in the gospel of Luke. Perhaps he wanted to give them a role in their own healing – invite them to trust what he asks them to do. So that all he does in this healing is see them. See their pains. Then Jesus speaks, saying: “Go show yourselves to the priests,” (Luke 17:14). It’s recorded that they all went, even though it’s kind of hard to believe. I mean, Jesus just sent them to see the ones that represented the system that called them unclean and kept them away from others. Do they really all sprint off in the direction of the holy men? It must have been so because Jesus later says, “were not ten made clean?” (Luke 17:17). Ten supposedly trusted that something significant would happen to them if they followed the instructions of this incredible teacher. Something would change – if not in the healing of their bodies, then maybe they anticipated healing in some other way. Ten head off. Only one returns. I wonder if that one came back singing: Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! He falls to the dust at Jesus’ feet and simply, profoundly, passionately from the bottom of his heart says: “Thank you!” Thank you! Thank you!

Jesus declares that it is that man’s faith – his willingness to trust the instruction given him – that makes him well. And it is the gratitude in his heart that will keep him well – no matter if the leprosy comes back, or if his family all is gone when he heads home, or if the community won’t welcome his restoration. Gratitude will change the trajectory of his life. The way he frames the story of the rest of his days. The prayers he makes as he lays his head down on a pillow somewhere at night. The peace that will remain in him as he remembers his past and looks forward to a different kind of future. Gratitude will carry him through, all the way to his end and beyond.

We could take a lesson from the gratitude of one. His life could show us how NOT to take our moments for granted. How NOT to thought-lessly go through the motions each week. Maybe even to find a way to joyfully jump up after we give back to God a portion of what God already has given unto us, singing: “Praise! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” May gratitude be the response not only from one, but from all!

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen!

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)

Faith

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A Sermon for 6 October 2019 – World Communion Sunday

A reading from the gospel of Luke 17:5-10. Listen for God’s word to us.

“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 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. 7 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’? 8 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’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 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!’”

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God!

 

            If I asked you to rate your faith on a scale from 1 to 10, what number would you assign? 1 would be terrible. No faith at all. 10 would be amazing! Your zinging along all day with a depth of connection, an intensity of joy, a peace that palpably surrounds your entire being. One reason I so love the 16th Century Spanish mystic and nun Teresa of Ávila, who routinely was seen levitating by the sisters at daily prayer with her. Is that for all the rapture for God that Teresa experienced in her body and soul, she also admitted there were times each day when God, who she referred to as her Beloved, felt so incredibly elusive. She knew the spiritual life was about ecstatic connection with the Divine. AND (as she said) doing the work of washing the pots and pans in the kitchen. The highs and the lows and every day in between. Teresa counseled Christians to expect and welcome it all. So that if I asked you right now to assign a number to your faith, I hope it wouldn’t be 1 – though some moments it might be. And maybe it’s 10 – but I highly doubt it’s that way 24/7 for anyone, though hopefully it’s close at least sometimes for most.

The gospel of Luke records this funny little scene where the disciples of Jesus ask him to increase their faith. They want a number closer to 10 and further away from the no faith of number 1. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ saying about the mustard seed of faith comes right after his time on the mountain when he transfigured into the glowing rapture of God alongside what appeared to be Moses and Elijah. Then, when Jesus and his disciples Peter, James, and John come down from that experience; a man falls at Jesus’ feet begging his son be healed. The father explains that Jesus’ disciples were unable to help. So, Jesus reminds of the power of even a mustard seed of faith. But in the gospel of Luke, Jesus just had finished teaching his disciples about the seriousness of their role. The weight of their responsibility as his followers so that they dare not cause another to stumble. The magnitude of graciousness he expects so that any who turn from their wrongdoing are released through the gift of forgiveness. Jesus is going to go on to tell them a parable about slaves, servants as the Greek term more typically is translated, just doing what’s commanded. Getting on with the work their Master tells them to do. ‘Cuz that’s what servants do! As a result of all Jesus is teaching, the disciples gawk: “Lord, increase our faith!” They might as well have been saying, “You want us to live in this world how? To be mindful day in and day out of the effect we may have on those who surround so that none of them ever stumble because of us? Not expecting some great reward but getting on with it all anyway? Like, seriously Jesus, following you is like that???” He better increase their faith! And while he’s at it, be sure he gives an extra dose too to each one of us. Because in light of that vision for his disciples, most of us likely feel like we’re going to need a whole lot more faith!

Faith is a curious thing. In the Greek of the gospel, the word we translate as faith is πίστιν (pisten). Though many often think more of faith as a body of content we must know about God, pisten connotes trust. The Apostle Paul reminds beautifully in his first letter to the Corinthians that his own proclamation was not in lofty words. Not in some huge body of human knowledge. He writes that he wanted their faith to rest not on that of his own doing, but on the power of God (1 Cor. 2:5). It’s the same direction Jesus points his disciples when they ask for increased faith. Alluding to the power of God which spoke creation into being, Jesus tells his friends: “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” (Luke 17:6). In other words, what we do for God as a result of our faith is not dependent on how much of it we have. It’s about who God is. One biblical commentator puts it like this: “The true miracle of Jesus’ saying is not about overcoming natural laws (by doing things like uprooting mulberry trees), but about the presence of true faith, a faith that takes hold of the God with whom ‘nothing [is] impossible,’ [Luke 1:37] (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4, Margit Ernst-Habib, p. 142). One tiny shred of faith is enough for us to do the amazing! Not because of our tiny shred of faith. But because of God!

I received an email this week from a film publisher who took a moment to update his subscribers about what’s been going on in his ministry and life. This dedicated soul, who so creatively expands others’ hearts and minds with the content he makes available for spiritual formation, poured out the personal challenges of his past several months to let subscribers know the experiences that will impact the direction his future publications will take. He closed his update with two jarring little words. He wrote: Stay Weak. “Stay Weak,” I thought! Who wants to do that?! The culture all around us is about strength. Power. Might. No one wants to be a weakling. Those who are weak are pushed to the side. Trampled. Kept out. We pump iron to feel strong. We stockpile missiles to feel strong. We swagger over others in order to feel strong. Stay weak? In a doubletake, what the film publisher’s challenges must certainly be revealing flashed in my mind.

Jesus wants us to know we do not have to be strong to do God’s work. Remember the Apostle Paul’s great affliction? The thorn in his flesh never fully revealed to history, but that kept him from “being too elated?” (2 Cor. 12:7). He begged and pleaded and prayed for that weakness to be taken from him. Finally he heard: “My grace is sufficient for you, for (my) power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). At last, Paul came to know what Jesus had been teaching all along. We know too – though sometimes we forget. God chooses the weak to work in this world. That which is last according to culture’s standards is first with God. Little is enough. So that who God is, not who we are, will shine. So that how God is able, not how we are, will be magnified. A mustard-seed-of-faith is plenty for the work of God to be accomplished! Not because of us. But because of God! One biblical commentator writes: “When the disciples ask for greater faith, knowing that difficult times lie ahead of them, Jesus responds by asking for something small: a trusting faith the size of a mustard seed, so that the faithful follower of Jesus might not look at herself, judging her own faith, relying on its strength or being scared by its weakness, but look instead at the One she follows” (Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4, Margit Ernst-Habib, p. 142). Consider instead: God.

The next time you wonder if the amount of faith you have is enough for anything much to happen, remember the lesson of the mustard seed. It’s not about us and how much faith we might have. It’s all about God.

In the name of the life-giving Father, the life-redeeming Son, and the life-sustaining Spirit, Amen.

© Copyright JMN – 2019 (All rights reserved.)