No Way, Jesus: A Sermon for 19 September 2010

Sometimes when I read the words of Jesus, I really wish I could look him in the eye and say, “You’re kidding, right? You don’t really mean that, do you?”

Today’s parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13, NRSV) is one of those times. It is hard to know who the hero of this story is supposed to be. Rich men don’t usually fare too well in the stories of Jesus, and although Jesus does not explicitly criticize this one, he does not exactly hold him up to us as a model either.

Besides, we tend to see ourselves as much more on the level of the manager. But Jesus defines the manager as dishonest from the beginning. To make matters worse, we then see the manager showing even more of his true colors—afraid of work, too proud to beg—and cheating his master further to save his own skin. No hero there, it seems.

But just when we think Jesus is surely going to level the conniver with a stern command, on the order of “pay back not just what you owe, but more than you owe,” Jesus commends him instead.. for acting shrewdly! Come on, Jesus, no way!

Like most preachers, I keep at hand a variety of aids to consult when preparing sermons. This particular story is acknowledged by many to be Jesus’ most difficult parable. In fact, two of my sources copped out completely. They advised preaching today on the Old Testament or Epistle lessons instead.

Another source went into mind-numbing detail to explain that the manager was following ancient Judaic money-lending practices, and therefore really did nothing wrong. In other words, they sanitized the story, making the manager’s behavior sound righteous after all.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Jesus and Luke tell the story that way? I’m sure they both knew ancient Judaic money-lending practices perfectly well!

Another source—a Baptist preacher from Australia who calls his website Laughing Bird—offered two sermons he has preached on this text. And in them, I found something more helpful. He understands this parable to be part of a larger theme in Jesus’ teaching and in Scripture as a whole, namely the notion that God can use anything—even less than honorable behavior like that of the dishonest manager—to teach us something.

And what can the shrewd manager teach us? How about that we should put just as much thought and energy and dedication into developing our spiritual lives as we do into creating financial security for our selves and our offspring?

Perhaps Jesus is saying, 'Just because you are children of light does not mean that you have to be naive, unsophisticated and unwise. Be clever, be smart, be far-sighted, but put that level of intention and energy into your spiritual life, into serving God first.'

Have you ever heard yourself say to a teenager, “If you spent half as much time and energy cleaning your room, or doing your homework, as you do in procrastinating, you would be done in no time”?

As a teacher, I have also observed students investing great energy and effort into figuring out the exact minimum effort they have to put into getting a passing grade. And I have often said to them, “If you just directed that energy and commitment to studying, or doing the assignment, your grade would take care of itself!”

(By the way, they almost never believe me!)

I think that is part of the lesson of this story. Invest the shrewdness of the dishonest manager into your relationship with God, and other things, earthly things, will take care of themselves. Your relationship with God is the “true riches,” and from the true riches, other riches will flow, like trusting and faithful relationships with each other.

But I have one more lesson to offer from this parable, and that is the lesson of forgiveness. The Gospel according to Luke is full of stories of radical forgiveness, and this is not the only one that gives us pause.

Consider, for example, the prodigal son. We would really prefer the faithful son to be the hero of that story, rather than the son who squanders everything then is lavishly welcomed home when he has exhausted all his resources. We want the father to at least scold the prodigal son and make him ask for forgiveness! But the father doesn’t and we feel the faithful son’s sense of injury.

Likewise in today’s story, we would probably feel better if the master at least chastised the dishonest manager, made him grovel a bit, before commending him for shrewdness. But the master, which is to say Jesus representing God, doesn’t do that. He just says, “Way to go, oh shrewd one!”

And then to his disciples, who were no doubt standing there feeling superior to the dishonest manager, he says, “And all of you, you just might want to take a lesson from this guy.” Ouch!

The story of salvation according to Luke is a story of absolute forgiveness. The prodigal son and the dishonest servant parables are just two examples. Luke’s understanding of God’s forgiveness is particularly welcome—and radical—news to those of us who grew up hearing only about the anger and wrath and judgment of God.

I am not trying to suggest that God never judges and I do believe there will be a judgment day. But I do mean to suggest that—at least since the cross of Jesus Christ—God seeks first and constantly to bring us back into the fold, to draw us back into relationship, with forgiveness and love.

One of the online sermon resources I consult from time to time is a website called Edge of the Enclosure maintained by an Episcopal priest. She also prefers to see the dishonest servant story through the lens of God’s forgiveness. “Only God,” she says, “could appreciate the gifts of the consummate con-man in such a way as the master does in this story.”

Last week Fr. George described how a trained sheep dog works a flock of sheep, not by barking madly every time they stray—which would surely frighten and scatter the sheep. Rather, the sheep dog watches with a keen eye for the sheep to head in a wrong direction, then runs like crazy to lie down in front of them, thereby gently guiding them back in the way they ought to go.

God, too, is quite capable of barking, and sometimes we wish He would—at someone else's shortcomings! But in this parable, Jesus does not bark. He runs like crazy and lays down in a useful place.

God would have us be honest. But if the best we can do on any given day is “shrewd,” God will accept “shrewd,” and use it to love us and forgive us back into the fold.  

AMEN

How should we respond to evil?

Forgiveness can be a very, very difficult thing, and it is made much more difficult by a number of grave misconceptions our culture teaches us about what it means to forgive.

Many think, for example, that forgiveness is a feeling. They believe that to forgive means that feelings of anger and hate toward those who have done evil against us should be immediately replaced with feelings of warmth and love for that person.

Not so. Forgiveness is a decision we make. Relationship with the person who has wronged us might or might not come, in time. But that depends a lot on the other person. Can he/she accept your forgiveness? Can he/she forgive him/herself?

What if the person we need to forgive has already died? Forgiveness is a decision we make, and might very well have to make more than once. Restoration of relationship is a possible benefit, but neither required nor always possible.

Likewise, relationship with God is a benefit—but neither a condition nor a necessary outcome of—God’s forgiveness of us. God does not force anyone into relationship. God seeks to love us into relationship.

Forgiveness also does not change what happened. It is not saying, “Oh, well, that’s okay, I really didn’t mind,” or, “It really didn’t matter.” If it didn’t matter, what is there to forgive? If it really didn’t matter, then I got upset about nothing, and what is needed is not forgiveness but an adjustment of my own attitude!

On Sept. 11, 2001, several thousand people died needlessly and wantonly. It happened. It mattered, and it still matters.
                                                                                              
 Forgiveness is precisely NOT about tolerating evil, not about indifference to evil, not about mere “inclusivity.” It is about confronting evil and naming it.
                                                                                       

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.

Most of all, forgiving is not about forgetting. That popular little notion, “forgive and forget,” is perhaps the most wrong-headed of all. Forgiveness is precisely about remembering. We cannot learn from the past if we forget.

I have an index card I keep on my desk. I don’t remember where I got this quote, but it says, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” In other words, we can’t change the past, we can only come to terms with it… in a way that enables us to move forward.

Bishop Desmond Tutu has written a book about forgiveness that recognizes this important aspect of forgiveness in its title alone. Tutu’s homeland, South African, has long been torn by apartheid and racial strife. Atrocities have been exchanged, revenge taken by both sides. If any place in the world needs the healing power of forgiveness, it is South Africa. Tute aptly titled his book, No Future Without Forgiveness.

In other words, forgiveness is about the past, the present, and the future. In each and every present, we must come to terms with the past because we cannot change it, in order to move toward the future.

So, how do we do that? How do we remember and honor the past, come to terms with it, transform NOT the past but our response to the past, so that we can go about the business of enacting God’s kingdom here and now and into the future?

We have no better example than how God, in the person of Jesus Christ, did it. In the second meditation I spoke of God embracing the evil and suffering of the cross, and that might not be how you are accustomed to thinking of the passion of Jesus Christ.

But I base that understanding on how Jesus himself taught us to remember and honor those events. He instituted the Eucharist, a feast of the bread and wine of daily life made holy... transformed into the real presence of God. And each time we partake, we transform the evil and suffering of the cross into a celebration of relationship among us... and with God.

Likewise, our ways of remembering events like September 11, 2001 can be outward signs of an inner grace, the grace of forgiveness.

A few weeks ago I heard a story on NPR that featured the mother of a young man who was killed in the fall of the Twin Towers. She vehemently opposed the plans to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero, saying, “Every time I hear the bells calling Muslims to prayer five times a day, I will feel the pain of my son’s death all over again.”

I am deeply sorry for her pain and I pray people in her life will find a way to reach out to her and help her move on. But it is incomprehensible to me that a call to prayer in any language could be a source of pain to any believer. Her words are the words of one stuck in unforgiveness.

And, by the way, we Christians are also called to prayer five times a day. It is called “the Daily Office.” We just don’t ring bells… but perhaps we should! I wonder how Lower Manhattan might be transformed, how the whole country might be transformed, if all Christians stopped what they were doing for a moment of prayer each time the mosque bells ring!

I will close with another exchange between God and Mack in The Shack. God has just told Mack that he needs to forgive the man who killed his daughter.

How can I ever forgive that son of a bitch who killed my Missy, Mack cried. If he were here today, I don’t know what I would do. I know it isn’t right, but I want him to hurt like he hurt me…if I can’t get justice, I still want revenge.
    [God] simply let the torrent rush out of Mack, waiting for the wave to pass.
    Mack, for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him.
    Redeem him? Again Mack felt the fire of anger and hurt. I don’t want you to redeem him! I want you to hurt him, to punish him, to put him in hell…
    [God] waited patiently for the emotions to ease.
    I’m stuck, [God]. I just can’t forget what he did, can I? Mack implored.
    Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person’s throat.

AMEN

What is God's answer to evil?

“Deliver us from evil.” We say those words each time we pray the Lord’s prayer. And for us Episcopalians, that is quite often. We pray the Lord's prayer at virtually every service. What are we asking for?

In today’s first meditation, I suggested that whenever, wherever evil happens, God is there, that when humans suffer as a consequence of evil, God is there. But is being present, comforting us, getting us through it, God’s only or primary answer to the problem of evil? Is that all we mean when we pray, "deliver us from evil”?

I think not. We Christians believe in a future in which God’s triumph over evil will be complete. In Revelation (21:1-4, NRSV), “the Lamb that was slain” will reign over a new heaven and a new earth. God will wipe away tears; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

John is describing a world beyond the reach of evil, beyond even the shadow of past wrongs done to us. Jesus himself spoke of this (John 16:21-22, NRSV); he likens it to a woman who is in the great pain of childbirth, but the moment the child is born, the power and joy of new life pushes the pain into the background. Our joy will be complete, Jesus says.

These and many other passages point to God’s answer to the problem of evil. And that answer is forgiveness, forgiveness as enacted and represented by Jesus on the cross.

God did not shun evil. God did not come to earth in military might to overthrow evil by force—as the Jews long expected. Rather, God came in the form of a peasant carpenter, a pacifist at that, to wrestle with fear and dread, but nevertheless to embrace evil and suffering, to experience the feeling of having been abandoned by God, and to forgive… even as he still hung dying on the cross.

Forgiveness is God’s answer to evil. But the point of the cross is NOT that the victory was won, and so now there’s nothing left to do. Rather, the cross has won the victory so that redeemed people can begin living out God’s forgiveness in the world.


The church is not merely the “community of the saved,” although some church communities seem to focus almost solely on that. Rather, we are the community of the redeemed, now become a kingdom of priests to serve God in this time between the cross and the ultimate victory of God in the new heaven and new earth. There's a difference between being merely "saved" and being "redeemed." (See N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God.)

And, of course, forgiveness is one of those odd things. We can only experience it by also giving it away. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” we pray.

I wonder how often those words roll easily off our tongues without a thought to their implication. Jesus sought to make them real by telling the parable of the servant who was forgiven a debt by his master, then failed to forgive those who were indebted to him. If you don’t forgive, said Jesus, you won’t be forgiven.

Some people interpret this to mean that God withholds forgiveness until we have done something to earn it, like forgive someone else. I don’t think so.

Jesus died for the sins of the world! And he doesn’t have to keep dying over and over again every time we screw up! It’s done. God enacted forgiveness for the sins of humankind, past, present and future, by embracing the evil and suffering of the cross.

What I believe Jesus means is that until we forgive, we are conditioned and controlled by the evil done us. We have no peace. We are driven by anger and hate that sap our energy and deaden our spirit. Nothing eats away at the human soul like the inability to forgive.

And even though God’s forgiveness is already in place, ready and waiting, we cannot accept it or experience the peace it brings as long as we are stuck in unforgiveness.
                                         

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is the story of a man’s journey back to God after the abduction and murder of his little girl. The following bit of the conversation between “Mack,” the protagonist, and God comes right after God asks Mack to forgive the man who killed his daughter (p. 225):

      "I don’t think I can do this," Mack answered softly.
      "I want you to. Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver,” answered [God], "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly."

AMEN

For this second quiet period, I invite your reflection on forgiveness, both that which you have received and that which you have given--or perhaps not yet.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the second of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the last meditations in the next few days.
                                     

This fellow, Jesus: A sermon for 14 March 1020

“This fellow welcomes sinners and he even eats with them.” (Luke 15:2, NRSV)

The “fellow” is, of course, Jesus, who is once again in today’s Gospel demonstrating his refusal to conform to the norms and standards of polite society.

Today we think little about who is partaking of food with us. We go to dinner parties where we don’t necessarily know the name of the person seated to our right, much less whether they live a moral life. We go to receptions and buffets, take food from a common table, and eat while sitting or mingling with people we’ve never met before. We eat in restaurants and fast food joints within earshot and arm’s length of complete strangers.

It was not so in the time of Jesus. The rules for meals, food and what is called “table fellowship” were detailed and complex. They had to do with “purity” as the Jews understood God to have demanded it. But they also had to do with social identity, social boundaries and social conflict.

And the Pharisees were quite right to have been scandalized by Jesus’ behavior, because he rejected those rules over and over again. Whenever Jesus was at the table, regardless of whose house he was in, all who had come to hear him preach and teach—tax collectors and sinners, truly immoral people—ALL were welcome.

Moreover, Jesus not only modeled radically inclusive behavior, he taught it. The parable of the prodigal son is one such teaching, and I daresay its message is difficult for us to swallow.

We certainly like parts of it: The father’s compassion warms our hearts, and we pray that we might be similarly compassionate. Most likely each of us has gone astray at some point in our lives, in a way that helps us identify with the wayward son, and we repent and pray for forgiveness.

And if the story stopped there, we’d most likely be fine with it. After all, it’s a pretty familiar and reassuring picture of the Christian faith. We have a loving and compassionate father who gives us good things, and even though we fall short and go astray, again and again, we’re pretty good at repentance. We confess our sins most every Sunday, with confidence that we will be forgiven once again. And we go to sleep at night trusting that we will be welcomed to that grand and glorious feast our father has prepared for us—the feast we call “the Kingdom of God.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to introduce the troubling matter of the elder son, the one who was faithful, who tended the flocks and worked the fields and did all he was supposed to do… while the younger son squandered his inheritance.

Here’s the picture: We are standing outside a huge tent in the ancient Middle East. A fabulous party is going on inside. We can hear musicians playing and people laughing. The smell of roasted calf wafts on the evening breeze. A steady stream of servants carrying trays piled with fruit, baskets of bread and jars of wine enter the tent.

The elder son stands outside, refusing to go in. He is indignant, and who can blame him? Even though he has been faithful, good and hard working, the father has never thrown a feast in his honor! He feels cheated, disgraced, angry, resentful.

The father comes out and pleads with the son. I really do love you, he says. In fact, everything I have is yours. But that’s your brother in there! He was dead and now he’s alive again. Come, celebrate with us!

Who does each of us identify with in this picture? Or, perhaps the better question is when has each of us been in each of those positions?

I doubt any of us has any trouble remembering when we have been the younger son who has sinned and needs forgiveness. I’m sure each of us has also been the one to forgive and to invite someone who has sinned against us back into fellowship.

But the position of the older son is a good bit harder for us to deal with. After all, he is in the right! He earned his self-righteousness! He shouldn’t even be expected to share the same tent with his unworthy brother, much less a feast celebrating that brother’s return.

In fact, it’s not the older son and his behavior that makes us uncomfortable. What makes us uncomfortable is that Jesus didn’t make him the hero of the story!

In truth, even though our rules for sharing food have relaxed, we have invented all kinds of ways of separating ourselves from those we deem less worthy, and of drawing a wall of exclusivity around our precious righteousness. That’s self-righteousness. We take righteousness, a gift from God to be expressed in our love for each other, and turn it into self-righteousness, a thing of our own ego created by our uncanny ability to divide the world into us vs. them, good people vs. bad people, saved vs. sinner, right vs. wrong.

And we, dog gone it, are right! So.., we’re not going to give our money to that organization because it serves people who make irresponsible decisions. We’re not going to support that legislation because, no matter how many people it might help, it just might help someone whose manner of life we deem wrong. Or, we’re going to go over there and form our own church or order or club or whatever, because this church or order or club just insists on admitting unworthy people or just won’t behave the way we think it should.

A Presbyterian pastor and teacher by the name of David Bales summarizes the challenge Jesus poses to that way of thinking. He says:

Jesus is simply indiscriminate about whom he spends time with, and whom he even eats with. His fellowship isn't closed around the "good" or even those attempting to be good. Jesus accepts people before they're good. By word and deed Jesus undermines social boundaries. He challenges religious exclusiveness. His table fellowship is non-hiearchical [and] radically inclusive, and [it] demonstrates what he believes about the kingdom of God.

It seems to me that the main agenda of most Christians most of the time has been, and is, to tame the Gospel message. I think we really, really, really want Jesus to be middle class. We really, really wish we knew if he was Democrat or Republican! We are sure he is “on our side” in international conflicts.

And then we are confronted with teachings like this one, which portray the Kingdom of God as radically non-hierarchical and radically inclusive. The question is, what will we do?

Will we stand outside the tent, pouting and petulant, reassuring ourselves that we stand on principal and that we have earned our right to be offended? Or will we accept the forgiving love of the father, lay down our self-righteousness, and enter into the feast with all of the other sinners?

AMEN.

One More Year: A sermon for 7 March 2010

Manure is an amazing thing. And I know whereof I speak. I was raised on a small Iowa farm, a farm my family did not own. We were “share croppers.” We tilled someone else’s land and shared a significant proportion of what we earned with the landowner.

It’s a difficult way to support a family, and so we didn’t get our fertilizer from a nice, shiny tank truck or in tidy plastic bags at the garden center like I do now. Instead, we—my brothers and I—shoveled it out of the barn and out of the hog lot.

So the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 13:1-9) is for me like one of those Disney World 3D, surround-sound cinematic experiences. I know about working manure into soil. I even have the smells to go with it!

But you don’t have to have been raised on a farm to get the point. In fact, the Saints winning the Super Bowl after 40 years of rarely making it into the playoffs is also to the point: We all need a 2nd chance, a 3rd chance, a 4th or a 40th chance.., or more.

“Give the tree one more year,” says the gardener to the farmer. These are some of the most hopeful words in the gospel. All of us live with the frustration of things that do not work as we wish. Churches strike off in what seems to be a destructive direction; children do foolish things; after trying and trying many of us are ready to give up on someone, something.., even ourselves.

Thanks be to God… for being extremely generous with chances. This Gospel refuses to give up on us. And as Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians (10:1-13), God does not promise to spare us from trials and tribulations, hard times and difficult choices. Rather, he says, God promises to be with us and to provide the wherewithal to endure.

And that directs our attention to another theme of today’s readings. Since the book of Job, people have been in the business of blaming the victim and pointing fingers at the sufferer. The old Jewish idea said that if someone suffered, it meant they had done something wrong and were being punished.

Pat Robertson would be the modern day equivalent of Job’s friends, with his charge that the earthquake in Haiti was because the people of Haiti had made a pact with the devil.

Jesus fractured that idea by saying that suffering came to all -- the Galileans persecuted by Pilate, those 18 killed when the towers of Siloam fell, all those who were listening when he told today’s parable. “No, I tell you,” Jesus said. No need to point fingers at those experiencing hard times. God's judgment does not work that way.

Then we have the folks who work the other side of that street, the ones who promise that all good things—especially material things—will come to those who believe the right things. These would be the “prosperity gospel” preachers, and it is striking to me that God’s plan for handing out Mercedes Benzs seems to be linked to our sending money to the prosperity gospel preachers.

In other words, from ancient Israel until now, religious folk have been in the business of categorizing, dividing, and grouping people into us versus them. They are sinners and will be punished. We are righteous and will be rewarded with a good life, healthy children, and an abundance of blessings.

But Jesus erased all of those divisions. We are ALL sinners in need of repentance, he taught. This divided age of ours between Red States and Blue States, conservatives and liberals, orthodox and progressive, illegal immigrants and not-so-illegal-immigrants needs to ponder Jesus' words.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "We might have come here on different boats, but we are all now on the same ship. If we could get our hearts around this idea of our one-ness we could mend a lot of fences in our world."

I subscribe to a daily online meditation written by a Franciscan friar and Roman Catholic priest by the name of Richard Rohr. One of the themes Fr. Rohr writes about often is that even though Christians say we believe in grace, we have actually made Christianity largely into what he calls a “worthiness contest.”

This worthiness contest is all about preserving our own ego. It’s about projecting evil and sin onto other folks, those we deem less worthy, rather than confronting it within ourselves. And the more precarious our own position, the more threatened we feel by change we don’t understand and forces beyond our control, the more we look for others to identify as "the problem."

Last week’s Seattle Times published a story under the headline, “In hard times, Americans blame the poor.” The story is a response to statements made in recent months by relatively prominent politicians. The lieutenant governor of South Carolina is quoted saying that when government helps the poor it’s like people feeding stray animals that continually “breed.”

The article goes on to report research over the past few months indicating that middle class folks express less generous and more negative attitudes toward the poor when they themselves are afraid of falling during economic hard times.

To summarize, I offer excerpts from several of Fr. Richard meditations because I simply can’t say it any better than he did. He writes, “Jesus ‘took away the sin of the world’ by exposing it first of all as different than we imagined, and letting us know that our pattern of … attacking and blaming others is in fact history’s primary illusion and its primary lie.

“We Christians who dare to worship the scapegoat Jesus became many times in history the primary scapegoaters ourselves—of Jews, heretics, sinners, witches, homosexuals, the poor, the natives in the New World, slaves, other denominations, other religions. It’s rather hard to believe that we missed such a central message.

“…Through Jesus, we all have to face the embarrassing truth that we ourselves are our primary problem. …Our greatest temptation is to try to change other people instead of ourselves. Jesus allowed himself to be transformed and thus transformed others. That is the meaning of the necessary death of Jesus.”

It is especially tempting during Lent to fill any remaining nook and cranny of our lives with some new act of piety or exercise of a Lenten discipline. These too can become part of the worthiness contest.

Remember the fig tree. It can do nothing to save itself. The farmer’s judgment can only kill the tree. But the gardener loosens the soil, works in some manure and gives it another chance. And therein lies the possibility of its transformation.

We too can be transformed. But first we must die to the worthiness contest that keeps us projecting our own fears, anxieties and unworthiness onto the other, then judging and attacking them “over there.” Only when we open our hearts and minds to the mercy and forgiveness of the gardener can we access God in ourselves and then see God in the other.

AMEN.