Called to Live: A Sermon for 26 June 2011

Some passages and stories in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, seem to say that if you love God and put God first in your life, then surely you will prosper. Everything will go your way!

And the corollary that comes with that notion is that if things aren’t going your way, you must not be living a Godly life. We recognize immediately that Job’s friends, who harangued him mercilessly to repent so that God would reverse his fortunes, had bought into that equation hook, line and sinker.

From that sort of quid pro quo perspective on living a life committed to God, a literal interpretation of the story of Abraham about to sacrifice his son would lead us to ask, What in the world did Abraham do to deserve being tormented by God with such a horrendous order—an order to murder his only and beloved son?

Abrahan and Isaac on Mount Moriah

Would God really test Abraham—or any of us, heaven forbid—that way?

I have certainly heard that interpretation of bad things happening in a life. I have thought it and said it myself: Something bad is happening. What have I done to deserve this? And if I can’t think of any horrendous sin I’ve committed lately, then it’s “Why is God testing me this way?”

Reasons are really, really important—to human beings. We want to know “why?” And we want to know “why” in part because that will point us to a solution. If I know “why,” then I can figure out how to fix it!

But that’s human thinking, not necessarily God thinking. Remember that we are made in God’s image, not the reverse. Just because we think a certain way, just because reasons are important to us, does not mean God thinks that way or that “reasons” are part of God’s thinking at all!

We get so confused about that at times that we think we possess the people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then life happens. Those we love the most die. We cannot always protect our children from the bad things. Spouses or lovers leave us in the lurch.

We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season. We must let go—and it does feel like dying.

But we must let go in order to go on living. And I would venture that going on living is sometimes the harder part of the bargain.

I’m not going to assume we know all the details of what actually happened so many centuries ago in a wilderness area of the Middle East. But I think it safe to conclude that God saved both Isaac’s and Abraham’s lives that day.

How, after all, would a father go on living in the knowledge that he had killed his only son—even if because God demanded it?

Yet I also must conclude that, in spite of having been saved from the unthinkable by God at the very last minute, both Isaac and Abraham went on living with huge, unanswerable questions in their minds.

What sort of God would demand such a thing anyway? What sort of father would be prepared to carry out such a demand? How does one trust God or anything else when we might, at any moment, be asked to let go of that person, that thing, that aspect of who we are… that we hold most dear?

Yes, God provided. But the entire incident can hardly be said to be a happy chapter in family life. It is hard to believe that Abraham and Isaac ever looked at each other quite the same way again.

But, of course, we Christians believe that God did precisely what this story seems to ask Abraham to do, and the passage from Romans that is our Epistle lesson today reminds us of that.

Paul wanted the followers of Jesus to consider themselves dead to sin, but alive to God through their association with Jesus' death on the cross. This text, therefore, is a vital reminder to us of the significance for us of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, and of the meaning of our baptism.

God saved our lives in a big way with the sacrifice of God’s only and beloved son and with the gift of the Holy Spirit, that kernel of God planted in each one of us.

But I find it interesting that in all of Paul’s talk in this passage of being dead to sin and free from sin, not one single particular sin is mentioned.

Of course, Paul does at times and in other passages provide us with some catalogs of bad things we shouldn’t do. But the absence of that here suggests that we need not always think of sin as specific things we should or should not do, nor of living a life for God as somehow never again doing any of those bad things.

Of course, we are not to go out and deliberately do bad things just because we live in and through God’s grace. But right there in the middle of the passage Paul explains why he says that: “I’m talking about this in these human terms because of your natural limitations.”

We will sin again; bad things will happen again. We will be asked to let go of things that have come to matter more to us than than life itself, perhaps even more than God… and yet to go on living. We are called to live... by and in and through the grace of God... after, and in spite of, all those things.

One of my favorite mentors is a Franciscan monk by the name of Richard Rohr, who publishes a daily meditation via e-mail. Just a few days ago, he wrote this: A Christian is someone who’s animated by the spirit of Christ, a person in whom the spirit of Christ can work. That doesn’t always mean that you consciously know what you are doing. …We may have no idea that we do what we do for Christ.

Note the utter absence here of any notion that we earn God’s grace by having the right answer, or by avoiding sin, or by believing or doing six impossible things before breakfast! That notion of earning our way to eternal life by good deeds, or proving ourselves through great acts of faith, is one of the things we are called to let go of—no easy task in a society dominated by concepts of merit and earning one’s own way.

Rather, we fall into God’s grace, pushed by the trials and failures and impossible choices life hands us. We can only accept God’s grace… in all of our human imperfection and limitations, and thereby become a vehicle of that grace.

And then we give a cup of cold water to a little one who needs it, not to prove we love God but because we know that God loves us, not to earn eternal life but because we already have it.

AMEN.

Practicing Resurrection: A Sermon for the Great Vigil of Easter, 23 April 2011

Note: This sermon was preached at Trinity Episcopal Church, Natchitoches, La. To listen to a digital recording of the sermon, visit the church's website.

When it comes to resurrection scenarios, Matthew (28:1-10 NRSV) seems to have taken a page out of the book of epic filmmaker Cecile B. DeMille.

You might recall that in Mark’s resurrection story, the stone is already out of the way when the women arrive. A young man in white seated quietly inside the tomb tells them Jesus is not there. The scene ends in dumbstruck silence with the women running away, afraid to tell anyone what they had seen.

But Matthew is all high drama. An angel in blazing white descends from heaven before their very eyes, single-handedly rolls a mighty stone out of the way… and triumphantly sits on it. The men—not the women—the men on guard duty swoon at the sight.

Then the angel makes his magnificent proclamation, the women turn to go—according to Matthew, in fear and great joy, and suddenly Jesus himself stands before them. And the women fall at his feet and worship him.
                    

                
But I left out a very important detail. Matthew puts his high drama in motion with nothing less than.. an earthquake.

Can it escape our notice that just yesterday, at high noon, an earthquake punctuated the last breath of Jesus the Christ.. on a cross.. in a place of death called Golgotha?

Can it escape our notice that just a few weeks ago, an earthquake rocked Japan, then sent a giant tsunami wave of destruction crashing into the same shores, killing thousands and leaving utter devastation in its wake?

Can it escape our notice that just over a year ago, an earthquake leveled the capital city of Haiti, killing thousands and leaving millions homeless?

We are all too familiar with earthquakes, and the human tragedy they cause. So what in heaven’s name is one doing, here, right in the middle of our resurrection story?

Nora Gallagher is a novelist who has also written several books about her own spiritual journey. One of them is called Practicing Resurrection. It is an account of how the loss of a beloved brother throws her life into a tailspin, and of her return from walking straight down a wrong vocational path, dragging a failing marriage.

Gallagher’s struggle back requires her to re-examine everything: her call, her work, her marriage. It leads her finally to an exploration of nothing less than life after death. She finds that “experiences of resurrection are not believing six impossible things before breakfast.” Rather, she proposes, “Maybe resurrection, like everything else, needs to be practiced.”

We have all been there, in one way or another. Human existence is a series of earthquakes, large and small. Some are beyond our control. I have never experienced an earthquake of the natural kind, but I imagine that little can be more terrifying than to feel the very earth move under our feet. It is the ultimate loss of control.

Other earthquakes are of our very own making. We march resolutely into dead ends and struggle to find a way back out again.

And as Matthew illustrates by putting an earthquake smack dab in the middle of the resurrection story, joyful events can also create upheaval in our lives. A baby is born, and mom and dad must create a new marriage out of the ashes of the honeymoon, a marriage in which gazing into each others’ eyes is replaced by advanced skill in “keeping an eye on” 16 different things at once, from the shrinking pile of disposable diapers to the toddler about to stick its finger in the puppy’s eye.

We don’t have to be control freaks to long for some control, some ability to maintain our balance as we face big challenges and small ones of daily life. But we have so very little. Fr. Richard Rohr defines human suffering precisely in these terms. “When are humans suffering?” he asks. “When they have no control.”

It often seems to me that it is precisely when we think we finally have it together, that we are finally on top of our game, that life hands us the most deadly, life-destroying blows. And we suffer.

Someone we love dies. A spouse or lover leaves us. A friend betrays us. We are downsized by our employer. Our company fails. An economic downturn takes most of our nest egg. Our politics turn nasty. Our children and grandchildren are sent half way around the world to fight a war that we are just not sure is worth the sacrifice of young, beautiful lives.

We aren’t in control, and much of the time it looks like God isn’t either.

But God chose to become human, to suffer and die on a cross in order to rise again in power over death. How do we understand that? As a one-time event? An economic transaction in which Jesus "paid a price” to God--or, was it to the devil?--so that we can live happily ever after, some day in some glorious future?

That kind of thinking certainly creeps into our religion through the words of hymns, sermons, meditation guides, and so forth. But it is wrong-headed. It diminishes the meaning of resurrection by making it a mechanical transaction trapped in history, and our lives something to be “gotten through” for some period of time while we await the coming of Glory.

As Fr. Richard observes, it makes our religion a mere “evacuation plan for the next world.”

The fundamental story of our faith is that something always must die before something new, bigger, better can be born. And the thing that must die is our own beloved ego.

Earthquakes are destructive, but the human ego even more so. It is the human ego that leads us to destroy others in myriad ways, physically and emotionally, individually and as nations. The human ego destroys others with its need to be right, to save face, to feel secure, to judge, to divide the world into black vs. white, good and evil, us vs. them. The human ego is destructive in its need to take sides and to believe that God is on ours.

In Matthew’s resurrection story, the women fall down and worship Jesus. But in fact Jesus never once asked us to worship him. What he asks is that we follow him. And to follow Jesus the Christ, rather than merely believe in him or worship him, although those are good things, we must practice dying so that we can practice resurrection. Might this be what Paul means when he says we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ?

To let go of our prideful clinging to being right, being in control, being safe and secure… feels like dying. But if we can do that, and if we can follow Christ through the suffering and through the ashes of our hurts and losses and failures, the earthquakes of our lives become the very path to living our faith and sharing God’s love with a hurting world, which is to say, the very path to practicing resurrection.

AMEN.

                                                

Seek the Welfare of the City: A Meditation for 10 April 2011

Note: The occasion of this meditation was an interfaith worship service hosted by Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith.

In the Hebrew Scripture just read (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NRSV), the prophet Jeremiah speaks words of comfort to the elders, priests, and people of Israel who had been exiled to Babylon. He also instructs them, in the name of the Lord God, to pray for Babylon.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have lived in many lands and cities under many different rulers and governments, and since the time of Jeremiah, have prayed for them.

One of the many ways Christianity is rooted in Judaism is that Christians of many denominations also pray for rulers and governments in the countries and communities where they live. It’s always nice to find connections among our faith traditions.

But notice that in instructing the Jews to pray for the city, God had a grander agenda than starting a tradition. Indeed, the situation for the Israelites was actually quite ironic. Jeremiah tells the Israelites to pray for the very enemies who had destroyed their home city, Jerusalem, captured them and carried them off against their will to Babylonia.

Why? Was God teaching how to “be nice” to captors or that we should accept abuses of power that oppress us? No. The motive and lesson clearly conveyed by Jeremiah is self-interest. Listen to it again: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7 NRSV).

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith seeks the welfare of Monroe, West Monroe, Ouachita Parish and all of our neighborhoods and communities because we understand self interest. We understand that our welfare as individuals and families is tied up, not only with that of our close relatives and church families, but also with the welfare of our cities and parish, state and region.

One of our founding leaders, Rabbi David Kline, understood and communicated Jeremiah’s point particularly well. A few years ago, we were asking the Monroe City Council to do something about a drainage canal that ran right through the playground of Madison James Foster School. “You must fix this,” Rabbi Kline said, “because the safety of our children depends on it.” And everybody in the room knew that not one of Rabbi Kline’s children or grandchildren had ever set foot in that school. And the ditch got closed!

The lesson God is teaching us through Jeremiah is twofold. First is self interest, the notion that what is good for the whole will be good for the individuals and families that make up the whole. So seek the good of the whole and everyone will prosper.

The second lesson that comes to us in this passage is that seeking the welfare of the city involves more than just sitting around complaining about how bad things are and complaining about the Babylonians who oppress us. Rather, God says through Jeremiah, you must do things that matter. You must take action. You must get involved and contribute to the welfare of the city.

Build homes, Jeremiah says. Plant gardens, grow your families by encouraging your children to marry and have children. Invest in the city in which you find yourself and create a prosperous community for yourself and your grandchildren.

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith came into being approximately 15 years ago with a similar vision. With the agitation of our first organizer, Perry Perkins, a handful of local clergy began to meet and to talk about the state of this city and region, and about what needed to change for the city to prosper and along with it their congregations.

These pastors gathered together more pastors and many people from their congregations, and those people brought friends and neighbors. Turns out a lot of people understood that their own welfare and the welfare of their families is all tied up with the welfare of the city.

They understood that the prosperity of diverse neighborhoods is linked, and that one neighborhood cannot fully prosper if another across the river or across the railroad tracks is better habitat for snakes and rats than it is for children.

They understood that educating themselves and their own children meant less and had less value when public schools in the community perform poorly. They understood that all of our children need to finish high school, and to come out of high school prepared for either college or the workplace.

On the other side of that equation, they understood that businesses and employers of all kinds need qualified workers from among the local population in order to grow and contribute to the prosperity of the city.

And so Interfaith was born, and the notion that ordinary people can pool their smarts and their energy and their money and build power and get things done in their communities… spread from Monroe to Shreveport… and to Alexandria… and to the Delta.

Not only that, but we have sister organizations in other parts of the state: Together Baton Rouge in our capital city, and one in New Orleans that indeed calls itself "Jeremiah."

The message of Jeremiah is that God works through the voices and actions of people of faith everywhere. Ordinary people of faith everywhere who understand that to prosper themselves, they must seek the prosperity of the city.

Thus Interfaith created the political will and the funding to start NOVA, an employer-driven workforce intermediary that recruits under-employed people and helps them get the skills they need to move into jobs that actually exist, and that pay a living wage and have benefits and a career path.

At the end of just two years, NOVA graduates have not only transformed their own families, but they are also contributing $2 million dollars annually to the economy of Ouachita Parish.

Interfaith continues to work also in the areas of education and of neighborhood renewal. We meet on a regular basis with Superintendent Harris, seeking ways to support her efforts and those of the Monroe City School Board to put children first in all decision making. We have supported Mount Nebo in its quest to revitalize this neighborhood, and we continue to work in the neighborhood around New Light Baptist Church.

We are contemporary Israelites seeking the welfare of our city, for therein lies the welfare of all of us. We are ordinary people gathered here this evening to celebrate a vision—our shared vision—and not only to celebrate, but to build the power we need to get the job done in our communities and our state.

 AMEN.

                                                            

A Force to Be Reckoned With: 30 January 2011

Note: This post is not exactly a sermon. I was called upon to provide the focus and context for a worship service conducted by the Delta Cluster of Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith. This is what I said.

My name is Bette Kauffman. I’m a Deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. I came to northeastern Louisiana almost 14 years ago to teach at what is now the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

I figured I’d suffer some climate shock coming to the Deep South, but the oppressive heat of the Louisiana summer wasn’t half as challenging to me as the oppressive racial, economic and religious divisions I found in the community. It seemed to me that northeast Louisiana was a place even history had left behind.

Then one day the pastor of my church invited me to a house meeting to talk about what needed changing in our community. And shortly thereafter, I walked in to my first Interfaith meeting.

I was blown away. Black folks, white folks, Christian folks, Jewish folks, Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Catholic, Church of God in Christ… and more. 

“This Interfaith is a force to be reckoned with,” I said to myself, “and this is where I belong.”

Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith came into being when an Industrial Areas Foundation organizer by the name of Perry Perkins finally quite driving through Monroe on his way to who knows where, and began to have a series of meetings with local pastors: Rev. James Johnson of New Light Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Dale Farley of Messiah Lutheran Church, Superintendent Charles Stephenson of Bethel Church of God in Christ, Rabbi David Kline of Temple B'nai Israel.

These men of faith—and I believe it was mostly men in the beginning, but not any more! These men of faith decided to write a new history of Monroe and Ouachita Parish. And they gathered together more pastors and many people from their congregations, and those people brought friends and neighbors…

Turns out a lot of people thought it was high time to get involved in writing a different kind of history of their community. And the notion that ordinary people can pool their smarts and their energy and their money and build power.. and get things done in their communities… spread to Shreveport… and to Alexandria… and now to the Delta!

Not only that, but we have sister IAF organizations in other parts of the state: Jeremiah in New Orleans and Together Baton Rouge. And if we put our minds to it, if we pool our resources, if we organize our people and our money, we can build enough power to write a new history of the state of Louisiana!

Old Testament Scholar Walter Brueggemann says, “Blessed are the history-makers.”* But he’s not talking about the official history-makers—the kings, governors, presidents and so forth who populate the official history you and I learned in school.

Yahweh is the decisive history-maker, Brueggemann says, but not in some mysterious, supernatural way. Rather, God.. makes history.. through the voices and actions of people of faith everywhere. Ordinary people of faith everywhere.

People like Rosa Parks, who refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus and changed our lives forever.

People like Rabbi Kline, who said to the Monroe City Council, “You must close the drainage ditch that runs through the playground of Madison James Foster School because the safety of our children depends on it.” And everybody in the room knew that not one of Rabbi Kline’s children or grandchildren had ever set foot in that school. And that ditch got closed!

Ordinary people like all of us who helped create the political will and the funding to start NOVA, an employer-driven workforce intermediary that recruits under-employed people and helps them get the skills they need to move into jobs that actually exist, and that pay a living wage and have benefits and a career path.

Ordinary people.. like all of you gathered here this evening to celebrate a vision—our shared vision—and not only to celebrate, but to build the power we need to get the job done in our communities and our state.

AMEN.

*This is the title of a chapter in his book Hope Within History.
     

Already Here: A Sermon for 24 December 2010

One of the great pleasures of traveling in Europe, as I did in the summer of 2009, is visiting the many churches and cathedrals built in the gothic style. Walking through those spaces created by high pointed arches and soaring, intricately ribbed vaults is a lesson in human creativity and skill put to the task of reaching for God.

Of course, we too reach for God in the design of our own churches, with naves several stories high, like this one here at St. Alban’s, and steeples that reach toward the heavens.

Those of you who have traveled to Alexandria with any regularity probably know the church along Highway 165 in Pollock that has a steeple topped by a hand with finger extended, pointing skyward. Perhaps the builders simply gave up on reaching—and settled for pointing at—God.

Amusing, but kind of sad when you think about it. How could those builders have been through so many Christmases and not know that God is already here?

One of my favorite photographs from my trip to Europe was taken in St. Sebald’s Lutheran Church in Nuremberg, Germany. This church is particularly interesting because it was heavily damaged by Allied bombing near the end of World War II, then meticulously restored to its medieval grandeur and re-dedicated as a monument to peace.

High on one of St. Sebald’s majestic columns I spied a small retablo painting of the Holy Family. I took a picture of it, with pointed arches and tall, slender stained glass windows receding into the background.

I like to put titles or captions on some of my photographs, and so at home, weeks after returning from Europe, I struggled to come up with words to go with that particular picture. Everything about that church—the columns and arches, the artworks and crucifixes, the soaring spaces—had spoken to me of human striving to reach God.

And not just St. Sebald’s but Canterbury Cathedral and all of the magnificent churches I visited had spoken to me of the human desire for God, and of our constant striving for God.. and to build a space big enough and grand enough that God might come to dwell therein.

You Were Already Here                                                  B.J. Kauffman, 2009

And finally I wrote beneath the picture, “You were already here.”

As in, “You—God—were already here,” long before this church, and every other church, not only in Europe but also in the United States of America and around the world.

You—God—were—and are—already here. Before human desiring and before human striving to reach you and to draw you to us, you—God—were and are already here.

In a burning bush in the wilderness eons ago, you were already here. In the utter silence at the mouth of Elijah’s cave, you were already here.

Before the sea was contained and earth formed. Before animals and plants and humankind, before light and dark—you, God—Father, Son and Holy Ghost—were already here.

Why then Christmas? Why a virgin mother, a chaste father, an inn already full? Why a babe in a manger, heralded by angels and worshiped by shepherds? If God was already here, then why Incarnation at all?

Perhaps the answer that springs first to your mind is the one provided by John in chapter 3 verse 16, perhaps the most memorized Bible verse of all time: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

And that’s a good answer. But… perhaps its very familiarity works against it. Perhaps the ease with which it rolls from our tongue limits its impact, for knowing it and saying it is no substitute for Christmas!

Or, maybe in answer to the question, why Christmas? your mind goes immediately to Easter and the holy mystery of God’s plan for our Salvation. Perhaps you ponder and seek to comprehend the uniquely Christian theology of God come to earth for the specific purpose of dying on a cross in order to redeem and reconcile the world.

And that too is a good answer. But… that takes us past the manger and back into the bleakness of human need for redemption with scarcely a pause! Moreover, all the theological explanations in the world, and all the time we might spend studying and seeking to comprehend them.. are also.. no substitute for Christmas.

We need Christmas. We need this annual pilgrimage to kneel in awe at the manger, and to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at God—who was indeed already here—but now come to us—NOT “in human form” as I’ve heard many a preacher say—but fully human—one of us in every way.

We need Christmas to make real for us, to help us to recognize and embrace and experience, the God who was already here. That’s why we humans spend weeks in excited anticipation and preparation, year after year… for an event that has already taken place!

You are familiar with the concept of the “reality check.” You are accustomed to hearing it as an admonition to stay in touch with the grittier and more difficult aspects of life. When someone seems to be viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, we say, “He, or she, needs a reality check.” Or, I might mention that my very own beloved son got a reality check in the form of his fall semester grades!

Tonight, this holy night, consider the possibility that, as usual, we have it backwards. Entertain the possibility, if you will, that Christmas is the ultimate reality check.

As we kneel at this manger gazing at the infant who is the perfect expression of God already here, yet come to dwell among us and within us, may we experience this as the true and lasting reality.

I do not mean to make light of the grittier and more challenging aspects of life on earth in the 21st Century: the losses we have suffered; our estrangements at times from family, friends, each other; our economic woes. This world too is real. But it is a secondary reality. It is temporary, passing away as we speak.

In the quietness of this night, may we pause from our hustle and bustle, may we let go of our hurts and failures, may we be still enough to hear the voice that spoke the universe into being: “I am already here. Yet tonight I come.”

Amen.

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