Large Barns (Luke 12:13 - 21)

       This morning we’re going to have a pop quiz.  Question one:  How many times does Jesus teach about sex in the Bible?  And the answer is … zero.  Well, he does say that thing about a man looking at a woman with lust in his heart having already committed adultery.  And he condemns divorce except on grounds of adultery, but overall, he’s silent on the subject of sex.  But a lot of modern Christians obsess about sex . . . questions of Christian morality have been largely reduced in this country to who’s sleeping with whom, or what’s sleeping with what.

      Look at a recent, major controversy in the Presbyterian church, and in the Episcopal and Methodist and Lutheran churches . . . it was all about sex, all about “chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage,” but we all know who it was aimed at, don’t we?  So here’s question number two: How many times does Jesus preach against homosexuality in Scripture?   Zero, of course . . . it was a topic that wasn’t even on his radar screen.   How you doing?  Have you gotten the answers right so far?  Only one more question . . . How many times does Jesus preach about money in the Scripture?  Take your time . . . anybody know the Jeopardy theme? . . . Oh, sorry, you’re time is up.  And the answer is  . . . I don’t know!  It depends on how you count.  But various scholars say that between forty and seventy percent of Jesus’ teaching is about money, depending on how you count.  Forty to seventy percent!  And we Presbyterians get riled up if the preacher talks about it more than once a year!

      And the question is . . . why?  Why do American Christians spend so much time on questions of personal morality when Christ spends so little – as in close to zero?  If we are faithfully preaching Christ’s message, why aren’t we preaching forty to seventy percent of the time about money?   Well, one of the reasons is preachers learn early on not to do that, ‘cause folks don’t like it . . . some will just up and leave the church over it and find one that makes them feel good about themselves all the time rather than nagging them for spare change.

      Well.  Today is one of those passages, one of those money passages, and it’s embedded in a larger section of teaching on being prepared for the end times – or for the end of an individual’s time on earth, anyway – and Jesus had just got finished telling them: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight . . . Don’t be afraid; you’re of more value than many sparrows.”  Don’t worry so much, he’s saying . . . God’ll take care of you, just like the sparrows . . . and don’t worry about what to say in the synagogues, when you are brought before the chief magistrates, either . . . trust in the Holy Spirit, and she’ll teach you what to say.

      And into the middle of this, some guy from the crowd interrupts: “Teacher,” he says, “tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Seems this guy thought that Jesus was like an old time Israelite judge, who sat in the gates and settled dispute, that he could arbitrate quarrels over who gets grandma’s silver flatware or uncle Chuck’s big-screen TV.  But Jesus reacts strongly: “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  He didn’t want any part of their squabbles over money, he wasn’t going to take this guy’s side . . .

      But even though we should know better , we seem always to try to get God to take our side, or claim that God is already on our side . . . whether it’s theological, as in who ordains who, or monetary, or even military:  many is the national leader who has justified going to war at least in part because God was on their side.  But notice what Jesus says here: “Who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”  I’m not taking sides, here, and with that statement, he provides a theological background for the entire passage: it was commonly thought that success in life – abundant crops, many cattle, wealth – were due to the favor of God . . . but Jesus says he’s not going to take sides here . . . and that implies God’s own self, because looking at Jesus, after all, was like looking at God.

      “Take care,” he says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,” and he pictures greed as a ravening beast, that will pounce on us unawares, and take over if we don’t watch out.  But there’s not just one greed, there are all kinds of greed, lurking out there in the tall-grass, waiting to seduce us, to take us in . . . it skulks around the market stalls, around the department stores, with their glittering displays . . . it lurks in the TV commercials, where glittering people sell glittering things, implying buy this and you’ll be just like me . . . and it waits for the young man who asked him to step into his family squabble, and he tells him “Your life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

      And he launches into a parable, an illustration of his saying: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly” and the first thing we should notice is that there’s no hint of scandal . . . we don’t hear that the man worked his servants to the bone, that he cheated the poor out of their wages, or that he got his wealth by anything other than hard work, and we all know what hard work farming can be, but this year the crops produce abundantly, God has blessed the man over-the-top, and he wonders what to do?  “What shall I do,” he says, “I have no place to store my crops? Then he says “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my savings – oops, I mean grain – and I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for your retirement; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” And the first thing we should notice is that there’s an awful lot of I’s and my’s hereabouts . . . I have no place for my grain, what shall I do?  Here’s what I will do . . . I will tear down my old barns, I will big bigger ones, to store my grains and my goods . . . I, I, I, my, my, my . . . he’s a self-made man, it’s his stuff, and he can do anything he wants with it . . . and is it beginning to be a little more clear why we don’t preach these passages so much?

      But God pulls him up short, doesn’t he, and he calls him a fool – a fool! – saying this very night your life is being demanded of you – and interestingly, in the original Greek, it's a little ambiguous as to who it is doing the demanding.  Is it God or is it his stuff?  – and those things you’ve prepared, whose will they be!  And we know that this is the mother of all rhetorical questions, isn’t it?  Because the guy just got finished claiming everything for himself, all the fruits of his labor are his – remember, he worked hard for his money, he didn’t cheat anybody, he came by it honestly – and of course, just by the very fact that his life can be taken away in the blink of an eye, indicates that it’s not really his after all, and if his life isn’t his, then all the stuff he’s given his life for isn’t his either . . . and here he’s depended on himself for everything, and in the end, it’s not his anyway, but God’s.

      And when he was trying to figure out what to do with all his surplus food, did he even once think about, oh, maybe giving it to somebody who’s hungry?  Did he think about giving it to the widows and orphans, the poor peasants who stalked the landscape of first-century Palestine?  Did he think about spreading it around to those who didn’t have such a good year, who weren’t going to make it through the coming winter?  No.  He told his soul “Soul, now we’re all set.  The barn is full, the grain is all in, and the 401k is producing tax-free income for many years to come.  Now we can relax.   Now we can eat, drink and be merry.”  But God calls him a fool, because he’s going to die this very night, and so it is with those who save up treasures for themselves instead of being rich toward God, instead of doing the work of God.

      Do we get it now, why we don’t preach about money as much as Jesus did?  Can we see it now?  Jesus’ teaching about money is scary, it’s revolutionary, it makes us wince, because many of us can see ourselves in the rich fool, I know I can . . . we think we’ve done it all ourselves, we’ve worked hard all our lives, scrimping and saving, and now our futures are set, we can sit back and relax and eat and drink and be merry.  We persist in thinking that it’s all up to us, our whole economy is based on it, rugged individuality, pull-ourselves-up-by-our-bootstraps.  But we are fools if we think that it’s true.  What we have is not ours, all the glittering stuff, all the bright-and-shiny baubles of our consumer lives are not our own.  Even our souls are not our own, they are God’s, and they will be demanded of us.

      And it’s true at higher levels as well . . . some congregations store up treasure for the future, they build fine buildings and fat endowment funds to get them through lean times, and they do it rather than spend it on mission and ministry in the world.  And if they do spend it on ministry, it's with the expectation that they'll get something out of it, like new members, more people through the door.  They read the words of Jesus – consider the lilies of the field – but they don’t really hear them, they don’t really take them to heart, that if you trust in God, God will provide.

      And at the national level, our country uses much more than its share of God’s creation, it behaves as if God favored it, that it somehow deserves to use 25% of all the oil in the world, when it’s only got 5% of the population.  It seems to believe that it can project its power to take what it wants, in the Middle East and elsewhere, that it can store up God’s treasure for its own use at the expense of developing nations.  But God doesn’t play favorites, God doesn’t take sides in disputes over who gets what . . . because it all belongs to God in the end, all of it, the whole kit and kaboodle.

      You remember the Frank Capra movie “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town?” Where Gary Cooper inherits a boatload of money, goes to New York City, and discovers that having millions of dollars isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; he has all kinds of problems, the media hounds him, shady charities hound him, unscrupulous lawyers hound him, and he only finds peace of mind when he starts giving it all away to the thousands of desperate folks ravaged by the Great Depression.  Or as Jesus might say, until he starts being rich toward God.

      But the most interesting part is what happens to him when he starts doing God’s work . . . he gets locked up in the looney bin, and taken to court for mental competency.  Now everything turns out OK – this is, after all, a Frank Capra movie – but it’s very clear that to the folks who run things in New York City, Mr. Deeds’ using his money to do God’s work, instead of for himself, is threatening, and they persecute him for it.

      Try it.  Go out of those doors back there, set up a little booth, and start giving money away.  Pretty soon somebody will complain (all those undesirables in the neighborhood, you understand), and some local official will ask if you have a permit, and before you know it, you’ll be shut down.  The world is threatened by the work of God.

      Well.  One of my preaching professor always said leave ‘em with the good news in the end, go out on a positive note, and I was always an obedient student, and so where is it?  Where is the good news here?  Well, it’s obvious where it is for the less fortunate – the good news is that God expects those who have to give it to those who have not.  God expects folks like the rich fool to be “rich toward God,” to use what they have to further God’s kingdom on earth.  And that’s good news for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for those who are not us.

      But what about for the rest of us?  What about those of us who live relatively comfortably, who have been taught since time immemorial to save for the future, to work hard, that it’s all up to us?  The good news is precisely that it isn’t all up to us.  It’s implicit in our passage, but explicit in many other places in the Gospel. The good news is that we are all under the loving care of the gracious Divine, that our lives are held close to God’s heart, that we are all cradled in the palm of God’s hand.  And brothers and sisters, isn’t that enough good news for us all?  Amen.

The Prayer of Jesus (Luke 11:1 - 13)

      Everyone who prays has their favorite prayer, or their favorite way of praying.  Some like to use prayerbooks, praying the words of others, and that's perfectly fine, as long as you listen to the words.  Some feel it’s not praying at all unless you use your own words, and that's fine too: there's room for more than one view of such an expansive topic.  The kind of prayer most of us are most familiar with is the petitionary prayer, wherein we ask God for something—in the name of Jesus—like healing or peace or safety.  Some of these are fine: they can express our hearts’ desires, our yearning to be whole, and our ineffable trust in divine grace and goodness.  Some go a little overboard, though, and express our selfishness and lack of understanding instead.  My favorite example is the prayer of Jabez, which was a thing about a decade ago.  The book of the same name was pretty hot for awhile on the Times non-fiction list . . . at that time, doing some internet research in prayer—because, you know, the internet is such a spiritual place—an ad for the book caught my attention.  Here's what it said: “Dr. Bruce Wilkinson . . . takes readers to First Chronicles 4:10 to discover how they can release God's miraculous power and experience the blessings God longs to give each of us.  . . . Readers who commit to offering the same prayer on a regular basis will find themselves extravagantly blessed by God, and agents of His miraculous power, in everyday life.”  Then, down at the bottom, came the caveat: “May have a slight remainder mark.”

      Hmm.  Seems the prayer of Jabez—or at least the book expounding it’s virtues—had a shelf-life, seems like sales had leveled off, tanked even . . . which strikes me as odd, really, because if it really worked as advertised—and would the President of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries lie?—if it worked as advertised, wouldn’t it be a hot seller even today?  (I’ll avoid the obvious joke about it making one guy rich, anyway . . .)

      Unlike the prayer of Jabez, the prayer of Jesus has been going strong for almost 2000 years, it’s recited in churches day after day, week after week, year after year, and shows no sign of going out of style . . . the prayer is said daily in the majority of Christian churches, which are Catholic or Anglican, and on Easter Sunday 2007 it was estimated that 2 billion Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians read, recited, or sang it in hundreds of languages in houses of worship of all shapes and sizes.  Why?  Well, this passage—and the one over in Matthew—tells us:  Jesus commands us to say it.  He doesn’t say “When you pray I suggest you do it this way,” or “it’d be good if you said these words,” he says “When you pray, say these words.”  We are commanded to pray, first of all, and pray this prayer in particular.

      It wasn’t unusual in those days for each group of believers, each faction of followers of a particular spiritual path, each coterie of disciples of a particular teacher, to have its own prayer.  Thus, John the Baptist’s followers would have had one, though it’s been lost to antiquity,  and maybe even leaders of other factions within Christianity, like Apollos or Paul . . . and so it really is—as I have been known to say by way of introduction—the family prayer of Christians everywhere . . .

      It’s addressed to the head of the 1^st Century family, the Father, and we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact . . . equally, we shouldn’t get hung up on the maleness of the image, either . . . in the first-century world, the head of the family was by definition the father, or if he was dead, his brother or another male family member, and though times have changed, and we recognize that women are often the heads of families, the larger point is that the head of the family is the provider . . .  it’s the original trickle-down economy . . . in fact, the word economy is from the Greek for home . . . the pater familias—and nowadays it might just as well be mater familias—is the provider for the family.

      And the family prayer of Christians everywhere is addressed to that parental figure, that provider, and it’s first and foremost a request for—and acknowledgement of—that provision.  It’s a petitionary prayer, every clause is a petition, an asking . . . and one surprising thing about it is, it’s not particularly polite . . . there’s no messing around, no namby-pamby “please give us this day our daily bread” or “if you’re not doing anything else forgive us our sins” or—my favorite—“if it’s your will thy kingdom come.”  It’s straight out “hallowed be your name . . . your kingdom come . . . give us each day our daily bread” . . . in the Greek they’re in the imperative tense, as in “these things are our due” . . . give them to us . . . and this I think points out some basic features of this prayer, and perhaps prayers in general . . . first of all, it’s expected that God will provide.  That’s God’s job, God’s the pater (and mater) familias.  For that reason, you don’t have to be shy.  You don’t have to sidle up crab-like and whisper all namby-pamby “if it’s your will, Lord, take away this bunion” or “heal Aunt Tilly.”  As a good head of the family, it’s God’s job to know what we need, and to provide it for us . . .

      Have you ever watched a little bird, the most helpless, dependent thing you’ve ever seen?  It can’t fly—if it moves an inch, it’ll plummet to the ground—it can’t thermo-regulate well yet, so without mama it’ll freeze to death, and it certainly can’t feed itself, so it just sits there, squawking, wholly dependent?  No politeness, no deference, just need . . . and I think that’s an image of us in the face of God . . . like a scrawny little ol’ bird, waiting on the mater familias.  And this brings up another point . . . if God knows what’s God’s will, and knows how your petitions will be answered, what’s the good of asking about ‘em in the first place?  And I think the answer to that question is seen in the very confidence with which we are told to ask . . . your will be done, forgive us our sins, hallowed by your name . . . no ifs, ands, or buts about it, we’re to be confident of the answers.  It helps us to have faith, to have reliance on God.

      Biblical scholar Bruce Chilton notes that this prayer is translatable to Aramaic, the language that Jesus originally spoke it in.  Chilton’s translation into Aramaic goes something like this: “Abba, Your Name will be sanctified, your kingdom will come, give me today the bread that is coming and release me my debts.”  Rather than emphasizing the command of the imperative in Greek, Chilton focuses on the future perfect, on the affirmations of core beliefs.  And as Theologian Mike Hardin points out, each petition is demonstrable from Jesus’ life:  (1) He uses the word Abba all over the four gospels; (2) his doing of God’s will hallows—makes holy—God’s name; (3) he constantly demonstrates, in word and deed, Kingdom of God on earth; (4) he reveals the provision of daily bread in both the feeding of the five thousand and the Lord’s Supper; (5) forgiveness of sin is shot through his miracles and parables; (6) and deliverance from evil and vanquishing of the evil one is seen in the wilderness and on the cross.

      Thus, the Lord’s prayer is not so much a request for these things, but a statement of Jesus’ core affirmations, a statement of his theological beliefs and, thus, our own.  And what is obvious over and above everything else is a supreme confidence in God, a dependence upon God’s providence.   When we pray as Jesus commanded, we are restating our trust in a good God who provides for our needs, who will give us this day what we need this day, not this day what we need tomorrow, who will forgive us our sins as we forgive the debts of others (note the in this, Luke’s version, God forgives sins if we forgive debts—that oughta make us all nervous).

      And my point is, that kind of trust is hard to pull off.  We’re all Marlboro women and men, individualists used to doing for ourselves, used to being in charge.  It’s foreign to our natures—many of us, anyway—to depend on God for anything, to not be in control of our process, our stuff.  It’s hard for us to give up knowing where we’re going, to get the next day’s food or plan or piece of the puzzle, on the next day, not this day, ‘cause we like knowing we’re in charge.  I know it’s true for me . . . the hardest thing I have to do is—as the old saying goes—let go and let God.  A lot of pastors are control freaks, and for good reason . .  .the buck stops here, brothers and sisters, and what if the church doesn’t grow?  I mean, what if it doesn’t work out?  What if there’s not enough money to pay the light bills or the gas bills or make the payments on the new bus?  What if membership starts to decline, rather than rise, what if we don’t get more of those beloved Young Families With Children?  What then?

      It’s hard to practice what we preach, to be dependent upon God, or just as bad, an agent of God . . . it’s hard to do it in the church and it’s hard in everyday life . . . it’s hard to let someone else be in charge, to lay our future in someone else’s hands . . . that’s why we have short-term plans, long-term plans, four-week plans, four-year plans . . . we’ve gotta know exactly where we are, where we’re going, what we’re gonna do when we get there . . . we hate not being in charge, we fear the consequences, we fear the results . . .

      And right about now, I’m thinking that maybe—just maybe—that’s why Jesus commands us—not asks us, commands us—to pray this way?  Do you think maybe he gets us, that he’s got us all figured out, that he knows where we live?  Maybe he knows that if we repeat it long enough, we’ll believe it—after all, every politician knows it, why shouldn’t he?  And it’s a well-known theological principle, the one behind liturgy of all kinds— in Latin lex orandi—the rule of prayer—is the soil of lex credendi, the rule of faith.  Prayer is the foundation, the soil of belief . . . We believe what we say, and we say what we believe, and one feeds the other, over and over and over.

      God is in charge, and the trick in doing God’s ministry is to recognize that fact and get out of the way.  We have to do something we’re not real good at in this life—hopefully, we’ll be better at it in the next—we have to be dependent on and trusting of the Lord.  We have to give our lives and our loves and our direction over into God’s care, into the hands of God’s Holy Spirit.  We have to trust—sometimes quite against our inclinations, I know—in God’s providence, rest in God’s hands, give over control into God’s good graces.

      Brothers and sisters, I am convinced that as this church is renewed, it is and will be God who does the renewing, not us.  And the results—our look and shape and ministry—will be what God wants it to look like, not us.  What we have to do is put it in God’s hands, and until we do that, until we trust in God, we’re working at cross-purposes to the pater familias, to our Provider in Heaven .  We have to pray the prayer of Jesus, not the prayer of Jabez, the prayer of Jesus, and realize that God will provide, God will take care of Greenhills Community Church, Presbyterian, God’s will will be done, on Earth and in Heaven.  Amen.

Ox Raising Made Easy (Luke 10:38 - 42)

There was once a monastery, St. Chavanel by name, situated high on the the slopes of the Pyrenees.  It was an isolated place and didn't get many visitors, but the monks worked hard at their vocation, and that helped.  Seven times a day, they gathered in their stalls in the chapel to recite the Liturgy of the Hours.  Twice a day, they practiced Lectio Divina alone, in their cells.  And they participated in the work of washing dishes, hoeing the gardens where they grew their vegetables, and tending the two lonely cattle who gave them milk for cheese for their table.  Four times a year, they received a load of salted meat and grain, brought by Brother Christopher and a recalcitrant mule, and they would eagerly ply him with questions about their mother house and the world beyond, but it was a lonely, isolated existence most of the time.

Which was why they were so excited when Brother Christopher brought word that Father Simon Gerrans was coming for a visit.  Doubtless the most well-known member of their religious order, Father Simon was renowned for his wise counsel, his prodigious faith and his astounding humility.  What's more, he had lived at Mount Ventoux monastery for over thirty years with the legendary Brother Jens Voigt, a true giant of their faith.  They were sure they would hear some of the great man's teachings and what it was like to study under him.

As the day of Father Simon visit drew near, the monastery was abuzz with activity, at least as much as a place dedicated to silence could be.  The Abbot gave up his marginally more luxurious cell for the use of the visitor.  Brother Richard almost broke his neck whitewashing the side of the church.  And even the cattle’s stalls were mucked out with greater-than-usual care.

The day finally came, and all the brothers lined the path as Father Simon approached, led by Brother Christopher on the recalcitrant donkey.  Anticipation shown in their eyes as they went about their business for the rest of the day, waiting with barely-concealed excitement for the evening meal, when the great man would give his first talk.

Like the monks, Martha worked to make hospitality for Jesus.  She swept and washed and cooked and worried about whether what she was doing was adequate for the master. She fretted over a stain in the table cloth, and imagined that Jesus looked critically at the stain and then at her, with disapproval.  She made sure the flowers were placed just so, and the table settings just right.

Martha had spent years working hard, being exactly what Palestinian society required of her.  She had been the dutiful wife of her wealthy merchant husband, throwing wonderful parties with wonderful guests.   When her husband died, she had taken over the household as the proverbial Rich Widow, and when her sister’s husband passed, leaving her the proverbial Poor Widow, she dutifully took her in and made her a home.  Truth to be told, she was glad of the help, although her sister was sometimes a little too dreamy for her taste.

Like, for instance, now.  Martha bustled around, making things just so, while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, like a disciple, for Pete's sake, and never mind that women just didn't do that, that it was actually forbidden, that didn't bother Martha at all, really it didn't, but she'd have liked some help, and grew increasingly indignant that Mary didn't help with the chores, she just sat there at Jesus feet.  Jesus wasn't even saying anything, just resting his tired body, and Mary just sat there, eyes downcast.

When the monks at St. Chavanel monastery had eaten their simple dinner, and listened to  the readings prescribed for that evening, it was time.  Father Simon stood up from where he sat at the Abbot’s table and walked slowly up to the front, and every eye was on him, every ear turned to what he was about to say.  “Brothers” he began “For 30 years I lived on Mon Vonteux.  And during that time, I ate the monastery's gruel and gave it back in the latrine.  But I did not learn the faith from Brother Voigt, the famous monk who lived there, all I did was raise an ox.  When he wandered from the path into the grass I would pull him back, when he ran amuck into someone's garden, I chastised him with a whip.  Now he has been tame for some time.  Unfortunately, he used to pay too much attention to what people said, but now, however, he has become a pure, white, domesticated bull.  He is always right in front of me wherever I am, dazzling white all day long, and even if I try to drive him away, he will not go."  Then he turned and walked slowly back to the Abbot’s table and sat down.

Martha’s ox was in front of her all the time, shining and white, impelling her to continue training it up, daring her to make one slip lest she lose face, lest she lose her identity as the perfect 1^st Century woman.  All the time she'd been correcting her ox, pulling it back onto the path, chastising it when it dared to deviate from the righteous path, and so now it was a perfect, demure white bull which was before her all the time, which surrounded her like a perfect, impenetrable housing, protecting her from the accusing glare of judgmental neighbors, and compelling her to work constantly, to continue to train it up, to bustle around making sure things were just right.  And she couldn't get rid of it if she tried, she couldn't drive it away, because it had become her identity, her shell, the one she showed the world, and it grinned at her, compelling her to maintain that image, the face she showed the outer world.

And as she continued to train her ox, sweating and swearing under her breath, she became increasingly irritated and indignant at her sister’s passivity, her sitting there taking it all in, as if she were just being, just living, you know?  As if she didn't have a care in the world, as if she were just eating gruel, getting rid of it in the latrine, and remaining open to whatever comes along.  Finally she couldn't stand it any more and blurted out: “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me."  But Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you’re worried and distracted by many things; there’s need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

And notice that Jesus didn't tell her not to raise her ox, not to do stuff that should be done, it's the worry and distraction that he is zeroing in on.  “You're worried and distracted by many things.  Ox-raising is important, but simply living, simply being is more so.  Just remaining open to things as they come up, as they arise.”

And that’s kind of what we mean by faith, isn't it?  Being open to things from God, being open to what God has in store for us, and trusting it will be enough, consider the lilies, after all.  Martha was distracted by all the things she had to, all the things her ox-ego—which she’d trained from birth—required to maintain it, to keep it burnished and well behaved, and instead of just sitting there, being open to what Jesus wants of her, she was compelled to be indignant, she actually scolded him: “don't you care that my sister’s getting away with murder? Don't you care that I'm working my fingers to the bone while she just sits there?”  And we can hear the martyr complex going full bore, see that ol’ white ox smirking and controlling the show.  The white-ox-ego gets its rewards from being put upon, from being a martyr—just use me for a door mat—but Mary has chosen the better way, the one that will not be taken away.  For oxen will all pass away, no matter how ell they've been trained, carefully-constructed identities will go the way of the dodo, false selves will be shed, but our relationship with the divine, nurtured by just being, just being open to what the Spirit is telling us, will be eternal.

So how do we do this, sisters and brothers?  How do we become less wrapped up in training up our own oxen, less wrapped up in maintaining our own harried, distracted false selves, and more open to the Spirit which, after all, Jesus has told us, is within?  Well, at the the expense of sounding like a Nike commercial, you just do it, and Mary has shown us the way:  you just hold yourself open to God.  It takes doing, it takes practice holding yourself open to God’s word.

In other words, it takes prayer.  But though petitioning prayer, where we do all the talking, is a good thing, it alone won't cut the mustard.  We have to learn to be quiet, to quiet our egoic self, the ox we've trained so faithfully over the years, so we can actually hear the divine, who speaks through the silence of our hearts.

Of course, I’m talking about meditation here, sitting still and quieting the mind before God.  You don't have to completely silence the mind, to quit thinking, that’s impossible to do anyway.  But what you learn to do is quiet the mind, and just rest in the arms of God.  There are several techniques to do this, the one I use is called centering prayer, but there are others, and if you want pointers, ask me.

One of the objections I hear is that it is difficult to find the time, and it's true: sometimes it can be.  But you don't have to start out being a super-meditator, going at it for hours a day, just five minutes a couple times a day, or even once a day, to start.  And really, it's a matter of priorities, like everything else.  The fruits of an established meditation practice have been shown over and over again. Reduced anxiety and stress.  Increased peace, patience and joy.  Gentleness and self-control.  And that old white ox of the ego will be a little less in control.  Amen.

Neighborly Gestures (Luke 10:25 - 37)

This is an iconic passage, so much so that its traditional title—The Good Samaritan—has entered the lexicon, describing anybody who does a good deed.  And like any of Jesus’ parables—indeed like any good wisdom story—there are multiple interpretations, multiple levels of meaning, that can be accessed and profitably used.  There's the level we all learned as children in Sunday School, perhaps the most simple message: as Christians, we should be like the Samaritan, we should help people.  This message is in line with the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

A different spin—or more accurately, one with a bit more depth—involves the question of who one’s neighbor is.  It's  the “presenting question,” that sets things up, articulated by the lawyer, who functions as a literary foil, to allow Jesus to get to the meat of the issue. And as a lawyer, he knows very well what the law says, and he is testing Jesus to see if he does, and if he interprets it rightly.  And I don't think we  should read anything particularly sinister in this: that’s the lawyer’s job, examining those who claim some kind of authority to see if they know what they’re talking about.  The lawyer is like the person well-versed in Presbyterian theology—there's one in every Presbytery—who grills candidates for ordination.  Obnoxious?  You bet.  Irritating?  For sure, especially to nervous 25-year-olds fresh out of seminary.  But that she or he does a necessary job.

That’s the lawyer: like the Presbytery know-it-all, he's testing Jesus too, just doing his job, you understand, and his opening question has to do with eternal life: “Teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And following good debate form, Jesus turns the question around on him.  Suddenly, the tester becomes the tested: “what does the law say?  What is written in the law?”  And being a lawyer, an expert in the law—elsewhere he would be called a scribe—such things are right in his wheelhouse.  The first part of his answer is the Shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind”, which Deuteronomy says should be kept on the doorposts of every Jewish home, so they will always remember this most important of commands.  But the interesting thing is that he doesn't stop there.  He couples the Shema with another commandment, this time from  Leviticus: love your neighbor as yourself.  And Jesus tells the lawyer “you’re right!  Do this and you will live.”

Now,  if it had ended there, it would be very simple; after all, as Jesus says elsewhere, on these commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  But the lawyer asks for a clarification, and Luke tells us he’s trying to justify himself, to build himself up little, but it does provide the set-up for Jesus to define the notion of “neighbor.”  And so he's off: there was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who was set upon by robbers . . .

And at the end of the parable Jesus turns it around on him, again: instead of answering it himself, he asks the lawyer to respond.  But what’s more, he turns the question around as well: instead of asking the man “who do you think is your neighbor,” he asks “who do you think was the neighbor to the man in the ditch?”   And the lawyer knows the answer all right, he's not stupid, but he can't quite bring himself to say the name “Samaritan,” he can't quite bring himself to admit that a hated enemy has schooled him on how to love.  So to Jesus’ question “Which of the three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers”  he simply says “The one who showed him mercy.”  And Jesus’ response is equally simple: “Go and do likewise.”

And as was the case last week, where Jesus told the Seventy he sent out to do only two  things—heal the sick and say the kingdom is near—what he tells the lawyer seems awful simple: go out and show mercy.  No “accept me into your heart,” no “believe in me and you will be saved,” just “show mercy.”  To inherit eternal life, do one thing: show mercy.  Thus, Jesus demolishes—in advance, before it even happens!—two thousand years of theological elaboration, and sums up the Gospel in two words: show mercy.  Or as other translations have it, be kind.  And I went to seminary for that?

Well . . . yes.  According to Jesus, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, to inherit eternal life, be kind.  Love the Lord your God.  And your neighbor as yourself.  But if it's so simple, why is it so hard to do?  Or let me rephrase that: not speaking for anyone else here, why is it so hard for me to do?  Well, “love your neighbor as yourself” points the way.  As scholar Cynthia Bourgeault points out, though we usually interpret the this comparatively, as in “love your neighbor in the same way as  you do yourself” or “as much as yourself,” that's not how Jesus sees it.  He sees it literally as yourself, “those two apparently separate selfhoods interchangeably, indivisibly one.”  Thus, we can love our neighbor because we and our neighbor are not two but one.

Bourgeault writes that the notion that this “is the core of Jesus’s radical vision of human identity” and that it “invariably proves to be the key that unlocks his parables and other challenging teachings.”  Thus, his oft-repeated statement that “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” is not a threat against the powerful, as in “just you wait . . . you’ll  get yours, your positions will be reversed”  but a statement of fact: in the kingdom of God,  the first and last will be literally one.  There will be no distinction between them because they are one and the same.

And remember: Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is amongst us—i.e., already here—and more radically still, that it is within us.  Thus, it is already that way for us, we just don't access it.  We continue to perceive others as separate from ourselves, and this division of the world into us and other-than-us is the root cause of much strife and heartache in the world.  Because if we have a separate self, a separate ego, from the other, we have to defend it—and our stuff, which of course belongs to us, not them.  Much of our life becomes dedicated to this, to the quest to preserve and defend a separate self from those we see as other than us.  And when it's scaled up to nations, and—ahem!—political campaigns, well . . . all I can say is “oy vey!”

The physical reality behind all this has been known by scientific types for well over a century.  All matter is a form of energy, some of it simply arranged differently from others, some of it vibrates at different frequencies.  We are made up of the same stuff as that table, there is no real boundary between me and that table over there,  we’re just vibrating at different frequencies.  In addition, everything is giving off particles of itself all the time, and when we ingest them or breath them in, those particles become part of us.

And if this is true, if it's true that everything is losing parts of itself continually—and it is—then things are in constant flux.  That table is literally not the same table as it was a second ago.  It is a different table.  In the same way, I am not the same person I was when I walked down that aisle, or when I stood up to preach this sermon, and I will not be the same person I am now a nanosecond from now, much less when I finish this sentence.  The cells of my body are constantly being activated, deactivated, dying and changing within me; I am literally not the same person from second to second.  And if this is true, if things—including this pulpit, our dog Callie, my high school Spanish teacher—cannot remain themselves for two consecutive moments, can there be anything that can be called a permanent “self?”

Another piece if the puzzle is that we, along with everything else, are made of elements that are not us.  In the past few moments, different elements have entered us and other elements have flown out of us. Our existence comes from things that are not us.  The carbon in our muscles and skin and heart come from plants, which get power from the sun, nutrients from the soil, and make oxygen that we—and the farmers who planted them—must have to survive.  Those farmers were nourished by other plants and animals, birthed by their parents, and those plants are dependent upon the farmer’s parents in the same way they are the sunlight and rain and soil, they are their children as much as is the farmer.

And this extends to psychological things, such as happiness or sadness . . . We are happy because of something not us, because of our boss, who praised us or gave us a raise. Because of our spouse who is happy, and we are sad because he or she is, or because our boss criticized us, or cut our salary.  Happiness or sadness are not individual matters.

Buddhists call this reality “inter-being,” and say that we “inter-are” with everybody else.  The great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh illustrates this “nonself” nature of reality using our body as metaphor: the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind cannot exist by themselves alone . . . “Our eyes,” he writes, “would not be possible without non-eye elements. That is why [we] can say that our eyes have no separate existence.”  Everything is interdependent upon everything else.

Of course, this should sound familiar.  Paul uses a similar metaphor to describe the oneness of the body of Christ:  “If the whole body were an eye,” he says “where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?  The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  We are all one in the body of Christ.

It's not an accident that Jesus follows up the lawyer’s assertion about loving our neighbor as ourselves with the illustration of the Good Samaritan.  The underlying problem, the reason that the Levite and the priest can ignore the man in the ditch—most likely a Jew like them—is because they regard them as separate, as other from themselves.  And the Samaritan . . . doesn't.

And I would be remiss in my pastor-duties if I didn't end by drawing the obvious parallel between the parable of the Good Samaritan and what happened in Baton Rouge and St. Paul and Dallas.  Sometimes, policemen panic and shoot folks because they regard them as other than themselves, and thus they are afraid.  They guy who shot those 12 officers in Dallas was enraged at what he thought of as police brutality, even though those officers, that department had nothing to do with St. Paul or Baton Rouge.  None of this would happen if all the parties involved are interconnected.  There is no white or black, cop or civilian, Muslim or Christian. Our neighbor is us and we are our neighbor.  We are one.  Amen.

Peace Be Unto This House (Luke 10:1 - 12; 16 - 20)

Peace to this house!  The Kingdom of God has come near!  Amen!  Now, let’s all stand and sing hymn number 280, Amazing Grace . . . not really.  You’re not going to get off that easy . . . but that is what Jesus told the seventy to preach.  Not that drinking will get you in trouble, although we know that it might . . . not that extra-marital sex is a bad idea, although that’s true as well.  He told them to say two things:  Peace to this House, and the Kingdom of God has come near!   End of story.

And the question is: what does it mean to say these things?  What does it mean to say “Peace to this house?”  This is especially pertinent these days, when we can’t seem to get away from armed conflict, when we're constantly bombing people—bad people, for sure—and embroiled in a war against terror, although how you can have a war against a concept is beyond  me.  And I suppose it's especially pertinent the day before Independence Day, when we celebrate freedom, shooting off fireworks to evoke rockets red glare . . . what did Jesus mean by “Peace to this house?”  And what does it require of us as Christians?

Well, for one thing, it was a common greeting in antiquity . . . To tell somebody “peace be unto you” wished general favor, general well-being upon them.  Shalom, the Hebrew word for general well-being, is also used this way . . . when David asks Uriah how Joab and the people are doing – not long before he has him killed – he asks about their “shalom” – how is their shalom, their peace?  This, of course, is sort of ironic, because at the time Joab was leading the people into battle . . . and it’s clear, I think, that when Jesus tells them to wish the house peace, this is at least partly what he has in mind.  Well-being upon all in the house.

But, of course, peace has another meaning . . . when we say peace, we most of the time think of a lack of war, an absence of conflict . . . and, I think Jesus meant this as well . . . after all, his ministry was in large part one of reconciliation, of making peace between ourselves and God, and between one another here on earth.  Over in Second Corinthians, Paul describes our ministry – the same one Jesus sends the 70 out to do – as a “ministry of reconciliation.”  And really, can the two meanings of “peace” – general well-being and lack of conflict – really be separated?  Can there be the first without the second?  Can a church in conflict be said to be well?  Can a family?  Can a nation?

Jesus used the word peace often, when he was describing his ministry.  In the upper room, he told the disciples “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.”  He told people he healed to “go in peace.” Three times after his resurrection he greeted his disciples with “peace be with you.”  It kind of gives you the notion that peace was important to his ministry, doesn’t it?

It was important to his followers’ ministries, too . . . Peter says over in Acts that God was “preaching peace” by sending Christ to us . . . Paul calls God the “God of Peace” and numbers peace among the fruits of the spirit . . . James tells us that “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

And so it is today . . . we followers of Jesus preach peace, don’t we?  Just a few minutes ago, we passed the peace, we said “the peace of Christ be with you . . .”  Well . . . we talk about being a people of God, a Christian people, a people who loves peace, but as a nation, we sure spend a lot of time at war . . . many of us talk a lot about hating violence, about how much it pains us, but then we hire policemen to protect our stuff with guns.  Oh, we make it clear that violence is only a “last resort” . . . but for Jesus, it wasn’t any kind of resort at all, first, middle or last.  He wouldn’t use violence even to save his own skin, even as he hung nailed to a cross, and he rebuked his disciples for even considering it.

There’s a second component to the message of the seventy:  they’re supposed to knock on a door, and if they’re received, stay and don’t move from house to house.  And when they enter a town, they’re told to say “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.”  But what they’re not told to do is to explain it, like us modern preachers do.  The kingdom of God, we’ll begin, is God’s just reign on earth—which is also within you—characterized by God’s forgiving grace, where the hungry are fed, the wounded are bound up, and all are loved and cherished as God’s children on earth.  The kingdom of God – we’ll say – is present in Jesus Christ, and in his body on earth, which is the church.  And finally, it's present within us, as followers of Christ.  It’s somehow present already, yet still to come, here and yet not-here.  And we’ll finish up saying that we children of God are charged with helping God to bring it’s fulfillment, and the banks will lie down with the beholden, deadly drones will be beaten into threshing machines, and we will practice war no more . . . and there, by the way, is that peace thing again.

But Jesus doesn’t tell the seventy to say any of that, he doesn’t tell them to explain it at all – he says eat whatever’s put on the table, cure whoever is sick thereabouts, and say “the kingdom of God is near!”  Eat what is set before you, don’t pooh-pooh what your host puts in front of you.  Just the very fact that they’re to eat in whatever house they stay is revolutionary . . . table fellowship was rigidly structured by class and ethnicity . . . Jews didn’t eat with Samaritans or Greeks or gentiles of any kind.  And Jesus is telling them to eat wherever you land – whatever is put before you, whether it is clean or unclean.  Become one with the people you’re sent to, Jesus says, do not remain aloof.  Paul would say it somewhat differently: become a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the Greeks.  Create community wherever you go, with whomever you meet.

And the second thing is look after their physical needs as well.  Cure those that are sick wherever you are.  It’s not just spiritual needs you’re to take care of, perhaps not even primarily spiritual needs . . . they’re to eat with them and take care of their ills.  And then they’re to tell ‘em what it all  means: The kingdom of God is near.  And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?  The seventy aren’t told to launch into some long-winded explanation of God’s rule on Earth, they don’t have to go to seminary to learn to do neat, tidy expository sermons . . .  what the seventy are to do is demonstrate the kingdom of God.  To demonstrate it.  They are to bring the people a word of peace, create community wherever they go and take care of their earthly needs.  Then – and note that it’s last on the list – they’re supposed to tell them what it means: the kingdom of God is near.

Now, this isn’t the first sending story in Luke . . . earlier, Jesus sends out the twelve, and just like the seventy, they’re told to travel light, to demonstrate the consequences of rejecting their message by shaking the dust off their feet . . . like the seventy, they are to proclaim the kingdom and cure diseases, but no mention is made of table fellowship or preaching peace . . . and in fact, Luke is the only one who tells this story, it’s not in Matthew, Mark or John, and it reflects Luke’s particular emphasis on the universality and inclusiveness of the gospel . . . even the number is significant: seventy is the number of nations in Genesis.  So the Gospel is for every nation – not just the Jews.  And the seventy are to eat whatever they find with whomever will accept them, creating community with outsiders, making part of them people who – before that moment – were not part of them.  And they are to heal everyone who needs healing in whatever town – in all the nations! – they arrive.  And by this they are to demonstrate – not explain or interpret – the kingdom of God.

But this story illustrates another thing: the mission of God is not just for the elite, not just for a few carefully-selected people.  Luke shows the sending of the twelve first – twelve disciples, twelve tribes – and then a much larger number.  Ministry is for the whole people of God, not just for the few.  And this has much to say to the present situation of the church, perhaps especially our denomination . . . we have grown dependent upon a professional class of ministers, paid staff to whom we entrust the mission of God. We have professional Christian Educators, professional church musicians, professional janitors . . . if a church is big enough, it can hire professionals to do everything, all the congregation has to do is give money and sit back, singing Amazing Grace in air-conditioned comfort.

This has its advantages . . . it allows people to go out and get specialized knowledge and skills that they could not otherwise afford.  It allows local congregations to have full-time pastoral care and help in their day-to-day relationships with God.  But it also separates the laity from God’s mission, it insulates them from the hard, rewarding work of ministry in the church . . . it allows them to get away, if they want, with just coming on Sundays to be “fed,” not participating in the day-to-day realities of decision-making, of keeping the light-bills paid and the heat turned on.

Historically, it’s done another thing, as well . . . it’s helped to create a feeling, a belief almost as strong as that in God’s own self, that without a full-time pastor, a congregation is not really a church, at all.  When it became clear in the first little old church I pastored that it was time to go to a part-time pastor, the Presbytery and I did a pretty radical thing: we began to prepare them for it ahead of my leaving.  We had focus groups and brainstorming to help shape the future of ministry in that place.  And the church grieved, not at losing me personally, but losing their perceived identity as a church.  Some of them said “we’ve always had a full-time pastor, other churches have full-time pastors, that’s just what they do, and without one, we’re less than a church.”  But of course, that’s simply not true.  The church is the people, not it’s leaders, it’s the body, as Paul might say.  And Jesus didn’t say go out and organize yourselves into groups with a full-time Minister of the Word and Sacrament and half-time music director and secretary, he sent out the people, the seventy, to do his work, to demonstrate – not to explain, but to be a sign of the kingdom of God on Earth.

Look what happened when they returned, when they came back from doing the work of God:  they returned with joy.  They were ecstatic that they had power over evil in the world, that they could do God’s work of overcoming sickness and poverty and conflict, that they could overcome what they thought of as the powers of Satan.  And Jesus rejoices as well, saying “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning!”  It’s true, he says, I’ve seen it . . . evil is conquered by your sending, it’s already done.

Some of you know that this passage has been used in the Transformation 2.0 process your Session agreed to.   And it's an apt one, not necessarily for the details, but simply as an image of going out, looking outward, instead of anxiously inward, wondering how long we can remain a church.  We are asked to go out, looking in the community for where God is working, and join in.  We're asked to look outward, not inward, into the community, to go into the highways and hedges where the people are, not wait for them to show up at our doors.  And if we do, I have no doubt we will, like the seventy, return in thanksgiving and joy.  Amen.