Jesus Came For the Lost

 

John 12:20-33

Luke 18:31-19:10 

 

               Today we have three very packed stories back to back.  In the first, we hear Jesus’ final prediction about his death and resurrection, stating he will be rejected by the religious leadership, given over to human hands, and finally given to the political powers of the time who would kill him.  In the second section we hear about the healing of the blind man, and in the third we have the story of Zacchaeus.  And once again, while the stories are separate, are different, they are also related to one another and all center around the question of seeing, of blindness, and of the salvation that comes just from being open in our sight. 

               The religious authorities, as we know, were completely blind to the good that Jesus was bringing.  They feared him, they feared his sway over the people, they feared his radical ideas about inclusion and love of even those others despised.  They would reject him because he threatened the life that they were comfortable with, he threatened their way of doing things.  And because of all of this, they were blind.  The disciples, too, were blind.  Jesus talked to them again and again about what was going to happen and the fact that he would be killed.  But, as we are told throughout the gospels and here, once more, “But the Twelve understood none of these words. The meaning of this message was hidden from them and they didn’t grasp what he was saying.”  The people in the crowd were blind as Jesus passed through.  When the blind man was calling out for his help, the people in the crowd just kept trying to shush the blind man, failing to see that his care was Jesus’ concern, his well-being was Jesus’ well-being, and, indeed, theirs as well. 

               In the gospel reading from John we see a similar situation.  A voice from heaven calls down “I have glorified my name and I will do it again.”  And the people not only can’t see, they also don’t hear.  “it’s thunder.”  “An angel spoke to him.”  As Jesus said, the invitation to see, the invitation to hear, this is not for Jesus’ sake.  It is not for God’s sake.  It is for ours.  But seeing, hearing is difficult, especially if we don’t WANT to see or hear.  If we don’t like what is being said, seeing and hearing can just feel too hard. 

               In great irony and in great contrast to all of this we have the blind man, who, though he cannot see physically, understands who Jesus is and what he is capable of.  In his vision, then, and in his humility, he cries out to Jesus for help.  Jesus asks him what he wants done for him, and in this, too, the man has clear sight.  He wants to see.  He knows who Jesus is and he knows what he wants and needs.  In response to that sight, then, Jesus gives him what he asks for.

               Then we come to the story of Zacchaeus.  Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, meaning he worked for the Roman system: an agent of the state, a Jew turned oppressor of his own people. People hated him, but probably would take his job if they could.  He had income, a job, was “rich”.   All tax collectors, by definition, at that time, were wealthy; they purchased the right to collect taxes and profit from what they charged above what people owed the empire. When some tax collectors asked John the Baptist, "Teacher, what should we do?" he said, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you" (3:12-13), which effectively put them out of business.  But somehow Zacchaeus had sight.  He knew that making a living wasn’t the same as making a life.  He had sight into that.  The story said he was of short stature.  It’s possible that this is literally true.  But some commentators suggest that the “short stature” was actually a metaphor, a way of saying that he was blocked from equal participation in the community because of his career. 

Either way, he was an outcast, he was not encouraged to have access to Jesus.  He was blocked, either because of his height or because of his career.  And yet, he, saw Jesus.  He climbed the tree to get sight, he made his own access to seeing Jesus.  Still, I’m certain he did not expect Jesus to call to him, did not expect Jesus to respond.  And then, here, is a very interesting part of the story.  The Common English Bible translates Zacchaeus’ words this way, ““Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.”  Do you hear something different in this than you might have heard before?  This is not a future tense thing.  This is not a declaration about how he will change his behavior.  This is a statement about what he is doing now, what he HAS been doing.  In the face of this, those being confronted and asked to change their behavior are not the Zacchaeuses of the world.  It is those around him. 

As the Commentary Feasting on the Word said it, “If one takes seriously this reading of the text, …the issue is not Zacchaeus's conversion at all, but the unfair and harsh judgment of the observers, who see Zacchaeus as a sinner. In this light, then, Jesus' statement that Zacchaeus too is a "son of Abraham," that he is a good Jew, is a defense of Zacchaeus against those who judge him to be a sinner and therefore outside the faith. … Zacchaeus, … is outcast by reason of his occupation. Although he apparently has considerable wealth and, presumably, considerable power as chief tax collector, he too is treated as an outcast, a sinner, by the same religious leaders who condemn Jesus for healing a woman on the Sabbath and going home with a notorious tax collector.” – (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 4: Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ).)

               Remember what we talked about last week: that Jesus actually talks more about money and possessions than anything else.  And here it is in a practical way.  This story shows us it is not enough to believe: a genuine encounter with the Christ we meet in scripture is life-changing.  It will change you.  It does change you.  Zacchaeus understands that.  Again, to quote from Feasting on the Word, “Luke's concern for the proper use of wealth is no mere indictment of rich people or an ascetic preference for poverty. It is a matter of distributive justice.  Before Jesus is born, his mother praises God for filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty-handed (1:53). Jesus' blessing of the poor with the promise that they will be rich has a corresponding woe to those who are wealthy, because they have already received their consolation (6:24). The parables of the Rich Fool (12:13-21), the Dishonest Manager (16:1-13), and the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31) all highlight the danger that personal wealth both easily becomes an idol and also can deprive others of what they need.  The story of the Sabbath banquet ends with Jesus' saying, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed" (14:12-14). God has designed wealth to be shared, something the ruler in 18:18-23 learned to his great sorrow. This is why Jesus says, "Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (18:25).

Again, Zacchaeus understands this.  And he is acting differently.  He is acting in a way that saves many people.  He is working for the empire, collecting taxes, in a way that does NOT harm the people.  But still they can’t see him accurately, they can’t see Jesus accurately, and so both Jesus and Zacchaeus are condemned by the people, by the legal experts, by the pharisees, because of their blindness.

               What helps us to see?  In today’s stories, people come to Jesus in different ways.  The blind man calls out to him.  Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see him and Jesus calls to him.  The ways in which people come to Christ differ: they are person dependent: they rely on God’s knowledge of each of us as the individuals we are.  But they all do have something in common.  On the part of those saved, what they have in common is humility.  In contrast to the religious experts and pharisees who think they got it all right, think they understand it all, think they have it all figured out, the blind man knows he needs help beyond himself.  And Zacchaeus, too, knows he needs to see Jesus: again that having a living and having a life are not the same things.

               Do we have this same humility?  Do we have trouble calling out to ask for what we need, what we want?  Do we even have trouble recognizing what it is that we truly need or want?  Do we have the humility to ask for help when it is there to be given? I think about Jesus asking the blind man what he wanted.  Jesus needed to know that the blind man could see what he needed in order for Jesus to be able to truly help him.  Can we see what we need?

               I found myself remembering the wonderful movie “Family Man”.  In this movie, Jack Campbell thinks he has it all.  He is the CEO of an exclusive company, he lives in a beautiful penthouse and is wealthy beyond imagining.  He is single but because he is good looking and wealthy, he can have any woman he wants and he does, on a regular basis.  When he goes out on Christmas Eve to pick up egg nog, though, he encounters a racist shopkeeper who will not honor a lottery ticket win because the person with the ticket is African American.  The African American man pulls out a gun and in anger tells the shop keeper to actually look at the ticket he’s rejecting before refusing to pay it.  Jack tries to step in to help and the African American man turns the gun on him, asking him if he wants to die.  Jack says “no”, offers to pay the man for the ticket, and helps everyone calm down and become centered.  As they leave the shop, Jack says to the black man, “What do you want to carry a gun around for anyway?  You’re just going to wind up doing something you’ll regret.  There must be programs out there and opportunities.”  The man responds, “You’re talking to the wrong person about regrets, Jack.” 

Jack goes on, “I’m not saying it wouldn’t take some hard work.  A lot of hard work, and maybe some medication…” But then the other man starts to laugh.  He says, “Wait a minute.  This is bananas.”  He turns his face to the sky and shouts, “This man thinks I need to be saved, yo!” 

Jack says, “Well, everybody needs something.” To which the man says, “And what do you need, Jack?”  Jack says, “Well, me?  I got everything I need!”  The man, laughing, says, “Wow, it must be great being you.”  And then he continues, “You know I’m going to really enjoy this.  You just remember that you did this, Jack.  You brought this on yourself.  Merry Christmas.”  And he walks away.

As the movie progresses, we learn that the African American man was actually an angel, and he gives Jack the gift of a “glimpse” – a sight into a life he might have had, had he made different choices.  The glimpse takes up most of the movie, but in the end, Jack realizes that what he thought he needed, what he thought he wanted, what he thought mattered to him, what he thought he valued, was not what would make him happy, whole, complete.  He came to see,  but not without a great deal of pain, struggle, and deep self-reflection.

               Jesus states that he came to save the lost.  But this is not a future tense saving.  This is a saving NOW: he saves the blind man from loss of sight.  He saves Zacchaeus and indeed many of the outcasts from their isolation, their condemnation, their exclusion.  He does this now.  And he lets his disciples know ahead of time so that they will understand that they are called to continue the work.  In the revised common lectionary for this week, we hear from the gospel of John that unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed.  But if it dies, it bears much fruit…. Whoever serves me must follow me.”  It is in the growing of his community, in the spreading of the seed of truth, of love, that salvation comes to all of us.  But again, that is for NOW.  We are not called to wait to end suffering for people.  We are called to follow Jesus and end it now. 

And that starts with our own humility.  Our own ability to cry out,  “Have mercy on us!”  To remember that, on our own, we rarely see the grace of God.  But then we also have to remember that when we really see Jesus, we will be changed.  Jesus was in Jericho when all of these stories occurred.  He was in every way, tumbling down the walls of Jericho once again: breaking the barriers that put the tax collector on the outside, breaking the walls that said the blind man would always be stuck in his blindness, tearing down the beliefs that the religious experts and pharisees were the ones who understood while these outcasts didn’t; flipping that on its head so all would see it was the outcasts who got it, and those humble enough to learn from them.  Choosing to see Jesus, choosing to SEE, will not be easy, it will not be painless, and it will mean that we have to change, something that is not comfortable for any of us. 

Still, the gifts are amazing.  Zacchaeus walked away with incredible joy, a man maybe less rich in money, but filled with the elation of his faith and love of Christ.  The Gospels are about serious commitment to God, but also about joy.  Reminder that “Eucharist” means thanksgiving, the meal that we take is a meal of deep joy, deep connection, deep gratitude.  May we have that same ability to put aside our “sure knowing” and be open to actually seeing, hearing and meeting the risen Christ anew.  For in doing so, we will be “saved”, we will be found.  We will be healed.  And we will find joy.

Lord Have Mercy

 Luke 16:19-31, Psalm 41:1-3

               Starting in chapter 15 of the gospel of Luke, all of Jesus parables are about wealth.  Commentators I read said that Jesus spoke more about money and possessions than about anything else in his parables.  And unfortunately for us, his words on money and possessions are condemning of all of us who are comfortable, all of us who have so much more than enough.  And bottom line of his condemnation is this: we have failed to remember that we belong to God and to one another.

               In this story we see the rich man hiding behind his gated estate, his gated community, behind his walls from anything outside that would be displeasing to him.  He, as most people at that time, and indeed as most people in our time, mistakenly assumes that his wealth is due to his own actions and/or to God’s blessing him because he DESERVED it.  As a result, he doesn’t see any need to give a second thought to this poor man outside his gates.  He doesn’t see him, doesn’t think to give him even his left-overs, or anything from his own table.  Just as he assumes his own wealth is because he deserves it, he assumes that Lazarus is poor because that’s what he deserved.  Perhaps he saw him as lazy, perhaps he saw him as just “less than”.  Whatever it was, he gave him no thought at all.  He never saw it as his job to care for this brother of his, he probably never even considered helping him.  We are told that when Lazarus the beggar died, the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.  He was a beggar in life, someone many of us, too, might see as “lazy” or “unworthy”.  But this does not change the fact that he is a valued child of God, and so, in place of a decent burial, he is instead carried away by the angels.  In contrast, the rich man who died was given a proper burial, and then he found himself in Hades in torment.  But even from this place, from THIS place, he still cannot see.  He begs Abraham to have Lazarus, whom he is still seeing as his inferior, come to cool him down.  And when the answer is “no”, he begs to have Lazarus go to his family to warn them.  He still sees Lazarus in the servant role, still sees him as the inferior who should do this for him.  This is especially emphasized by the fact that he never talks directly to Lazarus, but only to Abraham, someone he sees as “on par” with him in terms of level.  The rich man sees himself as one of the elite, able to talk to those who are the fathers and founders of the faith.  The rich man also wants help for his family.  The rich man never asks for forgiveness for his actions, he is still not thinking of the poor people whom he shunned or whom his family still shuns.  He considers that maybe they should change their behavior, but it is still for their own personal gain.  “Send Lazarus to my family so that they will not also come to this place of torment,” he says.  After everything that he has lived through, and everything he now suffers, he remains unable to see beyond himself, beyond his family, beyond his own personal cares.  He has failed to remember that we belong to God and to one another.

               In what ways is this familiar to us? Materialism makes people very selfish.  We become owned by our stuff, and it causes us to be more and more self-focused, and focused on only gaining for self.   A friend posted this on Facebook:

            John Bogle, the Vanguard founder who passed away in 2019 told a story: “at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day that Heller had earned from this wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.  Heller responded, “Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough.” 

         Those who are just accumulating more and more for themselves never feel they have enough.  They are always focused on gaining more for themselves and their close family.  They fail to remember that we belong to God and to one another.

      When we think about the growing discrepancy between the rich and poor in this country, we see the reality of this story.  Did you know that during this COVID pandemic, while people are losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods, losing everything, that the wealth of the billionaires in this country alone increased just during the pandemic by $1.9 trillion!!  And yet, many of these are the same people who declare that we should not have a minimum wage of $15/hour, which, by the way, is nowhere near a living wage in the Bay Area.  The rich have so much more than they can ever, ever use.  The poor don’t have enough to feed their families, but the rich still cling to the idea that they somehow deserve it, somehow need to cling to it for themselves, while the poor do not deserve to eat, and should be okay with the “dogs licking their sores,” as we are told that Lazarus experienced.  We think that God blesses us so that we might have wealth.  But the truth is that God blesses us so that we might bless others.  And we forget this.  God doesn’t bless us to hoard our wealth.  What we have is not ours, it is lent to us to use for the good of all by the God who loves all of God’s children.  But we have forgotten that we belong to God and to one another. 

               The rich man did not see Lazarus as part of his family.  But we are called to “Love our neighbors as ourselves”.  I want to point out that this is not “we should love those people that we like”.  And it is also not “we should give a little of what we have to those other people.”  What does it truly mean to love our neighbors as ourselves?  How would you treat yourselves?  We know how we would treat ourselves.  We pay for our houses, we buy nice things for our children.  We pay for our cars.  Do we treat our neighbors this way?   No, we throw a ten at a homeless person, but loving them as ourselves would mean inviting them in, sharing our home with them, including them in the same abundance that we have.  Is this hard?  For all of us.  For ALL of us it is hard.  I had a conversation with someone this week who said that she invited a good friend who had lost a job to live with her.  It was hard for her to even invite this very good friend into her home, but she did.  And it didn’t end well, for any of them.  It ended with the friend stomping out of the house in a rage, the friendship broken.  She said, “well, so what are we supposed to do?  Just keep taking those risks?  When do we get rewarded for caring for those who don’t even appreciate it?”   The answer is that we don’t.  Not in this lifetime, or at least not in the way that we expect.  We probably won’t be paid back in terms of money.  We might lose friendships, we might lose sleep.  But we are not in charge of “what happens out there”.  All that we are in charge of is what we will do with the time that is given to us.  All we are called to do is to remember that we belong to God and to one another.  The reward for that?  Again, it won’t come in the way we think of rewards.

               The reward for doing what God expects of us is wholeness.  It is not material gain.  It is not comfort.  But it is a memory that we belong to God and to one another.  It is the reminder that we are all God’s children, all family to one another, all deeply loved beyond our imaginings.  It is the vision of what it truly means to love our neighbors AS OURSELVES and to live into that. 

               Admittedly, it is the rare saint who can do that.  But that is what we are called to try to do.  There is a wonderful phrase, “If you’ve come to ‘help’ me you are wasting my time.  If you’ve come because your freedom is bound up in mine, let us work together.”  This is not top-down.  This is not parochial.  This is not “charity” in the common sense of the word.  This is about serving one another because we remember that we need one another, that our wholeness is bound together.

               The rich man in this parable got it wrong in so many ways.  He got it wrong because he never helped Lazarus.  He got it wrong because he thought Lazarus was beneath him.  He got it wrong because he assumed that people have what they have because they’ve earned it and God has blessed them to use it for their own good.  He got it wrong because his attitude about it never changed from one of superior hoarding, to one of repentant giving.  He got it wrong because instead of living a life of gratitude, he lived a life of greedy accumulation.

               As you know a group of us continue to study racism in the United States.  We are looking at history in new ways, searching for deeper truths about how we came to be as we are, and what needs to change.  This last week I listened to a podcast about Affirmative Action.  It started by asking when Affirmative action began in this country.  Most people said sometime in the 70s.  And then we started looking at the facts.  Back in 1618 the Headright system gave 50 acres of land, or to some 100 acres of land, only to white people, to anyone willing to migrate here.  In 1705, statute in Virigina required masters to give WHITE indentured servants 50 acres of land, 30 shillings, 10 bushels of corn and a musket.  160 years later there was a ruling to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule.  But that ruling was then overturned, unlike the ones for white folk.  1785, for every 36 square acre units, one was set aside for the education of white children.  But not African Americans or Native Americans.  And it went on and on.  We have a history of taking for “our own” whatever that means, of not allowing others the same opportunities, and then blaming THEM for not having as much as we do.  We have failed to remember  that we belong to God and to one another.

               In the parable for today, Abraham talks about the growing chasm between heaven and hell which prevents any kind of interaction across the divide.  We are creating that here, and a lot of how we do that is our failure to remember that we belong to God and to each other.  Crossing divides is not easy, but I believe that Lazarus will not be whole without the rich man, just as the rich man will not be whole without Lazarus.  Just as Lazarus needed saving from his extreme poverty, the rich man needed liberation from his wealth, his greed, his tunnel vision of only caring for his own needs.  We need God, and we need one another and that means working hard to cross those divides.

               So my question for all of us is who is just beyond our gates that we fail to notice?  Who are we failing to treat as we treat ourselves?  Who is it that we divide ourselves from, and how can we start to remember that we belong to them, too.  And then, what do we do with what we have?  Do we give thanks?  Do we use it to care for others? 

          We don’t know what is the greater problem in this parable: the rich man’s wealth or his attitude.  But both call us to look in a different way at what we have and our attitude as well. 

       Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, said in his speech on how to change the world that the first thing we need to do to change the world is to get closer to those we would serve.  To spend time with the poor, the hungry, the homeless.  There is power in proximity and the solutions will come in that dynamic of closeness.  He tells the story of his grandmother who would hug him so hard and then ask, “Do you still feel me hugging you?” Amd of he said “no” she would hug her again.  But as she died, she said to him, “Bryan, I will always be hugging you.”  And he realized we can all hug someone, embrace and hug the people you are called to serve.  He got close to prisoners and in doing that found his own power to change the world through his actions, his writings, his speaking, his remembering that we belong to God and to one another.. 

         As always, we come here to hear the good news.  And the Good News is this: we will keep being given those opportunities for wholeness, those chances to serve and love one another as the brothers and sisters that we really are.  We will continue to find those chances to remember that we belong to one another.  And when we finally learn that we belong to God, and to one another, we will also, in fullness, remember what it is to be children of God, loved into being, loved into “enough”, loved beyond measure.  Amen.

God Celebrated

                                Luke 15:1-32

       Once again here we have an extended passage of verses we don’t usually hear together.  And yet, these verses all go together very well.  They are all stories of the lost being found, and the found being celebrated.  The sheep that was lost was sought after, found, and celebrated as it was returned to the flock.  The coin that was lost was sought, was found and was celebrated after being found.  And the son who was lost, came to his senses, returned and was celebrated. 

            Can you think of things that you’ve lost that have really mattered to you?  A small thing, perhaps like a necklace or letter that meant something to you, or a big thing, perhaps, like a house that you had to move away from or a car that was in an accident.  Maybe it’s not a thing that you’ve lost but a situation: maybe a job, or a relationship.  Maybe what you’ve lost is a cultural thing: days when children could play outside and visit their neighborhood friends without their parents helicoptering over them, the times when only one adult in a family had to have a job.  Some of the hardest loses I think are the losses we experience when a deeply held belief is overturned: a belief that the world was a certain way, or the belief that God was a certain way.  When those kinds of things are confronted and overturned, it can be incredibly painful, incredibly hard.  Sometimes, we feel grief, or nostalgia for the past, and can’t identify what it is that is lost.  We feel this nebulous, “I want things to be the way they were before!” without being able to really name what it is we feel we’ve lost.  Sometimes those memories of the past are also incomplete or missing things.  For example, that yearning for a time when only one adult per family had to work is also missing the fact that when women wanted to work or had goals or aspirations, they weren’t allowed to fulfill them.  Those times when kids could play freely with neighborhood kids were not actually safer times, just times when we were less aware of the dangers that kids were exposed to and the traumas that our children experienced.  I think for myself, there finally came a realization that my nostalgia for the past was often more about knowing how that past turned out… it turned into today, after all.  Whereas I don’t know how today will turn out – I don’t know if I’ll survive this day, or if my children will, or if there will even be a survivable world left for any potential grandchildren.  And so, I crave what seems like a simpler time, when in fact it was only “simpler” because I didn’t know as much, wasn’t aware of the problems to the same extent, and again, they ended in today, so I know that I survived it.  But regardless, there is a sense of loss, a depth of grief, even when I can look at it in the face and challenge it for what it was, that grief is there.  And sometimes it is unbearable.

            In the face of that, what would you do to search for that which you’ve lost?  What would you sacrifice to fill that space of grief, to find that which you valued once more?  I think about Carol Weir, who would not let go of Ben when he was kidnapped in Lebanon, but who did everything in her power, talking to our government, raising awareness, fighting for the release of her husband.  She gave up her comfort, her solitude, her anonymity, to stand up, to fight, to get her husband home.  I think of the mother’s who began MADD.  They found a world that was unsafe for children when a drunk driver killed their sons, their loved ones.  And while they could not get their sons back, they could fight with everything in them to make sure other mothers did not suffer that same loss.

            Did others always approve of what these women that I’ve named did?  No.  Carol got a lot of pushback and even hatred coming her way.  But she would not give up fighting for her lost sheep, her lost coin of great value.  MADD mothers also had pushback, but they, too kept fighting for what they had lost: their sons, those they loved.

            All three of the gospel parables for today are a response Jesus tells us as he confronts a situation in which the pharisees and legal experts were grumbling against Jesus for spending his time with “sinners and tax collectors”.  They were questioning why Jesus was spending time with people everyone had designated as “bad.”  He was welcoming and eating with these “bad” people.  In contrast to many people’s belief that some people are “bad” and some people are “good”, Jesus does not see it that way.  Instead, he describes some people as found, and some people as lost.  The lost people, those he is choosing to spend time with, are valuable to God, as he describes in these stories.  They are a lost sheep of the flock, they are a lost coin of great value, they are a child of God.  And Jesus is not content to just discount them as “bad”.  He wants them saved, he wants them healed, he wants them FOUND. 

            And I would say this is a challenge for all of us.  It is a challenge for us to remember that there aren’t “bad” people, there are only lost people.  And how are we to interact with lost people, the same way that Jesus did – we are to try to find them, to seek them, to help them.

           Who are those people for you?  Who are the people you don’t want to be around, individuals or groups of people you don’t want to be associated with?  Who are those for you?  Do you struggle then, when you see people you want to respect hanging out with those “bad” people that you don’t approve of, that you’ve written off?  And to take it a step further, when you see your friends hanging out with people you don’t approve of, what do you think?  How do you feel?  If it’s someone you admire and respect and then you see them eating with and spending time with people you really detest, how do you feel?  Do you discount them?  Do you lose respect for them when you see them with “undesirables”?  Maybe it’s easier to think about this in terms of our kids.  What do we do and how do we feel when we think our kids or grandkids are hanging out with a “bad crowd.”  When it’s my kids, I have, historically, worried about them being corrupted.  I’ll own that.  I remember the time when I was really concerned about a friend Eldest had made.  I was concerned because I saw this friend making really bad choices: lying to her parents, hiding inappropriate “hookups”, trying drugs and other questionable substances.  She was running wild.  And I was concerned.  But in talking with Eldest about my concern with honesty and openness, Eldest said to me, “My friend needs someone to be here for her when her world crashes, as it will with all that she is doing.  She needs someone solid to be here and show her there is another way.  She needs me.  And I will stay friends with her through this, offering another model for how to be, even offering advice, if she asks for it, until she, too, has finally found her way home.”   Okay.  I still worried, but at the same time, I was also impressed.  She was doing exactly what Jesus said God would do in the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin: she was searching deep into the heart of her friend for that lost soul, seeking her out, and helping her to come “home.”

       I want to point out that there is a big difference between the stories of the coin and sheep, on one hand, with the story of the prodigal son on the other.  In the stories of the sheep and the coin, both of these could not be found on their own.  Both were sought after, with intention, with commitment until they were found.  How do we expect to find the sheep if we don’t seek after it?  Do we just let those we feel we’ve lost “go”?  Do we give up on the one family member we can’t reach, can’t connect with, can’t “find” because we don’t agree, or don’t understand, or have “lost”? 

        I think that maybe the Pharisees and Legal Experts judged Jesus because they were, in fact, convicted by Jesus.  We are told by all scripture that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, that we are to love even those whom we don’t like, even those we hate.  And by love that means we are to care for them, to want their highest good, to be kind to them, even when that is not reciprocated.  They knew this.  But they weren’t living it out.  In contrast, Jesus was.  He did not see people as beyond redemption, beyond saving, beyond help.  He reached out to them, was kind to them and loved them.  He was doing what the Pharisees knew they should, just as Eldest was doing with her friend what I knew I should.  And that became judgement on their lips.  Jesus’ actions convicted them.  And instead of owning, they judged and condemned him.  

        The story of the prodigal son is a little different.  That son had a lot more agency.  That son had to return on his own.  The father in the story saw him coming back and ran out to usher him home, to bring him back completely into the fold, but the son had to make some steps first, some intention towards turning home.  And my guess is that the elder son in the prodigal story is the Pharisees and legal experts themselves.  They have became so bound by the written law that they have forgotten the spirit behind it: the call to care for and love one another.  They have become so lost, that when Jesus welcomes in the “lost” younger son, they just resent it, they want the father all to themselves, and all that is his, they have forgotten how to celebrate the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son returning.  They have forgotten that those Jesus is spending time with are also children of God.  They have forgotten that that lost younger brother is “this brother of YOURS”, not just “this son of the Father’s”.  Jesus never finishes the parable of the prodigal son.  We never know if the older son in fact does come into the house to celebrate with the son who has returned.  We don’t know because we are still waiting to see.   In the end, it will be up to them to decide to celebrate with the Father and the son the return home of the younger son, if they ever do.  In the meantime, he is missing a great party, as are they! 

         And that is the final point that I want to make through another story.  There is a wonderful video based on a children’s book.  The book and video are entitled Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.  I would love to be able to share them with you, but because of copyright issues I can’t do that through YouTube.  However, if you are interested, I have bought copies of both and would gladly share them another time.  In a rare exception, the video of this story is better than the book.      

        In the story, Lost and Found, a penguin walks into a little boy’s house.  The little boy is not thrilled about this.  And the penguin doesn’t seem to be leaving on his own, so he decides the penguin is lost and needs to get home.  He takes the penguin to the lost and found, but no one says they are missing a penguin.  Then he takes the penguin to the pet store, but then feels bad and doesn’t leave him.  He goes to the library to find out about where penguins come from and discovers they come from the South Pole, so he tries to put the penguin on a boat, but the boy's voice is small and the ship leaves without the penguin.  So, the boy builds a boat to take the penguin there himself.  As he is getting ready to go the narrator said, “And so the boy worked out an ambitious plan to get the visitor back to where he belonged.  But he never stopped for a moment to considered just what his visitor was doing there in the first place.”  They each “pack” a little bag, and they travel down to the South Pole, having adventures on the way, and in the end he finds a place with many, many penguins just like the one that has been with the boy.  He leaves him there and gets back in the boat to travel home.  But in the boat he finds that the penguin had left his suitcase.  When he opens it, he finds the only thing in this “box of treasures” was a picture the penguin had taken of himself and the boy: that this was what he valued.  The boy thought the penguin valued “home”, but what he found was that the penguin valued him, the boy.  And so he found, “that perhaps someone wasn’t lost… just lonely.  And maybe they weren’t the only one.”  After another little adventure, the boy and the penguin finally reconnect and go “home” together.  But the film ends with these words, “So, all began with someone lost and someone found.  Who is to say which was which? There was a boy and there was a penguin, strangers from opposite sides of the ocean.  And like the beginning of any friendship, theirs is a remarkable story indeed.”

            Perhaps, then, like the boy in the story, we will find, when we choose to spend time with those we consider “lost” , those from the opposite side of the ocean, that we too will ask, “who is to say who was lost and who was found”.  If it turns out that it was we, then, who were lost, and if we let ourselves be found, we can be guaranteed that God will celebrate with all the angels and heaven.  Amen.

Mistakes, growing, learning, forgiving.

     As this New Year begins, I find myself reflecting on events in my own life from years ago.  I've been taking a webinar on forgiveness and I think that it, too, is prompting this reflection.  My biggest challenge in terms of forgiveness, as I think is the case for many people, is learning to forgive myself.  I think that these arising memories of things that happened as far back as my childhood are opportunities to step more fully into self-forgiveness as well.

   Today I found myself reflecting on my first call.  When I was in seminary, and frankly my years as a young adult before going to seminary, I felt pretty clear that my primary call into ministry was primarily "prophetic".  What I mean by that is that I knew that while ministers are called to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" that my call was very much on the "afflict the comfortable" end of things.  I regularly stood up against injustices, taking concrete actions to confront oppressive government behaviors, to organize rallies and non-violent protests, to preach and speak and organize on behalf of the "least of these" - those who are often overseen, neglected, abused, oppressed and worse.  I didn't care who I angered by these actions - seeing their anger, if anything, as a sign that I was on the right track.  After all, we know that Jesus angered people enough with his standing up against the legalists and the hypocrites that they killed him.  I felt if people were angry that I was standing up for the poor and oppressed, then I must be doing something right.  At my ordination, the friend I had invited to preach spoke about this.  He said that I rattled cages, but that this was the gift, this was the call that I clearly had been given: to confront the oppressor, to challenge the apathetic into truly learning to love those others would disregard.

    But then I went to my first church call.  I went in roaring and pushing for the church to take strong stands on justice issues.  And instead of being able to make those changes, I found that I got the ire and suspicions up from those who saw me as an inexperienced upstart who didn't really understand my position or my place.  Instead of making the changes I knew I was called to make, I was disregarded and discounted more and more.  My voice, which had carried weight and value in college, at seminary, and even during my internship, was pushed aside.  I was effectively limited in voice as well as in action.  I was an associate pastor, so people weren't leaving the church, but they were closing off the work I could do, tightening the reigns on my options, and closing doors to relationships.  I left that position after only a year.  And while much of my leaving had to do with a difficult senior pastor who simply did not "play well with women," I'm certain that my decision to leave was exacerbated by my own sense of not doing well in that call.

    Fortunately, I didn't leave without learning and growing.  I learned that relationships must be built, trust must be gained, people must know that you love them, and not just because you've said it but because you've shown it, before they will be able to hear things that challenge their thinking, that encourage them to look at things differently, that then call them to different actions.  I learned that pushing too hard leads only to anger and separation, not growth in others.  I learned that listening first is extremely important.  I also learned that first impressions are sometimes the only impressions you will be allowed to give.  And that once we have alienated someone, rebuilding those relationships can be extremely hard to do.  While apologies are important, the "other" may not always accept them, so being thoughtful from the start is important.

    When we talk about "repentance" in the church, we are talking about taking another path, choosing a different way to go, to walk; turning from one direction to another.  And we take this seriously.  But my experience tells me that most of the time while we can see our own growth, and we can celebrate the steps we've made to become different people, more loving people, more faithful people, people who are more whole, we don't always trust or see that others are also growing.  Part of our failure to forgive other people is an inability to see or accept that the other may have genuinely changed, grown and moved from wherever it was that caused them to do damage to us or to someone else that we care about.  When it comes to self-forgiveness, I think that I struggle with actions that may have hurt or upset others in part because I believe that THEY don't understand that I, too, have changed, moved, grown, "repented", chosen a different path, seen where I've erred and strived to do better.  My fear that they can't see that in me, and that they can't forgive me in part encourages me to not forgive myself.  It shouldn't be that way.  I can't control what others see, feel or think.  And I should not allow what others judge in me to determine my own behaviors or the ways in which I view myself.  But this is easier said than done...

    I'm still learning.  I'm still growing.  I'm still making mistakes.  And there are people who cannot or will not forgive me.  There are people who will not accept that I change and grow, too.  There are people who will choose judgment and rejection over an open-heart when it comes to relationships with me.  When you are in a leadership position, it sometimes is easier for people to simply write you off then work through the hard and painful process of reconciliation.  I understand this.  I don't like it, but I understand it.  So today my goals are two fold: first, I will work more on self-forgiveness.  I find that self-forgiveness leads more deeply into a change in behavior than any intense self-judgment can possibly do, anyway.  So I do this for the "others" in my life as well, so that I may have the grace and compassion to truly grow in my actions, to be more loving, to be more aware, to listen more deeply.  My second goal is to remember how it feels when others box me into "that's just the way she is" kind of thinking and to be more open about the possibilities that others are growing too. These are my goals for this day.  I invite you into deeper self-forgiveness as well. And I encourage you to remember that just as you are growing and changing, others are too.  Perhaps we can be better at giving all people the benefit of the doubt: both ourselves and others.  

The Church as Fertilizer

         This is the second Sunday in lent and I would like to invite you to think for a few minutes about what that means for you.  What is lent about as you understand it?  What are we to do during lent?  We talk about it every lent - lent is a time of repentance - or, to put it in less “churchy” words, to look at our lives, to reflect, to try to make some changes, to turn from one direction and go in a new direction, to grow, to try to be more worthy and more whole and just plain more Godly.    

 And so, how do most people do this?  What is the most common Lenten practice that we know of?  Giving something up, of course.  And what kinds of things do people give up?  There can be something good and healthy about giving something up: if we are really looking at our lives and we find something that is getting in the way of our wholeness, of our serving God and others.  Then we can decide to make a practice of limiting, for a set period of time, but perhaps with the idea that if we can do it for a short time, we might be able to do it for longer, whatever it is that is interfering in our growth, wholeness and service to God. 

But I found myself thinking, as I do every year, about the falseness, so many times, of these deprivations or sacrifices.  These sacrifices on many occasions are almost like a game we play - “let’s see if I can give this up,” or they are a way of feeling “righteous” or religious.  We feel like we’re really doing something in the name of our faith.  But they represent a choice that a privileged or wealthy person (and we are all wealthy here by the world’s standards) makes for a short and specific period of time: a choice that can be “cheated” and even changed at any moment. 

What do these deprivations actually mean in the bigger scheme of our faith?  What does it mean in terms of our dual call to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves?  What does it mean to the people God really calls us to care for - the oppressed and the poor?

To put it in more concrete terms, what does it mean to those who can’t afford and therefore don’t own a television that you give up watching TV for a month?  What can it possibly mean to the poor person who eats what they can find, often very unhealthy foods such as junk food, that you give up chocolate or coffee for a month?  What does it mean to God that you “give up” something but aren’t giving to someone who might need it?  The intent of these sacrifices is to focus on God.  But often the Lenten practice of sacrifice gets warped and trivialized.  And do we then use those deprivations to focus more on God, or do we end up focusing on something else - like on our own “religiousness” or even more, on that thing that we have given up?  Are we taking the time that we would otherwise use watching TV or whatever else it is we have given up to volunteer with the poor, to meditate on the direction God wants for our lives or even very simply to pray? 

Thinking about how this particular ritual sometimes ends up being false brought up for me the even bigger issue behind it.  I went from wondering what the purpose of this particular ritual has become to the larger question of what is the purpose of our weekly church rituals?  What is the purpose of our religion?  What is our church about for us?  What SHOULD it be about?  How does our participation in church serve us? But more, how does it serve God and serve the world?  Are our rituals, like the practice of giving up something for lent, and indeed involvement in church itself, instead a way to escape the realities of this world, and the call of God to action?

Most of you are probably familiar with the musical, the Sound of Music and in particular, the Julie Andrews’ movie version.  At one point in the story, the Julie Andrews character, Maria, became confused about her feelings for the father of the house where she served as a governess.  And so what did she do?  She ran away back to the convent.  She went to the convent to escape her feelings.  She felt that she was turning to God: she felt that she was making the choice for God over the choice of being a wife or being a mother.  But in reality, she was turning to God, turning to the church, for escape.

We find a similar image of the church as a place of escape in the movie, “Sister Act.”  In Sister Act, the main character, Delores, literally hid in the convent as a “nun” while she waited to be a witness against her murdering boyfriend.  In that convent she found that all the nuns there were really “hiding” out.  The Mother Superior described the convent using the words, “These walls are the only protection they (the nuns) have.  The streets are no longer safe for them.  These robes no longer protect our sisters.  The walls do.”  The purpose of the convent in the Mother Superior’s eyes was to protect them: it was an escape for them, a place to stay safely away from the realities of the dangerous and scary world outside.

I would like to suggest that perhaps the same is true, many times, in our local churches.  People enter the church with the idea of “leaving their burdens behind them” or “laying their burdens at the feet of Jesus”.  And while it is right and good to ask God for the strength to carry our burdens, for the courage to face the trials, for the wisdom to navigate the torrential waters of our lives, many times the church becomes itself almost like a drug - a way to escape this life: a place to hide, a place to run away, an addiction even.  We know churches like this.  The music literally creates a “high” in people, the walls become a safe place, people hide in their theology of a future heaven where everything will be okay.  And in the midst of this, the people of the church don’t do the work they are called to do.  They forget the call to serve each other, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, comfort the sick, and do the work of being in this world.

I would like to offer another image of the church for us today.  “The church as fertilizer.”  This brings us back to today’s scripture reading.  The verses for today are not “nice” passages: in the first half of today’s lesson, Jesus first says that bad things don’t happen to people because they sin, but then he goes on to say “I tell you unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”  And then we get the story of the fig tree. The fig tree doesn’t produce fruit and so the owner wants to tear it out.  The gardener persuades the owner to give the fig tree another year to produce, but even then, the owner still says that if it doesn’t produce good fruit in another year, it will be ripped out.  Not a really reassuring story, is it?

But the good news in this story is that the fig tree is not left to its own devices.  The gardener promises to dig around it and put manure on it: to amend the soil in which the tree is planted.  It is a recognition, for example, that when things are bad with people in a place, that it often has much more to do with the place than with those individuals.  We know that when an entire school of children are not doing well in school, we don’t throw the kids out.  We work on changing the systems surrounding the children; adjusting the school system, the teaching methods and platforms in order to help the children learn more effectively; making sure the kids have proper nutrition and safer home lives, adjusting the availability of resources, supplies for the kids.  When a society is not doing well, I would encourage you to look at the bigger systems for what needs to change.  Why is our society rife with racism?  Why is there a hugely growing discrepancy between the rich and the poor?  Why is gun violence on the rise?  Why do we have the highest percentage of any developed country of people in prison?  Do we just “have bad people” here?  Is it just that we have a huge number of racists, and violent people, and people with mental illness?  No.  This has to do with the soil we have planted, the systems we have in place, the institutionalized greed, prejudice, rage, revenge thinking, violent thinking.  Our history, a history of slavery, of greed, of some having while others don’t, of sanctioned thievery, sanctioned destruction of families at the border, and an acceptance of political lies has determined who we currently are.  And the only way we can address these huge issues is through different fertilizer, different manure that we use to enrich all of our lives and to help all of us grow more fully.  This has to start with our places of gathering.  From a faith perspective, this has to start with a fertilizer of our churches that encourages seeing deeply, being willing to change, being willing to learn and grow, looking for God, learning to love, remembering that we are all God’s children, brothers and sisters to one another.

As New Testament professor Mitzi Smith said it, “Jesus’ framing, use, and interpretation of the parable of the barren fig tree is harsh. He is calling Jerusalem to repent, but a people or a nation must admit and be conscious of its wrongdoing in order to change its commitments, policies, and practices. Just because Jerusalem (its leaders) has not experienced the state sanctioned violence to which Pilate subjected the Galileans does not mean the Galileans or those killed when the tower of Siloam fell are sinners. Revolutionaries are murdered. Innocent persons have been and continue to be crucified, murdered, or die because the state fails to maintain its infrastructure or slum lords make money. Many persons and leaders commit evil with impunity under unjust judicial systems and corrupt authorities; the avoidance of justice is not a sign of innocence, goodness, or divine approval.”

So, my image for the church then is of a place where you are dug around, where the hard places are pointed out, sometimes rooted out, but more often softened with some digging, some aeration, and a place where you are “manured” or fertilized.  A place where you are nourished and fed, replenished, and given the best nutrition possible in order to grow so that you, too may produce fruit.

In both of the movies that I mentioned, the churches stopped being places of escape.  In Sister Act, the nuns in the convent broke out of their imprisoning walls, with a little encouragement and nurturing, and began reaching out to the community, serving the people, serving the children, making a difference in the community rather than hiding from it.  So, too in the Sound of Music.  My favorite speech in the musical happens after Maria says to the Mother Superior upon her “escape” back to the Abbey, “I knew I had to come back here.  That here I would be safe,” and Mother Superior sharply replies to Maria, “Maria, our Abbey is not meant to be used as an escape...you must find out how God wants you to use your love...You must go back....These walls were not meant to shut out problems.  You have to face them and live the life you were born to live” And then she sings “Climb Every Mountain,” the poetry of which I really love -

Climb every mountain

Search high and low

Follow every by‑way

Every path you know

 

Climb every mountain

Ford every stream

Follow every rainbow

'Till you find your dream

 

A dream that will need

All the love you can give

Everyday of your life

For as long as you live

God does indeed call us to be the people of love, finding, searching, seeking and serving with that love...not escaping.

Repentance means “turning around”.  Often it is used to mean that we are called to turn around to go a different direction.  But this week I heard it differently.  Perhaps we are called to turn our vision around and look within ourselves and within our systems at the areas in our own hearts and our own lives, our own church and our own country that need to be changed, that need to be fertilized, that need to be aerated, dug around.  We are called to look at those areas that need pruning, that need the loving hand of a caring gardener.  This won’t be painless.  And that means we do not come to this place for comfort, for ease, for a pat on the back.  We come to learn, to see, to dig deeper.  Every single person can benefit from growth.  Not one of us has “made it”, not one of us is there yet.  We need different things: the hurting need comfort and reassurance of God’s love for them.  The comfortable need to look at the ways in which they contribute to the suffering of others and the ways in which they can overcome that.  But we all have needs.  I’m reminded of the story in Numbers 21:9; “So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”  All of us get bitten by temptations: greed, or anger, or hatred, or judgment; prejudice or pride, ego, or fear.  We all have these parts of ourselves.  And we have to face them: to look at the snakes within ourselves and within our society, naming them for what they are, in order to be healed.

God’s intention for us is to be fruitful, to bear the good fruits of love, compassion, grace, kindness, peace, hope and joy.  But that takes work: tending, working, talking with one another, facing truth with one another.  And like corn, we should be planted together.  Apart we also cannot produce fruit.  Also, we have to remember that even when soil is amended, it takes three years after planting a fruit tree for good fruit to grow.  It’s not comfortable. And it takes time. But the whole point of a fruit tree is to produce fruit, so we are called to make that happen, to work the soil, to do the planting, the pruning, the fertilizing until it can produce fruit.  God in the parable is the gardener, always asking for more time to work the soil, to tend to the plants.

I think back on my own life.  There have been voices that have confronted me with truths about my own behaviors or own personality that I did not like.  I don’t enjoy those times, and I sometimes react defensively.  But even when I become defensive at first, I always have taken them away to ponder, to learn, to try to grow.  Those have been opportunities to learn, to deepen both in my faith and in becoming the person I want to be.

 I have hope.  I actually take it as a good sign that we sometimes speak truth to each other in ways that can be a bit cranky - that is a sign that this is a real place, a place where people are not “escaping” into the high of non-reality.  This is a place where people still are in the world, and still are seeking to do God’s work.  It would be better still if we could talk about the things that bother us before they pop out in crankiness, but God is not finished with any of us yet.  We still need some more aeration and a little more manure to become the whole, fruit-bearing people God calls us to be.  Maybe this lent we can focus on how to be more present in this place, more real in our relationships, more open to bearing fruit, and more focused on God and God’s love for us all in the midst of whatever lenten disciplines we employ.  Amen.