We Have Some Questions

Job 19:23-27

Luke 20:27-38

I just read a book called The Brief History of the Dead. It takes place in a city that is very much like cities we know. It has cafes and libraries and shops and parks and apartment buildings. There are taxis and delivery trucks, people in cars, people on bikes and skateboards. The city is full of people, all kinds of people doing all kinds of things that people do. 

New people are arriving all the time, this is how it is in a big city. Everyone has a story to tell about how they got there – every journey different from the others. But one thing they have in common is that they are all surprised to find themselves there. They are all from somewhere else. And when they arrive, each one has to begin their life again in this new place. Some of them find a new opportunity to do the work they have always done, others take this chance to try the one thing they always wanted to do but never had the chance before. 

Sometimes people leave the city, but no one knows where they go. They’re just gone one day. But even with the departures, the city seems to keep growing, sprawling out farther in every direction with new apartments, new businesses, new roads.

It’s a city like any other big city. All kinds of people – young and old, from every culture in the world – all just living their lives, forming community. Looking for meaning, as we all do. They are much like us, really. The only thing that makes them different is they no longer have a beating heart. Their hearts are perfectly still.

This is a city of the dead, and none of them are sure why they are here. Or what’s going on. Or if there is anything beyond this.

They figure out pretty quickly that it’s not heaven, because there are still irritating garbage trucks with their beep-beep-beep and their grinding gears waking them too early in the morning. There are still unpleasant odors from garbage that sits out too long. They still encounter rude and nasty people on occasion. Surely there would be none of these kinds of annoyances in heaven. 

But they know that it’s not hell either, because there are bakeries with incredibly good croissants and dogwood trees that blossom in the spring. By process of elimination, they come to the conclusion that this is someplace they’ve never heard about before, someplace they never knew existed.

Someplace between heaven and hell, between life and nothingness.

The people in this city have questions, not surprisingly. Every time a newcomer arrives, they get peppered with questions from people wanting some news from the world they left behind. Do you know my sister? My brother? I’d like to know what happened to them. What’s going on with the wars? Who is fighting who these days? Are there any new sicknesses? Epidemics? Pandemics? What’s it like back there?

They have many questions. In that way, also, they are much like us and people of all times and places.

In both our scripture readings today, human questions live loudly. 

In the gospel story we have the Sadducees. 

If you’re not clear about who the Sadducees were, it’s because we don’t talk about them nearly as much as the Pharisees. But one thing we know about them, because Luke tells us so right here, is that they do not believe in a resurrection. Life after death.

The resurrection was one thing the Pharisees and the Sadducees disagreed on, but there were other things. The Sadducees were the originalists of the time. They insisted that the written law – that is, the collection of laws written in the Torah – is the only law. Nothing could be taken from it or added to it. And it must be interpreted literally. 

The Pharisees, on the other hand, seemed to regard the law as something like a living thing, that needed to be continually examined and reinterpreted. But for the Sadducees, it was carved in stone. Literally and figuratively.

So on this particular day Luke writes about in chapter 20, the Sadducees approached Jesus about the vexing question of marriage in the so-called hereafter. Assuming that there is a hereafter. They come at him with a complex hypothetical that reminds me of a word problem in a math textbook. 

Their question is based on the written law of Moses, of course. If a man dies leaving his wife childless, his brother is obligated to take his deceased brother’s widow as his wife so she may have children. But if he also dies, still leaving her childless, then the next brother must marry her. And so it goes, as long as there be brothers to marry, as long as she remains childless. You’ve heard of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? This is the Bible version: One Bride for Seven Brothers.

The point of their question, I suppose, is to prove to Jesus that the idea of life after death just didn’t make sense. Because they couldn’t work out the details. This was a math problem with no solution. 

Another reason for this particular question is also worth noting: this law existed because of the importance of carrying on the family line through the generations. A worse fate for a man of Israel would be hard to imagine than to die childless, with no one to carry his name. And, of course, this was particularly important for the Sadducees, who believed that this was the only form of eternal life there could possibly be. To have children who would bear children, and on down the line, was the way one would live on after their death.

This is the searching need behind the Sadducees’ question – legacy. And among the many causes for Job’s distress, this was one of them. In the story of Job, this man lost everything that he had – his livestock, his home, his health, and his children. He lost his present and his future. And, therefore, his past will be lost because there will be no one to carry his memory forward. 

The premise of the story of Job is a flimsy thing, but the point of the story is how we human beings understand suffering. How we respond to loss.

Job responds with questions. He demands some answers.

Job had been raised to believe that if he lived a careful and righteous life, he would reap the rewards; that good fortune follows goodness, and bad fortune befalls the wicked. Job knows quite well that he has not been wicked, because he is a careful, reflective man. He has been obedient in the law, scrupulous in his piety, and up to now, enjoyed all the blessings he had accrued. He has done nothing to deserve this ill fortune, so now he is searching for the complaint department.

His friends are more than glad to step right up. They have nothing more interesting, more urgent, to do. They will pull up a stool, listen to all his complaints and then cheerfully tell him that, in spite of what he thinks to be true, it is obvious: all this harm has come to him solely because of his own transgressions. They don’t know what those transgressions were – they haven’t the slightest idea – but they know that, as sure as night follows day, punishment follows sin. And it’s as clear as anything that Job is being punished – for something.

But Job simply won’t accept that answer; he can’t make that square peg fit into the round hole. He needs new answers. His friends might be full of theological knowledge, but their answers simply don’t ring true. Job knows he did not deserve to suffer so greatly. He knows it in his bones. Job is still searching for answers. 

In the story about that strange city of the dead, the people are also searching for answers. They wonder a lot about the why of it all. Why are they here in this place, together? Why do people sometimes just disappear? And why do they sometimes hear that rhythmic, beating that sounds so much like a heartbeat? The theory that gains the most traction is this: each one of them is living in someone’s memory. That there is at least one human still alive who remembers them, and as long as that person lives, they will not be completely dead. 

I think the writer of this story was perhaps longing for the same thing the Sadducees were longing for, and the same thing that Job was longing for. The same thing that so many of us long for – to have a legacy here on earth. To somehow live on in the only reality we are certain about.

But Jesus suggests we shift our attention elsewhere. Jesus offers an alternative.

His answer to the questioning Sadducees who are so skeptical of the concept of eternal life, is this: Our God is a God not of the dead but of the living. To God, all of the ones we remember are alive. 

Life eternal is in God’s eternal memory and it is offered right here and right now. It will go on, beyond this world, into a realm we are yet to discover. But let us not forget that Jesus, the incarnation of our God, brings eternal life to us, right where we are.

Jesus would like to steer the Sadducees away from their preoccupation with this word problem they have concocted to win their argument. I think he would like to steer them toward more worthy questions. Like, why are we here, now? There are actually many ways we can live to increase love in the world, to walk the path that Jesus laid for us, to walk toward other people, to make caring connections and make more love. This is what the realm of God is all about, and if we seek to enjoy life eternally, in the hereafter, perhaps it would be good to begin allowing ourselves to be shaped into this form right here, right now. Jesus came to bring eternal life, and he didn’t say we needed to wait until we die.

We have a lot of questions. So many questions for which there are no earthly answers. Why do we suffer? Where do we go after we die? Will it be a direct flight, or will we have to make connections along the way? I don’t have the answers for any of these questions.

But here is a better question: What is eternal life? Look at Jesus and you will see. Listen to Jesus and you will know. And here is another question: When does eternal life begin? And the answer: It begins with Jesus; it is right here, right now – because this is where Jesus is – and to infinity and beyond.

The Blessing and the Woe

Luke 6:20-31

There is a story called Ordinary Grace, written by William Kent Krueger. Some of you may recognize the title, because we read it in our monthly book discussion group several years ago. The story is told from the point of view of a man named Frank looking back on one particular summer in his childhood. It was 1961 in a small town in Minnesota. He was 13 years old, his brother Jake was 9. And in that summer, they confronted death for the first time.

It wasn’t as though they knew nothing of death, actually. Their father was a minister, and they had been to plenty of viewings and funerals in their childhood already. But this summer was different. There were four deaths this summer for these young boys: lives taken by tragic accident, by violence, by unknown causes. Four deaths they met at close proximity. All four, lives taken too soon.

And throughout the story there is the question of faith – and grace. How does faith carry us through times of loss? How does God’s grace bless us in such times?

The experience of loss is one of the inevitable elements of human life. No matter who you are. No matter how much your life might be characterized by blessing, no matter how much it might be characterized by woe. 

No matter who you are, you will know loss.

The experience of pain is something that comes to all of us – physical, spiritual, emotional. We will all, at some time, have the need for relief, for healing, for comfort.

Here is a dimension where life is leveled out. You know it when you go to a hospital. The rich, the poor, the young and the old. No one is exempt. There isn’t necessarily a hierarchy for suffering. We all share it in common.

And this was the make-up of the crowd that gathered around Jesus that day Luke writes about in chapter 6. There was a great multitude of people who came to Jesus – to hear him, to be healed by him, to be rid of the unclean spirits that troubled them. So he came down to a level place to be amidst them – all of them. The blessed and the woeful.

The weeping and the laughing, the hated and the admired, the rich and the poor, the full and the hungry. Everyone who had need were there. They were all represented in the crowd that day.

They have to be there. Because Jesus is speaking to all of them.

I think perhaps when we read the list of blessings and woes in these verses we try to locate ourselves in them, and the people we know. Who am I? Am I one of the poor who can look forward to seeing the kingdom of God, or am I one of the rich who has already received my consolation? Am I one of the hungry who will, someday, be filled, or am I one of the full who will be hungry? The crying or the laughing? The reviled or the respected? 

And I have to say, in these forced-choice questions I don’t know if any of them are all that appealing. You know? 

Would you like your reward now or later? Yes, please. Thank you.

But perhaps the reality of this scene is that you can’t sort the people into these groups – the blessed on the right, the woeful on the left. Because they are all together there in their need, their urgent need for Jesus. 

Picture this scene. A great multitude gathered on a level place, a plain. All of them after the same thing, all of them pressing against one another. There is no way of sorting them into categories, they are all one – one mass of humanity. And Jesus steps down into the middle of it. To be among the blessed and the woeful.

All of them, no matter how blessed are how woeful they feel, need something. Comfort, healing, wholeness, peace.

Perhaps Jesus wasn’t really contrasting two categories of people. Perhaps he was speaking to the truths that co-exist in every human life. Poverty and riches, tears and laughter, fullness and hunger, fellowship and loneliness.

In Ordinary Grace Frank looks back on that summer of 1961 from the vantage point of his years. In the beginning he tells us that, even though you might think that he would look back on that summer as tragedy, this was not the case. Yes, it was tragic in some ways. But there were also blessings, there were lessons, there were miracles.

The story he tells includes the stories of the deaths, but also the stories of love and unfolding glories; the stories of small triumphs, like when Frank gets the better of the town bully – but then also the fear of how the bully might get his vengeance. The story leaves sparks of light throughout, giving the boys glimpses of goodness where they had previously only seen ugliness; of weakness where they had only seen strength; of vulnerability where they had only seen toughness. All falling on Frank and Jake like little drops of grace. 

It is a story of growing up to learn that the world doesn’t allow the sorting of lives into categories of the blessed and the woeful, for each life is touched by both blessing and woe. And the miracle is that in the sorrows we sometimes even receive some blessing.

At the end of the story we catch up with Frank as a mature man, as he describes the Memorial Day ritual he, Jake, and their father carry out each year. They all gather at the cemetery in that small town where they lived in the summer of 1961. They carry with them lavish amounts of flowers, for all the graves they will decorate – a multitude of lives they will remember. The dearly beloved, those whom they were close to; the man whose name they didn’t even know – an itinerant whose body was found near the river where the boys liked to play; the ones whom they might have felt some responsibility for; and the town bully – the one who tormented them throughout their childhood, about whom they discovered only at his death just how alone he was in his life.

We are all, every one of us, among the blessed and the woeful. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for every purpose under heaven – a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. We will all walk through all these things, and we are all in this together.

There is no better place to discover this than in church, where we gather together to celebrate our joys and hold one another up in our grief. We share tears and we help each other see the glimpses of blessing to be found everywhere. We sing and laugh together – and sometimes even dance – all of this in some melding together of delight and wistfulness.

We are all together in this, and Jesus is right here with us too. On that day when a great multitude clamored to reach him, he stepped down onto the plain to be right in there with them. 

He is always right here with us too.

Four Prayers that Don’t Work, Part 4: The Prayer of Comparison

Luke 18:9-14     

It occurred to me this week that we are living in an age of self-service. When I go to the grocery store I usually head to the self-check line where I scan and bag my own groceries, pay my bill, and then I tell myself, “Thank you for shopping at Acme! Have a good day.”

When I pay my bills I don’t receive a letter in the mail, with a return envelope. I keep a note on my calendar to remember when the bill is due, then I go onto the company’s website, login, and submit my payment electronically. I go to the ATM machine to make deposits and to withdraw cash. And the list goes on.

And so, in that spirit, it occurred to me that this is a pretty straightforward parable we have today. So obvious that I imagine you can interpret it yourself. Let this be a self-service sermon.

Because it is obvious that the parable is demonstrating for us here that the arrogance of the Pharisee is both distasteful and wrong. His prayer is little more than a pat on his own back. “Thank you, God, for making me a great guy. Amen.”

It’s an embarrassment to all of us who believe in prayer.

Then on the other side, we have the tax collector who hangs his head and cries out to God, “Have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.” He humbly confesses his sinfulness, as one should.

You don’t even need me to say it: Be more like the tax collector and less like the Pharisee. It’s a good message, important message. And if I left you to it, I am sure you could gather into small groups and have some very fruitful discussions about the matter. On reflection, you might be able to recall times you have been a bit like that Pharisee when you probably should have been more like the tax collector in your prayers. You could find encouragement to be more forthright in confessing your sins to God, knowing that you will be forgiven. Thanks be to God.

This sermon delivers itself, doesn’t it? I could end it right there.

But since there is time, I'll mention a couple of things that may be worth considering.

The Pharisee does seem self-satisfied. But that is because he is doing all the things he knows he is supposed to be doing. According to the Jewish understanding of righteousness, he is blameless – and then some. He is expected to fast once a week, but he fasts twice a week. The law requires him to tithe on his harvest, but he is tithing on all his income. This man is doing what is required of him. He may be doing above and beyond what is required of him.

What I can tell you about Pharisees, from what I have read, is that they were extremely concerned about righteousness before God, and the law of God was the means by which it would be measured. So, therefore, it was better to set a higher standard. Don’t just do the minimum. Do more than what is demanded.

This Pharisee was in a really good mood on this day, maybe because he had a really good week – a week in which he succeeded in doing all the good he had set out to do. He gives himself a high five. And he says, “Thank you God for allowing me to do it. Thank you for not making me like this tax collector.”

This tax collector – we know that he was a despised man among his people. He was working for the occupation forces, enriching them. Furthermore, he was enriching himself off the backs of his brothers and sisters. He was dealing in dirty money – unrighteous mammon, as the King James Bible would say.

Yet this tax collector had as much right to be in the temple praying as the Pharisee did. He also observed the law of God. He is truly sorry for his sins, as we can see from his prayer begging for mercy.

But, still, it would be fair to ask the tax collector: And now what? Now that you have acknowledged your sin, what will you do next?

To us, perhaps, the Pharisee looks like a hypocrite. He spouts off pious language all day long, but then in his prayer he makes snide remarks about tax collectors and others he deems lesser creatures. For shame!

And equally, to us, the tax collector looks honestly repentant. Look at his posture, listen to his words. He knows he is nothing more than a worm. God bless him for his humility!

But do we forget that the Pharisee is doing his best every day to live a life obedient to God’s law? And do we ever wonder whether there is any substance behind the tax collector’s prayer of confession? Is it only words, or is there more?

There is, perhaps, much more than first met the eye with this parable.

Jesus told this parable to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” That might have included some Pharisees. It probably included some Pharisees. But it wasn’t exclusive to Pharisees.

The truth of the matter is we are all, every one of us, susceptible to that sin of trusting in ourselves. We are all guilty, as well, of regarding others with contempt.

And it is just as true that we are all susceptible to the sin of lamenting our shortcomings without ever intending to change a thing.

The message of this parable is about judging others. It’s about the sin of comparing ourselves to others for the purpose of somehow inflating our self-image, our self-confidence. We see it clearly in the Pharisee’s prayer. Of the Four Prayers that Don’t Work, as I have called this series, the prayer of comparison is definitely one of them. Comparing ourselves to others will not serve us or God or the world in any way at all. It will only serve our egos.

And this also means that we must guard against praying the prayer, “Thank you God that I am not like this Pharisee!” Because we are. Let’s not treat the Pharisee like the sinner and the tax collector like the saint. Both are sinners. Both are subject to the same law. And both are beloved children of God.

Let us not stand in judgment of either man – the Pharisee or the tax collector. Because in truth we are both of these men. We, too, judge others we think we are superior to. And we, too, often confess our sins and then utterly neglect to practice real repentance.

These two men, the Pharisee and the tax collector, are offering different kinds of prayers:

The Pharisee prays a prayer of thanksgiving – thanks for all that he has been given that allows him to live in obedience to God’s law. We, too, should offer prayers of thanksgiving for every single way God has enabled us to live our lives well.

The tax collector prays a prayer of confession for his sinfulness. Yes, we should also offer such prayers each day for all that is in us that falls short of the glory of God.

In the end, here is what we can say: We are sinners. We are forgiven. We do not need to measure ourselves against anyone else. We only need to surrender to God’s grace, which may then grow in us and through us more than we could ever imagine or hope for. Because nothing compares to the grace of God.

  

Four Prayers that Don’t Work, Pt. 2: The Prayer that You Didn’t Pray

Luke 17:11-19

I experienced a moment of serendipity last week when I found myself confronted with the possibility of joy. It popped up in my morning devotions, where I was reminded of the small, nearly intangible ways we can experience joy. A little later I ran into a friend while out walking and she told me about a book she is reading called, coincidentally, Living Joyously. She said that developing the practice of joyfulness is helping her to persevere through difficult things. 

Later I was in a group discussion where, again, the topic of joy was raised – but there was some pushback. One of the participants divulged that he rarely experiences joy and doesn’t think he knows how to practice joyful living. Another said we should be careful about not having too much joy, lest it be at the expense of taking the grave matters of life seriously.

Reflecting on that discussion, I felt sympathy for the one who doesn’t know how to find joy. And I have some understanding of the position that we should take seriously the very serious things in the world that need our attention. But I do not believe joy will hinder that. And, quite honestly, I cannot see how it is possible to have too much joy.

Joy is a peculiar emotion. We often think of it as essentially the same thing as happiness, but it’s not quite the same. Joy is something that wells up from someplace deep inside of us. Therefore, it doesn’t require something outside of ourselves to make it happen.

Although, there are times when joy is a direct result of something wonderful happening. When I looked at the morning news and saw that the Cubs beat the Brewers and so lived to play another day, I felt joyful. But at the same time I am aware this is a joy that can be taken away too easily. As it was when they lost the next game.

I have occasionally visited congregations where the atmosphere was highly charged with what seemed to me like a forced cheerfulness. And while a forced happiness can be contagious, spreading good cheer to others, it may lack a foundation of joy to sustain it.

Because joy isn’t forced. It isn’t summoned on demand. Joy isn’t necessarily directly tied to external circumstances. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Joy is a gift.

The gospel story we hear today doesn’t speak directly to the subject of joy, but I see joy in it. 

Jesus is passing through a region between Galilee and Samaria, on his way to Jerusalem. We are told that some people at that time would take a longer route from Galilee to Jerusalem in order to avoid passing through Samaria – but not Jesus. He did not seem to have that sense of distaste or distrust for Samaritans. 

So here he is now, in a sort of “no man’s land” – somewhere between a land of Jews and a land of Samaritans. This is the sort of place, actually, where one might expect to find people afflicted with leprosy.

Most of the older translations call these men lepers but some of the newest versions describe them as having a skin disease. I assume this change was made because the term leprosy was used back then to cover a whole host of skin ailments. Not everything that was called leprosy was actually leprosy. True leprosy was and is an awful disease. It was the fear of leprosy, and an abundance of caution, that motivated this response to the appearance of any skin disease.

Leprosy is caused by bacteria. It begins with skin discoloration, and eventually, if untreated, can lead to nerve damage and severe physical deformities. The fear of contagion was real, and so anyone assumed to be afflicted with leprosy was banished from the community. They were required to wear bells that would announce their presence, and call out “unclean, unclean” just in case anyone came near to them. 

If a person with leprosy was somehow cured of the disease, they had to be certified clean by a priest before they could be admitted back into their community.

The social isolation of leprosy had to be painful, adding to their misery. The sense of not being quite human, which they might have felt due to the physical effects of the disease, was made worse by being shunned by their community.

They probably did not have much joy in their lives. They did not have much to feel thankful about.

But they still, evidently, had hope. Because when they saw Jesus, they came as near as they dared and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 

He saw them and merely said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” They turned to leave, following his instruction, and they were made clean. And I don’t think it was a coincidence.

Neither did one of these men, for he stopped, turned back, and returned to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice all the way. 

And this man was a Samaritan.

And in this we see that there are not parameters on the healing power of God. Even a despised Samaritan can be touched by God’s grace. This is good news. But there is another message as well, about thankfulness.

Lest we oversimplify, I want to be sure to say that it’s about more than good manners. Yes, it is always good to remember to say thank you – to your family and friends, to a stranger who holds a door for you or a server who refills your water glass. Good manners are a kind of social lubricant, helping to smooth our way in the world. But saying thank you to God is something different.

A prayer of thanks is necessary for a healthy spiritual life. This is not because God needs it. It is because we need it. A practice of gratitude is good medicine. It can keep us healthy and happy. It keeps us close to God.

There were ten men who were cured of their skin disease as they followed Jesus’ direction to go and show themselves to the priests. Whether their action, going to the priest, was due to faith or just a habit of obedience, I do not know. Whether they all were aware in the moment that they were cured, or too preoccupied with moving from one place to another, I do not know. I only know that there was one man who did take notice. And this man immediately knew that he had been cured by the power of God working through Jesus. And he immediately returned to the source of his healing.

This one man, who happened to be a Samaritan, sought out the nearness of Jesus. He fell to the ground before Jesus and thanked him. 

Jesus said to him, “Your faith has made you well.” It is important here for us to pay attention to the words. Earlier on, the ten men were made clean, that is, they were cured of the skin disease, which was truly a miracle. But as far as we know, only the one who returned to Jesus, praising God and giving thanks, was made well. All were made clean, but only one was made well.

The Greek word that is translated as “made well” is sozo, a word that is often translated as “saved.” Sozo is a healing of a whole different magnitude. It wasn’t just his skin that was cleared up; the wellness penetrated deep into his soul.

This kind of healing happened for him when he returned to Jesus giving thanks and praise. This wholeness was made possible through a deeper relationship with Jesus. And that is our link today to prayer.

In this world we live in, there is a great danger of treating God like someone or something to be manipulated. A drop box where we put our suggestions, complaints, or requests. We say, “please, please, please,” and then, when we get what we want we go on happily for another day, until the next time we are driven to ask for something we need.

While we are assured that we may ask for whatever we need, this habit of treating God like Siri or Alexa, those names you can call out to your phone or speaker system and ask for anything – such an attitude toward God fails to comprehend the extraordinary things God offers us.

God offers the kind of healing, a wholeness, that we cannot find in anything else on earth. God offers us things that last; we only need to enter into a relationship through prayer to find those things. Beginning with prayers of gratitude, which acknowledge the source of all good gifts.

For this reason, gratitude and joy go hand in hand. 

That day last week when the word joy became threaded through my hours, I thought a lot about joy as a kind of salve. There is a lot of anxiety in our world at this time. Sometimes I feel like it’s in the water, an invisible toxin that we are all imbibing it, not even knowing it. Only finding eventually the effects it has on us. We are living in a time that requires resilience of us, in the face of all kinds of challenges, sorrows, and fears. Somehow, we all need to find resilience.

The most resilient people among us, I believe, have access to deep reservoirs of joy, from which they can draw in times of need. But you will be hard pressed to find this joy, unless you cultivate a life of thanksgiving to God.

Jesus told this one thankful Samaritan, “Your faith has made you well.” And we know from this that the wellness he is receiving will have lasting consequences; that this moment right now is only the beginning. We may have this too.

Let us cultivate a prayerful practice of gratitude, and fill our wells with joy to see us through to the end. 

Photo by Rory McKeever on Unsplash

Four Prayers that Don't Work, Part 1: The Prayer for Enough Faith to Have No Need for Faith

Luke 17:1-10

I once had a conversation with a woman with whom I had certain things in common. She and I were around the same age. We both had children who were young adults, sort of struggling to find their way in life. We both were trying to be the best parents we could be for these adult children, who were not quite adults yet. We were two people feeling a little shipwrecked, trying to find our way on to solid ground.

As we were talking she suddenly made a sound of exasperation, threw up her hands, and said, “Life could be so easy! You know, it could all be so easy. Why do they have to make it hard?”

I laughed, in part because I found the idea so appealing. Yeah, I thought, it really could be easy. Right? Still, it nagged at me, because I suspected she was wrong. I mean, what in her life experience ever led her to believe it could be, or should be, easy?

As much as I wanted to affirm that life can be so easy, I knew deep inside that she was wrong about that. Sure, we will have easy moments, easy days. And we will want those easy days to continue forever, for all our life long. But a string of easy days will come to an end and we will become reacquainted with the hard stuff. And part of growing up is facing down the hard stuff, walking through it, figuring out how to live in the hard days as well as the easy days. I think that was the stage our children were facing in that moment. How to handle the hard stuff when you reach the point in life when you have to handle it yourself.

I know this is not necessarily good news. But, then again, it’s not even news, is it? I am not telling you anything you didn’t already know.

As Jesus said to his disciples, occasions for sin are bound to come. Challenges will show up in our lives and there may be a lot at stake when you meet a challenge. Be mindful, pay attention. Look out for one another, and when there is repentance, by all means, offer forgiveness. Even if this is a repeat offender, a repeat repenter. It doesn’t matter, repeat forgiveness.

This is one of those occasions in the scriptures when the verses don’t seem to hang together in a very cohesive way. It feels like a bunch of disconnected thoughts. But, nonetheless, they are important and true: Do not be a cause for a weaker brother or sister to stumble. Take care that you do not stumble, yourself. Look out for one another and forgive one another – again and again and again. There is no limit on forgiveness.

And it is after Jesus says these things that the disciples throw up their hands and say, “Augh! Life could be so easy!!!”

No, they didn’t. But what they did say was not that different. 

“Increase our faith!” These things are hard, very hard. Lord, if only we had enough faith we could do what you ask. Please, Lord, increase our faith.

This is a prayer I have made. At a moment when I felt afraid that I was not enough. A time when I thought that if I only had enough faith I could do this thing right. If only I had enough faith I could rest easy, knowing that everything will be alright. Knowing that I am okay. Increase my faith, God. Give me what I need.

Increase our faith, they cry out to him. And Jesus replies, Faugh! Let me tell you: If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could tell this tree to be uprooted and be planted in the sea. And the tree would do just that. Faith the size of a mustard seed.

In terms of scale, you know that’s pretty small. It’s not the smallest seed in the world, but small. If we lined up all the different grades of faith, then perhaps we would place next to the mustard seed a sesame seed, which is even smaller; then an orchid seed, which is like a speck of dust. Where is my faith on that scale? Is it even visible? 

But when we are asking questions about the size of our faith, we are asking the wrong questions. 

I can understand why they ask. Jesus has just reminded them again that kingdom life is, indeed, hard. It is a challenge that they will need to, somehow, rise to meet. All this caring for others, all this forgiveness, all this self-control. We doubt that we can do this. We know from experience that we cannot do it.

Increase my faith, Lord. Make me able to do what you are asking me to do.

Grant me enough faith, O God, to make it easier. Make my faith sufficient so that I can just do the things I need to do, the things I want to do. So that I may always know the right answer, the right next step to take. So that I may embody your peace, your love, your justice. Give me some of that.

Grant me a big enough faith, Lord, so that I am good enough. So that I will no longer need faith, because I will have certainly. Self-sufficiency.

Is that what we really want when we pray, increase my faith?

I know that all of us would like, now and then, for life to be easy. We would love for discipleship living to be something that comes effortlessly. But dear beloved ones, we are simply not equipped to do that on our own. 

Disciples must stay close to their teacher, and our teacher is Christ Jesus. Without him we can do nothing. Without him we are lost. 

And that is where prayer comes in. Prayer is what draws us near to God, and near to God is where we will always want to be. Therefore, prayer is something we should practice. Regularly. Because every single day we will need to ask again for the things we need. Every single day we will need to put our faith in God to give us what we need.

Our faith will always feel like too little, because we will always need to return to the well and draw again, the source of everything we need. We will need to ask again for the strength we need to walk another day in his footsteps.

And these things he is asking of us – forgiveness, caring for one another – the things that strike us as being too much for us to possibly do, these are the mere fundamentals of kingdom living. As he says in this parable about slaves and masters, you don’t expect thanks each day for doing your job. You don’t expect to be applauded for doing the bare minimum. Pats on the back, praise, and trophies are not going to give us what we need for this life we have entered into. None of us can do it on our own. All of us need the practice of faith.

We don’t need bigger faith. We need the practice of faith.

And one of the important ways we practice our faith is in prayer. Prayer keeps us close to the source of all we need. All we need to be disciples of Jesus, to share his love with the world around us. 

We don’t need to pray for more faith. We just need to pray … more.

On the Other Side of the Gate

Amos 6:1a,4-7 

Luke 16:19-31 

Jesus is not finished with the subject of money yet. 

And we might think that what he he has to say is controversial.  Controversial because he speaks of wealth disparagingly. And this seems to contradict a common belief, based on some of the Hebrew scriptures, that God’s blessings show up in the abundance we receive in this life – abundant property, abundant crops, even an abundance of children all mean that God is smiling on you. 

And there are great reasons why this is not only appealing to our hearts and minds, but also seems to make sense. Abundance of the things we need in life will give us a sense of well-being and security. 

Years ago I was talking with some people about what the Bible says about wealth. We had just read a passage from Luke where Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich.” We wondered if he really meant that. Because, is it really that bad being rich?

One woman in the conversation said this. “There was a time when I was poor, but now I am not. I thought about money a whole lot more when I was poor than I do now.” It is a privilege to not have to think about money all the time. You might still want to think about it. But you simply aren’t forced to think every day about whether you have enough to buy the food you need, about how you will juggle paying your bills so you won’t bounce a check or have the water turned off at your house. These are difficult and stressful matters to have weighing on you every day. It is a privilege to have enough so that you do not have those worries.

Most of us are privileged in that way. But today I am suspending that privilege and, once again, asking you to think about money, along with Jesus and the Pharisees. Let’s begin by setting the context.

At the beginning of this chapter Jesus told the Parable of the Dishonest Manager to his disciples, which was overheard by the Pharisees and scribes, sinners and tax collectors. We know they heard him, because immediately after he finishes the parable, ending with the words, “you cannot serve God and wealth,” the Pharisees ridicule him.

The Pharisees heard a lot from Jesus that day. They heard the Parable of the Prodigal, where the younger son went out and squandered all the wealth his father had given him, and then the father had to decide how he would respond to that son’s return.

They overheard the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. Jesus directed this one toward his disciples, a story about a manager who squandered his master’s wealth, and then hatched a scheme to save himself – a scheme that also served to enhance his master’s reputation.

In the first parable, Jesus shows his listeners the way God’s amazing grace will bring us into the fold when we humbly seek forgiveness. In the second parable Jesus encourages his listeners to be shrewd about distinguishing the lasting things from the things of this world, which are passing away. And when he hears them scoffing, ridiculing him, Jesus turns to the Pharisees and essentially says, “Here’s one just for you, guys.”

There is a rich man who lives in a great house, wears fine clothes and eats sumptuously every single day. And there is a poor man named Lazarus who lies outside the rich man’s gate. Lazarus, covered in sores, starving, suffering even the indignity of the dogs licking his wounds. He is quite a sight to behold, but Lazarus remains unseen, uncared for by the rich man, who steps over Lazarus’ broken body as he walks through his gate on his merry way. 

Lazarus died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. Then the rich man died and descended to Hades, where he was tormented by flames. 

The rich man was high, but he was brought low. Lazarus was low, but he was raised up high. There has been a complete reversal of their situations.

The rich man complains; he demands a better room. This one is too hot. But it is clear there will be no relief for the rich man. “There is nothing to be done now. A great chasm has been fixed between us,” Abraham tells the rich man.

It is really a haunting scene. I don’t try to draw any particular ideas about the exact details of heaven and hell from this story, but I cannot help but hear in it a clear condemnation of certain kinds of choices we make, certain types of behavior we engage in here on earth. And Jesus is building momentum.

We see Jesus raising the stakes as he moves from parable to parable: from the joy of being embraced by the forgiving arms of God (in the prodigal son); to the strong suggestion we turn our eyes to the kingdom that is coming and put all our resources into preparing for it (in the dishonest manager); and now to the stark and sobering vision of how it might all play out in the end for those who choose to ignore the messages they have already heard.

But perhaps because of the sequence of these parables, I firmly believe the message of this one is not all about the afterlife. Rather it is about the choices we make in this life. In particular, a choice to see or not to see all that is around us.

The real problem here is the rich man’s refusal to see Lazarus, to see his suffering even though it was taking place right outside his gate. And make no mistake, it is a choice. The rich man knew Lazarus was there – he even knew his name, we discover – but he chose to not acknowledge him. He chose to not care.

This poor man, Lazarus, was right outside his gate, such that the rich man could not come and go without encountering him. But he did not want to encounter Lazarus. He enjoyed the beautiful things, the pleasures of life – his fine clothes and his sumptuous feasts. Lazarus was not beautiful to behold. Lazarus actually made him uncomfortable. Lazarus, he decided, was to be ignored.

God wants us to see one another. God wants us to care for one another. 

I know this is a hard thing for us to do. There is, in this life, something like a great chasm between us and the suffering poor. A chasm that may prevent us from having compassion for them. A chasm that may even prevent us from regarding them as real human beings like us.

We are actually blessed to have the opportunity every week to see the poor and homeless ones right outside our door. Any Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you cannot come into the church without seeing them. It is a highly valued mission of this church, but I hope we all know that the ministry of HOPE offers invaluable benefits to us as well. Because it gives us a chance every week to share space, even share fellowship, with the Lazarus in our midst.

There is a story in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says to his disciples, “You will always have the poor with you.” On one level he meant that there will never cease to be poverty on earth. But on another level, he meant that because we are his followers we will never put too much distance between ourselves and the needy. Followers of Jesus will never abandon those in need. We will see them. We will know them. We will care for them.

I know, it is still a tall order. It is a challenge, and perhaps feels overwhelming. But let me share with you one story that illustrates this model of Christian compassion.

I was in Washington DC with two other women. It was a hot day and we had been doing a lot of walking around the city on the hot cement. We were on our way to the metro station to begin our trip home. We were walking through one of the many squares in the city and passed by a bench with a man sitting there. He looked tired. He looked beaten by the world. He looked homeless.

We were chatting as we walked, and I barely saw this man. I walked right past him. But then I noticed that one of my companions stopped. She approached the man and politely asked him for directions, although we didn’t need directions. He replied. Then, smiling and still looking at him, she asked, “Are you hungry? Would you like a sandwich? An apple?” And she pulled a sandwich and apple out of her bag. He accepted them. Then she asked, are you thirsty? Would you like some water? When he said yes, she pulled a bottle of water from her bag and gave it to him.

She then thanked the man, for the assistance he had given her, and we continued walking.

Two of us failed to see this man. But one of us really, authentically saw him and crossed the great chasm. One of us bore the image of Christ in the city that day.

In the end it is a matter of seeing another as a human being. Lazarus was a fellow human being. And the question is: what can you do for one human being?

In Praise of Squandering

Luke 16:1-13

Through my years in ministry I have noticed that there are a couple of parables people really love. One of them is the parable of the good Samaritan and the other is the parable of the prodigal son. This parable of the dishonest manager is not one that is ever mentioned as anyone’s favorite.

As a category, the parable is an artful literary form. There is always some friction in a parable, and that is by design. We could even say that the parable is shrewd that way. You see, the point of the parable is to make you react, and then think about why you are reacting. 

So, in the parable of the prodigal son, there are some elements that cause friction. For example, many people are disturbed by the way the prodigal gets a free pass, so to speak, from the father. There are some of us who would perhaps agree with the older son – the “good” son – and say that the prodigal deserves to be punished, banished even, but not celebrated when he returns home with his tail between his legs. I know there are some “good” sons and daughters who feel that way.

But it still remains that the church loves that parable, because in the character of the father we see the immeasurable grace of God. Yes, we see the father as God, and perhaps we see something of ourselves in the son who is feeling the pain of his mistakes. In this parable we see love and grace.

You might be wondering now why I am talking about the parable of the prodigal. Is it just to avoid talking about this miserable parable we have before us today, the parable of the dishonest manager? A parable about which there is universal agreement: it is the worst. But I am actually talking about the prodigal son because there are some remarkable similarities between it and this parable of the dishonest manager.

The similarities are not immediately apparent. The subject matters are very different. One is a family setting; the other is in the context of business. In one, the father, or lord of the household, is a benevolent, loving, grace-filled figure. In the other, the lord, or the master, is a businessman, simply trying to make good, prudent business decisions.

But in both parables, there is one character who squanders wealth. This is the word we hear in both parables: the prodigal son traveled to a distant region and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living, the wealth his father had bestowed on him. And likewise, the manager, it has been said, is squandering the rich man’s property. Whether by carelessness, ineptness, or downright thievery, we don’t know. 

And in both parables, the squanderer comes to a moment of reflection when he realizes he is in a jam. In both cases, the squanderer comes up with a plan that will, he hopes, offer him a way out. 

And in both cases, it works.

We see the similarities. Why, then, are these parables so different? Why do we tend to love one and hate the other? That really isn’t hard to see.

Take the character of the father of the prodigal son. He acts in a way that seems perfectly God-like. And while we, ourselves, might not be as forgiving and generous and loving as he is, most of the time we are glad that God is so forgiving, generous, loving. The son did not deserve to be welcomed home, but that is what grace is all about. By grace we have been saved, too, so on balance it’s a pretty good story. A comforting story.

Now take a look at the rich man in today’s parable. 

So, what do we have to say about the rich man in this parable? Does he seem God-like? Not particularly, I might say. But Luke would say, no way! You see, Luke does not have a high opinion of rich men. Again and again, we see the rich man skewered in Luke’s gospel. Not because wealth is inherently bad, but because in Luke’s telling, being rich is equivalent to loving money more than he loves God. You might argue that Luke’s rich man is actually a straw man, but Luke is making a point about choosing the values of this world over the values of God’s kingdom.

And yet, it is our instinctive response to hearing this parable, again and again: We want the most powerful character in this story to be the voice of God, and we want everything he says and does to be trustworthy. Yet, this powerful man got played by his manager. And he commended the manager for his shrewdness. 

All of this is not sitting well. It happens to me every time this parable comes up – it makes me uncomfortable and perplexed. So, we need to reassess our assumptions about it – perhaps even take a step back and reassess our assumptions about parables in general. Sometimes a master is not the Master. Sometimes a lord is not the Lord.

And sometimes a shrewd move is, well, impressive.

The manager has been caught in his squandering, and he recognizes he has limited options. And so he hatches a plan to cut a deal with every one of his master’s debtors. “How much do you owe? 100? Adjust your bill and make it 50. Again and again the manager negotiates the debts down, not by a little. We don’t actually know if he is forgoing his own commission, or if he is cutting into the master’s profits. But he is taking care of business in a way that we might assume is benefitting both his master and himself. His master, because he is getting something rather than nothing. Himself because, as he says, “when I am dismissed, people may welcome me into their homes.”

And his master, perhaps grudgingly, agrees.

So that is the story, for better or worse. You know that old saying about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Let’s not try to do that. The story has some problems. I don’t like any of the characters. I don’t exactly want to be like the manager, and I don’t want God to be like the rich man. This isn’t exactly one of those “go and do likewise” situations. I’ll say it just once:  Don’t be a dishonest manager. Full stop. 

So what, then, to make of it? Well, at this point in the text Jesus weighs in with his own thoughts. So let’s go there.

The first thing he says at the end of the story is: The children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light. Jesus commends this quality called shrewdness, and he only wishes his own, the children of light, could be as shrewd as these children of the world. Yes, that’s what he said. Jesus wants us to be shrewd.

I am afraid that the word shrewd has taken on negative connotations in our times, but it doesn’t necessarily carry that meaning in the Bible. Shrewdness is not inherently good or bad. It simply means sharp judgment and practical intelligence. It can be used for harmful ends or for beneficial ends, and Jesus just wants his followers to know that he wishes they would use more of that shrewdness for God’s purposes. Be shrewd for the Lord! Amen?

Because if we did that –

We would recognize that the things of this world are finite, they are ending. The riches you pile up on earth will be worth nothing in the world to come, so be shrewd, my friends!

In other words, know that you have a choice:

You can be like the man who builds bigger barns to house his enormous and ever-growing stash of goods,

You can be like the servant who buries his talent in the ground because he is afraid to take any chances,

You can be like the rich man who never saw poor, hungry Lazarus as he stepped over him and went merrily on his way,

You can be like the man who has a neighbor thrown into debtor’s prison because he is unable to repay his debt to you – 

And I think we all need to be very honest with ourselves about when and how we have, indeed, been like these characters – 

You can be like them.

Or, you can be a shrewd child of the light and begin to understand the extraordinary beauty of squandering.

Admittedly, that word has nothing but negative meanings. It’s wasting, misusing, losing, throwing away. And we are pretty good at judging one another for squandering when we see it. But what if the stakes are higher that we realized? 

What if it’s not about losses and gains in our stock portfolios or bank accounts, but rather about the building up of God’s kingdom by populating the world with acts of compassion and healing, justice. What if it’s about being repairers of the breach.

That is a phrase we find in the book of Isaiah, chapter 58. This is what he says:

If you loose the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free; if you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil; if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness. Your light shall break forth like the dawn. You shall be called the repairers of the breach.

We need repairers of the breach in this world. We need children of light who can shrewdly see the difference between the values of this world and the values of God’s kingdom, where what might have seemed like wasteful squandering begins to look like grace…justice…generosity.

Where squandering becomes grace. Like the father who squandered his love on the prodigal son – no one could tell him it wasn’t a worthy pursuit.

Let us be shrewd in using the resources of this world in ways that prepare the way for the new world. Let us be faithful in the small things and the big things, knowing that as this world passes away we will have already been at work seeding the kingdom to come. Let us know the choice and choose the way that is built on the teachings of Jesus, the love of God. 

Let us dare to be squanderers for the right reasons. 

And may all of our squandering be done in service to the one who created the world and everything in it, who squanders beauty and love in breathtaking ways, the one who is our very life and being.