Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 6: More than Enough

Luke 6:27-38

Here's a test: You’re shopping online, scrolling through all the options and possibilities, thinking about what you want. You let your curser rest on one particular item, then a message pops on screen saying, “Going fast!” or “Only 2 of these left!” 

How do you react to that?

If you are like me, your immediate response is a slight feeling of alarm. The thought enters your mind, “If I want this I had better act fast or I will lose the chance. Someone else will get it.”

This happens, even if I am intellectually aware that this is a technological trick. That it’s probably not even true. That, honestly, my world will be none the worse even if I do miss out on purchasing this item. Yet, it plants this seed in my head – I might miss out.

Someone else will get it. I will miss out. This is the essence of the scarcity mindset. 

Over the past six weeks, we have been thinking about what we’re calling “The Economy of Jesus.” There are ways Jesus approaches economic matters that are radically different from what we are accustomed to, and very challenging to our own desires.

We began in January introducing something called the “Gift Economy.” Instead of approaching something with a transactional mindset, we have the option of mutual gift-giving. This means we give without strings attached. It is something that is necessary for authentic loving community to exist.

Next we listened to Jesus speak in the Synagogue as he presented his mission, or purpose. The concept of Jubilee, which is an Old Testament notion that restores others to wholeness. And if this is his purpose, then we know it is ours as well.

The next week we heard the rest of Jesus’ sermon in the synagogue, where he very pointedly told us that God is not for us and against others. In this way, we are challenged to stretch our own understanding of love.

We then considered the notion of call – something that people of faith may experience personally. In Luke’s story of how Peter, James, and John were called, we heard Jesus saying, “Go out into deeper water.” And when we do, the abundance of good things we find there will take us to a new level.

When we are listening for God’s call, we are likely to hear the call to give sacrificially – as I did. To give sacrificially is to give in trust – trust that there will be blessings galore. We are invited to lean into this blessing, even when it feels counterintuitive, because it draws us near to God and an experience of the fullness of joy therein.

And today in our reading Jesus invites us, once again, to shed our scarcity mindset and believe in God’s abundance. Because we know that God provides. We know that there really isn’t a shortage of good things in this world God created. There is abundance, which is another way of saying there is grace. Which points directly to love.

Have you ever been approached by a mother or a father who is expecting their second child, and hearing them say to you, “I am afraid I will not be able to love this child as much as I love my first child.” They are afraid they’ll come up short and there is nothing they can do about it.

At that point, if you are a parent who has been through it yourself, you might offer them assurances. You’ll say something like, “You will find that there is more love inside you than you ever imagined. You will find that love is not finite. There is an ever-expanding amount of love in you, so you will be able to love this child as much as the other.”

Most parents know this because we have been through the experience of feeling the love in us expand beyond the boundaries we thought were there. We have felt the explosion of love, the experience of feeling love in a way that we never have before. We know that love is not limited.

This is one important way that we as human beings are made in God’s image. And this truth is the foundation for everything else that matters.

Love leads to grace, which leads to generosity. And that, I will boldly declare, leads to happiness.

It’s what we are meant for, what we have been made for. You cannot really stop this abundant divine love and grace from pouring out into the world. 

There is a story about St. Francis of Assisi that illuminates this truth. Francis took these words of Jesus so seriously, he gave away everything he had and joined a monastery. In that community, he used to get in trouble for how quickly he was willing to give away his clothes to others. Francis’s abbot was aggravated about the cost of having to constantly replace Francis’s coats, so he ordered Francis to stop giving them away. But Francis found a loophole around his vow of obedience. When he met someone who needed a coat, he’d say, “I can’t give you my coat, but you could take it from me…”

The Abbott would have had to imprison Francis in his cell to stop his generosity. Which would have killed him, sooner or later. A spirit of love is meant to thrive and grow. A spirit of grace is meant to spread to infinity and beyond.

A spirit of generosity is what we are called to, my friends. Today you are invited to pledge your generosity for the coming year. We have asked you to wonder about the people and circumstances in your life that have taught you the meaning of generosity. We have asked you to examine your own giving patterns with the question, “Is there room for me to give a little more?” We have asked you to consider the very real possibility that giving sacrificially, giving in trust, will increase your joy. 

Yet, it bears repeating that no one is ever asked to give more than they can. Each of us is asked to give as we are able to – not one bit more. Today, it is my prayer that you have found the sweet spot, that level of commitment that meets all your needs.

As we bring our pledge cards to the communion table today, may you know this blessing:

A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

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Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 5: Leaning into Blessing

Luke 6:17-26

Last week I had a case of vertigo that hit me like a ton of bricks. So I spent the week mostly in bed, unable to focus my eyes very well. The vertigo has gradually improved but I have still been left with little to do but rest my eyes and … think.

And I have been thinking about the text for the week. About blessing and woe. About the economy of Jesus, about fullness and emptiness. About giving and receiving.

There is no question in my mind that I am among the blessed – by almost any definition of the word. But when I think of the specific biblical meaning, and the unique angle Jesus presents in his sermon on the plain, this is the meaning of blessed that matters the most to me.

To talk about this, I want to go back to my childhood. I offer you today a kind of testimony. Normally when I prepare a sermon I spend time studying, reading a lot, taking things in. But this week I could not read, so I can only give you what is already inside me.

I was brought up in the Lutheran church, a place that was important in our family life. Like many of you, church was the water I swam in as a child, the air I breathed. Nothing to be questioned, only to be learned. 

And in the church, thankfully, I learned that I am loved. I learned that I am a sinner, absolutely. But unlike the experiences I know some others have had, it was not taught to me that I am a bad person. I sin because I can do no other on my own. But I am loved as a child of God and therefore forgiven. This was the most important thing I learned in my childhood, I think – that I am incurably prone to sin, but that I am nonetheless loved. Thus, I can confess my sins every day without fear, because God is always ready to forgive. Like the prodigal son, whose father will run out to embrace him when he turns his face toward home, I am forgiven.

I believe this is as solid a foundation as I could have wanted in life. Not everything was peachy keen in my world, but because my parents raised me in church, I have been blessed.

Yet, when I became an adult, I can see now that there was something lacking. I did not seem to feel that I needed to do anything in this relationship. I took what I needed, but I gave little.

It was a set of circumstances in my life in my early 30’s that changed that. When Kim and I moved from Iowa to Pennsylvania, I was unable to find a Lutheran church that felt like a good fit for me. There were three in town, I tried them all, but each time felt the answer was no. Someone suggested I try the Presbyterian Church which was only a five-minute walk from our home. And so I did.

The first time I walked in there I had a clear sense I was in the right place. I sensed that God was opening the door and welcoming me in.

It was in joining this church that I began to have a clear sense that God was doing a little more than loving and forgiving me. God was asking something of me as well. I was asked to serve on session and I knew my answer was yes immediately because I had already felt that call in my soul. I was asked to serve in other ways and the answer was always yes.

I said to you last week that the call comes in many ways and at many times during a person’s life. My first year on session, when it came to stewardship time, I discovered the call to give sacrificially. 

I know that word – sacrifice, sacrificial – is loaded with baggage, can be triggering for some of us. But it helps to deepen our understanding of the concept. Someone once told me the definition of sacrifice is to give up something good for the sake of something better. 

But doing this always requires trust. 

Sacrificial giving to me means giving in trust – But I had never done this before. 

Honestly, I had never felt like the church needed my money. There were a lot of other people, and a lot of them had more money than I did. But what I had not considered was my need to give to the church. 

Yes, it is my need as much as the church’s need. I am not fully who God intends me to be if I do not give the first fruits of my labor.

And I have to admit to you that it is always a struggle between the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other. The demon, which will work to convince me that I just need to pamper myself a little more, that I deserve all the comforts, security, and status I can get my hands on. And the angel who will never let me hide from what I know to be true.

I chose as my title “Leaning into Blessing” because that is the choice I believe one makes. Jesus stood before the people of Israel and told them, “This is what it is to be blessed: to be hungry, to be poor, to weep. Even at times to be hated and denigrated.” Because when you seek to walk close to Jesus, there will always be those who oppose you. 

We can see that pretty clearly now as so many of Jesus’ teachings are being reviled by people with power. The recent attack against the Lutheran Church, calling them criminals and money-launderers for the work they do around the world to relieve hunger and save lives – this is something that comes to mind. “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven,” Jesus says to the church at such moments.

We are invited to lean into this kind of blessing, not because it “hurts so good” or any such nonsense, but simply because it draws us nearer to God. 

It draws us nearer to God and brings God’s kingdom closer to earth. 

Because when we give more, then there is less need. 

When we share love, then there is less hate. 

When we offer kindness, then there is less meanness. It’s the most basic kind of arithmetic.

The word blessed (makarios) can mean a lot of different things to us. We use it in many different ways, so it is easy to get confused about the words of this passage. The things Jesus is talking about hardly sound like blessing to us. Sometimes we see the word “happy” used in its stead, but I have to say that “happy” hardly does justice to its meaning. 

It is most fundamentally about one’s relationship with God. In these words of Jesus, it would seem to say that God draws those who are in need close to Godself. So, in my mind, this is where the trust comes from. When we give, we may do so trusting that God will draw us near, that God will make a way. 

In fact, if you are choosing to give freely then God has already drawn you near. 

May we each find our way to leaning into this blessing. May we remove any obstacles that are keeping us distant from our God who loves us. May we lean in and know the fullness and the joy that await us.

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Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 4: Yearning for Meaning

Luke 5:1-11

Every living human being somehow needs to find meaning in their lives, it’s what holds us together. Why get up in the morning if there is no meaning in it? Perhaps you have experienced days of depression, when meaning was absent, and any sense of purpose was lost. Perhaps you know how that feels. Meaning is essential to our well-being.

For the fishermen, Simon Peter, James and John, it is possible that the primary meaning in their lives was providing a living for themselves and their families. Maybe they loved their work. Hopefully they took pride in it – it was hard. Sometimes you worked all night and came up empty. 

They weren’t wealthy men. As Jews in an occupied land, they were enduring the hardships of the Roman rule, which taxed them heavily and took much of the product of their labors to be sent elsewhere. There were cities nearby that were predominantly Roman cities, full of comparatively wealthy Romans. These people wanted fish, they wanted the best of the catch. The fishermen and their families, even though they did the work, were at the bottom of the food chain.

Life was hard. Sickness could rob a family of a loved one overnight. Truly, there was not much of their lives that was under their control. But something that occurred earlier in Simon Peter’s life, which Luke shares in Chapter 4, is relevant to this story. 

While in Capernaum, Jesus was invited to visit Simon Peter’s house. From the time he had arrived in Capernaum, Jesus had been in the synagogue teaching. While he was there, a man who is described as having an unclean spirit became disruptive, challenging Jesus. Jesus then commanded the spirit to come out of him and, to all appearances, that is what happened. 

Perhaps Simon Peter was there, in the synagogue, witnessing all this. If not, he probably heard about what happened as the story went around, and so he asked Jesus to come visit his house.

There was a reason Simon Peter might have wanted to bring Jesus into his home. His mother-in-law was quite ill. She was running a high fever. The others in the house asked Jesus about her – can anything be done? What do you think? Jesus healed her in a manner much like the way he had ordered out the unclean spirit from the man on the synagogue – after which he was implored by many others to do the same for them and their loved ones.

Some time later, Jesus was at the lakeshore – Lake Gennesaret, which is another name for Lake Galilee. He was trying to find some space – away from the crowds of people who kept coming after him, beseeching him to help, to heal, to give them the miracle they so badly needed in their lives. 

But the crowds followed him, pressing in on him. The more they drew near, the closer Jesus inched to the water’s edge. They left him nowhere to go. Then he saw these fishermen. They had just come ashore and were cleaning their nets. It had been a long night of fishing for them. It was one of those nights where they came up empty.

Jesus climbed into one of the boats – it was Simon Peter’s boat. Simon remembered him. This was the rabbi who had healed his mother-in-law, thanks be to God. She might have died, but for Jesus. Simon Peter was grateful, indeed, to this man.

Jesus asked Simon to put out a little way from the shore, giving him some breathing space, and Simon complied. The boat became Jesus’ stage as he continued teaching the crowds who stood on the shore.

When he was finished speaking, he turned to Simon Peter again and said, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon might have smiled, slightly, at that. He respected this man very much, but Jesus was not a fisherman. He answered him respectfully, kindly, telling him that he thought it was pointless, but he would do as Jesus asked. Why wouldn’t he, after what Jesus had done for him, for so many in his community?

As tired as he was, as many other chores as he had to do, Simon Peter took his boat out into the deep water. He let down his nets – so many fish were drawn in, the catch threatened to break the nets. 

This was nothing Simon Peter had ever seen before. Those who were in the boat with Jesus and Simon quickly called the others still at shore to come out and help them with this enormous catch. The men worked quickly, frantically, to hold onto all of it – this would more than make up for the night before. There would be fish for their families and fish to sell – lots and lots of fish to sell.

But Simon Peter is paralyzed. He has fallen to his knees. Everything that has happened. The healings…the teachings…the revival of his mother-in-law…now this. Now this.

Simon Peter is trembling, tears flow down his face. He is overcome with amazement and gratitude, awe and fear. Fear. Simon sees what is happening. In all of this, Jesus is drawing Simon into his circle – just as he drew the fish into Simon’s nets, now he draws Simon into himself. 

There will be no going home to his family. There would be no selling this abundance of fish, pulling in a handsome profit. Nothing would be as it was before. How could he possibly bear it? Suddenly, everything inside of Simon rebels. “No! Go away from me Lord; I am a sinful man!”

I am a sinful man. I am not able to be what you want of me. I am not strong enough. I am not worthy. 

Yet Jesus goes straight to the thing – the one thing that is holding Simon back. “Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of loss or upheaval of your life, the gain is all yours, Simon. Do not be afraid of your weakness or of my power, they are one and the same. Do not be afraid to step away from this life and into a new life with me. From now on, Simon Peter, you will fish for people.

And so they did.

Well, it sometimes goes like that – but not always. There are as many ways of responding to the call as there are people who hear the call. And, to be honest, a call is never done – we will find ourselves being called by Jesus again and again and again, to follow him into new and different circumstances, to respond in new and different ways. On any given day, he might call you to go out into deeper water.

And most likely, we are right there with Simon Peter when we hear the call, on our knees, in tears, begging the Lord to leave us be. What? Again, Lord? What do you want of me?

Hearing the call is always hard. And frightening. We don’t know what we are being called into. We fear the risks, we hate the change, as we are wrenched away from what is familiar and comfortable. We like our life as it is. Even if we complain, it doesn’t mean we want to change.

Hearing the call is always hard. But answering the call brings surprising blessings and joy.

Every living human being somehow needs to find meaning. And so we do – we make meaning out of the small happenings of our lives. We find purpose – anything from putting a meal on the table for our loved ones to cheering on our favorite football team – or maybe cheering against our most hated team. We might find meaning and purpose in giving encouragement to someone you like, or in causing someone you dislike to feel embarrassment. There are countless ways to make meaning.

But if you are sometimes wondering if there is more…if you sometimes feel that sense of yearning, a hunger and you can’t quite figure out what you need to fill it. And so you try to feed it, to fill it…with something. But, still, there is that yearning that never seems to get satisfied. If you feel that yearning…then listen. Listen. You might hear Jesus calling you to go out into deeper water.

Do not be afraid.

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 3: Finding the Courage to Heal

Luke 4:21-30 

As I have thought about this story, my mind kept returning to the prayer service at the National Cathedral, the day after inauguration day. It is a tradition that happens every four years, but this year it got an unusual amount of attention. 

When it first came to my notice, I listened to Bishop Budde’s whole sermon, where she spoke of unity, and the things that are necessary if we hope to work toward unity. It was a good sermon, but what struck me most strongly was her voice. The bishop’s voice was gentle, soft, full of grace. I was amazed at the graciousness of her voice.

I also liked what she said. She suggested that there are three foundations for unity: honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, honesty, and humility. 

And then she closed with an appeal for mercy, which is high on the list of Christian virtues, of course. And I agreed with her, wholeheartedly, on these things.

But even as I listened to what I heard as pleasing words spoken in a pleasing voice, I sensed that it would not please everyone to hear these things. 

Something that is strange but true about human beings is that it can be very uncomfortable for us to acknowledge God’s grace and mercy, because it is difficult for us to acknowledge that we have any needs. We prefer to see ourselves as self-sufficient creatures. To acknowledge our own shortcomings and recognize the mercy and grace God is offering, can very quickly make us uncomfortable. We would much rather focus on power and strength than to look at our vulnerabilities.

Sure, we Presbyterians have a lot of practice at this, participating in the corporate confession of sin every Sunday we are asked to see ourselves as one of the weak, the vulnerable, the sinful, and yet, by the grace of God, forgiven. God’s mercy, right before us every Sunday. Still, I wonder if we can understand the human propensity to reject the notion that any of this applies to us personally.

If we can understand these things, then we might be able to understand what happened at the synagogue in Nazareth on that Sabbath day. 

Perhaps, as he read the scriptures, Jesus’ voice was as pleasing as the voice of Bishop Budde. The congregation’s immediate response was to speak well of him, to be pleased with his gracious words. But then something else happened. 

Jesus was not finished yet. It was the custom for the preacher to read the scripture standing and then to sit down to deliver his sermon, so Jesus was just getting started. He had much more to say. 

He quoted a sort of proverb, “Doctor, heal yourself,” which might have meant take care of your own first, if you expect us to take you seriously. Show a little love for your own people. It seems that Jesus is anticipating this reaction from the congregation, and it is exactly what he wants to talk about. His clear message is that the love of God is not limited to any one group of people. God’s love and salvation is offered to all of God’s creation.

These words of Jesus, as he continues preaching, and the way the congregation reacts to his words, seem to suggest that there is a conventional wisdom at work, that this is an either/or proposition. God either likes us or God likes the other guys – as if God’s love were finite. As if God’s expectation of us were to love our friends and hate our enemies.

Tragically, this is precisely how some Christians view it. I have become all too aware recently of pockets of the church that preach these kinds of divisions, defining who is their friend and who is their enemy, who they should love and protect and who they should hate. There are churches that build their house on a foundation of hate.

In his sermon Jesus pointedly reminds the people that their own scriptures show something quite different. Time and again, God has demonstrated great love and mercy for the outsiders, the others. Time and again, God has been deeply disappointed by God’s chosen ones when they have shirked their responsibilities for their own people. All the prophets of Israel had some pointed things to say about that, and none of the kings liked to hear it, not one bit.

It is a human shortcoming, I think, to be always looking for a scapegoat, for someone to blame when things go wrong. At times we allow our anger about things to drown out any voice of compassion. Compassion is weak. Empathy is a sin – some people are saying this now in the hate-based church. But anger, they believe, shows strength.

The people of Nazareth might have been angry. They had cause, certainly. They were treated unjustly at the hands of the Roman Empire. We would not have blamed them for their complaints and even desire for vengeance. But vengeance is not God’s plan for us. And blaming someone else is often only an excuse for our failures. ‘Physician, heal yourself,” the people might have been saying. But they would not have the courage to heal until they could hear Jesus’ message, which is God’s gracious love is for all.

We, too, will struggle with our own need for healing, unless we can embrace such mercy, such compassion that leads to a generosity of spirit, a desire to extend a healing hand to others. 

Whether it is anger, or anxiety, or fear, or all of these things that afflict you, know that healing begins when we reach outside of ourselves. When we honor the inherent dignity of every human being, when we are unafraid to be honest about our shortcomings.

God’s love is not for one and against the other. God’s love is for all the world.

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 2: Knowing Our Purpose

Luke 4:14-21

In these days, a news item can get around at lightning speed, if people think it’s worth talking about. But even in the days of Jesus, news was spread at a pretty good pace by word of mouth. Today we sit at our computers or with our thumbs on our phone screens, but back then people got out into the marketplace and they talked. They looked for news of what was happening in the world that might impact their lives, and so word of Jesus spread all throughout Galilee. 

Yet, from Luke’s account, we haven’t much of an idea what they might have been saying about Jesus. We only know that he has been baptized, and that he spent 40 days in the wilderness as a time of preparation. It is possible that this was all anyone knew as they talked about him through the surrounding Galilean countryside. And so they were curious. What is this man about? For what purpose did he spend 40 days and nights in the wilderness? What is he intending to say, to do among us?

This territory was home for Jesus. He was raised in the Galilee, specifically the town of Nazareth. So, eventually he made his way back there, to the place where he had been brought up, as Luke says. 

His pattern, we are told, was to go into the synagogue of every village he entered, and so this is how he came to be in the Nazareth synagogue on the sabbath. He was invited to read and teach from the scriptures; he opened the scroll to the prophet Isaiah and began to read:

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

This was, evidently, a choice that Jesus made in selecting these verses: To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Now, it may be that the people in attendance heard these words as a soothing balm. “The year of the Lord’s favor” – now that sounds nice. It sounds like hope, it sounds like relief, the fulfillment of promise. It may be that you hear these words like a warm soft blanket wrapped around you. But, in reality, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor meant something quite specific. Isaiah was referring to the Year of Jubilee.

We can read about the Year of Jubilee in the book of Leviticus, where much of the law of Moses is delineated. Leviticus gives much space and attention to the laws of sabbath.

What you and I know about sabbath is what we remember from the Ten Commandments: Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. We have learned that the seventh day is designated as a day of rest. Which we may or may not pay any attention to, although I believe we all understand in some way that rest is essential for human beings, even if we do resist it.

What we may not know, though, is that the concept of rest, and the pattern of seven, extends well beyond this one commandment. In Leviticus Chapter 25, it is written that the land should be given a rest every seven years, to lie fallow for a year. It is good for the land and consequently good for all of life. Modern farming practices have shown us how land can be exhausted, depleted, less nourishing for life. Some farmers have realized that letting their fields lie fallow is a sensible practice.

During this year of sabbath for the land, the people and their animals are permitted to eat whatever the land produces on its own. And they are, of course, encouraged to store what they can in the previous year to see them through the sabbath year. This is the commandment of God. And the promise is that there will be enough.

The pattern of seven continues as we next hear about the “Sabbath of Sabbaths” – the Year of Jubilee. After seven Sabbath years, so this would occur every 50th year. The Jubilee combines a time of sabbath rest, a time of homecoming, and a time of liberation. The land is to lie fallow, as it does in the Sabbath year, and each Israelite is to return to their ancestral land and clan. Debts are to be forgiven. Israelite slaves are to be set free, and land is to be returned to its original owners or their descendants. 

What this means is that, if a person falls on hard times and is forced to sell his land or himself to pay off debts, the sale is not permanent. Both land and people are set free in the Jubilee .

The Year of Jubilee is about forgiveness, about restitution, about restoration. It is a massive reset button that God has commanded to be enacted, about once every generation, for the sake of all creation.

Some would call this radical, but that does not make it wrong. Some would call it irrelevant because we cannot point to any evidence that Israel actually practiced this law as it is prescribed. However, that doesn’t make it any less relevant than the command to love God and love your neighbor.

In our Bible study this past Thursday, as we began our journey through the Gospel of Luke, we talked about how the texts again and again seem to proclaim a kind of divine intention to level things out. It is celebrated by Mary in her song; it is proclaimed by John the Baptist; and now it comes from Jesus himself, as he reads from the prophet. Then he sits down to teach, and he begins with this: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

I suppose he is telling them just what his purpose is. He is telling us as well.

I realize this is a lot to absorb, and if you are inclined to reject the notion out of hand, I ask you to keep an open mind and heart to what Jesus is saying.

We call Jesus Christ our Savior, the author of our salvation. Salvation has many different manifestations; it means much more than checking into heaven when we die. If we pay attention when we read in the scriptures we will see that much of the time they are speaking of salvation in this world, in this life. As Jesus said in the synagogue that sabbath day, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

These words might have fallen on the ears of his hearers as a healing balm – good news for the poor, release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed – because they lived under the power of the Roman Empire. It was their lived experience.

When there is great disparity between the wealthy and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, there is also great suffering. None of which, we know, is the will of God. Yet, God sees the suffering and chooses to address it, by the law and the prophets. And Jesus. The year of jubilee might never have been practiced as it is written. But we don’t dismiss it, because it sheds light on the quality of God’s mercy, which is great.

The words Jesus spoke in the synagogue that day are sometimes called his inaugural address. It is how he chose to define his mission, proclaim his purpose. And it follows that as the church, the body of Christ, it must be our purpose as well. To work for these values he proclaims. To understand that the gifts we have received are meant to be shared. Everything – from love and forgiveness down to our daily bread – these are all gifts meant to be shared again and again and again.

It may be helpful for us to see ourselves as embodying both rich and poor. Each one of us is poor in some ways and rich in others. And so, in God’s eyes, we each are meant to be both givers and receivers. The economy of Jesus is not a trickle-down theory, but a never-ending circle. 

Where we give, and we receive, and the circle spreads ever outward.

Six Stone Jars: The Economy of Jesus, Week 1: The Things We Hope For

John 2:1-11

When I was a child, my elementary school held a pumpkin decorating competition every Halloween, and I wanted to win so much. Competition was stiff, though. Every year you would see parents carrying in elaborate creations that took your breath away – and you knew who made that creation. It wasn’t the kid. Still, I kept trying.

One year I decided I would decorate my pumpkin like a spider. So I began working on it, black spray paint, wire hangers for legs. My mother watched and offered some suggestions, but I did all the hands-on work. And I won.

Well, I was elated. I could not stop talking about it for the rest of the day, about how I did this, all by myself, and I won. It was all “I, I, I.” And then my father took me aside. He reminded me that my mother had been a part of it too. She had offered me suggestions that led to the best features of my spider pumpkin. Without those ideas, I would not have won. And I knew this was true.

When I look back on this I realize my mother gave me a particular gift. She helped me do it better, but she let me do it myself. And she never asked for credit, she only celebrated my triumph. And the gift my father gave me was to open my eyes and see this.

I am thinking about the ways we give and receive things. And even whether we are aware of what we have given or received.

When we give something to someone, we have a choice as to how we look at it. We can view it as a transaction – an exchange of some kind. When I come to your birthday party, I bring a gift as the price of admission. It pays for the cake I eat and the decorations I enjoy. So I will make sure I eat my fair share of cake.

But another way to see such an action is as a gift, plain and simple. A gift asks for nothing in exchange; it is given freely. I assume that most of you, when you go to a birthday party, or a wedding reception, do not view it as a transactional event. It’s about gift. The host provides the celebration – food, drink, music – and the guests come bearing gifts. It may or may not equal out in the end. It doesn’t matter. 

When Jesus attended the wedding in Cana with his disciples and his mother, I have no idea if he brought a gift with him. But as it happened, he gave the bride and groom a gift worth much more than everything they spent on the entire wedding celebration. 

Weddings in Galilee were different in many ways from the weddings we might attend. We often say that American weddings are quite extravagant, but they’ve got nothing on the weddings of ancient Israel. 

Back then, it would begin with a betrothal which lasted at least a year. Then the wedding would begin. The groom, wearing dazzling clothes, perhaps with a crown on his head, would set out with his friends in a procession to fetch his bride from her father’s house. She, also, would be fabulously dressed, and lifted up into a sedan chair to be carried back to the groom’s house. The procession of bridesmaids and groomsmen would sing songs all along the way. They would be met by the groom’s parents, who would say a blessing for the couple, and then the festivities would begin – party all night long. That’s day one.

The next day would be the wedding feast. A day of more celebrations – singing, dancing, gift giving for the bride. Then in the evening, the bride and groom would come together. Traditional words would be exchanged, followed by more blessings, more rituals, more celebrations. That’s day two.

The celebrations would continue for several more days. Eating, drinking, dancing, blessing.

Wine was, of course, a very important part of it. Wine was essential to the ritual of blessing. To the feasting, to the general celebration. So, imagine how much wine you could go through in a week of celebration.

I have no idea how many days they were into it when the wine ran out, but it seems apparent that the celebration expected to go on for some time still. And so they would need more wine – wine for celebrating, wine for feasting, wine for blessing.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the kind of person who could look at a problem and see a solution. She didn’t fret, she didn’t wring her hands, she didn’t panic. She turned to her son, Jesus, and simply said, “They have no wine.” That’s all she needed to say. He understood what she was asking, just as she understood what he could give.

He responded to her, “My hour has not yet come,” the meaning of which is a little confusing. But most likely he meant the hour of his death. And therefore, it is celebration time. And so he provided the wine. Something like 900 bottles of wine. Only here is an interesting thing: No one, except the servants, knew that the wine was from Jesus. 

He made the host look really good, as everyone exclaimed over the high quality of this wine. He made the celebration go on and on for a good while longer, offering opportunities for many more blessings, much more thanksgiving. But he was not given, nor did he ask for, credit. It was a gift.

There is something called a gift economy, which is simply a system where gifts are given with no expectation of receiving payment or any kind of reciprocity. The gift is given for the sake of giving. We see it most often among family members, because – of course you do. I saw a movie trailer recently where a father confronts his adult daughter with an itemized list of everything she has cost him from infancy on, including diapers and baby bottles. Most people understand this is not done.

We see the gift economy among friends sometimes, too. When you buy your friend a latte or pay for a golf round, just because you want to. Maybe you like it if the friend reciprocates. But that’s not the reason you did it.

Giving to charity is almost always an example of the gift economy. You will get from it a feeling of having contributed to the welfare of the community or the world. But that’s all. 

And participating in the gift economy is what we are doing when we give to the church. It is something we want to do. It is something important to us. It is something that makes us feel more complete, for I know I would not be fully who I am if I did not give to the church.

When Jesus sent his disciples out into the world he told them, “freely you have received, now freely give.” He invited them to participate in the economy of gifting, as he invites us to do as well. Just as he lived his life, giving freely as needed, so he asks us to do.

But as simple as that sounds, we find it to be difficult. Giving freely can be frightening.

We are afraid that our gift will be misused or abused. We are afraid that we will be taken advantage of. Mostly, I think, we are afraid that we will run out – that we will not have enough for ourselves.

In the story of the wedding at Cana, we usually focus on the miracle, or sign as John calls it. We rarely wonder why the wedding hosts ran out of wine. Did they plan poorly, or were they stingy? Were they poor of resources and unable to buy as much wine as they would need? Whatever the cause was, it did not stop them from a joyous and abundant celebration. They feasted freely, they blessed freely, they celebrated freely, they did not hold back.

And when the wine ran out, Jesus was there with his gift. Perhaps they trusted just as freely as they did everything else.

Trusting in God’s provision is not a very easy thing for humans to do, yet it is what our faith asks of us. Because we cannot live as authentic loving community without such trust. 

Authentic community is something that seems harder and harder to find in our times. We draw in on ourselves, spending more time alone, pulling back from commitments, trusting one another less. For most of us, it is a loss that we truly grieve. A community where we know others deeply, belong completely, give and receive freely – this is something we treasure in our hearts, even if we don’t believe we can ever really have it.

The good news is this: this kind of community is available. This is what Jesus offers. This is what he asks us to come together and make – for ourselves and for others. 

This is what we hope for. And this is what we may have together, in Jesus.

Photo: Unsplash.com

Come As You Are

Isaiah 43:1-7

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

This Sunday we remember our baptism, which is something we share with Jesus. He was baptized by John in the Jordan River. John didn’t actually want to baptize Jesus, because he knew Jesus did not need the repentance he offered. John was right; Jesus was a model of humanity in every way. He was our exemplar for how to live into the image of God. But I imagine this was the reason he wanted to be baptized, to show us the way in this as in everything.

He submitted to John in the river, along with all the others, then he came to shore and began to pray. At that moment the heavens opened, and a voice said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 

“With you I am well pleased.” Not all translations put it the same way. Some versions say, “You bring me great joy,” or, “In you I find delight.” But the one I appreciate the most is in the Common English Bible, which says, “In you I find happiness.”

Which is the kind of thing anyone wants and needs to hear from a parent or a loved one. It is the kind of thing we all need to know – that someone finds us delightful, that someone feels happiness because of us. It is the kind of thing that God offers to each one of us – and one of the ways God does this is by placing us in a community of the baptized.

When we are baptized we are adopted into the family of God, brothers and sisters to Jesus, the firstborn in a very large family. As adopted members, we begin to learn the customs and the values of this new family. We learn that in the family of God we share one another’s burdens and celebrate one another’s joys. We learn that the needs of one become the shared needs of all, and the wealth of one contributes to the wealth of all – this is what it is to be the church. We work together, we grieve together, we celebrate together. 

As we read in the scripture, “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” 

In our baptism we make promises: to be Christ’s faithful disciples, obeying his word and showing his love. For many of us these promises were made by others on our behalf. Nonetheless, these are the promises each one of us is meant to grow into. To follow Christ’s word and example, to show his love.

But I am afraid that we sometimes fail to remember these promises.

I listened to some friends talking about what a beautiful community the church is. One after another they described situations in their lives where the church had stepped in to offer support when it was needed. And while I could add my own stories of compassion, I also have memories of a different kind of church experience. Through most of my childhood, when my family was going through some very tough times, we did not experience that kind of love from our church. We did not feel the church being there for us when we needed it. We did not feel the embrace we needed, but rather judgment that only piles hurt upon hurt.

There is something deeply troublesome about the church exacerbating the pain on one of its own, of not being there to support their brothers and sisters in their suffering. It seems to me a tragic failure to live into our baptismal vows.

Kim and I once lived in a small town – a little smaller than Salisbury. It was the kind of place where, if you asked for directions to the bookstore, people would say, “It’s down near the old A&P.” But the A&P had been gone for many years, so anyone who actually needed directions wouldn’t find this helpful. People sometimes said that if you moved to this place from somewhere else, you would never, ever feel like a native; that you have to have generational belonging to really feel like you belong.

And I wonder if the church is like this too.

You wouldn’t notice it, probably, if you feel that sense of belonging. But the challenge is this: every single member of the family should have that same sense of belonging, that same sense that we are all in this together, and we are there for one another.

The baptismal promises we make are all about that. As God said first to Israel: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk through the fire, I will be with you. “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” So it is that, through Christ Jesus, God says this very thing to all of us too.

And through our baptism, our adoption into God’s family, we make the same promises to one another: We will be there for you. You are precious in my sight, you are honored, and I love you.

Wow. Right?

Truly, there is nothing I want more than for every child in our congregation to feel our love, our delight, our joy and happiness when they are in our midst. And there is nothing more critical about being the body of Christ than that every member of the body knows this one thing: when you pass through the waters, when you walk through the fire, we will be there for them. You are loved, just as you are.

Remember the promises of your baptism.