About Time

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

It’s a bit quirky that the liturgical calendar which starts today with the first Sunday of Advent, usually begins with some thoughts about the end of things. The end of time, specifically. The end of the world as we know it.

There is a human desire to know in advance when that end will come. I think it must be because of some completely irrational idea that we might avoid it. If you know it’s coming maybe you can duck? But, as Jesus says, no one knows.

Still, people try to figure it out, as if it were nothing more than a tough riddle. And so it seems like there is always somebody somewhere offering up a prediction about exactly when the world will end. In fact, just this fall there was a prediction that caught a lot of traction.

A man from South Africa announced that he had been given a dream that told him the rapture would come September 23 and 24 of 2025. For anyone who is unaware, the idea of the rapture is that suddenly, in an unexpected and unannounced moment, the faithful will be scooped up out of this world. This notion, by the way, is a distortion of biblical beliefs. There is a brief passage in one of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians that describes how Paul thinks the end times will affect both the living and the dead. And there is this passage from Matthew, although in this case, Jesus might actually be saying that it is the unfaithful ones who could be swept up. 

This South African man explained that the rapture was all about the 2026 Soccer World Cup, the connection being that with all the chaos that results from the rapture, the World Cup would end up being cancelled. I don’t know why that’s important. Perhaps Jesus doesn’t like soccer, but I find that hard to believe.

So, in preparation for this rapture, lots of people offered free advice. Don’t make any plans for the weekend, they said. Leave your phone unlocked, and maybe your house too, just in case someone you actually care about is left behind.

Just recently I saw a list of things to do while waiting for the world to end – compiled by someone who was thinking it might be coming soon. It included things like 1) forget about that plan to refinish your floors; 2) scratch War and Peace off your list of books to read; 3) don’t worry about your Christmas card list; and 4) do you really need to make your insurance payment? Just relax. What’s the point of doing anything?

Not exactly a faith-based perspective, though. I think of the story about Martin Luther being asked the question of what he would do if he knew the world were to end tomorrow. His answer was, “I would plant an apple tree.” 

Back when I was a campus minister there were a couple of these end-of-the-world predictions that people grew obsessed with. There was Harold Camping, the man who used some kind of creative math to calculate when the end would come. And when the end failed to come, he checked his work and realized he had made a mistake. Then there was this notion about the ancient Mayan calendar that caught on like wildfire. It seems that someone suddenly noticed that this calendar which had been around for thousands of years, ended in 2012. And they concluded that the Mayans must have known something. There were college students I worked with who were pretty disturbed by that. Afraid that it might be true. 

When I talked with these young adults about the end, I could see they were afraid. And it was not because they lacked faith. It was more about a kind of disorientation of their lives. They said to me that everything they were doing was focused on the future. Whether it was the term papers they were scrambling to get finished or the career they were hoping to find at the end of their college years. The student debt they would begin paying off when they got that good job. It was all somewhere out there.

But when I asked them what they would do if they knew the end was near, they struggled to reorient themselves to this present-moment focus. 

What would you do if the end of the world was coming tomorrow? Eat more pie? Binge-watch all the TV shows on your list? Sleep late? What would you do?

There are lots of things we do that are unimportant – maybe because we have too much time or too little focus. Looking at the end, however, does have the effect of helping us to see what is most important. It gives us a sense of urgency. And it is not a bad idea to give it some thought: what would you do differently if you approached life this way? What would you change if you had that kind of focus?

If you suddenly realize that this moment counts, that every moment you are living counts, this might be the best thing that could happen to you – what would change?

It seems like when you are facing the possibility of the end, there are two roads you can take: despair or hope. Despair if you feel that there are too many things you haven’t yet done and too little knowledge about whatever comes next. Despair if you feel unprepared, like you forgot to study for the test. Despair if you believe that your life has been a failure and only judgment awaits you. Despair is deadly.

But the way of faith is different: it is about hope, and this hope is available to anybody.

Because Christian hope is not based on the foundation of whatever our life circumstances are. Our hope is based on the possibilities of God even in the worst imaginable life circumstances. And, while these are not the worst of times, there are some things that give me pause.

It is apparent to me that, even though most of our lives are pleasant enough, we are living in very anxious times. It is in the news and media we consume every day. It is in a certain uneasy feeling we have about the economy we are living in. It is seemingly in the water we drink and the air we breathe. We are living in anxious times, and it is hard for us to navigate through the murk of anxiety to locate hope. 

Yet there is a way. And it is urgent that we find our way to hope.

The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, who died last year, wrote frequently about Christian hope throughout his career. But in the last few years, he wrote of his concern about nurturing “a culture of life that is stronger than the terror of death, a love for life that overcomes the destructive forces in our world today, and a confidence in the future that overcomes doubt and fatalism.”  

The way to nurture that culture of life is the way of hope. And the way to hope is through community.

Community is something we make, of course. We find our clusters of like-minded people, kindred spirits, we might say, with whom we enjoy conversation and meals and other things. But community is also bigger than these circles we select. Community is where God places us and includes all the other people God places there.

In our community, like all communities, there are many people who lack some of the basic essentials for life. We are aware of this. This congregation is pretty conscious of the needs surrounding us, and responsive to them. We understand and embrace the ancient Christian values of mercy and compassion that Jesus taught us. 

But something that is a little harder, a bit more of a stretch, is to embrace the value of community. The belief that whatever our circumstances we are all in it together. 

The notion that the rich and the poor live in the same world. 

When we lose sight of that, there is a deathly loss of connection, of community, and no matter how much money you have, a poverty of community will bring despair. I think this is the deep cause of our prevailing anxiety. 

Quite simply, every human being needs to feel that someone cares. This goes deeper than material needs. It is beyond providing food, paying utility bills, or having a bed to sleep in. The human connection is the most essential of basic needs.

If you knew that the world would end tomorrow, I think the thing to do would be to make human connection – with anyone. Everyone. To look at a stranger and see another human being. To speak to someone with kindness, even if that person is wasting your time. Even to see someone who has committed a dreadful crime, like the man who shot two National Guard members last week, but still know that this person is not an animal, or whatever word you might say in anger, but a person made in the image of God – just like us.

This is something that would be worth doing if you knew that the world would end tomorrow. And, since we don’t know when the world will end, but it could end at any time, then this is something worth doing every day.

A Different Kind of King

 

Luke 23:33-43

There are moments when you look around and see some very clear signs that all is not right with the world. Actually, at these moments, that might be an appalling understatement. One might rather say that all is messed up with the world. At times.

In our Bible study we saw it this past week as we journeyed through the book of Judges, watching how Israel fell further and further into madness and darkness – maybe hurtling back toward that condition where Genesis begins, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep –

Before the time when God began creating order out of chaos.

We see it again in this story from Luke’s gospel.

We have heard this story so many times, haven’t we? Every year during the season of Lent we travel down this road with Jesus, descending with Israel into such unspeakable harm, such unreasonable actions. In fact, we have heard it so many times we might have become numb to it. We might have one eye on the journey up to Golgotha and the other eye on the day of resurrection we know is coming soon – with colorful dyed eggs, chocolate in baskets, a good ham dinner and pleasant company.

It's an odd story, really, for this time of the year. I listened to a colleague object to it being in the lectionary right now. He said, “We covered that ground already this year, didn’t we? I see no reason to go back and revisit it.”

Is there any good reason to revisit it?

It’s a story of a world gone mad. An innocent man is arrested, beaten, tried, and convicted to death. He is about to be executed in a wildly cruel manner – for what? And while this innocent man bears the suffering in his body, he is relentlessly mocked, ridiculed – even by the people he loved, it would seem. I suppose they took some pleasure in having power over someone – these people who had very little power over anything in their lives. But to abuse this man? Someone who did no harm? For what reason?

This is a world in disarray, a people in deep pain who really, truly, do not understand what they are doing.

And Jesus recognizes this.

“Father, forgive them,” he says from the cross, “For they do not know what they are doing.” And here we see, shining bright as the sun, a different kind of king. Here we see a kind of power that is rare on earth.

What we know about kings, although not much, is nothing like this. When we think of kings, or queens, we think of someone who covers themselves with gold and precious gems. Someone always accompanied by an entourage of helpers, scrapers, fawners, sycophantic flatterers because they know what they need to do to stay in the king’s good graces. We think of pomp and circumstance, red carpets, and thrones, because kings and queens must be pampered. Coddled. They need to be treated like royalty.

When we think of kings, we don’t think of a crown made of thorns. We don’t think of a man stripped and whipped and nailed up on a high cross for all to jeer and mock.

We don’t think of a person who speaks words of forgiveness from a place of persecution. We don’t imagine a human being who chooses to use his divinely appointed power in this way.

This last Sunday in the church year is known as Christ the King, or Reign of Christ, Sunday. It is a celebration that was established only one hundred years ago, in 1925, at a time when fascism was rising in Europe and the world was growing increasingly secular in our values and habits. It was an attempt to set a yearly reminder to the church that our allegiance is to our spiritual ruler in heaven – not to any earthly supremacy. God is our king. Christ is our king.

As a pastor, I have often approached this day with ambivalence. I have had a hard time finding meaning in it, understanding why it matters – to us.

We, in the United States, fought a revolution to be rid of kings, and the idea of kings makes us instinctively bristle – so there’s that. But also, I often think, how is this different from any other Sunday in the church year? As Christians we worship and serve Christ. We confess our belief that it is only through Christ that we are forgiven and redeemed. We pray the words, “Thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”

I couldn’t quite figure out how I was supposed to feel on this day, what I was supposed to do on this day, that wouldn’t be like any other day. Does it matter that we have a day called Christ the King?

But I am thinking this year, on the 100^th anniversary of Christ the King’s inception, that it matters.

It matters to us because whoever we give our allegiance to is setting the tone by which we will live. Whoever we regard as our authority – in heaven or on earth – is determining what is valued, who is valued, and how we will live with one another.

And I am thinking that in a world where we can look around us and see how power and authority are exercised in ways that would make Jesus weep; where men and women in seats of power may choose to openly flaunt their corruption because their experience tells them there will not be any adverse consequences for it; where powerful people perform cruelty simply because they can, and they really don’t need to make the effort to be kind – I am thinking that a world like this is infected by darkness and chaos.

And if the ones in authority bear this kind of darkness, it becomes contagious. It affects us all.

The celebration of Christ the King – perhaps this works as a gentle reminder that the reign of God invites us all to live in a different kind of kingdom, where the questions of who is valued, what is valued, are answered quite differently.

And if we choose to live in this kingdom, where Christ is King, we will not jeer and mock immigrants who are in desperate situations. We will not feel righteous about pulling humanitarian aid to struggling nations or feel satisfied when food benefits are taken away from poor children in our own nation. Because if we live in the kingdom where Christ is King, we know that these little ones, the vulnerable ones, matter.

In this world there is always a danger that we will fall into that deep darkness, where we might even grow deliriously giddy about someone else’s pain, their “comeuppance,” we might have it. And we might not even understand what we are doing.

But then, may we remember that Christ is our King, and we live in a kingdom where there is a different kind of rule, a different way of being. We live under a ruler who will turn to the least ones, even the worst ones, and say, “Come and be with me – in paradise – today.”

Photo: Churchart.com

Things That Last

Isaiah 65:17-25

Luke 21:5-19

Recently, a friend described to me how it felt for him when he saw his childhood church building on fire. He was well into adulthood, married, and ordained to ministry. He no longer attended the church he grew up in. He was pastoring a different church in another city. But when he heard that the old church was on fire it shook him to his core. 

He said to his wife that he wanted to be there. He knew he couldn’t do anything, but he just wanted to bear witness. So he got behind the wheel, his wife in the passenger seat, and he began driving back to his old hometown. As they got close, he could see the flames as they overtook the old building. He told me it was so shocking he almost wrecked the car.

He said, “I knew that it was only a building. I knew that it is we, the community of faith, that are the church. But even knowing that, the feeling was overwhelming.” 

Because places are important to us.

I imagine that Israel felt that way, and even more, every time they endured another hardship.

The Old Testament book of Isaiah tells us of the trials that Israel endured during the 6th century BCE when they were invaded by a powerful enemy – the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was protected by strong walls, but the Babylonian army was big enough, powerful enough to wear them down.

They laid siege to the city, surrounded it, trapping the Israelites inside. No one could go in or out. The enemy waited. The people inside the walls went through all their food stores, and the Babylonians waited. They waited until the people inside were starving, and then they waited a little more. 

Finally, they attacked. They trampled, they killed, they set fires. They destroyed the holy temple. The temple that Israel had built with the idea that it would last forever. But now it was no more. It did not last. 

The Babylonians took the Israelites as prisoners and marched them off to Babylon. Which is where they stayed for around 50 years. 

But empires do not last forever; they come and go, and eventually the Babylonian empire was weakened and destroyed by a more powerful ruler. This ruler had a different plan for dealing with its captive Israel.

The plan was to let them go back home. To make them rebuild what had been torn down. And so they did, some of them, 50 years after they have been forced out, return to Israel. They are sent back to rebuild Jerusalem.

Some decades passed, little progress was made, and the people’s resolve was waning. They fought amongst themselves, and they turned away from God. The rebuilding they had accomplished seemed so much less than what they remembered from the glory days of Jerusalem, before the Babylonian invasion. What they had now was a mere shadow of its former self.

And in the midst of this the prophet offers them hope. Isaiah speaks to them of how God will set to right all things, and it will happen imminently. The deliverance of Israel and judgment on their oppressors. Things so glorious … well some might say the prophet went a bit too far, because these things he speaks of, they defy credibility.

He is speaking to them about things that last. And after all they have been through, that might have been hard to imagine. But he gave them hope – hope enough to carry on. 

The temple was rebuilt. The religious life of Israel was restored.

Several hundred years later, there was another new oppressor – the Roman Empire. This oppressor had taken an interest in the temple. King Herod was keen on rebuilding and refurbishing the temple for his own glory, rather than for the glory of God. But it was indeed beautiful, and the people of Israel appreciated it. Worship, study, sacrifices of all kinds still took place there; it was still the center of religious life for the people of Israel. 

But they clearly had a sense now of how things could fall apart. And so they handled their relationship with Rome delicately – treading carefully with the oppressor, so that they might not interfere with their rituals and traditions. The priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees went to tremendous pains to maintain a peaceable relationship with the Romans. If they manage it right, they thought, this accommodation, this truce, it might just last forever.

And then Jesus tells them it will not. This temple, it will not last forever either. The day will come when not one stone will be left upon another. Once again, it will be left in ruins. All thrown down.

But a people who have lost so much, so many times, are alarmed when they hear this. No, they think. This cannot be. “When will this happen?” they ask him, “How will this happen? What will be the sign?” Can they prepare for it? Can they possibly avoid the calamity this time?

When Luke was writing, these things had already happened. Those things that Jesus described – the destruction of the temple – were already in the past. This beautiful temple, like the ones before it, did not last.

As many times as we build glorious monuments and as many times as we see them go down – in flames or in dust – we persist in imagining that they should last forever.  But they don’t. I have seen churches die – not from enemy attacks, though. What happens now is that people drift away. Members grow older and eventually die. Sometimes conflict takes over and newcomers shy away. And one day there are two or three people left, and they begin to wonder if this is the end.

We may find it unbearable, the idea that a church could die, because we believe in eternal things. But sometimes we confuse our forms – the things we make – with God’s everlasting promises. 

Nothing made by human hands lasts, no matter how good it is. Temples are destroyed, our church buildings might be emptied, sold, and even torn down to make room for something else. 

Nothing of human creation lasts forever. Our steeples and bells, our stained-glass windows. Our pews. Someday they will be gone. 

None of our human ideas or preferences last forever. Our orders of worship, our musical styles, the things about which we say “we have always done it that way” – even these things will fade.

The church of Jesus Christ is not immune to loss and hardship. Jesus warned his disciples that it would not be easy, and if anyone tried to tell them otherwise? Well, they had better run away from those soothsayers and false prophets. They best not be led astray by anyone who comes along with such false promises.  

But do not be terrified, he says to us. All things on earth will come to an end, but this will not be the end because God’s promises are everlasting.

Not a hair on your head will perish, he says. By your endurance you will gain your souls, he says. For God is making a new heaven and a new earth, and it will be filled with things of life and light and joy.

We see things end … we sometimes are called upon to rebuild, to make something new, like Israel did after their Babylonian exile. Like Jesus’ disciples did after his crucifixion and the empty tomb. Things come and they go, and the Presbyterian Church USA will not last forever, either, I assure you. But that is alright, because God’s promises are everlasting.

We are at a place right now where decisions must be made. Session has shared with this congregation some ideas that are still in development about changes that can be made to the chancel when we receive our new organ console. We finally have architectural drawings, which are a vast improvement over the crude graph paper models we saw a couple months ago. 

We must make some decisions – carefully, thoughtfully, and faithfully. And the honest truth is, we can take as much time as we need to take with this. To act with neither undue haste nor undue delay is the good Presbyterian way. I know that some would like to make the changes yesterday, and some would like to make them never, and some of you really don’t care what the chancel looks like – and that is fine.

I would only ask that, if you do care about this matter, you show a willingness to be a part of a conversation. Share your wisdom and keep your mind open to all the possibilities. Do you believe that God is doing a new thing, just as God has done throughout all history? 

I know that change is hard, all kinds of change, but especially change we don’t want. Perhaps for this reason we have often treated church as a refuge from change. But how could that be so when we know that change is how God ushers us through life?

Whenever we confront change there is risk and also benefit.

The risk when we confront challenges like this is the potential harm to the body of Christ. We can choose to lower the chancel floor, expand it, and any number of other things, and it will not be harmed. Or we can choose to do nothing except make the necessary changes to the floor for the new organ console, and it will not be harmed. Perhaps some of us will be disappointed, whichever way we go.

But there is benefit also. There is actually a hidden gift in times like this. When we find ourselves shocked by change that feels like loss, when we are afraid of what might come or angry about decisions others make, we are given an opportunity to practice faithful disagreement. 

Faithful disagreement is not something we often see. In our culture and in our politics, we see mudslinging and rumor-mongering. On social media we see a style of disagreement that says, “If you don’t agree with me then I don’t want you in my life anymore. Bye!” I see an approach to everything as a zero-sum game, as in, if you win that means I lose. And it saddens me deeply to know that all these things do not stop outside the church door. These unfortunate styles of disagreeing seep into the church too. 

But I see this current disagreement as an opening for us to take a better path, a faithful way. My invitation to you today is to take that path together, because this is what we are called to do in a time such as this. Really, if we paid attention to what Jesus said to his disciples we would surely know that church is no place for complacency. 

The question for reflection I offer you this week is this: If your home or your church home were on fire, what would you prioritize getting to safety. I very much hope that every one of us would say the people. That our priority would be the people.

We are near the end of a season.  Our church year is about to finish. In two Sundays, a new Advent will dawn, with all its anticipation and hope. The vision of the prophet, the promises of Jesus, these are our hope for all eternity.

What are the things that last? As Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” As Isaiah says, the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.”

Yet, be glad and rejoice forever in what God is creating, for God is always doing something new. 

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.