Oct. 6, 2013, 20th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 17:5-10

  5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
    6 He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.
    7 "Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? 8 Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9 Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "

Three distinct messages for us from these words:
1.  The life of faith demands avoidance of actions that may harm others, and forgiveness of others whose actions harm us.
2.  Faith is not only conciliatory; it is also daring, risking, doing big things with little resources.
3.  Servants are called to selfless performance: getting the job done           the master wants done, with little concern for getting the credit.
 “There is no limit to what a good person can do if they don’t care who gets the credit.”  We are called to be servants not celebrities.
And to be thankful that we can be Jesus’ servants.

“Only Done Our Duty”

When we have done every thing we can do we have only done our duty, and even then we are not worthy to be called children of God.  We are never good enough to be worthy of that!

It is our duty to do what God calls us to do - to forgive as we have been forgiven!

“Those who live by forgiveness must in fact live by it.”

That means we don’t just receive it; we pass it on.

Grace brings duty; duty becomes grace.

This is what the Kingdom of heaven is all about, and those who are servants of the Master are duty bound to be faithful instruments of grace.

Sept. 29, 2013, 19th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 16:19-31

19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
    22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell,[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
    25 "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
    27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
    29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
    30 " 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
    31"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

“Faith Is For Living”

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus does not tell us it is a crime to be rich.
Or that those who have a good time of it here will get their suffering in eternity.

It sounds like it does, but it doesn’t!
Nor does it give us a clear picture of the way it is in heaven.
Anymore than our jokes about heaven do.

“To use this story as warrant for a doctrine of a brimstone hell, or to deduce from it the dogma of the absolute and irrevocable separation of the good and the bad hereafter, is to transplant it violently from its native soil of parable to a barren literalism where it cannot live.”
Parables of Jesus, Geo. Buttrick, p. 140

The point of the parable is that life is to be lived, not evaded.  The rich man was guilty of evasion; running away from real life into his pretend world where he didn’t have to see Lazarus - really see him.  He was afraid of the smell of poverty and used his riches to evade facing the poverty all around him.

Like it or not, we are the rich man.  We too run away from life, evading those places and people where our God has chosen to meet us, even as God meets us in the man Jesus who said, “What so ever you do for the least of these, you do it unto me.”

Living in the Kingdom of God is not a matter of having heaven all figured out; or the mysteries of death and eternity solved.  It is a matter of loosing oneself in life, giving oneself away, hurting with those who hurt, weeping with those who weep, laughing with those who laugh, and discovering that life comes not by evading but by jumping in.

This takes faith; faith which comes by hearing the Word of God, and doing it.
Faith is for living, not just for dying.


“Live For More Than Being Rich”

The parable of The Rich man and Lazarus is about indifference and idolatry; about how easily we ‘miss the mark’ for which life and possessions are intended.

We prize winning, having, owning, possessing, controlling, dominating, enjoying, yes,even wasting.  With Tivia we “wish I were a rich man” and live the illusion that money will solve all our problems.  Yet nothing could be more false.  For, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

The purpose of life is NOT to acquire wealth; the purpose of life is to “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.  To take hold of eternal life, to which you were called and for which you were made.”  I Tim 6:11

That is, do something which makes a difference in the Kingdom of God; not just makes a buck.

The rich man lived his whole life for the wrong reason.  He became an indifferent, cold hearted man who couldn’t see or hear God’s call through Lazarus to live for more then being rich.

Jesus is challenging our indifference which leads to idolatry which leads to a whole life of wasted energy, of missing the mark, or living for the wrong reason.

Jesus is calling us to live by grace; that is, to live, as Mother Teresa says, not doing great things, but doing ” small things with great love”.

Sept. 22 2013, 18th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 16:1-13

  1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
    3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
    5 "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
    6 " 'Eight hundred gallons[a] of olive oil,' he replied.
    "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
    7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
      " 'A thousand bushels[b] of wheat,' he replied.
      "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
    8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
    10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
    13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

“Shrewdly Graceful”

The master praised the dishonest servant
“because he acted shrewdly”

“sharp-witted, perceptive, smart, wise, savvy, clever, canny”

This is the bite of the story!  But because I fear you are still caught in the
seeming inconsistency of the story coming from Jesus lips let’s try guess what might be behind the story - had it actually happened.  And perhaps it did.

It is possible the master was just as dishonest a man as the servant.
It is also possible that what the servant did was cut out his commission from the amount owed to the master so the master really didn’t loose much.

It is also possible these were dead beat accounts and the master was glad to get what ever he could, and perhaps this was the start of the problem - the servant had allowed these accounts to get out of control or were not good accounts to start with.

We can only surmise what might be behind the scene in the story to try make sense of it. But when all is said and done -  as interesting as it may be - it will never come out right until we see it as a call to live shrewdly graceful.

What Jesus is dramatically laying before us is that we are to be as shrewd and cunning as those who don’t care - and we are to do it as those who do care, because we have a God who cares.  As those who live by grace and know it is the only way we can make it - in this life or the life to come.

As children of the light we are to work hard at being  shrewdly graceful - in how we live to forgive.  In how we live with the priorities of God’s Kingdom deeply imbedded in our heart, soul, mind and being. How we live with faith as “a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life.”  A power and passion born of grace which means we live not to get even but to forgive;  not to judge and condemn but to be compassionate as our God is compassionate!

“The point of the parable is not to approve what the steward did wrong, but to applaud how rightly he did it.  We are to do rightly what is right, even as he did rightly what was wrong.”
 

“Money:  Idol or Servant”

“This is the most difficult of all parables and no interpretation is wholly satisfactory.”

To discover its meaning we have to risk being wrong.  Or at best only partially right, as we do the best we can.  The key is not the man who is  a negative moral example.
The key is money - which plays such an important part in our lives.  Does it use us or do we use it?  The first clear point of the parable is that money is to be used!  Used to make friends!  That is what it is really for; to be used in ways which bind us together and deepen our trust and friendship.

This is not to say we can buy friendship;  it is to say that money can create genuine friendship, deepen relationships, and strengthen love and trust.

Money is a powerful tool to be creatively used to build life’s relationships.
There are times when I can’t afford to not spend it.  (How’s that for a double negative.)
I can use it to draw people to me and I even have to risk using it to help when the results
are not sure.

“Our pocket books can have more to do with heaven and also with hell, then our hymn books.”  Helmet Thielkie

“If a purely materialistic child of the world like the dishonest steward can manage on his level to compel money to serve his own ends and thus give it its relative importance, how much more - and at the same time, how differently - should the children of light do this on their level.”  Thielkie, “The Waiting Father”  p. 101

Sept. 15, 2013, 17th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 15:1-10

1 Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
    3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
 8 "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

“God Of The Lost”

We who are religious like to see repentance first, then God will forgive.

Is it not the other way around?
God forgives - or offers love and forgiveness to the lost - to help them repent.

God is open to the lost and rejoices on their being found.  It is in the process of the celebration that repentance takes place.  It is done because I have been found, when I didn’t think anyone, certainly not God, would want me.

What a joy to be found and loved before I could do anything about it.  To have a party thrown for me before I could even mumble my repentance.

To be saved is to trust that God loves me enough that I dare get lost again, for He will surely find me!  It is risky living - as only love enables life to be.


“Be Lost - Be Found”

The heart of the Gospel is in Luke 15.

These two parables are about how it is with God and how God is with us.
Problem is: we have to be lost to see it.  And we don’t want to admit our lostness.

We are more interested in having our religion keep us from ever thinking we are lost than we are in having it help us be found when we are lost.  We are afraid of that much grace!

And we miss the joy of being found; the joy of living each day knowing that we are loved by a God who will not let us go,  will not stop looking for us when we are lost,  and who rejoices with us when we are found.

Sept. 8, 2013, 16th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 14:25-33

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
    28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
    31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

 “Our Discipleship”

These are radical words designed to set us free from that which really destroys the joy of living - luke warm religion.  To play with religion is worse than no religion at all.  To want a little bit of God, but not enough to make us have to change our ways, is worse then having no God at all.  At least then we are honest!

Jesus is not advocating that we ‘hate’ in his name.  He is advocating that we place first things first - and that means discipleship!  Loving God with all our being.

These words were spoken at a time when Jesus was popular.  As such, they were designed to shatter the illusion that discipleship is a mass movement.  Jesus would have us go where we don’t want to go and do what we don’t want to do.  Many drop out. There are times when to be near Jesus is the most dangerous place to be. i.e. Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

There is no relationship as complete as our relationship with Jesus.  No human relationship is 100%;  our relationship with Jesus is.  Follow Jesus and discover who you are and the joy of life abundant.
“The trick is to realize that loving God with all we are empowers us to love (not hate!) others.”  Lisa W. Davison. New Proclamation, Year C 2010, p. 205


“The Cost Of Discipleship”

The Kingdom of God is here to challenge us to live for more than personal gain.

In the Kingdom of God it is not only true that there is a
 “blessed assurance Jesus is mine, O’ what a foretaste of heaven divine.”

It is also true that there is a “blessed disturbance for I am His”
 and that means I cannot live as if only I count.

Jesus first - a demand both scary and consuming.
To be a disciple is to have to obey, and the price of obedience is the renunciation of self. Renouncing, that is, what we most do not want to give up.

Take up your cross - suffering there will be.
To be a disciple is to suffer and the price to be paid is ‘bearing one’s own cross’.  That is, to endure suffering which would not be ours if we were not a disciple.

Give all our possessions - all can be used to Kingdom glory.

Being a disciple is not something we do because it is convenient; it is something we do because we have to - no matter what the cost.

We will never know how well it works until we try it.