14th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C) - September 15, 2019

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
September 15, 2019
Luke 15:1-10

Our Gospel text today is likely familiar to most of us. As I get older and I’ve reencountered this text – seemingly a million times, I find myself questioning the text (and myself) a bit more. Would I really abandon 99 sheep do go find one lost one? The way Jesus tells the story and asks the question, it sounds like the answer is an obvious yes. However, well, sheep aren’t known as the smartest creatures on the planet. If I leave the 99 to find the one, what will the 99 do? Unlike my beloved Ginger pup, sheep are not likely to just stand there and anxiously await my return. (And, the text doesn’t say what happens to the 99 – just that the shepherd threw the sheep over his shoulders, rejoices. When he goes home, he celebrates with his family and friends). So said another way, if I go to look for the one lost sheep, how many more lost sheep would I return to? A “smart” and logical shepherd would take his losses and protect the 99.

And how in the world, does a shepherd, know that one sheep is missing in a crowd of 100 sheep? There’s a reason, I don’t typically count how many of you all join us on a given weekend. First, I’m leading worship. But in a crowd, I easily lose track of my count. Oh, no, I think I counted Bonnie twice. Did I get Avery in my count? She kinda pops in and out of my view. (I’m very grateful to our wonderful ushers who do get a good count of who is here each week!) Then, how did the sheep get lost in the first place? Again, sheep aren’t known as the smartest creatures, did it just wander off? Did someone or something chase it off? There’s a cartoon, that I love, that goes around social media periodically from David Hayward, known as the Naked Pastor (I think I even shared it a few months back on my own FB page). In the cartoon, Jesus is walking back to his flock with the lost sheep, painted with beautiful rainbow stripes. One of the 99 responds, “Woah! Woah! Woah! Hold it right there! He wasn’t lost. We kicked him out.” A coin… How does it get lost? It only gets lost if I misplace it. It doesn’t jump out of my purse or my coin jar and make its way under my couch.

Recently, I read a book, One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins, written by the Rev. Emmy Kegler.  This book changed how I interact with and hear today’s Gospel reading. Pastor Emmy is an ELCA pastor in Minneapolis, MN, a young adult, and a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Just a brief statement about the book, in general, it is a powerful read; Pastor Emmy has this way of weaving in her story and the Gospel of Jesus that has been such a part of her life in moving and empowering ways. Her writing immediately pulled me in, almost as if she was talking directly to me. The book, as indicated by the title, draws from and centers itself on the Gospel readings for this Sunday – what many call the “lost” chapter of the Bible. We get the parable of the lost sheep, followed by the parable of the lost coin, followed by the parable of the lost (or prodigal) son – which was left out of today’s gospel reading. It is her story of being found and the God who found her and loved her for who she is.

Pastor Emmy writes:
“This story is for us. We are the prodigal son. But too we are lost and hungry sheep. We have gone unfed, walked without rest, been chased by wolves, and our friends and leaders did not see our pain…We too are lost and dusty coins. We have gone unnoticed, rusted from others’ indifference, misspent and misused, and our friends and leaders did not see our neglect” (Kegler, 8).

Her point is: we all likely have been like the lost sheep or a dusty coin from time to time. Whether we find ourselves away from the fold because we wondered off, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because we were hungering for something and went off looking for whatever might satisfy that hunger, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because a predator chased us out and we fled in fear, in self-preservation, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because the very people that were supposed to love and nurture us kicked us out, deeming us unworthy. Whether we find ourselves lost after years of feeling invisible, unappreciated, used. This story is for us.

Pastor Emmy continues:
 “But God, in big and little ways has donned a shepherd’s cloak and come running after us. God, in big and little ways, has clambered over rocks and climbed down cliffs. God has found us, hungrier and more hurt and terrified, and cradled us close to say: no matter why you left of where you went, you are mine… But God, in big and little ways, has picked up a woman’s broom and swept every corner of creation. God, in big and little ways, has tucked up her skirts and flattened herself on the floor, dug through dust bunnies and checked every dress pocket. God has found us, dustier and without any luster, and held us up to the light to say: No matter how you rolled away or what corner you were dropped in, you are mine” (Kegler, 8)

This is the good news of the passage today. What the parables actually describe isn’t “repentance.” The sheep don’t realize that they’re lost and turn around and return to the fold. The coin doesn’t jump back where the woman keeps her coins. No. Instead, the parables describe the unrelenting, stubborn act of a God who is not willing to give up on even one of God’s beloved children. So, contrary to logic and good sense, God goes after the one lost sheep, and does whatever it takes to bring that one sheep back. If God returns, carrying the lost sheep home, and finds that another has run off, God will search for that one too. God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace keeps searching for each person who is lost. God goes to the darkest, dirtiest, most dangerous places, searching and searching to bring people home. In Jesus, we meet a God that is absolutely committed to doing whatever it takes – even experience death on a cross – to have relationship and reconciliation with each and every one of us – and each and every one of God’s beloved children.

Today, God says to each one of us who were lost – you are mine. Nothing, not the things that make you who you are – your relationship status, your sexuality, your gender orientation, the color of your skin –, nor the things that the society around do to try to convince you that you don’t belong or are less than others, nor the voices inside that may try to tell you that you aren’t enough, not your mistakes, not your wanderings – none of these things can separate you from the love of God that we’ve found in Christ Jesus. God loves you – as you are – because of who God is. This God is one that we have met in Jesus, the one who risks even death on a cross for the world that God so loves. And today, the Gospel is that in the best and the worst times of life, God will keep searching for you.

We are found. We are found by the love of God. This love is for you. This love is for me. This love is for all people. Our God is one that knows you (and knows me) better than we can know ourselves – knows our joys and our hurts, our successes and our failures, what we choose to show the world about ourselves, and the things that we keep deep inside. This is a God that knows our sin. And this is a God that loves us anyway. Fully, completely, unconditionally. God cherishes you and treasures you.  It is a love that says: you are worthy of being found. We don’t earn it. But yet this is a love that is close, that does not abandon us, but searches for us, walks beside us, envelops us, carries us. It is a love that we can place our trust in. It is a love that invites us to see ourselves as God sees us – as beloved children of God; and a love that invites us to see all the people (in their wonderful diversity) around us as God sees them – as beloved children of God. It is a love that invites us to live into the people God intends us to be: loved people who love other people. We have a God, who in the words of my beloved Hebrew Bible seminary prof, God’s answer to God’s people is always a loud and resounding yes. An affirmation of both who we are (as we are) and whose we are.

It is a love that invites us into an imperfect yet holy community that forms the body of Christ in this world. A community that, at its best, reminds us and shows us that we are beloved (even when we struggle to see that ourselves). It is a community that, at its best, reminds us that we are not alone. It is a community that, at its best, rejoices along with Jesus, and welcomes people into the fold – exactly as they are. It is a community that comes around the font and the table – receiving God’s gifts and hearing God’s word of forgiveness, splashing in the water that unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection, feasting on the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ – together. And it is a community that, at its best, lives out the love and forgiveness that we first received from God.

This story is for us. But this story is for others too – others who are wandering, who are hungering, who have fled, who have been kicked out, who have been told that they’re unworthy, who have gone unnoticed – by society, by the church, or perhaps even by us. Who might be lost – in this community, in society, in the wider church? Who might need to hear the Gospel that they are loved, they are redeemed, as they are? Who might need to hear God’s resounding yes for them? Because we are found, we get to find others. Because we are loved, we get to share that love with others. Walter Brueggemann puts it this way, “hope in God’s promises is not passive but demandingly active… Hope is not optimism or a wish or a good idea. It is a way of living differently in the world.”  It is about living into the world that we know God intends for us. It is a call to see others as God sees us – as broken yet beloved children of God. It is a call to pick up the rocks, to sweep away the dust – hatred, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, poverty, – whatever harms our neighbors and pushes them away. Today, we live into the hope of God’s promises, trusting that we are found by the Grace and love of God through Jesus, by being part of God’s search party and finding others, and rejoicing with God when we are all found.

Amen



Kegler, Emmy. One Coin Found: How God's Love Stretches to the Margins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2019.
Brueggemann, Walter. "The Company of the Unafraid: Ten ways God's peculiar hope keeps fear from overpowering us." Sojourners. July 2019. https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2019/company-unafraid.

13th Sunday after Pentecost (Year C) - September 8, 2019

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
September 8, 2019
Luke 14:25-33

There are some Gospel texts that are super uncomfortable. Ya know, the ones that end and we say “the Gospel of our Lord” and “praise to you, O Christ” - and in our heads and hearts we’re thinking “The… Gospel… of our… Lord?” and “Praise to… you... um. O Christ?” And today’s Gospel lesson is certainly one of those texts. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” “The... Gospel... of our Lord.” “Praise… to you… O Christ?”

To those of you who are joining us as our guests today or who are joining us again after a summer break, I’ll admit that it isn’t the easiest text to come back to. To those of you who’ve been with us recently, we’ve had a lot of these texts lately. Sometimes we want a word of comfort. And we get this - a command to hate the ones closest to us - instead today. I know how tricky this text is; this happened to be the Gospel text for the Sunday of my first sermon at my internship site. It is super uncomfortable. I love my folks. I love my family. As I admitted in that first sermon on internship: I have a really hard time getting past Jesus telling me that, to be a good disciple, that I have to hate my Mom and my Dad. I have a hard time getting past that to the rest of the passage.

There are two approaches to dealing with these kinds of texts. One is to explain it away. “Jesus didn’t really mean that we should hate our parents. He’s using hyperbole.” Another is to dig in - into both the text and the discomfort - and figure out what the text is saying to Luke’s audience and to us. The problem with the first option is that it allows us to stay firmly within our comfort zones. Sometimes texts are intended to make us uncomfortable. Sometimes Jesus intends to make us uncomfortable. So when we explain it away, we often miss the point of the text. And the Gospel of Luke is really good at pushing us outside of our comfort zones. When Jesus pushes us outside of our comfort zones, our instinct is to walk, run, crawl as fast as we can back to what makes us comfortable. The temptation is to soften Jesus’ words so that we’re never really challenged.

My hope today is to take the second option. To sit in the discomfort a bit to try to see what Jesus might be telling us today. To be challenged by the Gospel. Because the Gospel both unsettles us and frees us. Often in preaching circles, we talk about how the Gospel - the Good news of Jesus Christ - afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. And today, in this particular Gospel reading, we get much more of the afflicting of the comfortable. So today is an invitation to sit in the uncomfortable for just a bit. Sometimes to hear the Gospel - the good news not just for me but for all people - we need to be shaken out of our places of comfort. These words were and are challenging.

For Luke, that good news is that Jesus comes to bring about the Kingdom of God in this world. And this is a Kingdom of God that is drastically changing this world. As Jesus talks about banquets (as a metaphor for the table of the Kingdom of God) in our Gospel reading from last week, Jesus makes it clear that the places of honor in the Kingdom of God belong to the people that we least expect. The table is for everyone, but especially the poor, the outsiders, the sinners, the strangers, and foreigners. The people that we might least expect to be around the table, not only are welcome there, but hold a place of honor. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus proclaims this Kingdom of God that turns the world upside down. Those currently with power and privilege will be brought down and the lowly will be lifted up.

As I said to those in the Adult Forum on Luke back in November, Luke’s lens on Jesus is one of social justice. It is a lens that says that we cannot be whole until all of us are whole. The ways of this world as it is, the ways of this empire are harmful and death dealing, especially to the most vulnerable around us. The Kingdom of God is one that brings wholeness and healing to the people and the places that need it most - so that we all can finally live in a world that God intended from the very beginning - one where everyone is in right relationship with God, with the fellow human being, and with all creation. This is indeed Good News. But it doesn’t sound like Good News for everybody. For those with power, for those who typically sit in places of honor, for those who have privilege, it sounds like very bad news.

And today, the Gospel can sound like very bad news. To dig further, I’m actually going to start at the end of the passage: “so therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all of your possessions.” And, in the context of this passage (and the Gospel of Luke), I think Jesus is talking more than about just material possessions. These are the things that we hold dear - particularly the things that can get in the way of following Jesus. I have a hunch that Jesus is talking about those things that we hold onto to that keep us tied to this world as it is, those things that lure us into the ways of this world rather than the ways of the Kingdom of God. Of course that can include material possessions, but includes so much more than that.

In Jesus’ world, following Jesus often meant leaving family behind. The first disciples left their nets (and all their familial commitments) to follow Jesus. In the community of the Gospel of Luke, becoming a Christ believer often meant separation from family and a rupture of family ties. Following Jesus meant risking alienation from the people closest to them. Families did not want their loved ones to follow Jesus. And in this time in Christian history, do you really blame them? There’s a martyrdom text from the early 3rd century, the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, in which we meet a jailed Perpetua. Several times, Perpetua’s father begs her to renounce her faith because he knew that the cost of following Jesus would be her own death.

Families knew that following Christ - this messiah who died on a cross - meant possibly meeting a similar fate. Because preaching about the Kingdom of God - this kingdom that brings down the powerful and lifts up the lowly - is a threat to those who hold power and who hold those places of honor. Jesus doesn’t end up on the cross because he was a nice guy; he was crucified because the message of the Kingdom ran against the message of the Empire, ran against the message of those with power. Who wants to be the one brought down? That kind of message needed, in their minds, needed to be extinguished - so that they can preserve their own place in the world. Thus family - mothers and fathers, spouse and children, brothers and sisters - could become roadblocks to following Jesus and roadblocks to living out the kingdom of God. This good news seems anything but good. They miss that, to quote one commentator this week, that “The way of discipleship is the way of life, real life, life that does not deny the reality of death but instead overcomes it through the power of resurrection. And that is good news that the world needs to hear” (Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Choose Life, https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5376). So while I don’t believe that Jesus calls his followers to literally hate their families, I do think Jesus is pointing to the risks of being a disciple. I do think that Jesus is calling his followers to turn away from anything that might hold them back from living out their call to be kingdom builders, their call to live out the freedom they’ve been given through Jesus.

While families or other relationships can still hold us back from living out our call to be kingdom

builders, I’m not sure that in today’s world that is as relevant. For the most part, family and friends are thrilled when those they love start going to church. That being said, there are things in this world that hold us back and keep us from living out that freedom that we’ve already been given. What are the things or the systems that we hold onto that get in the way of living into the Kingdom of God? What are the things that keep us from being Kingdom builders? Do we hold onto our stuff, our money - trusting in material possessions for safety and security above placing that trust in God? Do we hold onto our prejudices that divide us from our neighbors? Do we hold onto American individualism that tries to ignore our interconnectedness? Do we hold onto our place in the world, in our communities, because we don’t want to be the ones who are brought down? Do we hold onto our fear - fear of change, fear of those different from us, fear of loss? This answer could be different for each one of us.

But whatever holds us back, the good news today is that Jesus comes to free us from those things as well. Because as long as we’re holding onto power, privilege, prejudices, we aren’t living out the Kingdom. But these things keep us stuck in the ways and the narratives of this world. We’ve already been given salvation. We’ve already been made right with God. These things keep us from being in right relationship with our fellow human and with creation. But because we have the promise that we are made right with God, we are free to turn out to our fellow human and to the stranger. Thus, Today Jesus calls us to give up those things that we hold onto, to be freed from those things we hold onto; this is a call to live into the freedom that God has given us through Christ. And that is the Gospel of our Lord.

Amen.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C) - Sept 1, 2019

12th Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
Sept. 1, 2019
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Our readings each week come from the Revised Common Lectionary, released in 1994. The readings for today were planned since the Lectionary was released in 1994. I *may* sometimes adjust the beginning and ends of readings, but the readings are, for the most part, given. On the whole, I am thankful for the lectionary. As with any lectionary, there are pluses and minuses. Sometimes the readings may feel distant and maybe at times irrelevant in our current context. Sometimes something happens in our world, and I yearn for one of the readings to speak directly to it. Yet there are other times where the readings hit so close to what is going on in our world. There are these times when one or more of the readings force me (sometimes kicking and screaming) to take an honest look at myself and at the world as it is that I currently live in.

Our second reading from Hebrews this morning gives us a vision for what it looks like to live as people claimed by the gospel, as people who are living out citizenship in the Kingdom of God. It is about living the abundant life that we have already been given through Jesus Christ. It is an invitation to live the life we’ve been given. These few verses serve to create a vision for what it means to be the body of Christ. And, if I’m honest, it is a tough invitation this morning. This is how the author (whose identity is unfortunately lost to history) begins the conclusion to the letter to their community.

“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” (Heb. 13:1-3)

These themes are themes found throughout the scriptures. There are fewer things that the Bible talks about more than these themes, summed up so succinctly in today’s second reading.

“Let mutual love continue.” Let philadelphia continue. Let brotherly/familial love continue. This is love within the particular community. The kind of love shown within these walls to one another. That kind of love that is there in the good times, in the bad times. That kind of love that sees each other as integral parts of the body of Christ and the mission we share - even in conflict. That can be hard. But because we have existing relationships, it is easier to see each other as beloved children of God. We can more easily see each other’s humanity. We live and grow as community together. And even in disagreements, we affirm each other’s humanity and place in this family. The author of Hebrews assumes that philadelphia is happening and is encouraging that to continue. It is that kind of love that strengthens the bonds of the community and pulls us together as the body of Christ. This love is what feeds and strengthens us for what comes next in the letter.

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” The word for hospitality here is philoxenia - the love of strangers (it is the opposite of xenophobia). The love of foreigners. The love of immigrants. The love of the ones that don’t look like us or sound like us. The love of the ones that don’t worship like us. The love of those outside the boundaries of the community, outside the boundaries of citizenship, outside the boundaries of the law. The love of the enemy. The love of the one who stands as a threat to us and to everything we hold dear. The author of the letter to the Hebrews turns out - not to neighbor - but to the stranger, the migrant, the foreigner. It is a call to break down the boundaries built by xenophobia and move from xenophobia to philoxenia - to move from fear to love. To see those most foriegn to us as worthy of love and worthy of hospitality. To see those we too easily perceive as a threat as having a place at the table.

By showing hospitality to strangers, we do take a risk. We risk serving someone who *could* in theory be a threat to us. But by showing hospitality to strangers, we also risk entertaining angels. We risk serving messengers of God in our midst.

The author then moves to those in prison and being tortured. This is one of those times where the Greek is so much stronger than the NRSV translation. Here’s how I’d translate verse three: “Remember the ones chained/those in prison as if you were chained with them. Remember those being tortured as if you yourself were also being tortured in your body.” As if you were were chained with them, as if you were being tortured in your own body. The author calls us to look into the suffering of our fellow person as if we were the ones suffering ourselves.

A video surfaced this week of a woman who went into labor while in jail at the end of July 2018. She repeatedly told guards that she was having contractions. She told them when her water broke. Medical care was not provided. She ended up laboring and giving birth alone in a cell. Only after the baby was delivered did someone finally enter the cell. It was terrifying. You could see the fear and the suffering on her face. Now, I *know* better, but I ventured into the comment section of the article. Most of the commenters were sympathetic to the woman. However, some (more than I’d like) said things like “well, if she hadn’t committed a crime, she wouldn’t have been in this situation. It is her own fault.” As if committing a crime strips the woman of her humanity. She did it to herself. That kind of reaction serves to give permission and space to look away from her suffering.

We hear similar arguments against so many people in chains, behind bars, in cages. If they didn’t cross the border, they wouldn’t be in cages (side note: seeking asylum is legal and one has to be on US soil to do it). If they didn’t commit a crime, they wouldn’t have encountered the police. If they worked hard, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they’d have enough food and enough to survive. Sometimes we do not see the suffering - we’re often a bit removed from it. But As people, we find all sorts of ways to blame people for their own suffering, while giving ourselves permission to look away from the depths of human suffering. They’re illegal. They’re in prison. They’ve committed a crime. They’re drug addicts. They didn’t “plan” enough. They deserve what comes to them. They did it to themselves. If they’re to blame, we’re off the hook. And we can look away.

Hebrews this morning invites us, for the sake of love - that love that we’ve received from Jesus, to not only look at the suffering, to see our fellow human being in chains, but to be in solidarity with them, feeling their suffering and their pain as if it were our own. Who is Jesus inviting us to see today? Whose suffering are we invited to see today? We’re invited to look into the cages. We’re invited into the prison cell. We’re invited into the disaster area, the areas hit by hurricanes, by flooding, by drought - maybe the farms of Nebraska or the Bahamas or Puerto Rico. We’re invited to look beyond the fences, the chains, the bars, the walls (and whatever else binds a person - literal and metaphoric) and see the real live human being - the beloved child of God beyond it. Running contrary to the individualism that has become such a part of American culture, Hebrews points us to the ways that we as humanity are deeply interconnected. The truth of today’s passage is: when one part of humanity suffers, we all suffer. When one part of the Body of Christ hurts, we all hurt. We cannot be whole until we all are whole. Don’t look away. Feel what they feel in your own body. Do something to free them from that which holds them captive.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus takes what we find in Hebrews a step farther. Not only by showing hospitality to strangers, to those imprisoned, to those being tortured do we risk entertaining a messenger of God, by showing this kind of hospitality we show hospitality to Jesus himself. Jesus says, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger/foreigner (xenos) and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me... Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40). He goes on to say that the converse is true: what you don’t do to one of the least of these, you do not do to him. Jesus places himself firmly with the members of his family that are suffering.

Why do we do this? We are empowered for this work because we have a God that does this. We have a God that risked everything to become human. The God that seemed so distant, far off, crosses the border between divinity and humanity (a border that seemed so permanent), making Godself known in Jesus. We have a God, in Jesus, that not only looked into suffering, but lived it, suffered it in his own body. We have a God in Jesus that was a refugee, fleeing violence as a child that threatened to end his life. We have a God in Jesus that lived by the hospitality shown to strangers. We have a God in Jesus who was imprisoned, who was tortured, who was crucified. We have a God that doesn’t look away - from our suffering, from the suffering of humanity. We have a God that sees and feels the suffering of God’s beloved children. We have a God in Jesus that stands in solidarity, and remains present with the suffering because God has been there too. We have a God in Jesus that risks suffering to free from suffering, to free us from that which holds us captive. This is Good News.

Today, in Hebrews we are invited to live out that Good News. We are invited to participate in the Kingdom of God that is breaking in - not for our own sake, but for the sake of our fellow human. Because Jesus has freed us, has suffered for us, has died and risen again for us, we are empowered to look at suffering, to feel the suffering of others, to work together as a body of Christ to relieve their suffering. We live out our freedom that we’ve found in Christ by freeing others.

Amen