Thompson's Blog

Plan B

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

As most of you know, Sharla and I have a house in Little Rock. It’s a place we’ve had for more than 20 years now, and it’s been under construction for the last 18 years. We knew we needed more room when we bought it, but it took me about 2 years to figure out that I was the only carpenter I could afford to hire. Once I had that experience of laying floor joists and then standing on a floor that I had built, construction became a bit of an addiction. It’s hard for me to finish things before I begin new things, but Sharla has sort of operated as the construction manager, so I don’t move on to new projects without her understanding and approval. This compulsion I have to add on our house has worked pretty well for us. I get to buy tools and cut holes in our walls, and occasionally we have new rooms to occupy.

I currently have a couple of unfinished projects, and it’s not unusual to find me on a Friday or a Saturday doing something that I may or may not fully understand. If you’re ever in Little Rock on a Friday or Saturday you should call and see if I’m engaged in some kind of project. I don’t want to brag on myself, but it’s sort of amazing what you can do if you spend enough time doing it. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned from my work as an amateur carpenter, plumber, electrician, and mason. You don’t really have to know everything about what you’re doing to get started on something, and once you get going it usually becomes really clear what you should have done.

So one of the things I learned early on was the value of using good screws for construction. It takes a little longer to put things together with screws, but it’s so much easier to take things apart when they’re held together with screws. A nail-gun can fasten boards together instantly, but it takes forever to undo things that are held together with nails, and you tear it all up in the process. It’s so much easier to unscrew a doorway that isn’t quite right than to pull boards apart that aren’t in the right place. And high quality screws are so much better than cheap screws. The heads don’t strip out easily.

Some people may know how to do things right the first time. What I know is how likely it is I’m going to have to do something over and how valuable it is to be open and equipped to back up and start over. I would have been miserable at actually working in the construction business. Give me enough time and I can do good work, but I’ve discovered that I generally have no idea how long it will take me to get something done.

My capacity to back up and do something over isn’t a particularly efficient way to operate, but I don’t think it’s an unusual way to get things done. In fact that’s the very thing I see Joseph doing in this morning’s passage of scripture. Joseph had a plan, and it was a reasonable plan. When he found out that his fiancé was going to have a child that he had not participated in conceiving, he decided he would break off their marriage in a manner that would bring the least unfortunate attention to Mary. Joseph was doing the most honorable thing he knew to do, but it turns out that there was a more faithful thing to be done. Plan A was very reasonable, but Plan B was the one that was going to change the world, and Joseph had the good sense to make the shift.

I consider this story of Joseph having a plan and then replacing his plan with a new plan to be very endearing. Joseph is the kind of person I understand. I haven’t had the kind of dream that he had, but I know what it feels like to change my course of action. I think that’s probably a universal experience. I’m reminded of that old saying, If you want to make God laugh, make a plan. It’s not unusual for any of us to find ourselves in need of a new direction, and while new plans can be unsettling or disturbing, they can also be divine.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk, who does a lot of writing and lecturing about what it means to be a Christian in today’s world. He believes that our challenge as Christians is to recognize that we are sons and daughters of heaven and earth. And it’s not easy to hold those two identities together. Such dual residency can create dilemmas for us. It’s not easy to take care of our business on earth in a way that honors our allegiance to heaven, but that’s what we are called to do.

And often it’s when we get too focused on the business of earth that we come to see how we’ve neglected our business in heaven. I’m not saying that Joseph was unconscious of what God was doing when he decided to break off his engagement with Mary, he was actually trying to be sensitive to her situation and true to his understanding of his faith tradition when he made the decision to break off the marriage, but this business of heaven can be very unpredictable. It’s easy to do the wrong thing before we do the right thing, but that’s not so bad. The bad thing is not to be open to those promptings we get from the Holy Spirit to go in new directions.

It’s so much easier to live as a child of the earth than a child of heaven. I had a conversation with a friend the other night that I don’t speak with often. He’s got a good sense of humor and at one point he asked me how the Lord’s work was going. I told him I thought it was going ok, but that God doesn’t come out and say much to me. I told him I thought I would probably hear something if I was terribly off track, and so I interpreted the silence to be a good thing.

I wish I could tell you I got clear messages from God, but I don’t get them any more than the rest of you. I’ve known a few people who claimed to get messages from God, but I never believed the voices they were hearing were actually from God. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but I don’t believe it regularly happens in such obvious ways. I believe our communication with heaven is generally very subtle, but I believe it happens.

We’re told that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, which in itself is a pretty subtle manner. There were no corroborating witnesses to his dream, so he could have chosen to remain with his reasonable plan, but he chose to believe that what he heard in his dream was real and from God.  I don’t generally have dreams that change the course of my life, but I do know the feeling of being prompted to do something.

I have a preacher friend who I don’t see often, but he’s someone I try to stay in touch with. He doesn’t live far from Jonesboro, so I sent him a text one day last week to see if he wanted to meet for coffee the next day when I was going to be in Jonesboro. We met and it turned out that he really needed someone to talk to about a few things. He told me that God had lead me to get in touch with him. I didn’t really know that’s what had happened, but I’m inclined to believe that he was right. That seems to be the way in which God operates. We don’t get loud messages from God, but we have these people or situations that appear on those little screens we have in our hearts, and we need to respond to those subtle promptings if we want to be children of heaven as well as of the earth.

I saw another preacher friend last week who has a different problem. I believe he needs to listen to his body telling him he needs to be a little less responsive to those situations and individuals that well up in his heart. He’s helped create an outreach program within his community that has become incredibly effective. They distribute food, they provide hot meals for people, and they even provide housing for a few individuals and families. It’s an amazing program, and he has been the primary organizer and facilitator of the outreach center, but it’s worn him out. He’s really tired, and he rarely is able to have any down time.

The work he’s doing is great, but I don’t believe our allegiance to heaven should cause our earthly lives to become unbearable. Of course as soon as I say this I’m reminded of how Jesus’ faithfulness to God caused him to die on a cross. I do know that it’s generally very demanding on our earthly lives to abide in the kingdom of God, but I don’t believe God calls us to engage in the kind of work that makes our earthly lives unbearable. We aren’t just children of heaven. We are also children of earth, and it’s important for us to be present for our friends and families and to engage in work that’s both beneficial and sustainable. We need to be attentive to the word of God in our lives but we also need to hear what our bodies are telling us.

So there’s this balance we are all challenged to strike in order to fully live as children of heaven and of earth. I don’t think it’s unusual for us to let our lives get out of balance and for us to see the need to embrace Plan B. I say Plan B, but there are probably Plans C, D, E, and so on. In order for us to fully live as residents of heaven and earth, we are always in need of some adjustment.

This wasn’t the last dream Joseph had in regard to his role as the father of Jesus. He would soon be warned in a dream that he needed to pack up and get away from the threat of bodily harm to this child that God had provided for him, and Mary, and the world. This baby would grow up to be the perfect embodiment of a resident of heaven and earth, and he would empower us to live similarly balanced lives.

There’s an awesome responsibility that comes with accepting Jesus as our Lord and savior. It means that we can’t just listen for the demands of the marketplace to provide us with the information we need to shape our lives. We’ve also got to live with sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit that provides us with the information we need to make those adjustments that will enable us to abide in the Kingdom of God as we go about on earth.

You might say we are to construct our lives with screws instead of nails. Nails are quick – especially when you use a nail gun, but it’s not unusual for us to make significant adjustments to the way our lives are shaped. I’m not saying there aren’t situations we need to nail down for good and as quickly as possible. Certainly there are some behaviors and undertakings that we need to steer clear of, but God has not called us to be rigid statues set in concrete. We are to live our lives in perpetual response to those subtle but powerful promptings of God’s Holy Spirit. And in so doing we are able to establish full residency in heaven and earth.

This possibility of fully living on earth and in heaven was perfectly revealed in this child that was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born to Mary and Joseph. It’s a gift to abide in the kingdom of God. May we be perpetually open to the new ways the living Christ appears to us.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

What Do You Want For Christmas?

Matthew 11:1-11

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

I’m not exactly sure how this tradition of Christmas gift giving came in to being. I’m sure a google search would provide me with some insight, but I don’t want the facts to get in the way of what I’m inclined to think. And what I like to think is that this gift-giving tradition has grown out of our sense of having been given a great gift in the life of Jesus Christ. I know there’s some disconnect between the material indulgence we engage in during this time of the year and the birth of Jesus in a stable, but this is what we’ve got and I’m not upset about it.

Maybe I should be, but I’m not. I know there’s some crass commercialism that goes on in the name of Jesus Christ, but I also know that this time of the year inspires extra giving and extravagant acts of outreach to those who are in need. There’s some contradiction in the way we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but I choose to believe the goodness of the way we behave this time of the year outweighs the badness. I know it’s foolish to think we can go out and buy some happiness for ourselves or others, but it is possible to purchase a little pleasure, and I can’t believe God is offended by our desire to have some fun.

Clearly, John the Baptist wasn’t having a good time when he sent his disciples to make this inquiry of Jesus, and the fact that he had become a prisoner is an indication that this world often goes off the tracks in a bad way. John the Baptist seems to have become distressed over what was going on, and it caused him to wonder if Jesus actually was the one who had come to redeem Israel. It’s hard not to associate good times with blessings from God and distressing situations with some kind of abandonment from God, and I think John the Baptist was maybe feeling like he had been mistaken about the identity of Jesus. Back in Chapter 3 he expressed certainty about who Jesus was, but here in Chapter 11 he’s not so sure. Things hadn’t gone the way he expected, and it was distressing to him.

We don’t know how John received the answer to his question. We don’t hear from John again in the Gospel of Matthew. He was executed soon after this by Herod. Certainly things can go perfectly wrong in this world. Those who serve God in the most faithful ways can be treated in the most horrific ways, but this isn’t God’s will. God’s desire is for people to be touched in healing and restoring ways, and that’s what Jesus revealed. When John’s disciples asked him if he was the messiah he responded by saying that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Jesus identified who he was by saying what he was able to do, and what he revealed was the way in which God worked through him to touch the most vulnerable people in the most redeeming ways.

Jesus reveals to us what the work of God looks like, but such work isn’t always so clear. If it had been clear to John the Baptist he wouldn’t have had to ask if Jesus was truly the one, and this is saying something because Jesus considered John the Baptist to be one of the most holy men to ever live. John the Baptist loved God and lived to serve God, but even he couldn’t quite tell if Jesus was the chosen One of God to redeem the world.

So often, what we are looking for doesn’t match up with what we get, and it’s critical for us to know how to be open to the new thing that can happen instead of the thing we were hoping to find. I was reminded of this as I listened to an interview on the radio with Mary Tyler Moore. I heard the interview on Friday, but it was recorded in 1995, and it was replayed because of the recent death of her husband, Grant Tinker, who was the producer of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I enjoyed the interview because I am old enough to have watched the show regularly – which ran between 1970-1977. One of the best characters in that show was Ted Baxter. Ted’s character was a news anchor on a local television station, and he is best described as a silver-haired self-important imbecile. Mary Tyler Moore played one of the producers of the news program, and she regularly had to deal with the situations that were created by Ted’s unfortunate combination of pomposity with idiocy.

Mary Tyler Moore said the writers of the show were looking for a younger man to play the part of the self-important news anchor. They were looking for someone who might serve as a love interest of hers, but they were instantly taken with the way Ted Night portrayed that character. He wasn’t what they were looking for, but they were taken with what he brought to that part and they adjusted. The show might have been successful if they had found the character they wanted, but in my opinion, Ted Baxter, made that show work. A self-important imbecile can create a lot of great situations.

This isn’t a show that changed the world, but it provided some good entertainment, and as I’ve already indicated, I don’t consider a little pleasure to be a bad thing. I consider entertainment to be a gift, and I don’t think God is put-off by our inclination to share gifts with one another.

There is, however, a problem that can occur. There is a problem when we have unreasonable expectations about what we are to receive. When our son was young he used to create these elaborate and extensive Christmas lists. Santa didn’t say Ho Ho Ho when he saw his list – Santa would laugh out loud! But Lucas didn’t expect Santa to deliver everything. His theory was to list every possibility in hope of getting some portion of what he wanted.

I operated by a different theory when I was a kid. I never really made a list for Santa Claus. It’s not that I didn’t want anything, but I was always hoping for something to show up that exceeded my expectations. We all have our strategies for getting what we want, and hopefully we all find ways of accepting what we get – for Christmas, and in life.

I don’t think Jesus met anyone’s expectation for what the savior of the world would look like. John wouldn’t have sent his disciples out to ask about him if Jesus had turned out to be who he expected. John didn’t reject Jesus, but he didn’t quite get him. I’m guessing he was expecting a little more retribution, but what Jesus was delivering was this message of relief to those who were the most victimized by the powers of this world. John the Baptist was driven by authentic love for God, but passion for God doesn’t always translate in to understanding of God.

Jesus considered John the Baptist to have been the greatest of all the prophets of Israel, but Jesus didn’t think he had the greatest understanding of the kingdom of God. And that’s what Jesus wanted us to seek. John was well motivated, but he didn’t quite grasp the unbounded nature of God’s love.

Of course, Jesus certainly didn’t meet the expectations of the religious executives of the day. They didn’t get John the Baptist either. They weren’t well motivated or well informed. They could only see what would be best for their own enterprise. To give them some degree of credit, they were convinced that they were already doing the work of God. They weren’t open to anything new, but they probably weren’t consciously opposed to the movement of God. They were just blind to the truth by their own sense of self satisfaction.

So we see in the Bible this range of people who set themselves up with the wrong expectations of the incarnation of God. It’s easy to want to be more like John who was executed for his beliefs than to be like the religious authorities who contributed to execution of Jesus, but our primary objective is to have an even better understanding of God than the finest prophet that ever lived. Our invitation is to be open to the kingdom of God as it was revealed by Jesus Christ. Our challenge is to not let our passion or our preferences get in the way of our relationship with the One who truly reveals the nature of God.

So what do we want for Christmas? I don’t think it’s wrong to want to have some fun giving and receiving gifts from those we love and care for. As I say, I love this tradition of giving that has grown up around the celebration of the birth of Jesus, but I think it’s important that we always seek to expand our circle of giving. It’s pretty self-indulgent to limit our giving to those who can return the favors or who are within our own families. And it’s wrong to think the best gifts are the ones that cost the most money, but the worst thing we can ever do is to think we fully understand who Jesus is and what it means to follow him.

The presence of Jesus Christ defies all of our understanding. Jesus is more gracious than we can ever expect and more demanding than we can deliver. Jesus is more challenging than we can imagine, and he’s more forgiving than we can conceive. It’s a good thing for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in to our lives each year because we are always in need of a new encounter with Christ. Jesus Christ is far more alive and present than we are regularly open to believe, but he’s also more illusive than you would expect from the savior of the world. It’s not easy to encounter Christ, but Jesus is always there for us when we are in our greatest need.

I don’t know what you are hoping to get for Christmas, but what I hope we all are able to receive is a fresh encounter with the One who truly comes in the name of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

(What you need to know about the setting for this sermon is that we had secretly invited the Newport Greyhound football team, managers, and assistant coaches to attend our worship service and to stay for a catered lunch. The head coach is a church member and regular attender, and we wanted to surprise him with their attendance. It was a great experience for our congregation to honor him and the team for their good season. They made it in to the quarter finals of the state tournament — which far exceeded expectations. The entire team wasn’t on hand but a significant portion of them showed up.)

Uncle John’s Wilderness Experience

Matthew 3:1-12

1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'” 4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

During these weeks that lead up to the celebration of the birth of Christ, we try to put our hearts and minds in the right spiritual zone. This particular Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, is traditionally the Sunday we read one of the texts that focuses on John the Baptist, because there probably isn’t anyone that had more focus on the need to be properly prepared for the arrival of Jesus Christ.

I think it’s important for us to take a close look at John the Baptist and to think about what he had to say, but in all honesty, he’s a little intense for me. There’s a reason they call him John the Baptist and not John the Methodist. I think we might have some Baptists in the room this morning, and we’re glad you’re here. I hope you can stay awake.

John the Baptist doesn’t talk like a Methodist. We Methodists put a high premium on getting along with each other. We don’t tend to get very clear about what people aught or aught not be doing – which is our strength and our weakness. We’re pretty easy to get along with, but I know that sometimes it’s more important to be honest than to be nice. I don’t think the Newport Greyhounds have had such a successful season because the coaches were primarily focused on being nice. I may be wrong about that, but I’m guessing they can get real clear about what’s expected and where there’s a gap between performance and expectation.

That’s what’s going on with John the Baptist in this morning’s passage of scripture. John the Baptist had a clear understanding of what people needed to do to be prepared for the coming of Christ, and he had no hesitation to share his thoughts about the gap between what they needed to be doing and what they were actually doing.

John the Baptist had a powerful impact upon a lot of people. He drew people out in a way that was unprecedented. Nobody had ever done what he was able to do. People made this difficult journey out in to the wilderness to hear what he was saying and to be baptized by him. He spoke in a manner that touched people who were hungry for an actual encounter with the truth of the living God. Of course not everyone was so well motivated. There were some people who came out to see him because they were sort of threatened by what he was saying, and they were on more of a reconnaissance mission than a pilgrimage. John the Baptist had a special message for them and it wasn’t warm and fuzzy.

John the Baptist did some powerful work. He got people’s attention in a way that was without comparison, and he enabled a lot of people to change their lives in a way that made them ready to receive the truth and the message of Jesus Christ. And while John the Baptist was an authentic messenger of God, I think it’s worth noting that we aren’t primarily followers of John the Baptist. We, who call ourselves Christians, are followers of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist was an important messenger, but he wasn’t the perfect embodiment of God’s message to the world. The perfect messenger of God was Jesus Christ, and John the Baptist did the good work of pointing to Jesus.

John the Baptist wasn’t the savior of the world. John the Baptist is more like a crazy uncle to the world, but I don’t mean crazy in a bad way. He’s our crazy uncle in the best possible way. I love this uncle of ours. He was the real deal. You don’t live like he did without being driven in a powerful way. And I believe he was driven to do and to say what he did because he loved God and wanted to speak the truth. I’m glad we don’t all have to live like he did, but he did what he did because he was totally committed to serving God. He’s our spiritual uncle, and we need to hear what he had to say.

Aunts and uncles play an important role in our lives. They’re sort of like parents or guardians. They love us and they want the best for us, but they aren’t fully responsible for us, and that makes them a little freer to reveal who they are. Aunts and uncles can say and do things that parents are more hesitant to reveal. Parents want to maintain order in the house. Aunts and uncles can say what they think and then leave.

I had great parents, and I loved my parents, but I got some things from my aunts and uncles that I never would have gotten from my parents. My uncle Rodney and aunt Helen invited me to join them on a trip to Montana during the summer after I finished the 9^th grade. I had never been to the Rocky Mountains, and that was an amazing trip. Uncle Rodney showed me how to catch wild trout in a Rocky Mountain rushing river and that was about the most amazing thing I had ever done. He was a large man who had big ideas and who knew how to carry them out. He was also a man of great faith. He lived a highly principled life. He never touched a drop of alcohol, but he knew how to have a good time. He could identify the comedy of almost any situation.

My aunt Helen just had her 90^th birthday, and I got to see her last Saturday. She’s just about the best person in the world, and she’s probably the most humble person in the world. They had a birthday reception for her at her church, and she was afraid nobody would come, but people of all ages and stations in life came and went for 2 hours to tell her how much she meant to them.

And I had the good fortune to ride down to her party with my uncle Jack. My uncle Jack is someone who knows how to connect with people in an astonishing way. He is a man who fully understands how to extend hospitality. Unlike my uncle Rodney, if uncle Jack thinks you might like to have a glass of wine he’ll make sure to have a case of what you like on hand. He understands the value of friendship, and he treats his friends well. My father wasn’t exactly cheap, but let’s just say he like to cut things sort of close. And my natural tendency is to be a bit of a skimper, but my uncle Jack has revealed to me the value of providing more than enough for other people.

I’ve been blessed with good aunts and uncles. I could go on about others, but my point is that I’m the beneficiary of many good relatives who have helped shape my life. But you don’t have to be a blood relative to people to receive those kinds of blessings. I believe one of the great blessings of life is the way in which we come in contact with people who aren’t our actual relatives, but who function as aunts and uncles. These are the people to whom we choose to be related. It’s not unusual to refer to a beloved person who is a bit older than we are as an aunt or an uncle – it’s a title we sometimes give go the people we revere for the guidance they provide.

Of course we educated people have become much more sophisticated in the way we define relationships, so we now call those people our mentors, but to call someone a mentor doesn’t capture the affection you have for an aunt or an uncle. You don’t love a mentor like you love a brother or a sister or an aunt or an uncle or maybe even a coach.

I never had a great relationship with a coach. The fact that I wasn’t very strong or fast or committed probably has something to do with that, but I had a great relationship with my 10^th grade biology teacher. His name was Wes Shaver and he grew up in Tuckerman. I know some of you knew him. Mr. Shaver had a powerful impact on my life. He was smart and funny and caring and he made me want to be smart and funny and caring. I may not be so smart or funny, but I try to care, and he showed me what that looks like. Being exposed to him made me want to be that way. I stayed in touch with Mr. Shaver, and he had an ongoing impact on my life. He died not long ago and I miss him, but what he did for me remains.

Good aunts and uncles and coaches and teachers show us what we can be, and that’s a beautiful gift. I became a preacher because of a man named Lewis Chesser. We’d be late for lunch if I tried to explain how I got mixed up with him, but I’ve been a United Methodist minister for right at 30 years because of him. I don’t know if he gets credit or blame for his influence upon me, but he had a powerful impact upon me.

We in the United Methodist Church claim John Wesley as one of our spiritual uncles. He lived in England in the 1700s, and his own spiritual reawakening prompted a powerful movement within England and the Anglican church. And our Uncle John Wesley was powerfully moved by what our Uncle John the Baptist had done in the wilderness. John Wesley created small groups of people who came together to support one another and to hold each other accountable. These small groups transformed an uncountable number of people, and the only thing he required of those who sought to be a part of one of those groups was that they had the desire to flee the wrath to come – which are words that came from the mouth of our uncle John the Baptist.

Both John the Baptist and John Wesley were concerned about our spiritual wellbeing, and they didn’t want us to go through life without regard for God’s desire to be at the center of our lives. And if we don’t allow God to define who we are we are likely to let some other things control our lives that will lead us in to highly destructive behavior. I don’t believe God is vindictive, but I do believe we get ourselves in to some ugly situations when we live without regard for God and our neighbors.

God doesn’t demand that we allow love to be our guide through life, but something is going to guide our lives, and if it isn’t love it’s going to be something that’s going to create trouble for ourselves and others.

Last week marked the death of Fidel Castro. He and my aunt Helen were born the same year – 1926, and he died on the day we were having that party for my aunt. One of the first things I heard on the news that day was that there were these large gatherings of people who were celebrating his death. I’m sure there were some people who loved him and who felt loved by him, and they weren’t celebrating his death, but the fact that there were these large groups of people celebrating his death got my attention. What a sad thing it is when thousands of people are moved to celebrate your death. None of us make great decisions at every moment of our lives, but who wants to live the kind of life that causes people to celebrate your death.

Our good uncle John the Baptist didn’t want us to live in such an unfortunate way. He wanted us to seek the source of true life and to be nourished by the goodness of God. It’s not an easy thing to allow God to be at the center of our lives. In fact we’ve got to go out of our way to enable God to guide our lives, but that’s the good thing that can happen to us if we are willing.

People had to make an effort to find John the Baptist. He didn’t make it easy to hear and to respond to what he was saying, but successful living is never an easy thing. The easy thing is to not pay attention, to not make an effort, and to not care about God or your neighbor. But the richest thing is to listen, and to hear, and to love, and to care. John the Baptist wasn’t an easy person to be around, but what he said was true, and where he pointed was right. The Lord of Life was coming in to the world in the life of Jesus Christ. He has come, and he can be the one to guide our lives away from wrath and in to the light.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

The View From Above

Luke 21:5-19

5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 “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.” 7 They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. 9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. 12 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.

When I read a passage of scripture like this it helps me understand why churches aren’t exactly packed with people. This passage isn’t a pretty picture! Jesus overhears his disciples talking about how beautiful the temple was, and it prompted him to explain how utterly it was going to be destroyed. And then he told them to expect all kinds of wars and natural disasters, but before all that took place he said his followers would be arrested and rejected by friends and relatives and some would be killed, but not to worry. Jesus didn’t see such things as terrible tragedies – he saw such occasions as opportunities for people to gain their souls. I’m not saying that people don’t have any interest in getting in touch with their souls, but Jesus doesn’t offer an easy path to that glorious reward.

Jesus isn’t in the business of helping us avoid our worst nightmares – Jesus just wants us to navigate those hard times in ways that will nourish our souls. Don’t worry about the economy or the national debt or global warming or your job or the people who hate you or even your own life. Just pay attention to the state of your soul and you will be fine. This isn’t a message that’s easy to sell to your average American, but it’s not a bad message for us to hear.

I guess we had an election last week, and on some level I think it was a referendum on what we value in our nation. Actually I think most Americans value similar things, but we had an opportunity to choose the people we think can best obtain those things we value. And our presidential election felt a whole lot like a Rorschach Inkblot test to me. That’s the test where they hold up these random and obscure inkblot formed images and you have to decide what it looks like. Some people can look at an inkblot and see an angel in the clouds while someone else can look at that same image and see a vampire bat with blood dripping from it’s fangs. Of course we had actual human images to ponder, and we were given about a year and half to study the images, but last Tuesday we had to say who looked like the right person to occupy what we tend to think of as the most significant position in the world.

I’m describing last week’s presidential election as a Rorschach test because it’s pretty amazing how vastly different those two candidates were viewed by the American people. More people in the right electoral states saw Donald Trump as the person who is best suited for the job, but as we all know that’s not the feeling his image elicited in everyone. We Americans saw amazingly different things when we looked at these two candidates, and that’s what makes last week’s election feel so much like some kind of a psychological experiment.

I don’t want to engage in too much pseudo-psychology about why we as a nation underwent last week. I’m just saying I think it’s pretty interesting that average Americans can look at the same people and come away with such different feelings about them. These two candidates evoked powerfully different reactions, and I think we can all testify to the psychological drama that it’s put us through.

So some people have come to feel like the world has been put back on course, and some of us are feeling like we’ve been knocked off our foundation. Yes, I was one of those who thought Hillary looked like the person for the job. Probably not much of a surprise to anyone. I didn’t feel like it was my place to be very revealing about my political leanings from the pulpit, but I don’t see much harm now in owning up to being a secret member of the pantsuit nation. In fact I can’t help but bring this up because I feel profoundly affected by the election. In all honesty, election night put me in a deep sense of political despair. And I’m still feeling some pain about it all, but that isn’t such a bad thing for me. The experience of losing something that felt very precious to me has put me in touch with the amazingly comforting message of this passage of scripture.

I don’t want to be melodramatic about the situation, but the election of Donald Trump left me feeling like some of the beautiful stones of the temple were starting to fall. I’m sure some of you had the opposite feeling last Tuesday night. Clearly for many Americans, Tuesday night was a great night and a turn of events that reveals great promise for our nation, but that’s not how it left me feeling, and I was in a terrible state of mind until I was reminded by these words from Jesus that I should never allow the events of this world to knock me off my spiritual foundation.

Now please don’t hear me saying that I think either of these presidential candidates rise to the level of a savior or an anti-christ. I don’t believe we are perched on the edge of the apocalypse or that Hillary’s election would have fixed everything, but I think we all know that these two candidates represent remarkably different agendas and frankly speaking Donald Trump scares me on some level. He may govern beautifully, but I’m not confident that he will. I’m still very anxious about the situation, but what I hear Jesus saying is that I really don’t have to worry about that. What I need to worry about is the condition of my soul, and the state of my soul should never be jeopardized by what’s going on in the world.

This is an incredible oversimplification of the situation. We all know it’s impossible not to worry about current events, and anyone who isn’t affected by what’s going on in their house, or their neighborhood, or our nation, or the world is probably out of their mind, but Jesus is offering some nice perspective in this passage of scripture. And what I hear Jesus saying is that regardless of what’s swirling around us we must always remember to protect the most valuable thing we have been given. As Christians, we are to be more concerned about our souls than anything else.

Of course it’s impossible to live as perfect spiritual beings. We are physical as well, and I don’t know how anyone can live without having some concern for these powerful forces and events that occur in our lives, but it’s so helpful to remember what our lives look like from God’s perspective. The question isn’t what’s going on, but how we are responding to those things that are going on. God doesn’t care what the Temple looks like – God cares about the soul that abides in the temple that each of us represent, and how well life is being preserved within those temples. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t care about our neighbors and our world, but we should go about our work of caring for one another with profound trust in the benevolence of God.

What I’m hearing Jesus say in this passage of scripture is that the condition of our souls is not something that’s under the control of anyone other than ourselves and our God. The president of the United States can’t save or destroy this most precious thing that is within each of us. Difficult circumstances can jeopardize our souls. We can allow hard times to harden our souls, but that is not what will happen if we will trust in these gracious words of Jesus.

And what I hear Jesus saying is that when hard times happen, our souls can actually become more anchored in the source of true life.

I asked Andrea if the choir could do the song: Precious Lord, because it’s a song that was born out of tragedy. It was written by Thomas Dorsey, who was an African American musician and songwriter in the early 1900s. As a young man he had a career as a house musician in some of the great nightclubs in Chicago. But he gravitated toward gospel music, and he is actually known as the Father of Gospel music as we know it. But this grand title didn’t come easy.

Many people didn’t like the way he turned the rhythms of nightlife in to songs for Sunday morning. He was slow to be accepted in to many churches, but it slowly caught on, and he was helping with a large revival in St. Louis when he got a telegram that his wife had died in childbirth. They were living in Chicago, and he immediately went home. She had given birth to a son, but then the child died the next day, and as you can imagine this threw him in to a deep despair.

He was inconsolable for an extended period of time, and he could hardly bring himself to play any music, but as he was sitting near a piano at a friend’s house one day he found the tune and the words to this song, Precious Lord, playing over and over in his mind, and it became the avenue for his recovery as well as a source of tremendous comfort for many others who’ve had to deal with great pain or loss.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that the most essential aspect of our lives is not under the control of anything that transpires on earth. The most essential thing is the condition of our soul and that isn’t something that can be improved or destroyed by a president, a natural disaster, an enemy, or a friend. Yes, terrible things happen. Calamity and humiliation land on the heads of good people. Chaos and violence are rampant in this world. The truth is masked in profound ways, and death touches all of us. In many ways it appears that God has nothing to do with the way this world operates, but in fact God is present to us in all of the moments of our lives.

We probably aren’t as inclined to look to God when things are going well for us, and that’s probably a mistake on our part, but we make up for it when things go badly. God doesn’t generally resolve our problems for us, but I believe God does provide what we need to endure the difficulties that this world presents to us, and the way God does this is a beautiful thing.

God is involved in our world and in our lives, but God doesn’t move us in or out of harm’s way. What God does is to provide our spiritual lives with sufficient grace to flourish regardless of what our worldly selves are having to endure.

A soul is a mysterious thing. You can’t go on the internet and find a credible diagram of one, but Jesus considered it to be the most essential part of who we are. And he wanted us to understand that the most trying times on the surface of life can be the most fertile times for our souls.

I think we’ve all heard someone say that the things that don’t kill you will make you stronger. I don’t know that’s always true. Sometimes terrible experiences simply leave people wounded on deeper levels, but our message today is that God is with us in our trials, and God always provides a way for our souls to thrive – even if our bodies don’t survive.

I don’t want to romanticize suffering. And speaking as a person who is currently experiencing the pain of political defeat I can testify that it’s not a desirable position to be in. Nobody likes to lose, but I can also say that I find a certain sweetness in these words of Jesus that I’ve never really tasted before. His words remind me, that the only real disaster in life occurs when we fail to watch out for that eternal element that God has placed within each of us.

It’s a precious thing to have a soul. And our precious Lord provides us with the grace we need to keep it alive at all times and under every circumstance. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Some Things Do Change

Luke 20:27-38

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” 34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor is a gifted Episcopalian preacher, writer and educator. She tells the story of a parishioner she once knew who had been diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. While this woman only had months to live her husband died very suddenly from a massive heart attack. While at the graveside, a well-meaning friend attempted to console her by saying, at least you’ll be together again soon. After the service, Rev. Taylor dropped by the woman’s house where she broke down in tears and said, I’m never going to get away from him, am I?

I don’t know what Barbara Brown Taylor said in response to the woman’s despair, but I’m sure it was some reassurance that she would not continue to endure whatever pain that relationship brought into her life.

I believe the primary message that we are to glean from the resurrection of Jesus Christ is that we will not continue to suffer the same pains in the world to come that we experience in this one.

Unfortunately there are some things that never seem to change in this world, but in God’s great cosmic design — some things do change! The enemies of Jesus were able to have their way for a day, but by bringing Jesus Christ back to life, God was proclaiming to the world that the bullies aren’t in charge. Hatred and violence haven’t departed from the planet, but these are not the most powerful forces in the universe. It’s the love of God that prevails, and that is good news for all of us.

Who knows how that woman’s husband made her life miserable, and clearly she had to endure that pain for too long, but there’s only one relationship we are bound to maintain upon death, and that is our relationship with the Lord of Life. I like to think we will enjoy the company of all the others that we have loved, but Jesus indicated in this very passage that in the kingdom of God we don’t have to abide by earthly protocols.

One of the most satisfying aspects of this morning’s scripture reading is how small of an impact the Sadducees had on the course of Jewish history. We don’t know that much about the Sadducess because it’s a sect that died when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. The Sadducees were aristocratic Jews who considered life to end upon death. They were generally very wealthy and powerful, and they had no regard for what would happen after death. They only recognized the authority of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and that led them to be primarily focused on maintaining the Temple and their own well being. So when Emperor Nero destroyed the Temple they pretty much lost the focus of their attention, and upon their death there was no resurrection of their way of thinking.

My impression is that this was a pretty self-satisfied group of people who approached Jesus with their question about the resurrection – which was not really a question. They thought they were setting a significant intellectual trap for Jesus. They thought they could get him with this question of who would be married to who in the case of a woman who had been legally married seven times, but Jesus showed that you can’t skirt around the truth of God by appealing to legal technicalities. And he did it by using a passage of scripture that they considered to be authoritative. He went straight to the formative experience of Moses himself, who heard the voice of God in the burning bush who announced that he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – men who continued to live in the eyes of God.

You might say Jesus answered their question with a bit of a legally technical response, but it had enough ring of truth to keep them from asking him any more questions. I often wish Jesus would have elaborated on what we might expect in the world to come, but I guess I should be grateful that he said as much as he did about the way our lives in this world intersect with the world to come. And one of the good things that he seems to be saying in this passage is that eternal life isn’t just the continuation of our mortal lives.

Death is actually the end of many things for us. Our debts don’t follow us in to the afterlife. Some people will carry student loans to their last breath, but even those get cancelled upon death. It’s likely that there will be some accounting of some kind when we die, but we will be free from all our earthly contracts. Marriage is an earthly contract, so the woman who was married seven times won’t have to worry about taking care of seven men. The woman who’s husband made her life a living hell was free from him upon his death, and these are good things. But love is a bond that’s made in heaven, and it’s easy for me to believe that the loving bonds we create on earth somehow remain in the world that is to come.

Jesus doesn’t exactly say what it takes to become one of the children of the resurrection, but those Sadducees seem to represent the opposite of what it takes to be such a person. I like to think we all have an avenue to resurrected life, but it also seems to matter how we live. Jesus spoke of those who are worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection of the dead, and that word, worthy, is a little unsettling to me. Jesus seems to be saying that there are ways in which we can defy God’s gracious offer for new life, and he used those Sadducees to illustrate what it looks like to not be a child of the resurrection. Jesus wants us to see that we aren’t just residents of earth, but there are ways of becoming profoundly stuck in this world.

I don’t share the attitude of the Sadducees, who refused to believe that anything extended beyond this life, but I’m pretty sure there are ways in which I can behave a bit like a Sadducee. I don’t consider myself to be as self-satisfied as they were, but it’s pretty unnerving for me to consider all of the ways I seek to preserve my life on earth at the expense of my eternal soul. Like most reasonable Americans I probably pay more attention to the funds in my pension plan than I do to the treasures I’m storing up in heaven.

So I’m a little unsettled by what Jesus meant when he spoke of those who are worthy of the resurrection. But I can’t believe God measures our worthiness in an unforgiving way. As I’ve said on more than one occasion, I believe God loves us all in an unconditional manner. I don’t believe we can prevent God from loving us, but we can create a lot of interference between ourselves and God. We certainly can harbor attitudes that prevent us from living in a relationship with God as we go about our lives on earth.

Today is the Sunday we remember those who have ended their time on earth who we trust have truly experienced resurrection. This is a mystery that we can’t explain, but it’s a concept that can profoundly inform the way we live our lives. It’s a concept that can give us confidence to live without regard for the way things typically operate on earth. We don’t have to be guided by conventional earthly wisdom. We don’t have to worry so much about being successful in the ways of the world. People who believe in resurrection only need to be concerned with being guided by love because it’s the work of love that God allows to stand the test of time.

We remember many of the things that our loved ones who have died did for us, but I dare say the best thing that any of them did for us is to touch us in loving ways. It’s love that somehow gets to us more than anything else. Love is the fuel for resurrection, and when we live with love we are being successful at living – regardless of how things turn out in the short term.

This world is a messy place, and it’s easy to get caught up in tedious matters that have very little consequence. We often pay more attention to matters of earth than to those of heaven, and we are often confused about how to be as loving as possible. I dare say the person who tried to comfort the terminally ill woman who’s husband just died with the assurance they would be together again soon was trying to be a good friend. She didn’t mean to strike terror in the heart of her friend.

But the good news is that the power of resurrection is not in our hands to botch or to stifle. We can sort of complicate matters sometimes, but we can’t stop God from doing what God wills to do for all of us. And God can use our mistakes to create opportunities for new understandings. Had that woman not said what she said about her friend being reunited with her husband soon, that woman might not have broken down and shared her despair with someone capable of offering a new perspective. Had those Sadducees not been so obstinate we might not have gotten these assuring words about the reality of resurrection.

Unfortunately, some things never seem to change in this world. People continue to behave badly, the truth gets masked, and fear prevails. Wrong things occur and death happens. This world isn’t an easy place to be for people who love God and seek the truth, but Jesus wants us to know that we don’t have to live in despair of the ways things often go in this world. We are invited to live with trust that God can take death and turn it in to life. It takes a lot of courage to live as a child of the resurrection in this material world, but this is the gracious offer that our resurrected Lord has made to us.

We have been invited to live in a profoundly new way, which is to trust in the resurrecting power of God. It’s a beautiful offer because in the kingdom of God some things do change.

In the kingdom of God, the forces of death and destruction do not have the last say. The people who rule this world are not in charge of the next one. The things that are most valued in this world are of no use in the next. The failures that haunt us in this world will not be there in the next. The tormentors of this world disappear in the next, but the bonds of love remain.

The message of the resurrection isn’t so good right now for people who love the way things are, but one day we all will benefit from this gracious design. No doubt we will all come to see the ways in which we have denied some uncomfortable truths, and there may well be some pain involved in that realization, but the largest truth that we all will come to see and experience is how perfectly we are loved by our creator, redeemer, and resurrector. The God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and us!

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Spiritual Climbing

Luke 19:1-10

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

I think there are many of us who learned a song about Zacchaeus when we were children. You know the song. Feel free to sing along with me if you remember it: Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a Sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as the Savior came that way, He looked up in the tree, And he said, “Zacchaeus, you come down out of that tree, for I’m going to your house today.” It’s a memorable song, I’ve remembered it for about 50 years now, but that song doesn’t explain what this story is all about.

This is a story that requires more of a nuanced interpretation than a children’s song can capture. You have to read between the lines in order to extract what’s going on in this story, so I’m going to fill in what isn’t exactly stated. I may be wrong, but there’s nothing new about that.

I think it’s worth noting that Jesus had clearly become the object of a lot of attention at this point in his ministry. The word had gotten out about the amazing things he had been doing, and people were turning out in huge numbers to get a glimpse of him. This wasn’t exactly what we would think of as a political rally, but it’s close to being one, and I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that there were people thinking Jesus was the one who could make Israel great again!

The fact that this was going on in Jericho is also significant. Jericho was a city with lots of meaning for Jews. Jericho was a city that had fallen to the Jews early on in the conquest of Israel – you probably remember that song also “Joshua at the Battle of Jericho”. I’ll spare you my performance of that song, but it’s important to keep in mind that Jericho had deep roots in Jewish identity, and you can bet it was a place where people harbored a good amount of resentment toward their Roman occupiers and the local people who cooperated with them.

Zacchaeus was considered to be an official sinner by his peers because he had the job of extracting tax from his fellow Jews to give to the Romans. He wasn’t the one who designed the system, but he was the point-man for a system that was very offensive to the Jews.

We’re told that Zacchaeus was of short stature, and that’s why he had to run ahead and climb a tree to see Jesus, but I think we can also imagine that there was a universal lack of hospitality toward Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was affluent, but he wasn’t appreciated. In fact he was probably despised, and that makes Jesus’ decision to go to his home for dinner an unexpected turn of events. This is not what the town leaders had in mind.

Instead of going to the home of the person with the most religious status, Jesus announced that he was going to the home of the most official sinner, and this caused the crowd to grumble.

Jesus was what you might call an equal opportunity offender. Jesus was relentless in his portrayal of the truth, and this put him at odds with powerful individuals and groups at every turn. Last week, we read the story of Jesus identifying the lostness of the Pharisee who was much too proud of his righteousness. Jesus was often critical of the official leaders of the Jewish community, but in this story, Jesus seems to have annoyed average citizens.  This story calls in to question the root of the enthusiasm that the people had for Jesus.

I’m not exactly sure what this crowd expected of Jesus, but his decision to go to dinner with the man who took their money and gave it to the Romans was not something that went over well with this crowd that had gathered to greet him. I don’t think Jesus was unsympathetic to the values and traditions of his fellow Jews, but he had no interest in responding to enthusiasm that felt misplaced to him. Jesus often found it necessary to defy the will of a crowd because he didn’t trust that what they wanted was what they needed. People often confused their nationalistic dreams with their allegiance to God, but Jesus didn’t have such confusion.

This isn’t as quaint of a story as that children’s song might lead you to believe. Jesus stepped in to what might be called a Jewish Nationalist Rally, and he responded to their enthusiasm by choosing to have dinner at the home of a notorious Roman collaborator. You don’t really pick up on the scandal of this situation on this when you sing that song.

But the other thing that’s worth noting about this story is the way in which Jesus responded the behavior of Zacchaeus. It’s remarkable that Zacchaeus had made an effort to get a look at Jesus. Why would Zacchaeus even want to have an encounter with Jesus? Things were going well for Zacchaeus. He was rich, and it would be of no advantage to him for Israel’s relationship with Rome to be disrupted. It’s not easy to understand why Zacchaeus had joined the crowd to gain access to Jesus.

It’s worth noting that it wasn’t going to be in his best business interest to show up in support of Jesus, but Zacchaeus knew that he needed something other than wealth. Zacchaeus wasn’t needy in a financial sense, but he knew he needed something, and he knew to look to Jesus for help.

You might say everyone who turned out to see Jesus that day was looking to Jesus for help, but many of the people were looking to Jesus for the wrong thing. Many were looking to him to change the system they thought was the cause of their troubles. Certainly there would have been people who were needing healing or relief from other personal problems, but behind the group mentality was the desire for Jesus to repair the oppressive political situation that they were living under, and Jesus never encouraged people to be more critical of others than themselves.

Zacchaeus wasn’t sick or impoverished, but he was living as an officially unrighteous person, and I think that made him more conscious of his need for the kind of help that Jesus actually came to bring. Jesus came to heal all forms of personal brokenness, and he also sought to repair the people’s misunderstanding of who God is. Certainly Jesus aspired for the world to be properly ruled, but he was not out to change the world through political revolution.

This is not to say I don’t believe God grieves over our broken political systems. I fully believe God intends for us to work for justice in this world, but we should never confuse our own partisan political  interests with the agenda of God. And as he had said once before, it’s important to get the logs out of our own eyes before we reach for the specks in other people’s eyes.

I don’t doubt that those good Jews who were lining the road as Jesus came to Jericho had good reasons to be upset about the way they were treated by the Romans. There’s no doubt that they were the victims of a terrible political system, but it’s never very helpful to think that God is as upset with our political rivals as we are. It never helps our souls to demonize anyone. I don’t pretend to understand how involved God chooses to be in the political dynamics of this world. There’s a good amount of evidence to show that God is not closely involved the way power is accumulated and utilized in this world, but it never seems to go well when we think God wholeheartedly endorses whoever or whatever it is we are endorsing. It’s so easy for us to confuse our own personal needs with what we perceive God to be seeking.

And Jesus was so good at identifying this conflation of personal agendas and righteous causes. Jesus is so good at seeing who we really are what we really need. Jesus knows our actual needs before we do, and he always responds well to those actions we take to step out of our normal way of seeing the world in hope of seeing who he really is.

Maybe Zacchaeus was accustomed to climbing trees, but I’m guessing that this was not a normal thing for him to do. I may be wrong, but in order to get a good look at Jesus, Zacchaeus stepped out of what we might call his comfort zone, and by stepping in to such a different place he was able to have a powerful encounter with Jesus. I don’t think the primary lesson from this story is that we should spend more time climbing trees, but I’m pretty sure there is a lot of value in stepping in to places where we aren’t fully familiar. It’s so easy for us to grow accustomed to viewing the world in our own familiar and favorite ways, and that causes us to develop an unfortunate form of blindness.

You would think that with all of the information we have at our fingertips we would all be well and widely informed about all the things that are going on in the world, but in some ways we have developed some selective misinformation. There is this tendency to develop what you might call a silo mentality. As you all know, a silo is a really tall narrow structure that can be filled with a single type of grain, and sometimes that’s the way we accumulate information. We fill ourselves with an abundance of a very narrow viewpoint.

This might be our modern way of erecting the tower of Babel – we build ourselves and our causes up as high as we can without bothering to take in to account the inconvenient information someone else might have. Mass media is a great new tool for us, but if we aren’t careful about the way we use it we can become as hardened and inflexible as concrete silos.

Zacchaeus could easily have harbored a silo mentality. He was doing a job that needed to be done, and I’m sure he could have justified his abundant income by the difficulty that his position put him in. I’m sure there were tax collectors who didn’t care what people thought of them or how ostracized they were from the faith community, but Zacchaeus wanted more than what he had. He didn’t want more money, he wanted a new relationship with God and with his neighbors. He wanted to see things differently, and he did the only thing he knew to do – he climbed a tree to get a better glimpse of Jesus.

Maybe we all just need to go climb a tree every once in a while. I know that’s not an option for all of us, and that’s clearly a bit of an oversimplification of the text, but I don’t think it’s wrong to say that we would all do well to find ways to see the world from a different perspective. Zacchaeus didn’t let his pride keep him from doing what he needed to do to get a good look at Jesus, and neither should we. Climbing a tree might be a good thing to do, but it would probably be more helpful to change the channel every now and then.

We all have our own particular forms of blindness and obstacles that we need to overcome. We have all been given some understandings that we would do well to release, and there are things we can all do to get new views of who Jesus is. It’s not easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, but as Zacchaeus has demonstrated, it’s a glorious thing to run a little ahead and do what we can to get a glimpse of his gracious presence.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Graceful Falling

Luke 18:9-14

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Personal exaltation has never been a big issue for me. It’s not that I’m actually humble, but self-promotion isn’t my style of sin. I certainly harbor an inordinate amount of pride, but I’d rather hear other people expound on my virtues than to enumerate them myself. Of course if I was as meticulous as this Pharisee about fasting and contributing I might be more inclined to lift myself up as an example of righteousness, but I’d rather not call attention to the actual details of the spiritual disciplines I practice – you’re more likely to be impressed by the illusion than the reality.

Of course humility isn’t a foreign concept for me. If you looked through my school pictures you would see that I was well acquainted with the need for humility at an early age and for an extended period of time. And like many people, I’ve always been equipped with an ample supply of self-incrimination. In fact there’s a condition that was identified by Catholic priests many centuries ago that I think I probably have – it’s called scrupulosity. These priests discovered that some of their parishioners had an inclination to confess far more than was necessary.

People who have scrupulosity are compelled to be overly judgmental of themselves. Of course people can be saddled with various degrees of scrupulosity. Some people are marginally troubled by nagging thoughts of perpetual misdeeds while those who have a strong case of scrupulosity have a hard time making any kind of decision in fear of committing a sin. What those early Catholic priests identified as scrupulosity is probably what psychologists now call Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I’m not sure how far on to the OCD spectrum that I make it, but I would identify myself as having a degree of whatever you want to call it that causes us to be a little obsessive about our personal operations. I suspect many of us church-goers have been conditioned to keep close track on how we measure up on the righteousness scale. I don’t have enough scrupulosity to actually keep me perfectly perched on that straight and narrow path, but I know I’ve got this internal meter that reminds me of how far off of it I am at any given moment.

I don’t think this is all bad. A little bit of scrupulosity can keep you from being overly proud of yourself. People who harbor some scrupulosity understand what this poor tax collector was feeling about himself. We know we aren’t good enough.

And that’s not such a bad thing, but a little bit of scrupulosity can get you in trouble as well because it can put you in touch with what you might call, Pharisaism. Speaking as a person who engages in a good amount of self-judging, I can testify that it’s not that hard to identify the shortcomings of other people as well. I know I’m not doing everything within my power to glorify God and ease the burdens of my neighbors, but at least I’m not as self-serving and conniving as I suspect some other people are that I know.

When you think the objective of our faith is to live as a perfectly motivated and activated person it’s hard not to engage in an unhealthy degree of criticism of yourself and others.

Fortunately, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not require us to live perfectly crafted lives. Living in relationship with God isn’t dependent upon our ability to meet a clear set of expectations. Our relationship with God is primarily dependent upon how open we are to the grace of God, and in this parable it is the tax-collector who has the most spiritually fertile attitude. The self-righteousness of the Pharisee served to sort of seal him off from being touched and redeemed by the grace of God.

I don’t believe the point of this parable is to encourage us to go about our lives with a sense of groveling before God, but it is an essential thing for us not to think it’s our virtues that give us access to God’s love. I believe God created us to live with a sense of dignity and self-respect, but the truth is that we aren’t capable of living flawless lives. We make mistakes. We take wrong paths. We make bad choices. We pursue false idols. We serve unholy masters, and we find ourselves in ugly places.

You might think these are the things that would disqualify us from living in relationship with God, but these are the very things that can soften our souls and put us in touch with the grace of God.

I think I may have mentioned this writer before, but I’ve recently become enamored by the writings of Father Richar Rohr. The book I’m most familiar with is entitled, Falling Upward, and I think the primary point that he identifies in that book is the way in which we have the most vivid experiences with God during those times when we are the most vulnerable and needy. He points out that it’s not so much when we are at our peaks of performance that God is most present to us. He argues that it’s often when we fail that we experience the purest form of God’s love and grace. And he illustrates this point with the way in which God is portrayed in the Bible. Bad things happen to people in the Bible, and people do bad things, but God doesn’t abandon people during those times. In fact, God becomes most visible during those times.

And Jesus didn’t chastise the official sinners of Israel. Jesus got upset with the people who thought they were living such exemplary lives. This is the very point of this parable. Jesus doesn’t even say that the tax collector repented and left the temple with the conviction to change his ways and become a humble shepherd or engage in some other less scandalous profession. Jesus didn’t condemn the tax collector’s behavior – Jesus simply honored his attitude of knowing that he wasn’t a perfect person.

Father Rohr says that in God’s kingdom, in what he calls: the economy of grace, sin and failure become the base metal and raw material for the redemption experience itself. And what that means to me is that God isn’t as interested in our ability to live perfect lives as God is interested in our ability to be open to God regardless of what’s going on in our lives. The interesting thing is that the times that we generally find to be the most painful often turn out to be the experiences that provide us with access to the sweetest forms of grace.

This is the most beautiful thing about our faith. What this says to me is that there’s nothing that we can do or that can happen to us that God can’t redeem. God doesn’t expect the world to go perfectly, but God is there for us when those terribly imperfect things occur and cause terrible disruptions. And the only thing that can truly separate us from God is for us to harbor attitudes that eliminate our need for God.

The Pharisee was untouched by God because he didn’t think he needed anything from God. He was perfectly self-satisfied with himself, and that’s fine. Anyone who has no need for God in their life is welcome to live their life in that way, but it’s delusional to think you are somehow living in relationship with God while you harbor the attitude that you have no need for the grace of God.

This means a lot to me because there was a time in my life when I thought my relationship with God WAS dependent upon my ability to be good enough for God. I would say that as a young man I had an equal amount of love and fear of God. I loved God, but I was also very fearful of what God would do to me if I didn’t live up to all of the standards that I imagined God had of me.

And that’s not all bad. That probably motivated me to behave pretty well during my early teenage years, and I was basically a happy person for the first eighteen years of my life, but there came a point when my life experience called for a more compassionate understanding of God. Meeting all of the expectations that I assumed God had of me became harder and harder to accomplish. In fact I think I became clinically depressed by my inability meet all of the expectations that I understood God to have placed upon me. My scrupulosity became a bit pathological.

I won’t burden you with the extended version of my current understanding of my former psychological profile, but it wasn’t pretty. I was a terribly unhappy young adult, and something had to give. And it did give. I broke.

Luckily I didn’t break in a tragic way. I don’t have a dramatic story of wayward living followed by a return to Christ and a newly redeemed way of living. But I was upside down for a while. I think I would characterize that period of time in my life as a time where I didn’t understand anything. And I knew I didn’t understand anything. I was confused, and it was dark, but I wasn’t alone. I think that was a time when God was particularly attentive to me.

It was also a time when I came to meet some new people, and I came to appreciate some people who I might formerly have seen as unworthy of my attention. I moved from thinking that God expected perfection from me to believing that God embraced me with compassion, and that changed everything for me. It reduced the pressure, and it increased the pleasure of seeking to live in relationship with God.

None of us like to fall down. We like to think of ourselves as always knowing what we are doing and of having the capacity do what we think we aught to be doing, and we all do our best to hold those things together. It’s great when everything is going as we want it to and we are living up to the expectations of ourselves and of our neighbors and maybe even of God, but it’s hard to keep all of that going for long. Some people might be able to keep all of that going for a good amount of time, but most mortals have some trouble along the way.

Breakdowns happen. And breakdowns are terrible. Breakdowns are painful and humiliating and costly and distressing. Breakdowns are the worst times of our lives. And they can also be the best times of our lives. It’s during those moments in our lives when nothing seems to be going right that God can miraculously let us know that we are ok. In fact it’s often during those times of profound self-doubt and failure that God enables us to understand how perfectly we are loved.

It’s hard to shake our tendencies to judge ourselves and other people. I’m thinking I’ll probably go to my grave with an overabundant amount of concern about the ever-present list of things that I have failed to get done. I’m sure I’ll also have some pride about how much shorter my list was that some other people that I know. But I thank God for not letting me live my entire life thinking that God expected me to live like a Pharisee.

I tried to be as good as a Pharisee, but I failed, and I’m so grateful to God for preventing me from being so successful. I failed to be the kind of religious person that I thought God expected me to be, and I’m so happy about that. God succeeded in showing me the value of compassion, and for that I’ll forever be grateful.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Gratitude Attitude

Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

I don’t know what went wrong with this group of people who were miraculously and graciously healed when they made their appeal to Jesus. According to the Pareto Principle, there should have been 2 people to return to praise God and give thanks to Jesus. The Pareto Principle is also known as the 80-20 rule or the law of the vital few, and it identifies this remarkably predictable pattern that occurs within many events where 20% of the people account for 80% of the outcome. The Pareto Principle is named after Vilfredo Pareto, who made the observation in 1906 of how influential 20% of any given population is to the outcome of any situation.

He took note of the fact that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the people and he knew he was on to something when he realized that 20% of his pea pods were responsible for producing 80% of his peas.

This 80-20 distribution of cause and effect has been reinforced by a number of different statistics. Many businesses report that:

• 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers
• 80% of a company’s complaints come from 20% of its customers
• 80% of a company’s sales come from 20% of its products
• And 80% of a company’s sales are made by 20% of its sales staff^[9]

In addition to these business statistics, criminologists report that 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of the criminals. A sociologist created a study that showed how 20% of rats in a given population will dominate 80% of the rest. I don’t know if our budget is supported by 20% of our constituents, but I’m grateful to everyone who supports this church on any level. It’s just sort of interesting that there is this pattern of behavior that seems to stretch across many different platforms.

There seems to be something true about this Pareto Principle. And if statistics ruled in matters of faith, there should have been two of these ten healed lepers to return to Jesus to praise God and to give their thanks. But statistics seem to go out the window when it comes to faith. People of genuine faith and divine gratitude are more rare than highly productive pea pods. But as Jesus identified in the mustard seed story last week, the smallest amount of faith can go a long way. It doesn’t take 20% of the people to change everything. One person with genuine faith can have more impact than any number of oblivious souls.

On one hand, this morning’s story is sort of dismal. Only one person out of ten seemed to understand the magnitude of the situation and returned to Jesus to acknowledge this great gift. You would think this amazing transformation would have moved these men to exceed the standard Pareto Priciple parameters. You would think at least three of the men would have thought to return to the One who had changed their lives so thoroughly.

But the Pareto Principle isn’t the only predictor of human behavior. There is also the Herd Mentality to take in to account. It’s not easy to go against what everyone else is doing. And while we don’t know if this Samaritan man who returned to Jesus was the only Samaritan in the group, but if he had been, it’s easy to see why nobody else came back with him – good Jews didn’t associate with Samaritans – unless they were lepers. Leprosy was a very leveling condition.

It didn’t matter who you were if your skin was infected – you weren’t welcome. The only people you could associate with were other lepers and Jesus, but the bonds that existed between fellow lepers weren’t so strong. Nine of out ten of these men who were healed of their leprosy didn’t look back. When they got their clean bill of health stamped by the priest and they were ready to forget their former associates and to reestablish their place in society.

I can imagine myself doing the same thing. Nobody wants to be cast outside of the standard group. Nobody wants to be seen as different. I know a little bit about that. I had a face full of freckles when I was a child. I guess I still have them, but wrinkles, whiskers, and decades of weathering have pretty much masked my natural spots, but I was really self-conscious of my freckles when I was a child. Grandmothers thought they were cute, but I wanted to fit in with 4^th graders. I hated my freckles. I felt different, and that was a terrible feeling.

Of course that was a small burden compared to what many people endure as children and as adults. I don’t know if there’s anything more painful than being considered different – or even worse – to be considered unacceptable. I’ll be having my 40^th high school reunion in a couple of weeks.

I know it’s hard to believe that someone as young as I am could have graduated from high school in 1976. But that seems to be the case. I’m not sure who will be showing up for our reunion, but I know one person who won’t be there. Our classmate Lyndon Smith won’t be there. He took his own life soon after we graduated. In all honesty, I don’t know what transpired in his life that caused him to be so desperate, but what I know about Lyndon is that he never quite fit in. He was an incredibly shy person, and I also think he was a very sensitive person. I’m really sorry to say that I don’t really know what happened to him because I didn’t know him very well. In fact, I didn’t know anyone who knew him very well.

This world can be a terrible place for people who don’t fit in. Being labeled as a leper in the region of Galilee and Samaria in the 1^st century was an unbearable condition. It meant you weren’t welcome in anyone’s house. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that this is how my former classmate might have felt. It’s a terrible condition for anyone to be identified as someone who is unacceptable, and we need to take note of the fact that Jesus treated such people with compassion.

Jesus certainly wasn’t controlled by herd mentality, nor by the Paretto Principle. He was not moved to do things by statistical predictions or by popular expectations. Jesus functioned as a person who was sensitive to the will of God, and that caused him to operate in a totally unique and redeeming manner.

It was a huge thing for Jesus to respond to the plea of this group of lepers to have mercy on them because they were the object of scorn by everyone else. What Jesus did for them was nothing a respectable person would ever have done. He treated them as if they were worthy of respect. This is not something an official religious person would ever have done, and it restored them in the community.

Being acceptable to the community is such a huge thing. I doubt if my classmate would have taken his life if he had felt accepted by the community. I don’t know what caused him to be so aliented, but it makes me sad to think about him and all the other people who are identified as too different to fit in. There’s an important message here for those of us who have the seal of approval of the acceptable community – we need to be sensitive to those who feel pushed to the outside.

But there’s another message here as well. And it’s a message for all of us. The message is that we are all fully accepted and loved by God, and the proper response to this incredible gift is gratitude. I know that it’s not always easy to be in touch with the attitude of gratitude, but because of the way in which we are always regarded by God, this is always an appropriate way to feel.

I don’t want to diminish the real pain that we all feel about the different things that happen to us. Bad things happen, tragedy occurs, suffering can consume us, but we should neve see any of these things as a form of abandonment by God. Jesus was particularly sensitive to those who were considered to be the vicims of God’s wrath because he didn’t want us to associate misfortune with divine punishment.

Certainly there are forms of misfortune that are created by irresponsible and hateful behavior. Social ostracism are often the consequences of wreckless and godless undertakings, but we are never seen in the same way by God as we are by our peers. God loves us regardless of how awful we behave. God wants us to be restored regardless of the things we may have done. Our God is full of forgiveness and our God longs for us to become reconciled with ourselves and with other people. God wants us to understand who we really are and how we can move forward in a new and loving way.

And one of those lepers got it. One of those lepers not only realized what had happened to him but who who was responsible, and he came back looking for Jesus. That one man knew that he didn’t just want to be free to connect with the world in the same old way. This one man knew he wanted more out of life than freedom to visit the marketplace. This one man knew he wanted more of what Jesus had offered him. He recognized that he had been provided with some abundant life, and he was grateful!

Our challenge in life is not to live by the Paretto Principle or the Herd Mentality, our calling is to want to be more than respectable or acceptable. Our calling is to join with what appears to be about 10% of the people in this world who live with genuine gratitude to God and love for others. Actually I have no idea what percentage of people live with such affection for God and their neighbors, but that is who we are invited to be. That is the avenue to abundant life, and while it’s not the easiest path to go down it is the most rewarding. When you are touched in a loving and healing way by Jesus Christ there is one proper response – to live lives defined by gratitude and love.

I’ve heard it said that it’s hard to be hateful when you’re grateful, and I think that pretty much sums it up. It’s not the most common way to live – it’s the most divine.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Power of Faith

Luke 17:5-10

5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'”

I was fortunate to hear a good story one day last week about a woman who went from pretending to be a radio announcer in the one bathroom of her overpopulated childhood home to become the owner of one of the largest media companies in the country. She became the first African American woman to own a publicly traded company, and it all went back to when she was 8 years old and her mother gave her a small transistor radio. I heard this story on National Public Radio, and it was told by a guy who has a podcast that highlights the way people turn ideas in to businesses.

Cathy Hughes is the woman’s name, and the most interesting thing about her story to me was the way in which she acquired her first radio station. She had been working in radio for a few years and she had developed a very successful music program in the Washington, DC area. She was hired by another station to help them improve their programming, and they wanted her to help recruit new investors. She said she would do that, but she said she wanted to be compensated with some stock in the company. One of the owners of the company said in an offhanded way that if she was smart enough to own her own company then she should get one of her own.

She took his words to heart and that became her pursuit. She found a station that was in trouble, and she went in search of a loan. She was denied by 31 banks, but the 32^nd bank was willing to loan her the money, and she made it work. At one point, she and her son had to live at the station, but she turned it around and that became the first of her 58 radio stations.

Jesus wasn’t offering business advice when he told his disciples of the power of a mustard seed amount of faith, but I think the way Cathy Hughes built her company is a clear portrayal of the power of faith. She believed in herself and in her idea of how to run a radio station. Her faith enabled her to remain focused on what she believed could happen regardless of the way things seemed to be going.

I’ve heard faith defined as the ability to put your whole trust in something and to act on it. That’s what Cathy Hughes did, and it clearly paid off for her. I consider her exercise of faith to be inspiriational and instructive, but it isn’t a perfect portrayal of the kind of faith that Jesus was talking about. The faith that Jesus revealed and encouraged is the rarest form of faith there is, and it’s never been easy for any of us to get our minds around the kind of faith Jesus wanted his followers to exhibit, but it’s real and it’s powerful.

I may be reading more in to this exchange between Jesus and his disciples than is there, but I’m hearing some exhasperation in the voice of Jesus when he responds to the disciple’s request for him to increase their faith. The disciples asked him for more faith, and Jesus responded by saying what they could do if they had a miniscule amount of faith. I may be wrong, but it sort of sounds to me as if Jesus was saying that if their faith was increased it might then become the size of the smallest seed in the world – which of course turns out to be a powerful amount of faith!

I think the gospel writers often used the disciples to illustrate the wrong way to think about matters of faith, and this is one of those occasions. I think the mistake the disciples were making was that they were confusing faith with power. Jesus responded to their request for more faith as if they were asking for more ability to do amazing things.

Jesus didn’t want to underestimate the amazing things that could transpire if they had faith, but he didn’t want them to be confused about the way powerful things unfold. Amazing things could happen if they would learn to exercise faith, but that is a far different thing than just having the power to do what they wanted. I think it’s easy for any of us to understand their request for more ability, and I’m sure they felt like they were asking for a good thing, but this is tricky business. The desire for more power can lead people to become less attentive to the power of God – to have less faith in God. The more we trust in our own ability the less dependent we can become on God to do the transforming work that needs to be done.

Jesus wants us to know that when we have faith in God we are engaged in an endeavor that can change the world in powerful ways, but he didn’t want us to get caught up in some sort of power trip. Immediately after telling his disciples how the smallest amount of faith could enable them to speak with unimaginable authority – he went on to tell them how subservient they were to remain.

What a contrast! In one breath Jesus told his disciples that their faith would provide them with the authority to speak in ways that would change the face of the earth. And in the next breath, he tells them that they are to see themselves as servants who are only doing what is expected of them when they work endlessly for nothing.

This endeavor of living with faith is tricky business. It is an undertaking that puts us in touch with the root source of true power. The smallest amount of faith is incredibly empowering – world changing. But we are never to assume we have any authority whatsoever.

There’s a tricky balance to obtain here, for I believe that God wants us to fully engage in the work of making this world a more hospitable place for everyone. We are to do everything we know to do to enable all people to experience fullness in life, but we can never assume that we have the ability to change anything. We are to be fully engaged and relentless in our efforts, but we don’t need to think too highly of ourselves and our capacity to get things done.

Cathy Huges didn’t go to bank after bank assuming she could make them give her a loan, but she wasn’t going to quit asking until there wasn’t anyone else to ask. There’s a certain power that comes to us when we have faith, but it’s an illusive form of power. It’s not the kind of power you have when you hold a powerful office or have access to tremendous resources, but in a significant way the power that accompanies faith is the most transformational form of power that exists.

To have faith in God is to have an absolute form of trust that things are going to turn out right regardless of the way things seem to be going. The image of the servant or slave not counting on getting a break seems sort of harsh, but I don’t think Jesus was wanting us to think of God as a heartless master. I think the point Jesus was trying to make was that we are to maintain an attitude of perfect diligence in our effort to serve God.

Jesus wants us to understand that remarkable things can occur when people have the tiniest amount of faith, but having faith is not just an internal spiritual exercise. Our faith is to be connected to our feet. God places concerns on our hearts, and we are to go where that internal voice tells us to go for as long as necessary.

Cathy Hughes didn’t go to 31 banks in search of a loan because she knew that she would one day create one of the most significant media companies in the country. She got up day after day and did that because she was empowered by an idea that wouldn’t die.

As followers of Christ we have been granted access to the greatest idea that has ever been conceived, and the idea is that there’s nothing more eternal and powerful than the love of God. According to this idea, our wellbeing only depends on how well we can allow the love of God to flow through our lives. It’s sort of a simple idea, but if we trust in this truth it will define everything that we do. We don’t need more faith. We just need to have faith in the right thing, and if we will do that then there’s nothing that can stop us from doing the world changing work that God will empower us to do.

We have no idea what can come of our efforts and we shouldn’t ever think we know what can come of our work. Our only charge is to do what we can to show our love for God and our neighbors. There’s really no telling what can come from such work, and that’s the most beautiful thing about this relationship we can have with God. It’s bigger than we can imagine.

Our challenge is not to seek more faith. Our challenge is simply to have some faith in this beautiful message that Jesus Christ brought us. We are to trust that God’s love is the most powerful force in the universe and to somehow share this good news with everyone we encounter every day for the rest of our lives. That’s all we have to do — then we can rest.

Thanks be to God for this truly empowering idea.

Amen.