"Remembering" - All Saints' Sunday - Pentecost 21C

Saint Luke 6:20-31
Saint Luke 19:1-10

In Friday’s Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich took note of what we are doing this day.

From the last day of October through the early days of November, we, the currently living humans, have all kinds of celebrations to invite the dearly departed back into our mortal realm.

There’s All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Halloween and Día de los Muertos. There’s the Gaelic festival of Samhain, in which the dead are guided home by lights left in the windows.

These celebrations aren’t identical, but they all come with the idea that here in mid autumn, at least in northern places, when the days get dark and the leaves are falling, it’s a good time to commune with the vanished souls.

The older I get, the more I sense the vanished souls among us. They’re the spirits of our departed parents, siblings, teachers, that old woman who lived next door until one day she didn’t. They’re the spirits of the people who wrote the old songs we sing, the famous lines we quote.

Some are strangers. Some are friends.

They’re the souls of my mother and my father, of my old friend Steve Daley, my dear friend Sharman Stein, my Aunt Mary Louise, my brother Bill. They’re the souls of my college French professor, Virginia, of my first boss, Jack, of my second boss, Dave. They’re the souls of Beethoven and Louisa May Alcott and Aretha.

I glimpse them all out of the corne\r of my eye, sense them all as a shadow at my shoulder. So close. And yet.

The older you get, the more you sense vanished souls crowding in around you. It’s like living in a packed “L” car, more and more souls trying to squeeze in all the time.

“No more room in here!” you want to shout. But there’s always room for just one more, whether you like it or not, because as you travel through time the people you’ve been traveling with die, one by one.

Gone? How could they be gone? How can people you love just vanish?1

I am not sure that Schmich would call herself a member of a faith community anymore.  Otherwise, she might not have used the word vanished.  But there still does seem to be a longing on her part for something more than memory. 

What she may be longing for is what we celebrate this day – the communion of saints.  The belief that all those we have loved and lost live on in not only our hearts but the heart of God. 

It is, for believers a blessed day that is born in a community that is always about hope.  If we are in a community where the light of God’s healing shines even in the darkest places we can go forward.  It is in faith communities, unlike any others, that we can find hope. 

I believe that is what the people who want clergy to be present to “say a few words” as they bury their dead or who  fill our churches on Easter but disappear on ordinary Sundays miss out on.

They miss out on being a part of a community that can hold the faith for them when they find it hard.  They miss out on being a part of the community of the living.

That may be where their story meets Zacchaeus’ story.  He wasn’t just a “wee little man” or a short person who, in the words of the old politically incorrect Randy Newman song, “got no reason to live.”  He was an outcast.

If he would have fallen out of that tree and been killed on the street no one would have mourned because, don’t you know, “no one mourns the wicked.”  That’s what he was in the eyes of his neighbors.  He was wicked.

Saint Luke tells us that not only that he was  chief tax collector he was a rich tax collector.

The Romans were dependant on tax collectors in order to govern (and finance) their far-flung empire. 

Few tax collectors avoided  . . .  corruption.  The fact that Zacchaeus is a “chief” tax collector is a sign that he is probably very, very, rich and probably very, very corrupt.  And for those reasons he was probably the most hated person in the village.2

It can’t be any fun to be hated no matter how much money you have.   It’s bad enough when we know that one person doesn’t like us but to have a whole town hate us is a much bigger matter.  It must have been very lonely and disheartening.

Apparently Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus was a friend to tax collectors and sinners. He may not have believed it but he had heard it and I wonder if just that thought - “There is somebody who will be a friend to someone like me!” - wasn’t enough to make Zacchaeus want to go and have a look.

We have no idea whether Zacchaeus was able to see or even recognized Jesus but Jesus saw him and recognized him for who he really was.  Of this moment Dr.  Fred Craddock writes:

His lifestyle and the resultant treatment by community and synagogue had not moved him beyond the reach of God’s seeking love.  And if he is a child of Abraham so are they all, including those who murmured against Jesus, and as children of Abraham they need the grace of God as much as Zacchaeus does.3

That is where all of us and all who we remember this day stand — in need of the grace of God.  When we find it or it finds us we can count ourselves among God’s blessed saints.

That is who we are remembering this day.  We are remembering imperfect people who have been saved by God’s grace.

Another Chicago Tribune columnist, Mary Wisniewski, was thinking about her loved ones at this time of year and reminded us.

In Mexican culture, on All Souls’ or the Day of the Dead, families assemble ofendras altars containing pictures of their lost ones, along with personal and sacred objects, flowers and sweets.
 
 I don’t have an ofrenda altar in the house, but I keep one in my head. I’m remembering you, on this blustery day — Dad, my grandparents, Susie, Danny, Carlos, Uncle Dennis, Cousin Bob.4

In one of his final public appearances Fred Rogers, Mr.  Rogers to most of us, gave the commencement address at his alma mater, Dartmouth College.  At the conclusion he said to the graduates:

Anyone who has ever graduated from a college, anyone who has ever been able to sustain a good work, has had at least one person, and often many, who have believed in him or her. We just don’t get to be competent human beings without a lot of different investments from others.

I’d like to give you all an invisible gift. A gift of a silent minute to think about those who have helped you become who you are today. Some of them may be here right now. Some may be far away. Some ... may even be in Heaven. But wherever they are, if they’ve loved you, and encouraged you, and wanted what was best in life for you, they’re right inside your self. And I feel that you deserve quiet time, on this special occasion, to devote some thought to them. So, let’s just take a minute, in honor of those that have cared about us all along the way. One silent minute.5

Then Mr.  Rogers looked down at his watch and waited.

When I watched the video of this I was astounded how quiet everything became.  Some students bowed their heads and gave thanks.  Others, with eyes wide open, were clearly remembering.  Even the faculty on the dais seemed to be taking that moment to remember.

After we commune today we too will have such a time. 

If you would like going into Crayons chapel, lite a candle, and remember. 

If you want to have a seat in the chapel please do.  If you would like to stay there until the conclusion of the worship, feel free.

Take some time to remember those who “loved you, and encouraged you, and wanted what was best in life for you” and be blessed in remembering that they are not gone but live on in the great communion of saints that we celebrate this day. 

Remember them and give thanks.

____________

1.  Mary Schmich,  “The Season of All Souls.” The Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2019, Morning edition, sec. 1. http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/html5/desktop/production/default.aspx?edid=b108e83e-4f37-4f59-ae32-76fe541df447.

2.   William H. Willimon, “Eating and Drinking Among the Lost.” Pulpit Resource 35, no. 4 (October 1, 2007): 21–24.

3.  Fred B.  Craddock, Luke: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.  (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2009), p.  219.

4. Mary Wisnewski, “Loved Ones Go but Memory Remains.” The Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2019, Morning edition, sec. 1. http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/html5/desktop/production/default.aspx?&edid=b108e83e-4f37-4f59-ae32-76fe541df447.

5. “Revisiting Fred Rogers' 2002 Commencement Address.” Dartmouth News, June 11, 2017. https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2018/03/revisiting-fred-rogers-2002-commencement-address.
____________

 

"It's the Little Things" - Pentecost 17C

Saint Luke 17:5-10

The story is told about famed Hotelier Conrad Hilton who, “while appearing as a guest on "The Tonight Show" one evening was asked by his host (Johnny Carson) whether he had a "message" for the American people.

With great gravity, Hilton paused momentarily before turning to the camera. "Please," he pleaded, "put the shower curtain inside the tub!"1

That was the introduction to the commencement address one of my intellectual heros, Washington Post columnist Dr. George F.  Will, gave on May 15, 1998 at Washington University in Saint Louis that 21 years after watching it on C-Span I remember to this day.

When I finally found the text on the internet I was surprised at how much of that speech I had committed to memory.  Speaking about the little things that matter Will rhapsodized:

"I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis. At an age too tender for life-shaping decisions, I made one. While all my friends were becoming Cardinals fans, I became a Cub fan. My friends, happily rooting for Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst and other great Redbirds, grew up cheerfully convinced that the world is a benign place, so of course, they became liberals. Rooting for the Cubs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I became gloomy, pessimistic, morose, dyspeptic and conservative.”2

Will’s point was that the simple act of becoming a Cubs fan shaped his entire outlook on life and made him the dour conservative that he is today.  Little things can effect our lives more than just leaving behind thousands of wet bathroom floors leading to equally as many leaking ceilings one floor down.

And Jesus is telling his disciples that in the life of faith it will be the little things that matter most.

In Luke’s gospel the disciples struggle with the same issues we struggle with in trying to follow Jesus.  

They are challenged by him and are too often confused by his values and tenets.  Their demand for Jesus to increase their faith is an appeal for what they know they need but lack, even in the very presence of Jesus.3

How much more true is that for us who are tying to follow him long after he physically walked the earth. 

When we are confronted with a crisis we too cry out, “Lord, increase our faith.”  When we are touched by tragedy we cry out, “Lord, increase our faith.” When an opportunity comes our way that looks like it might be too much to handle, even then, looking at the challenge, we might cry out “Lord, increase our faith.”

Rather than teach Jesus encourages.  What he is actually saying here to us is,  “C’mon people you’ve got this.  You do have enough faith.”

This is not the “you can if you think you can” of the possibility thinking preachers where the “belief that material wealth is a sign of God’s favor” and “those who lack material wealth are somehow thought to be deficient in faith.”4

You and I know that we could stare at a mountain or a mulberry tree “till Kingdom come” and it wouldn’t move as much as a quarter-of-an-inch.  There are some days where we can’t even get our spouses or partners to do what we want them to do.  If getting them to move is difficult moving inanimate objects is impossible.

But Dr.  Fred Craddock tells us that the word to pay attention to is not the “if” but the “have”.  He says it could be better translated: “‘If you had faith (and you do).’ Jesus response is not a reprimand for an absence of faith but an affirmation of the faith they have and an invitation to live out the full possibilities of that faith.”5

That is what we are called to do in our service.

The Revised Standard Version translation of scripture that we have before us today  leads us into troubled waters because it has Jesus asking: “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in...”6  and we would stop him mid-sentence.

“With all due respect, Lord,” all of us in this room would say - Democrat or Republican; Liberal or Conservative - “Lord, none of us would even think of owning a slave.  The idea of owning another human being is so repugnant to us that it makes us shiver.  Lord, we don’t even own our pets!  We refer to them as our ‘fur-babies’ and ourselves as ‘pet-parents.’  We can’t relate to slavery at any time - biblical or our own.”

This may be why most modern translations use the word “servant” rather than “slave.”  And even having a servant makes some of us feel uncomfortable.

But let me call your attention to the television and now movie phenomenon “Downton Abbey.”

Did you ever wonder who in that household was really running the show?  Was it Lord Gratham or was it really Carson, the butler?  Was it his wife, Lady Edith,   or was it Mrs.  Hughes? 

It was the servants who went ‘round to wake the Crawley’s every morning.  And they dutifully got out of bed to start another day.

It was the servants who rang the bell to tell them it was time to get ready for dinner.  And so they all obediently changed from their daytime to evening wear. 

It was the servants who ran the show!  And there was a pride in service down to the most menial of tasks.

I remember early on Carson was walking around each formal table setting with a ruler making sure that each utensil was in it perfectly situated  down to the last millimeter.

Somewhere at home I have downloaded a “how to” chart for the place settings at a formal dinner.  I’m sure it would be of great help if I ever had a formal dinner but since I never have and probably never will all I could do is give Carson credit for the care he took in making sure everything was in its proper place.

For him being a servant was a high honor.  For us it is too because we are just doing what Jesus asks us to do.

Dr.  William H.  Willimon puts it this way:

Some times I think that we feign humility, complaining about all the virtues we lack because to believe that we have all that we need would require us to step up and make good on our faith.  And Jesus replies, “I have given you all that you need to follow me. Now get on with it.7 

 It is the continual making of the little decisions in our life that have made all the difference.

The ultimate worth of any servant is to have done his or her duty.

Duty may be an old-fashioned word but most of us still do our duty “out of a heartfelt desire, from a passionate, earnest determination to contribute.

Most of us contribute money or talents to the work of the church in an attempt to do our part.  When someone is in need [we] reach out to them ... because we are followers of Christ and we believe that is expected of us.

Jesus tells us we have what it takes to do our duty and be his servants.   While we may not be able to make a sycamore tree bend to our will the least we can do is put the shower curtain inside the tub.

 Don’t you think?

____________

1.   Chris Higgins, “Conrad Hilton's Advice to the American People.” Mental Floss, October 22, 2009. http://mentalfloss.com/article/23076/conrad-hiltons-advice-american-people.

2.  George F.  Will, “It’s the Little Things.” Commencement address given at Washington University in St.  Louis, May 15, 1998.  https://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/george_will_quotes.shtml

3.  Nancy Lynne Westfield, Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship. Vol. 3.  (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2019.), p.  372.

4.  ibid., p.  373.

5. Fred B. Craddock, Luke: A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990.)  p.  200.

6.  St.  Luke 17:7.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

7.  William H. Willimon, “Faithful Enough to Be Faithful.” Pulpit Resource.  vol. 38, no. 4 (2010): p. 5–8.

"He Had A Name After All" - Pentecost 16C

Saint Luke 16:19-31
 

When the rich man, the very rich man, was asked about the plight of the homeless he seemed to turn the problem on its head.  Here is what the really, really rich man said and I’m not making a single word of it up:

“We have people living in our … best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings  . . .  where people in those buildings pay tremendous taxes, where they went to those locations because of the prestige. In many cases, they came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or they moved to San Francisco because of the prestige of the city, and all of a sudden they have tents. Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance to their office building. And they want to leave.”The modern rich man paints an incredibly sad picture of wealthy homeowners holed up in their penthouses and high-powered business types cowering in their corner offices in fear of those who are just outside the well-guarded entrances of their high-rise towers that perhaps even bear their name.

It’s like they are prisoners who fear for their lives every time they even think about going outside.

“Do you know what that does?” asks Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke.  “That leads these people (who pay tremendous taxes) to leave, which, when you think of it, is a form of homelessness, except they still own multiple homes.”1

Huppke then goes on to point to several examples from the teachings of Jesus whom the rich man in question claims to follow.  One of those examples is today’s gospel.

While he may not be surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of tents our rich man is being held hostage by a poor man, a very poor man, who has apparently been dumped in front of his house.  There is a bum on his doorstep who Jesus tells us was placed there by his friends perhaps in the hopes that the person who lived just beyond the golden gate would help him.

Jesus tells us plainly that to the rich guy he was a nuisance who had to be stepped over every morning on the way down the cobble stone drive to pick up the latest copy of The Jerusalem Post.  Because he was their special care had to be used when the Bentley was backed down the driveway lest he is run over and scratches a bumper or flatten a tire.  

It is even possible that since the beggar was dumped at the front door the rich man’s friends had to use the back entrance to avoid being bothered.  It was enough to make them all want to leave.
I have always wondered whether this parable wasn’t the inspiration for or, at least, running around in the back of Charles Dicken’s mind when he wrote A Christmas Carol.

You remember the exchange between Ebenezer Scrooge and the men who approach him for a donation for the poor and destitute at Christmas.

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge
 “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge, “Are they still in operation?”
 “They are.  Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
 “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?” said Scrooge.
 “Both very busy, sir.  What shall I put you down for?”
 “Nothing!” Scrooge replied.  “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.”

 The men protest that without his help people might die.

 “If they would rather die, they had better do it,  and decrease the surplus population.”2

Jesus never names the rich man in today’s parable but we would be well within our rights to call him Scrooge.

There is, however, one huge difference between Scrooge and the antagonist in Jesus’ story.  Scrooge repents!

When the ghost of Christmas present shows him exactly how difficult life was for his nephew Bob Cratchit and his family and when Scrooge begins to see them as real people things begin to change. 

Scrooge is especially  touched by the plight of little Tiny Tim and, for the first time in his life, shows genuine concern for another human being.  He watches as after Christmas dinner is over and Cratchit tenderly grasps his young son’s hand.  

“‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before. “Tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’  ‘I see an empty seat,’ replied the ghost, ‘and a crutch without an owner carefully preserved. If these shadows don’t change in the future, the child will die.’”

Scrooge cried out.  “‘Oh no, kind Spirit! Say he will be spared!’”

The Spirit throws Scrooge’s earlier words right back at him.  “‘If he be like to die, he better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’ Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.”3

The rich man Jesus is telling us about shows no such contrition.  Even when he finds himself in Hades and sees Lazarus resting near Father Abraham he still treats this child of God with contempt. 

Up until now when Lazarus was just a heap of humanity ruining his prestigious neighborhood he never acknowledged him but now he needs his help.  He needs a favor.

Still not speaking to Lazarus directly he implores Father Abraham to send him on an errand.  “‘Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I’m in agony in this fire.’”4

Here is something really important.

Scrooge only began to treat the Cratchit’s like living, breathing, human beings when he learned their names.  Tiny Tim, Bob, Martha.

Up until now we think that the rich man in Jesus’ story never even bothered finding out who the poor man was.  For all he knew, for all he cared, the fellow out front was just a speed bump on the highway of life.  It is only when the fires of hell are lapping at his lips do we discover that the rich guy  knew Lazarus’ name all along.  The vagrant had a name and the rich guy knew it!

At every turn of the story he could have called to him, helped him.

That wasn’t some anonymous down-and-outer in front of the house his name was Lazarus and the rich guy knew it!  He knew it but never used it until he needed something.

When Lazarus was dependent on him he never bothered to speak his name but now that he is dependent on Lazarus he is dropping the name frequently but only as an errand boy.

The arrogance is astounding as the rich guy continued to think that the only thing Lazarus was put on this earth to do was to serve him.  He demands that Lazarus be commanded to bring him water and when he is told that this will not be possible he then asks that he be sent on yet another errand to go and warn his brothers.

Unlike Scrooge our rich man is so unrepentant that in trying to get Lazarus to do his dirty work for him that he goes so far as trying to order Father Abraham around.

Lazarus is still a nonperson to him.  He is still treating him like a slave who is  expected to do his bidding at a moment’s notice.

The man who, in his earthly life,  never took the time to pass a morsel of food through a front fence to Lazarus  now expects the poor guy who has experienced so much torment on earth to pass through the fires of hell to bring him a bit of relief in the next. 

You have probably been sitting there waiting for me to drop the money card on you. You’ve been waiting for me to warn you about the dangers of the misuse of wealth and to tell you that you should be more generous but you know that.  This parable probably runs through your mind every time you pass by a beggar on the street. 

If you’ve ever visited within the city limits of Chicago your conscious would be bothered by this little story almost every time you stop at a stop light or reach the bottom of an expressway ramp and read the signs held by the downtrodden.  “Homeless!  Hungry!  Help Me!”

If, like me, you are bothered every time you speed past one of those poor souls that is good.  If that is the case, at least for us,  Jesus’ words have achieved their goal!  Jesus has made us more aware of the plight of those who have less than we do. 

However, this parable is not just about money it is about indifference.   Jesus’ rich man was indifferent to the plight of the man at his garden gate. 

The man  from our age who complained that we have “people living in our … best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings” isn’t even interested in figuring out why or what he can do to help.  He is totally indifferent to the plight of the poor and only sees them as a bother.

This story may be about money but it is also about our indifference to the needs of others.  Not just monetary needs but emotional needs and spiritual needs and the need that all of us have to feel loved and cared for.

Jesus is not asking the impossible of us.  Just as it would not have been impossible for the rich man to share a crust of bread not only with the guy on his front stoop but, if he was that rich, he could have used his spare pocket money to open up a soup-kitchen for all the homeless in his neighborhood.

That is, if he could endure the wrath of his wealthy friends for encouraging more of the Lazarus types to move in and take up camp.

If our modern day rich man was as rich as he would like the rest of us to believe he could easily help countless poor with the cost of only a single tank of jet fuel from his Boeing 767. But he hasn’t and probably never will.

The good news is the Scrooge didn’t stay a scrooge.  After seeing the past, the present and the future all in one night he wakes up a changed man. 

You know how his story ends!

He orders the biggest turkey at the meat market for the Cratchit’s Christmas day dinner. When Bob comes in late he doesn’t fire him but gives him a raise.  And when he comes across the men he had unceremoniously thrown out his office the day before for begging on behalf of the poor he gives them a donation that is so large it causes one of them to exclaim, ““My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?”

“If you please,” said Scrooge. “Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.”

  He started to care about more than himself and his balance sheet.  And Dicken’s writes of him:

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.6

Of the three men before us today one of them changed; the other was toast; and the jury is still out on the guy who was more worried about shabby looking tents than the people who lived in them.

All Jesus is asking us to do is to take care of each other.  To  reach across life’s chasms and help each other in ways that might not even be expensive but will be meaningful beyond measure.  The only cost may be a little time and a little ingenuity.

A great friend of mine the Rev’d Shawn Fiedler recently moved back to his hometown of Boston to be with his partner who got a job in the development office of Harvard University.  Shawn is the only person I know who has a job title even more cumbersome than mine.  He is Acting Associate Minister at Old South Church in Boston.  (Not to be confused with Old North Church in Boston of the “one if by land, two if by sea” fame.)

 Shawn shared this story with me this week in an e-mail:

I was assisting at our 9am service, big loud, family based. We allow children to assist in serving. They clamor to come forward to serve. I had two children (maybe 6) serving gluten free wafers and cup. I was standing behind them and letting them lead. At one point the boy serving the cup turned to the girl with the wafers and said "I hope we don't run out. I'm gluten free and I need one." Well, if you wouldn't believe it--she picked up a wafer and stuffed it in her hoodie pocket so he would have one. At the end I took the elements to serve them and she pulled it out to give to him. Holy food, indeed.7

 I think that is what Jesus was talking about!  That little gesture didn’t cost the young girl anything.  She only saw that her friend had a need and did her best to meet it.

Jesus’ rich man never did that so there was a great gulf between him and the rest of humankind.  Scrooge bridged that chasm by turning from his old ways and reaching into a new life by taking care of the Cratchit family and allowing them to become a part of his world.

Jesus finishes this parable on the pages of your life and mine for it is only when we overcome our indifference and begin seeing each other not as  liabilities but  those who are loved by God that, in the words of Tiny Tim Cratchit, “God” will “bless us everyone.”

Thanks for listening.

____________

1.  Huppke, Rex. “Shining Light on California's Homeless.” The Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2019, sec. 1.  p.  3.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-trump-california-homeless-border-fundraiser-huppke-20190918-y3jfh5lnm5avzcqwkg7vlthv4m-story.html

2   Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: William Heinemann, 1906.  p.  8-9.

3.  op.cit., p.  69-70.

4.  St.  Luke 16:22-24.  (MSG) [Eugene Peterson, The Message.  (Colorado Springs: Navpress Publishing Group, 2013.)]

5. Dickens, op.  cit., p.  112.

6. Dickens, op.  cit., p.  117.

“Shrewd! Very Shrewd!” - Pentcost 15C

Saint Luke 16:1-13

If there is one thing that all of us in this room know it is that life is full of uncertainty.

We may try to be optimistic people who are a pleasure to be around but sometimes it is hard, very hard, when we don’t know what will come next.  It’s difficult to be optimistic in those times when we don’t know how things are going to work out. 

Remember the first time you  fell in love?  Perhaps it was in high school or college.  You thought you had found your partner for  life.  They were more than you could ever ask for, dream about, and then they dumped you.  At this young age you were probably devastated and came to the conclusion that Dionne Warwick was right as you sang sadly to yourself:  “I’ll never fall in love again.”

Or, perhaps it was when you were older and you found that the one you thought you was going to spend the rest of your life with decided in the words of the poet/philosopher Meat Loaf that “if they had to spend another minute with you they didn’t think they could ever survive.”

Maybe it was the time when the company you had spent years working for downsized and you were going to have to find a new job later in your career.

Uncertainty can come while you wait for a report about your health or the health of a loved one.

Everybody who has ever lived past adolescence into adulthood knows the perils of uncertainty.  We also know that the course of our lives is determined by how we handle any uncertainty that comes our way.

The example that Jesus gives of the crooked manager in today’s parable is almost a reverse angle look at someone who had a very creative way of facing his uncertainty.  Jesus is being so creative with his story that it has puzzled scholars from the very moment Saint Luke included it in his gospel.  Almost everyone that I read described this parable as leaving them baffled.

I, on the other hand, think it is deceptively easy.

What we have before us a crook who got caught.

If you read the business section you know all about him and his kind.  They are the ones who overinflate the earnings of their companies.  They make the profits seem bigger and the loses smaller than they really are.  They have no second thoughts about “ginning the books.”

Then the day arrives when the audit committee shows up!  Somebody is going to come in and try to add up figures that don’t add up.  Outsiders will try to reconcile books that cannot be reconciled no matter what kinds of Voodoo accounting practices are used.  Instead of rolling in dough they will find out that the company is actually drowning in debt.

We know these types of managers and if their shenanigans have affected the bottom line of our pension plans we don’t like them very much.  However, the guy Jesus is telling us about has a certain endearing quality to him.

To his credit he is exceedingly self-aware.  He knows his limits and they are many.  He says of himself: “I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”1  He frankly and honestly assesses his skills and determines that he doesn’t have any.   He is fast becoming like the guy who is pictured above looking at a chart of his business potential and seeing an arrow pointing ever downward. 

At this point he has two choices: He can stare at that chart forever or he can do something, anything. The manager decides to do something. 

“Ah, I know what I’ll do so that when I lose my position people will welcome me into their homes!”2

At this point you are either going to be aghast or your going to smile.

The manager calls his master’s debtors in, one by one, and begins to go over their books. 
But instead of bad news the only thing he has for them is good news.

“Listen!” he says to the first.  “We’ve been going over the accounts and there has been some mistake.” You can feel the tension rising.   “It says here you owe $100,000 but I think someone has programmed in too many zeros.  It can’t be that much!  Let’s make it $50,000.”  The tension is gone as suddenly there are handshakes all around.

The next guy comes in and it is the same story.  “I’ve been looking over your accounts and that statement we sent you is all wrong.  That $50,000 you owe us should only read $25,000.  That’s it!  That’s all you owe!  Look for me  at the pub and buy me a drink.  Winks and nods this time because everybody knows what is going on.

So it goes as one by one people come in and find their debts being magically reduced.  Before long the whole town owes the conniving manager a favor.

The unseemly steward is handling his uncertainty by making certain that, at the end of the day, if he hasn’t made a few real friends at least he’ll have more than a few people  who will owe him big time.
From little on we have been told that parables are earthly stories that have a heavenly meaning but this one seems to have a lot of ungodliness thrown in.

We expect that when the rich man found out what his manager was doing the police would be called, a grand jury would be impaneled, and the manager would be indicted.  There would be handcuffs for the man and maybe even a perp-walk but, much to our amazement, this isn’t what happens at all.

When the manager is finally called on the carpet he discovers that his boss has rolled out a red one.  His boss says:

“You, you business genius you!  I wish all these priggish sons-of-light in this company showed as much individual initiative, worldly wisdom and commercial creativity!  You are one shrewd operator.  I’m moving you up to the front office.”3

What?

Wait Jesus that is not how parables are supposed to work and they usually do but this one doesn’t. 

This time Jesus leaves us confused and so shall we ever be if we think this little story is only about money.  This is about much more than how we handle our finances it is about how we handle any uncertainty than may come our way.

When the auditors  showed up, the manager’s future was uncertain.  He didn’t know what he would do but instead of wallowing he got to work.  In an often overlooked part of the parable he helped out his neighbors by reducing their debt load. 

Some politicians of our day know very well the benefits of offering people a free everything and they like to do it with somebody else’s money.  The crooked manager did that too.  He was giving away his master’s money as if it were his own and in so doing he was making the rich man look benevolent.
Listen to me very carefully now otherwise you are going to miss something very important.

Those people downstream who were receiving the write-off didn’t know who it was coming from.  We know it was the steward but they didn’t.  For all they knew he was acting at the behest of the boss.  So, the rich guy got credit too.

All of a sudden, as he walked around town where once there were scowls now there were smiles.  Now, when he strolled down the street instead of hiding from him people were coming up to him to thank him for his kindness. 

No wonder he was so positive toward his crafty manager!  The rich man had gone from being a miserly pariah to being the “toast of the town.”  It cost him a ton of money but the goodwill he received in return might have proved to be worth it.

The people benefitted, his boss benefitted, and the steward benefitted because he got off with a commendation rather than incarceration. 

We good God-fearing folk misunderstand this parable because we want it to be a good, god-fearing story about money.  It isn’t.  It is about something more and what this something-moreness is can be found in the concluding sentence.  J.B. Phillips paraphrases it this way: “For the children of this world are considerably more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the children of light.”4

Dr.  Thomas G.  Long  said “what Jesus wanted them—and us—to get out of this story [is that he wished] the people of God  . . .  were as shrewd for the gospel as the wheeler-dealers out there in the world are shrewd for themselves.  In other words, there are people out there in the culture who get up every morning scheming for a buck, focusing every ounce of energy on feathering their nests, working in overdrive to save themselves and to scramble to the top of the heap.  ‘I wish God's people,’ Jesus says, ‘would be just as focused and energetic for their beloved community.’"5

Some of us “children of light” when confronted with any uncertainty like to play it safe.  We like to act prudently.  We don’t like to spend what we don’t have or commit ourselves unless we know that we are going to succeed.  We like to be certain before we act.

But the “children of the world” know how to look after themselves. 

In Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, the passage says this about these “streetwise people”:

They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live.6

The reason so many are confused by this parable is that they think it is all about money.  In the parable money is only a tool.  Money here is only a literary device.

What is key to understanding is to watch how the steward reacts to the most uncertain time in his life.

He doesn’t just stand there waiting for the bottom to completely fall out.  He takes action!  He uses the only thing he knows how to use for not only his own benefit but for the benefit of his boss and even the entire community.

The steward takes the only thing he knows how to use and uses it.

So the question for us is what is the one, two or three things we do really, really well?  What are the tools in our toolbox that we go to most often when we are uncertain?  What are the gifts we have been given?

Find them!  Use them. 

And in the end we just might hear words that we never thought we would ever hear from the lips of our Lord: “Shrewd!  Very Shrewd!”

 _____________________

1.  St. Luke 16:3c.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

2.  St. Luke 16:4.  (PHILLIPS) [J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English.  (London: HarperCollins, 2000.)]

3. William H.Willimon,  “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” Pulpit Resource. vol. 41, no. 3 (2013): 49–52.

4.  St. Luke 16:8.  (PHILLIPS)

5.  Thomas G. Long, “Making Friends,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 30, no. 4, Pentecost 2007, 55.

6.   St.  Luke 16:8-9.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

"Lost and Found Department" - Pentecost 14C

Exodus 32:7-14
Saint Luke 15:1-10

In the midst of what was a misty morning last Sunday thousands gathered on Northerly Island, the site of the former Meig’s Field, to do church.  Kind of.

Most of us  missed this.  I didn’t know about it until I saw the screaming headline in the Sun-Times on Monday.  It said: “Thousands See Kanye West Perform ‘Sunday Service.’”

“Sunday Service” is an outgrowth of something that began early this year in the home of West and his socially media savvy wife Kim Kardashian when they invited some of their “A-list” friends over to do church in a very different Hollywood way.   It is so different that all those attending this invite only “church” have to sign non disclosure agreements even though they readily share moments on Instagram.

“There’s no praying,” Kardashian told Jimmy Kimmel, on his late-night show. “There’s no sermon. There’s no word. It’s just music, and it’s just a feeling.”1

A very pricey feeling. 

According to The Chicago Tribune some of the free tickets given away by a local radio station were being listed on “Craigslist  . . .   with prices ranging from $100 to $300.”2 (We should be doing as well!)

Grace in this case was neither free nor was it gospel.

In a segment on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” The New Yorker Magazine’s Jia Tolentino said of West at a similar event: "He is the church . . .  he is the text of the sermon. It's his songs. He is the worship. He is creating a church in himself and selling it.  There's always this sense ... that he might worship God but never serve him. It's always seemed like God, in the end, would always serve him.”3

That kind of stuff will get you in trouble as it did for the Israelites when they we’re waiting for Moses to come down from the mountaintop with the Ten Commandments.

They had no idea what Moses was doing at the top of Mount Sinai they only knew that he was taking a long time to do it.  So they took off all their gold jewelry, melted it down and made it into a calf worthy of worship.  If the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob wouldn’t serve them they would find one that would.  They would create their own god.

They decided to turn their back on God who took them by the hand and led them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.  They decided that there had to be a god somewhere that would provide better provisions than just bread and birds.  They decided that they could make a god for themselves that would respond quicker to their needs.  They wanted a better god than the one they had so they made one.  And they worshiped it!

The real God is justifiably miffed and decides that the only thing that can be done with this stiff necked people is to wipe them out.

It is at this point, “Moses becomes a public relations agent for the divine.  ‘What will the Egyptians say about you, Lord?’ he wonders aloud to the Almighty.  It is as if Moses suggests that God has a reputation to keep, and destroying Israel would look bad”4 especially to the Egyptians.

I think the biggest temptation for God, in the midst of human rebellion, is to throw up God’s hands in despair and say: “All right then!  I will leave you alone!  I will leave you to your own devises.”

When that happens, we may look like the guy in the Lost and Found booth on today’s bulletin cover.  We’ll be sitting there with our initiative, our innocence, our perspective, our sense of humor, our capacity to change and even our strength to go on, all lost.  It isn’t a pretty sight when that happens.  And it almost never happens all at once.

Michael Yaconelli, in his book, Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith, tells the story of a farmer who tried to explain to him why cows sometimes find themselves lost in the middle of another farmer’s field.

A cow is nibbling on a tuft of grass in the middle of a field, moving from one tuft to the next.  Before you know it, she ends up at some grass next to the fence.  Noticing a nice clump of grass on the other side  . . .  the cow stumbles through an old tear  . . .  and finds herself outside.  “Cows don’t intend to get lost,” the farmer explained, “they just nibble their way to lostness.”5

The good news is that God never does leave us alone.  We may think God has.  We may feel God has.  However, even with the stiff-necked Children of Israel bowing down before a golden calf – a god of their own making – God decides to keep coming after us never willing to leave us all on our own.

The reoccurring story of the whole bible is about God who keeps looking for us when we “nibble our way to lostness.” 

That’s what Jesus is trying to get across to those who grumble in today’s gospel. 

They complain that Jesus is breaking bread with “sinners and tax collectors” two groups that the religious would just as well tell to “get lost.”  They had no use for these people.  Not only would they wouldn’t eat with them they wouldn’t even talk to them. 

Jesus is telling them that these are exactly the people God wants because God never gives up on any – including Pharisees or scribes – who wander away.

Jesus underscores this by casting as the heros in his story two groups that were especially looked down upon by his society – a woman and a shepherd. 

Shepherds were generally considered to be poor social outcasts.  Women [were thought to be second  class citizens] relegated to the margins of society.  So Jesus is illustrating the nature of the kingdom of God with two persons from the margins.  People who work hard to find one sheep or one lost coin are probably poor people ... who search for that which is lost with a kind of desperation.6

Now that’s an image of God.  God doesn’t give up but God searches in desperation!  God is like a shepherd who will search over every hill and valley looking for any of us when we go astray.  God is like a woman who will sweep every corner of her house until what she is looking for is found.

And when we are found God doesn’t just lead the sheep back into the fold but God throws a party out of all proportion.  God doesn’t just throw the coin into her loose change bowl but invites her neighbors and friends to a party that would make even the Hollywood elite jealous.

We might make God as angry as the Children of Israel with their gold cow, or the shepherd at the sheep, or the woman at herself for losing the coin  but God doesn’t stop there.  God never stops looking.  

Speaking of those who go searching for God at a Kanye West “Sunday Service”Gia Tolentino says:

"There's so much ambient hunger and desperation in so many aspects of our culture right now. The need, I'm sure is sincere. What kind of made me sad about watching it was it's just, 'Is this the thing that will fill it?' I'm not sure. It seems like the incorrect answer to an extremely real hunger."7

There had to have been a real hunger among those who ventured out on a misty and cold morning to attend a “Sunday Service” led by and for Kanye West.  

What West and his like tries to convince us that we can live our lives on our own, the authors of our own fate and the creators of our own gods.  That leaves us lost in the “lost and found department.”

Jesus, on the other hand,  portrays God lovingly reaching out, seeking, intruding, and saving us from ourselves.

When we are embraced by Jesus we discover that we are no longer lost but have been found by the very one we have been looking for. God has been looking for us all along and we have been found by none other than Jesus Christ our Lord who declares that, as far as he is concerned, we don’t have to visit the lost and found department ever again.

May this be true not only for all of us but for all of God wandering children.

____________
 
1. Gia Tolentino. (2019).  “Kanye West's Sunday Service is Full of Longing and Self-promotion.” The New Yorker. [online] Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/kanye-wests-sunday-service-is-full-of-longing-and-self-promotion [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].

2. Jessi Roti. “Kanye West Brings His Gospel to Northerly Island.” The Chicago Tribune, September 9, 2019, Morning edition, sec. 4. http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/html5/desktop/production/default.aspx?&edid=a5a127e3-f02c-4747-a3eb-3df69b78a108.

3.  Audie Cornish and Cala Christina. “At Kanye West's Sunday Service, 'He Is The Church'.” All Things Considered. NPR, April 25, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717219251/at-kanye-wests-sunday-service-he-is-the-church.

4. Joseph L. Clifford,“Exodus 32:7-14. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 3 (Louisville:Westminister/John Knox Press, 1989), p. 304–5.

5. Michael Yanconelli, Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith. Colorado Springs, CO: Navpress, 1998.

6. William H. Willimon, “More God Than We Want.” Pulpit Resource, vol. 32, no. 3 (2001): 45–48.

7, Cornish and Christina, loc.cit.

"Give It All" - Pentecost 13C

Saint Luke 14:25-33

Agnus was born on 26th day of August 1910 in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia.  Her father, depending on the source, was either a grocer, a general merchant, or a construction contractor, who died when she was eight.

“Although by no means wealthy, [her mother] Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family.  ‘My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter.’”1

At the age of twelve the congregation to which she belonged made its annual “pilgrimage to the Church of the Black Madonna in Letnice, and it was on one such trip  . . .  that she first felt a calling to a religious life. Six years later, in 1928, an 18-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin.”

In 1937 she took her final vows and six weeks later she would sail to India to become a teacher in Calcutta.   Nine years later, in 1946 Agnus, “experienced her “call within a call,” which she considered divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. She then moved into the slums she had observed while teaching.

“In 1952 [she] established Nirmal Hriday (“Place for the Pure of Heart”), a hospice where the terminally ill could die with dignity. Her order also opened numerous centers serving the blind, the aged, and the disabled. Under [the nun formerly known as Agnus’] guidance, the Missionaries of Charity built a leper colony.”2   And New York City’s first clinic for people with HIV/AIDS.

By now you probably have figured out “the rest of the story” and that Agnus is Mother Teresa.  Now St.  Teresa of Calcutta whose feast day was last Thursday.

I don’t know what you feel like when you hear  about someone like a Mother Teresa, or a Ghandi, or a Nelson Mandela, or any of the martyrs for the faith but I will tell you what I feel like.  I feel like a schulb.

At twelve I was probably playing Jarts in the back yard with my uncles.  At 18 I was probably having a difficult time deciding on where I would go for summer vacation much less  deciding on a vocation for my life’s work.  I look at the lives of the famous religious figures or the saints of the church and say to myself.  “Wow!  I could never have done that.”

They really did,  as the old hymn says, turn “from home and toil and kindred. Leaving all for his dear sake.”

Then, to make matters worse, along comes Jesus in today’s gospel and says I’m supposed to follow in their footsteps.  I’m supposed to give up everything to follow him.  At the end of the day I am supposed to be standing like the guy who went bankrupt in Monopoly with pockets empty and no worldly good to show for my efforts.

What is Jesus doing to us here?  We’re no Mother Teresa!

Jesus doesn’t even care that for many churches in America this is “Get Connected Sunday.”  A day for those, as one website describes, who are “looking to meet new people.  Build a community? Grow in faith? Engage in learning and conversation? Share your gifts with others?   We have a host of opportunities” the website went on to say “ with which we’re eager to connect you!”3

Jesus doesn’t seem to be interested in any of those opportunities.  If you put him in charge of “Get Connected Sunday” the website would ask: “Are you looking to ‘hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself’ by carrying your cross?”  rather than “we have a host of opportunities with which we are eager to connect you.”
 
I’m not sure that there would be that many left who would be eager to be connected.

Jesus doesn’t seem to understand that every church in America is trying to attract new members rather than push them away with this “cross carrying” stuff.  We don’t want to talk about “hate.” As a matter of fact, we’re against it. 

Its not our job to bring about divisions within a family.  Mostly families are pretty good at doing that all on their own.  They don’t need us to remind them that they can’t stand their Uncle Donald because he is always acting up. 

No Jesus, we are about happy families and attracting big crowds.  We need Mother Teresa not the mother of all battles.!

What makes this even more puzzling is that at this point in Luke’s Gospel Jesus seems to have what we want.  He has  big crowds.  Huge crowds.  Large crowds are trooping behind Jesus. 

This has to be a validation of his ministry.  By all standards he is a success but instead of celebrating the growing number of followers Jesus confronts them with some tough talk about the cost of discipleship.

In what has to be the understatement in all biblical commentaries Dr.  Lynn Japinga of Hope College wrote: “The text does not report whether this sermon thinned the ranks of followers, but it must have diminished some of their superficial enthusiasm.” 4

You think!

As Dr.  William H.  Willimon wrote of this moment.

Jesus is on a roll and, despite the attempts of his publicists to put a good spin on this PR disaster, nobody can stop him.  “Another thing, if you won’t carry a cross,” then you can’t walk with me.  Anybody who begins to build a tower without counting the cost, runs the risk of looking stupid when he runs out of brick and can’t finish the tower.  Any king who goes to war without first considering whether or not he has the troops to win ... may look dumb when he begs for peace.  Count the cost. 5

For many the cost was just too high. 

They wanted a savior who could heal their divisions not cause them.  They wanted a savior who could unify their communities not divide them.  They wanted a savior of ample supply not shortages.  They wanted a savior who was, most of all, a winner.  They wanted a savior who comes without a cross.

That’s what many wanted then and still want now.  This may be what emptied our churches. 

It may not have been the differences of the ‘60's between waging war or making peace.  It may not have been having to make the choice between being successful and ethical.  It may not have been any of those things.  It may have been Jesus!

It may have been his message that emptied the place out but at least you couldn’t say he was guilty of false advertizing. 

With the Jesus we have instead of the Jesus we want it’s a wonder that anybody shows up on a Sunday morning. 

At this point you may be  tempted to give up and go home too. 

Lest you think that Jesus’s demands are excessive, lest you dismiss his teaching by saying, “Jesus has now raised the bar too high. Nobody can love Jesus more than family. Nobody would willingly sign up for crucifixion,” allow me to point [that]:  Down through the ages, there have been a few, not many, certainly not a “great crowd” who have taken Jesus at his word and have done just what he demands. They have let go of all their possessions, risked all, counted the cost and, even with a cross looming before them, have said, 'Here am I, send me.'"6

That’s one way to do it and it is the way of those who have been called Saints.  While  “Jesus did not want his followers to think that discipleship was easy ... neither was it open only to spiritual overachievers.” 7

That leaves room for the rest of us. 

Those who didn’t give it all away at once but daily in some small way did something because they were a follower of Jesus.

Those who didn’t listen to today’s gospel and say, “Whew!  That’s too demanding.  I can’t be a follower with those kind of conditions attached” but who kept following, kept listening to Jesus, kept pondering the cost of discipleship and then still bought in.

It worth remembering one last thing about people like Mother Teresa, followers of Jesus who are now called Saints.  They too had their struggles and even their doubts.

The website for the Missionaries of Charity admits this about her:

But there was another ... side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her,  was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life.8

Even the greatest followers have their doubts and “painful nights of the soul.”

But they kept following and so do we.   We keep following until the end when we just might discover that we really did do what Jesus asked and little by little, bit by bit, we too had given our lives for to him and for him.  Much to our surprise we “gave it all.”  

May that surprise some day in the distant future be true for everyone of us.   That we really did “give it all.”

Thanks for listening.
___________

1.  2019. “Mother Teresa.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television. August 26, 2019. https://www.biography.com/religious-figure/mother-teresa.

2.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mother-Teresa

3.  Website of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.

4.   Lynn  Japinga, “Luke 14:25-33. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World.” In Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, 3:301–2. Louisville, KY : Westminster/John Knox, 2019.

5. William H. Willimon, “Spin City Jesus.” Pulpit Resource 32, no. 3 (2004): 41–44.

6.  William H. Willimon, “What's in It for Me?” Pulpit Resource 47, no. 3 (2019): 31–33.

7. Japinga, loc. cit.

8.  Biography. Accessed September 7, 2019. https://www.motherteresa.org/biography.html.