"Juxtaposition" - The Reign of Christ C

Saint Luke 23:33-43

The year was 1925. 
 

On February 26 Adolph Hitler was released from prison.  He was charged with planning  a propaganda march through Munich to gather support for a coup against the local German government. 
 

On February 27, the very next day, the Nazi Party was allowed to publish its newspaper once again.
 

The “Roaring Twenties” were in full swing and the world seemed to be in the midst of a period of uninterrupted economic prosperity.  There was a certain social, artistic, and cultural dynamism to the times.  Jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, and Art Deco peaked.
 

Juxtaposed between a great economy, the high times of what the French called Annes folles, “The Crazy Years” and the possibility of another world war stood Pope Pius XI.  He wasn’t trying to be a killjoy he was merely pointing that many people caught up in the spirit of the day began to doubt the need for Christ. 
 

In December of that year The Holy Father would write:

Since the close of the Great War individuals, the different classes of society, the nations of the earth have not as yet found true peace . . .  the old rivalries between nations have not ceased to exert their influence . . .  the nations of today live in a state of armed peace which is scarcely better than war itself, a condition which tends to exhaust national finances, to waste the flower of youth, to muddy and poison the very fountainheads of life, physical, intellectual, religious, and moral.1

 The Pope then instituted a feast day, Christ the King Sunday, to remind everyone that their only allegiance was to Christ alone rather than to any earthly supremacy.  In doing so he juxtaposed Christ’s kingdom against the kingdoms of this world and invited us to take note of the differences.

Our linguistic sensitivities and social realities have caused us to change the name of this Sunday to “the Reign of Christ” rather than “Christ the King” mostly because  Americans began our life together as a nation in rebellion against a king and we proudly point out that ours is a democracy not a monarchy. 
 

But we may be a little delusional if we begin to buy into the notion that one scholar, whom I respect a lot, expressed when he wrote: “We elect our leaders. We aren't ruled by people simply because they were born into the right family or right social class -- they still have to be elected.”2

That may be the case but there is still a definite advantage to being a part of the “ruling class.”  MSN Money reported:  

About half of all U.S. senators are estimated to have a net worth of at least a million dollars. 

Forbes magazine did some research into the wealth of those currently running for the highest office in our land and discovered:

There were some surprises. Bernie is a millionaire. So is “middle-class Joe” Biden. Elizabeth Warren is richer than both of them, worth an estimated $12 million. [Not counting Michael Bloomberg or the current office holder both of whom claim a net worth in the billions.] The median net worth is $2 million. The poorest is Pete Buttigieg, who has an estimated $100,000.3

 Clearly while some may have entered politics to do good others have done very, very well.
 

There is a paradox here: We want representatives in government who are like us, who share our values, beliefs and traditions but the people we elect couldn’t be more different from us than the sun is from the moon.
 

I mention all this to underscore the strangeness of this day.  It is a paradox that we claim to be under the reign of a different kind of leader, one who was not wealthy but who certainly was wise.  The one we claim as King is vastly different from the kind of rulers Americans claim they want.

Robert Farrar Capon, in his classic book, Hunting the Divine Fox, paints a wonderful picture of the kind of messiah Americans would create for themselves and it doesn’t look anything like Jesus on the cross.

 “Almost nobody,” Capon writes, can resist the “temptation to jazz up the humanity of Christ  -- gentle, meek and mild, but with secret, souped-up, more-than human insides. 

The human race is, was and probably always will be deeply unwilling to accept a human messiah. We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It's not that we weren't looking for the Messiah; it's just that he wasn't what we were looking for. Our kind of Messiah would come down from a cross. He wouldn't do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying.4

  Jesus got nailed because he wasn’t the kind of messiah his people were looking for and he may not even be the king or ruler many people in our day would gravitate to either.
 

Some seem to gravitate to rulers who advocate a “you hit me, I hit back” philosophy. We should have a hard time juxtaposing that against what he taught in his life and teaches, even from the cross, where he somehow finds a way to say, “Father forgive.”
 

Others seem to be attracted to leaders that promise them everything:  the earth, the moon and stars not to mention bread and circuses!  Wait!  Isn’t that desire juxtaposed over and against the very same temptations King Jesus faced down in the wilderness?
   

Giving up on those two extremes we may be inclined to look for leaders - this time state and church - who simply stay out of our way and allowed us to make their own decisions, in their own time, in their own way.  But even this is juxtaposed over and against the way of Jesus.  He wants to be involved in all aspects of our lives keeping our hearts, and minds, and strength focussed on him and his teaching.
 

The biggest juxtaposition of all is what is going on when he is hanging from the cross.  The crowds are mocking him, and as if to underscore the difference between the kind of reign Jesus would usher in and the kind of Roman rule that he was up against Pilate orders that a sign be hung over his head.  “The King of the Jews.”

Here juxtaposition and irony are displayed in full force for all to see. 
 

Successful kings don’t get themselves crucified.  If they are killed at all it is as gallant heros on horseback in some great battle.  When kings die it is in a royal bedroom, propped up on pillows covered in the finest of linens.  When good rulers die the world mourns, when terrible rulers die the people heave a sigh of relief under their breath.  As Jesus is dying some are taunting.
 

Even so  Jesus is still teaching, still reaching out, still redeeming even in his dying moments. 
  

Luke alone speaks of the two being crucified on either side as “evildoers.” Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington remind us that whoever they were and whatever they had done, they had stories, and families — and hope in Jesus. It’s not about deathbed conversions, but the way Jesus welcomes any and everyone in any and every circumstance into the life of his heart and hope.5

Just as one thief is mocking Jesus inability to save himself Jesus is being about the business of saving them both, us, and the whole world.
 

One of the thieves reaches out and only asks to be remembered.  That is a huge request for a condemned man to make because from the criminal’s viewpoint the resurrection was probably not a settled issue.  All the criminal has faith in is that Jesus will remember him.  And in return Jesus offers him “paradise.”
 

No earthly leader would dare to offer us paradise.  None of those who reign or wish to reign can offer us a life free of troubles but Jesus is showing us that his rule can even extend to death’s door with the offer of paradise. 
 

We have come to believe that what we receive from Jesus is a place as if our eternal address will be 3000 Paradise Lane. It’s not a place but it is a restored relationship with God.  That’s what the thief received that day and it is what we can receive every day that we claim Christ as King and enter into his reign.

Jesus has not come to take the world by force but rather to invite people to enter into a relationship with him.
 

Today we have two distinct views of what it means to reign and rule juxtaposed over and against one another.
 

One view uses riches to gain power not for the good but for more earthly gain.  Here authority  used to dominate and rile up the people even if it leads to the death of an innocent. 
 

The other view is the one we have of Jesus who uses his power to heal, forgive and save.
 The question this juxtaposition  of Christ the King Sunday and the ways of those who wield earthly power puts before us is whether we will follow the kings and kingdoms of this world or a different kind of King.
 

It’s a juxtaposition  worth pondering, don’t you think?

__________

1.  Pope Pius XI. Ubi arcano Dei consilio, December 1922.

2. Brian Stoffregen,  “Luke 23.33-43 Christ the King Sunday - Year C.” Luke 23.33-43. Accessed November 23, 2019. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke23x33.htm.

3.  Dan Alexander, “The Net Worth Of Every 2020 Presidential Candidate.” Forbes Magazine, November 22, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/08/14/heres-the-net-worth-of-every-2020-presidential-candidate/#60618f5837c5.

4.  Robert Farrar Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox; Images and Mystery in Christian Faith. New York: Seabury Press, 1974.

5.  James C. Howell, “Weekly Preaching: Christ the King Sunday,”, November 18, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/9952/weekly-preaching-christ-the-king-sunday.

"It's Not Over Yet" - Pentecost 23C

Saint Luke 21:15-19

A couple of Wednesday’s ago in the meditation at our service of Evening Prayer I mentioned a televangelist by the name of Jack Van Impe.  Nobody, except Martin, had ever heard of him.  It is not a surprise because he plays to a really small segment of an increasingly diminishing audience base.

In the early days of cable televangelists could be found almost everywhere.  They usually broadcast from huge mega-churches with big choirs and even larger production numbers that would rival any variety show.  Slowly, one by one, financial or sexual scandals ended their programs.  Some were taken by the angel of death and their ministries collapsed soon after.
 

Jack Van Impe and his wife Rexella are survivors even through their weekly presentation is among the strangest of the bunch. 
 

It is just the two of them sitting at what could be a news set at any television station.  Rexella reads a carefully selected news story and then Jack, using what he claims to be his encyclopedic knowledge of scripture, comes up with just the right Bible verse to show how “Current international events reflect exactly the conditions and happenings predicted throughout the Bible for the last days of this age.”
 

His website proclaims his goal as to alert  “Millions  . . .  to the fact that Jesus is coming soon-perhaps today! We all need to be ready.” Further it points out that he has been at this “since 1948 and continues to be a leading voice in declaring the soon return of the Savior.”1

The juxtaposition of the word “soon” and the year “1948" makes the whole premise more than a little bit surreal to me.
 

As I told the group the other night, if you started waiting for a bus on Downer Place in 1948 and told me yesterday that you were sure it was coming “soon” I would certainly take you into the Parish House for a warm cup of coffee spiked with a little whiskey and call an Uber for you because clearly the bus wasn’t coming.
 

Yet people have been looking for signs of the end of the age since the beginning of time.  In fact, some of them were standing next to Jesus and admiring the temple.

What is important to remember about the temple is that it wasn’t built the way any church in our day is built.  From Our Saviour to the National Cathedral all of them have been built using the contributions of the faithful.  The temple Jesus and his friends were looking at was a public works project.
 

It was begun by King Herod who, Scripture tells us, was a despicable human being.  He was a misogynist, a slander, a bully, and a murderer of family, friends, and, after hearing about the possible birth of another king, a slayer of all the children three and under in Bethlehem.  He had no moral compass.  (Give this man a twitter account and he could have been someone we know!)
 

Still his people enjoyed a good economy that they believed he made possible for them and, like so many despots of our time and his, he   was passionate about building things. 
 

The Jewish Encyclopedia tells us: “He had adorned many cities and had erected many heathen temples; and it was not fitting that the temple of his capital should fall beneath these in magnificence. Probably, also, one of his motives was to placate the more pious of his subjects, whose sentiments he had often outraged.”2

The temple was part of a deal that Herod brokered with the people and their leaders: You let me do whatever I want and I will leave you alone. 
 

This kind of uneasy peace can only last so long and we know that it didn’t last past 70 A.D. when the Romans laid siege to the city in a brutal battle that left Jerusalem in ruins with only the western wall of the temple standing. 
  

For the readers of Luke, written 15 to 20 years after the complete destruction of Jerusalem, the days that Jesus said were coming, had arrived.
  

The temple had been destroyed. The stones had all fallen down -- actually, they had been burned up. For Luke’s readers the issue wasn't, "When is this going to happen," but, "Now that it has happened, what do we do? What does it mean?"
 

The first thing Jesus tells them is not to be led astray.  There will be false messiahs and those who claim they can predict the future and about them Jesus could not be clearer:  “Do not go after them.”3 “Do not fall for any of that.”4

 Even though it may seem like the world is falling apart when we see wars, famines, earthquakes, and people of faith betrayed and persecuted if we focus a question such as: ‘when the end will come? When will it all come crumbling down?’ we may be missing the main point. 

 I’m not sure that Jesus described the end of the world so that you and I can stockpile food, move to a bunker and live in fear, or stand around and wait. What Jesus is calling us to do is to live our lives to the fullest.  We are not waste our time trying to figure out when the end might come but to face the future with courage and hope.
 

That is what brought people to Jesus.

 It is the hope that was expressed by Isaiah when he heard the word of the LORD say to him and to his people:

“Pay close attention now:  I’m creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten, Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating: I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight"5

Strangely enough while Jesus is painting a dark picture of reality the Old Testament prophet Isaiah is offering “enduring witness to the positive power of hope.”6

[The words are] meant to reassure and inspire hope in struggling believers. And yet that hope does not deny the struggles and the pain. There are signs of chaos in the world and in ourselves. And yet, just as the prophets of old read the signs of the times as both frightening and hopeful, so must we. What seems to the world as a terrible time of chaos and destruction can be an opportunity to hold on and stand firm.

Though the prophecies of Luke 21 sound harsh, and though they are honest about the struggles still to be engaged, there is a strong word of faith in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s purposes and in God’s presence with believers.

When asked, “What time is it?” Christians are able to combine both realism and hope, honesty about the pain of the present age and yet confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s will for the world. What time is it? It’s always the time where God is moving for redemption of all of this groaning creation, though the how and when of God’s redemption may not be self-evident to us. 7

I Know that I began our time together today having some fun with  the biblical soothsaying skills of televangelist Jack van Impe but when I was searching for more information about him on-line I came across a website that reported that his program had been cancelled and he  had died. 
 

I was not surprised because he has been in wretched health for years and was 88. 
 

Then I went to the website of his program and discovered that there he and his wife were in a taping to be aired yesterday talking about things that did indeed happen this past week.  The crises he and Rexella were talking about were current!  And while Jack didn’t look so good I was relieved that he was still with us and that the thirty minutes of pure free-association between he and his wife would still be around.
 

However, in reading on further, Jack became a perfect example of what Jesus and Isaiah were talking about.  He was living his life between the now of this world and the “not yet” of the world to come.  He seemed to understand that reports of the end, or our end, may come but we are called to press on. 

 I hate to admit it, but Van Impe was absolutely theologically correct when, commenting on his reported passing and his ill health, he said with a laugh: “Until the Lord takes me, I’m going to keep doing what He commanded [me] to do.”8

 That’s right Jack!  May what you said of yourself be true for us all!

__________

1.  Jvim.com 

2.  George A. Barton, “The Temple of Herod.” The Jewish Encyclopedia. Accessed November 16, 2019. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14304-temple-of-herod.

3. St.  Luke 21:8c.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

4. St.  Luke 21:8c.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

5. Isaiah 65:17-18.  (MSG)

6. Martin E. Marty, “Could a Revived 'Theology of Hope' Restore Faith in Hopeless Times?” Religion News Service. November 5, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/preach/entry/9937/could-a-revived-theology-of-hope-restore-faith-in-hopeless-times.

7. William H. Willimon, “What Time Is It?” Pulpit Resource 48, no. 4. Accessed November 16, 2019. https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9825/november-17-2019-what-time-is-it.

8. “Jack Van Impe Dead Or Alive? Television Veteran's Health Status.” LIVERAMPUP. Accessed November 16, 2019. http://liverampup.com/entertainment/jack-van-impe-dead-alive-health.html.

"Tough Questions" - Pentecost 22C

Job 19:23-27a
Saint Luke 20:27-38

It would surprise me greatly if I found out that any of you were big time gamblers.

I just can see you down the street at the blackjack, roulette or poker tables of the Hollywood Casino.  I can’t imagine any of you wiling away hour after hour pumping quarters into the slot machines.

However, if you ever wanted to win a bar-bet I suggest you try this. Saunter up to somebody and say: “I’ll bet you that the verse of Scripture that says: “I know that my Redeemer lives” is in the Old and not the New Testament.

My guess is that more often than not your foil will take your bet not only because resurrection is such a dominant theme in the New Testament but because “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” from The Messiah will run through their head. 

It would have been impossible for them not to have heard Handel’s Messiah and, if they were really astute they would know this comes from the final section of the piece that speaks of Christ’s victory over death.  Must be in the New Testament would be their thinking as they took your bet and you came away with a small fortune.
This probably won’t happen.  I can’t imagine any of your - or anybody I know for that matter - approaching anybody in a bar and saying anything much less trying to place a bet on scripture.  The other person would probably back away slowly and try to turn the conversation to the Bears offence. 

However, it does strike me as strange that the most well-known affirmation of the resurrection comes not from the New Testament but from the Old and is found on the lips of a man whose life is a disaster.

It is important to remember that the book of Job is a sippur,  a story.  It was never intended to represent anything historical.  There may or may not have been a man named Job just as there may or may not have been a father who had two sons or a woman who lost one out of ten coins. 

To Jewish readers it was a story that had a moral or a teaching much like one of Jesus’ parables.

It is a story about a man who once had it all but then lost everything and what he, his family and friends did in the midst of that tragedy.

When we first meet Job he is exceeding wealthy, very pious, and the head of a happy prosperous family.  He is a good man in every sense of the word but his life is about to fall apart.
In his time all of his misfortune would be blamed on a demonic intervention.  Satan, the diabolical one, clearly has it in for Job tempting him to deny God and be unfaithful.

So, we are told, one dark day three messengers arrive.  The first tells him that all of his livestock have been wiped out.  The second tells him that all of his servants have been killed.  The third tells him that as all of his children were at dinner a great windstorm came and blew down the house.  There were no survivors.

Amid all of this tragedy Job utters what perhaps is his second most famous affirmation of faithfulness. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”1
 
Next Job is afflicted with sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.  He was such a sight that when his two friends came to comfort him they hardly recognized him.

It is at this point in the story his friends - three guys named Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar do one of the wisest things in all of scripture.  They just sit.  They don’t say anything, they just sit.  We are told: “Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, how deeply he was suffering.”2

This could be our first take away from the story for our temptation, when we see someone is suffering, is to say something.  To try to find some words that will make it better.  But sometimes there are no words and maybe the best thing we can do in moments like this is not speak but keep silence.  To walk with the suffering person until they are willing or able to speak.

When Job speaks he curses the day he was born. 

The problem here is that his friends take his words as a sign that it is their turn and what they say is surprisingly unhelpful.

Eliphaz goes first and gives into the prevailing wisdom of his day and, to a certain extent, ours.  He speaks of his belief that righteous people seldom suffer, innocent people don’t perish, upright people don’t lose everything, it must have been something Job did.
 As many of you know I recently took a cruise through the Panama Canal. (Which now, because I mentioned it in a sermon, I can  take off on my taxes!)  It is hard to imagine as we cruised calmly through locks, Gallard Cut and the man made Gatun Lake that over 30,609 people died in building that passageway.

It is even harder to imagine that many of the time believed that “the odds of one’s survival were in direct proportion to the one’s moral fortitude.  The clean, blameless life was the secret to long life in the tropics.  Debauchery, sins of the flesh, moral or physical cowardice, were sure paths to ruin.”3

It was soon discovered that one’s demise from malaria or yellow fever had nothing to do one’s moral character and everything to do with whether or not you were bitten by a mosquito that carried the disease.

The rational for the individual disaster was the same: If Job or the innocents in Panama were morally upright they wouldn’t have suffered.

Job’s friend Eliphaz is more specific.  He says that it wasn’t just general immorality on Job’s part that has brought about his fate.  He says all that is happening to him in nothing less than a punishment from God.

We may think this as foolish as the 19th century thought that illness was brought about by some general moral shortcoming.  However, those of us who were alive at the close of the 20th century can remember at the height of the HIV/AIDS crises televangelist and full-time fool, Jerry Fallwell Sr., actually said:  "Aids is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."4

Not much changed in the years between Eliphaz’s fictional encounter with Job and the real words spoken by someone who was supposed to understand and represent the Gospel.

Bildad, Job’s third friend, suggests repentance.  This is Elizabeth- Kubler Ross’ bargaining phase of grief or loss.  

The bargaining stage is characterized by attempting to negotiate with a higher power... You may make promises to God in return for the painful situation not to occur or for things to go back to how they were before the loss or change. While these thoughts may help you begin to accept the loss or change by revealing the impact of the situation, [researchers warn] that these feelings can also lead to remorse and guilt that interfere with healing.5

Now we are talking about the present!  All of us have done this at one time or another.  It sends us off on the wild-goose chase of “if only.”  If only I had done this.  If only I had done that.  All of these “if only’s” get us nowhere. 

The problem for Job is that he can’t find anything to repent of.  As a matter of fact from the beginning he is described as somebody who “was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”6

Perhaps the worse advice Job receives comes from his wife who surveying his situation comes up with the ultimate solution.  “‘Still holding on to your precious integrity, are you?’ she asks.7  ‘Curse God and die.’”8

While Job’s friends are blaming him and Job’s wife is acting like there is going to be a huge insurance settlement or like she has her eyes on another hot man who still has a future and a fortune, Job turns to the one who really can help him.

Job wishes aloud for a witness of his integrity and affirms his belief in the existence of a vindicator who will affirm his honor.  Not every suffering person has done something bad to deserve suffering.  Job’s hope rests in the certainty that he has a ... redeemer.9

 Job’s hope has been realized for us in Jesus, our redeemer.  It is in his resurrection we place our trust, our hope.

Jesus can blow off the  Sadducees’ question about who will be married to who in the resurrection because he knows that in a zillion years he would never be able to explain it.

To some it may seem like pure lunacy but it speaks to the fundamental belief that for far too long the world has been in the grips of suffering.  The same unjust, unfair suffering that Job experienced.

Suffering and death have ruled the world through fear, violence, hatred and lies.

Suffering and death may cause us to take our eyes off God and become transfixed by those in our midst who are trying to gain or hold on to earthly power by any means possible.

Suffering and death may cause us to reel in horror of the death of an innocent family being caught in the cross-fire of a gang on their way to a wedding.

Suffering and death may even cause us to lash out at each other - looking for faults, shortcomings, moral failings, and scapegoats for our current crises.

Jesus calls us to remember that the “resurrection is not something that has meaning some day, one day, in some distant place called ‘heaven.’ The resurrection is God’s victorious intrusion into the world here, now.”

The resurrection affirms that God is Lord not of the dead only but for us who are living in the promise expressed by Job when he said:  

 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. And I know that after this body has decayed, this body shall see God!  Then he will be on my side! Yes, I shall see him, not as a stranger, but as a friend! What a glorious hope!”10

 That’s a hope that is surer than any bet you could ever make for it is a hope that sustains through all of this life and into the next.

__________

1.    Job 1:21.  (NKJV) [NKLV=The New King James Version]

2.   Job 2:13.  (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

3.  David MacCullough, The Path between the Seas: the Creation of Panama Canal, 1870-1914. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

4.  Christopher Reed, “Obituary: The Rev Jerry Falwell.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, May 17, 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/may/17/broadcasting.guardianobituaries.
  
5.  Alexis Aiger, “The Bargaining Stage of Grief.” LIVESTRONG.COM. Leaf Group. Accessed November 9, 2019. https://www.livestrong.com/article/143100-the-bargaining-stage-grief/.

6.  Job 1:1.  (ESV) [ESV=The English Standard Version]

7.  Job 2:9a.  (MSG)

8.  Job 2:9b.  (ESV)

9.    Lydia Hernandez-Marcial,. “Job 19:23-27a. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture.” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship 3 (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2019), p 420–23.

10. Job 19:25-27.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

"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.