This is a special musical presentation of I Love You, Lord by Zach Hereza on French Horn at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
In his book, Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom For a Complicated World, Jewish poet-philosopher, scholar and theologian, Noah BenShea, writes, “Either the key to a man's wallet is in his heart, or the key to a man's heart is in his wallet. So, unless you express your charity, you are locked inside your greed.” Did you hear that? Unless you express your charity, unless you live generously by giving of what you have to others, you are locked inside, you are imprisoned in your greed! Wow!! I think Jesus would have liked what BenShea has to say because Jesus also has something to say about greed. Today, we hear Jesus tell us, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”
Today, Jesus takes us to a place where most of us do not want to go as he draws us into a conversation about money. Quite frankly, talking about money makes us uncomfortable as individuals, uncomfortable within the context of our faith communities, and causes great anxiety. Many of us learn from a very early age that conversations about money are taboo. Avoiding such a conversation is one of those unspoken rules in our culture. We find it very uncomfortable to talk about the amount of money we make, the amount of money we tightly hold on to, the amount of money we hold in investments, the amount of money we have as disposable income, the amount of money we pay in taxes, and the amount of money we give away. Well, today, Jesus breaks this unspoken rule and takes us into territory of the taboo as he talks about money. Today, Jesus exposes human greed and anxiety about money, and he uses his famous teaching tool, a parable, to burn away any illusion we may have that a godly life is synonymous with our American ideals of prosperity and success.
Quite frankly, Jesus talked more about our relationship with money and our possessions more than almost any other topic, and today is one example. The writer of Luke’s gospel tells us Jesus is with a crowd of people and he is teaching. He is approached by a man who asks him to arbitrate an inheritance dispute he is having with his brother. A family feud is set before him, and Jesus opts out of getting involved in the squabble. Instead, he uses the opportunity to talk about money and a right relationship with money. Jesus tells a story that has become known as the Parable of the Rich Fool. Now, it is important to recognize that the man in this parable is not portrayed as particularly wicked. He is not defined as one whose wealth was gained by illegal means. He is not one of those despised tax collectors and he has not stolen anything. From the little we do know about him, we can surmise that he became wealthy by the sweat of his brow, by very honest means. He is a farmer, and his land has produced immense harvests. Truthfully, his decision to save for the future by building bigger barns does not seem all that unreasonable. He simply needs space for his abundant harvest. So, I must ask, what is wrong with saving for a rainy day?
Well, the truth is there is nothing wrong with saving for a rainy day. This rich fool’s foolishness is not necessarily about his plan to build a bigger barn. His foolishness has everything to do with his heart! His foolishness is all about the relationship he has with his money and possessions. Did you happen to notice the dialogue this man is having with himself? If we take a deeper look at the inner conversation going on within this man, it becomes rather enlightening. He says, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”
Did you notice the hubris, the focus on self, the attention and emphasis on the me, the importance of the “I”? As Episcopalian priest Anjel Scarborough points out, “In this short internal dialog, consisting of approximately 60 words, the man uses 11 references to himself with the personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘my’. If we add to this the words that reference ‘soul’ and ‘you’ as part of that inner dialog about himself, then we have 22 percent of the words in this short passage talking about, well, ‘me.’”
Yes, it is all about him. Everything revolves around him! You see, this rich fool’s foolishness has everything to do with his heart. Here we get a glimpse of this man’s spiritual illness. As my colleague says, “This man is all about the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. There are no references at all to others – not to family, friends, or those in need, and certainly no references to God. He is under the mistaken belief that all this wealth is his: it is his possession, it is in his control, and he lives with the delusion that he alone produced this wealth.” This man has much money, but the key to his heart is in his wallet and his heart is spiritually, morally, and ethically bankrupt!
Well, that is not the end of the story. His narcissistic perspective is not his only delusion. The other delusion that truly distorts this man’s relationship with his wealth is brought to light when God addresses him. God says, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Oh my! Here we get to something that is so important, something that none of us want to face. Here we get to the heart of what is really true about life, and that is the stark reality of death. It is here where the truth is revealed. You see, when we face this ultimate reality, we soon discover that no amount of wealth or possessions can save us from our own finitude. This man will die. We will die. And, you know what? Death is the great equalizer because, when we die, our net worth in dollars is really zero! And nothing, no matter how hard we try, can prevent our death. With death we discover all that we have, all that we own, all our striving to make it to the top – all of these are temporal and none of these things are of ultimate worth. None of these things will save us.
Theologian, David Schlafer, when talking about today’s gospel reading and our relationship as a community of faith with money, shares these words of wisdom:
Money serves as a kind of thermostat for issues of anxiety and control within our congregations. As the work of Edwin Friedman and Peter Steinke on family systems illustrates, money matters often reveal the true heart of a church organization, as well as of our individual households. Money is always about more than money. Our spending, our saving, and our general attitude toward material wealth are all invested with emotions and memories. A capacity to trust in God can deepen only as other matters lessen their grip in our lives. Today’s Gospel text sets that reality before us in the starkest terms. (Feasting on the Word, p. 312)
Our money and possessions are not going to save us. Yet, while we know this in our heads, our hearts have a difficult time believing this. Our anxiety over money issues controls us and determines our actions and the way we live as stewards of all that we have been given. We are anxious about our jobs, about our retirement and the way a bi-polar stock market effects our 401(k)’s, about putting our kids through school, about paying all our bills, about inflation, and so much more. As we look at our anxieties regarding money, do you see how they are all focused on the self? This internal focus on self becomes one in which the key to our hearts is in our wallets and we become imprisoned in our anxieties and our greed.
As Christians, we are called to shift our attention and emphasis away from the small, vain, egocentric self and focus outward by living into a radical trust in God. When that happens, we view wealth very differently. In fact, we begin to see that our money and possessions are not really ours at all. They all belong to God. All that we have and all that we are comes from God and really is only on loan. God invites us into a life that is greater than our anxious fear over things that have no ultimate worth. God invites us into a deeper relationship with God’s very self and with each other. God invites us into the eternal economy of God’s grace, mercy, and love – the immeasurable love we see exhibited in the self-emptying life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we see the very heart of God, and that is where we find the ultimate and lasting treasure – the key that unlocks our hearts so we can live for others, the key that enables us to live lives that are rich toward God.
Who do you trust?
Who do you allow yourself to completely relax and be yourself with?
Who do you share your deepest secrets, insecurities, questions and joy with?
Who do you know you can count on, no matter what?
Today we hear about trusting God through prayer, food and sabbath
In the story from Exodus, the Israelites have been freed from the oppressive powers of the Egyptian empire, released from Pharoah’s exhausting dictates to do more
They’re wandering through the wilderness toward the promised land
And they begin to complain
It’s been about six weeks since they fled Egypt and their memory seems to betray them
/ / /
Just before this passage they complain “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you [God] have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Ex 16:3)
It has been observed that the Israelites were taken out of the Egyptian empire at the Red Sea, but it took all of the wandering in the wilderness for the empire to be taken out of the Israelites
They long for what they perceive now as the good ‘ol days
The LORD hears their complaint, and responds with a promise and a test
The LORD promises enough to eat, and rest on the Sabbath
We see the Israelites struggle with the idea of enough
We see the Israelites resist rest
We are so much like the Israelites / / /
When the promised bread shows up in the morning
They ask, “What is it?”
Manna – literally means “What is it?” / /
We live also within a society where our food is often unrecognizable
With processed and packaged foods like hot dogs and Doritos
Our summer BBQs take on a manufactured flare
Even turkey at the deli and chicken at the meat counter are often unrecognizable from their animal source
What is it?
We, like the Israelites, struggle with knowing, and understanding
We, like the Israelites have issues with our food
The industrial revolution and our unsatiable consumption have changed us…
so the question… “What is it?”
Has been silenced within the roar of our collective appetite for more
We don’t ask “What is it?”
But continue to consume more than our portion
We don’t ask “What is it?”
As the gears of the American food economy continue to churn
We don’t ask “What is it?”
Because the empire is within us, and we are the empire / /
We are so much like the Israelites, not only about our food
But also through how we know God
The Israelites knew God, perhaps intellectually…
as the one who brought them out of Egypt
They knew God in their mind, but perhaps struggled to trust God in their hearts
They worried: what if there wasn’t enough bread tomorrow
They collected more bread than they needed, failing one of God’s tests
This denial of the limit of enough caused the bread to spoil and become foul
It stank/ / it was odius / reeking throughout camp
Many of our farming practices have also become odius … and reeking
Our denial of the limit of enough has placed such a demand on animal production, that
Factory farms now keep animals in conditions unrecognizable to their habitats
Forcing them to grow and gain weight at unprecedented speeds
Kept in crowded spaces that reek
We are like the Israelites
They knew God, but didn’t quite know God’s promises
God promises enough
God promises rest
Sabbath is not merely a demand / /
But a promise of care /
A promise of freedom… because
“Whatever you can’t rest from you’re a slave to” (Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley)
Created in the image of God, humankind needs rest
God took a sabbath on the seventh day of creation
How do we think that we are beyond needing rest?
We justify our busy selves and persuade ourselves out of “a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD” (Ex 16:23)
We think this puts us ahead
But it really makes us exhausted / / and enslaved / /
A recent study found that over 77% of working adults are currently experiencing burnout at their jobs
God promises us, and has built into creation,
time to rest… sit… dwell… stay where we are…
To STOP! / / recognize our freedom
And observe the holiness of God / /
We are so much like the Israelites
They knew God, but persisted in controlling things beyond their control
Doubting God’s promises,
and resisting God’s commandments
They thought they knew better
They thought they could ensure a more secure future for themselves
They doubted that God would continue to hear their cries and respond
They were tempted by the idea of more and better
All of this resistance and doubt creates questions about God
Who is God to them?
Maybe by controlling the bread and building their sense of security
They began to create an illusion of themselves as gods
Sabbath and limitations, or commandments, serve to reinforce that
We are not God!
“The LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The LORD has given you the sabbath” (Ex 16:28-29)
We are so much like the Israelites
How long will we reject accepting what is enough
How long will we collect and consume more than what is needed
How long will our practices continue to foul creation
How long will we push ourselves through times of rest
How long will our behaviors cause us to become exhausted and burnt out
/ / /
In the Gospel, Jesus comes to us reinforcing this message
Teaching us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread.” (Lk 11:3)
Encouraging us to “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Lk 11:9)
A challenge we face, though, like the Israelites
Living within a society that proclaims control and responsibility for all aspects of our life
Who is God to us? / / /
Can we impose limits upon ourselves
Can we accept our need to rest
Can we stop the gears of consumption and quest for more
… And let God be God…
Our lives depend on it
Creation depends on it
Wendell Barry, writer, farmer and environmental activist observes:
The industrial era at climax…has imposed on us all its ideals of ceaseless pandemonium. The industrial economy, by definition, must never rest…There is no such thing as enough. Our bellies and our wallets must become oceanic, and still they will not be full. Six workdays in a week are not enough. We need a seventh. We need an eighth…Everybody is weary, and there is no rest…Or there is none unless we adopt the paradoxical and radical expedient of just stopping.
As Christians, we have inherited the paradoxical antidote to this depressing reality which we currently face
God hears our cries
The solution lies within the promises that God rains down upon every one of us
We are not gods, but God is God
We can stop, / we can use restraint, /we can rest
We can trust… not in the empire, but in God
See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath
Amen.
This is a special musical presentation of People Need The Lord sung by Chris Lewis at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
This is a special musical presentation of Holy God, We Praise Your Name by members of the Faith Lutheran Handbell Choir (Faith Bells), Elaine Harrison, Ann Mayer, Addie Thompson and Rich Weingartner.
As we look at today’s gospel reading, I am going to start right out by saying that I think far too often Martha has gotten a bad rap. However, I have not always felt this way. So, let me explain.
I have three siblings. I have always been the studious one, while my siblings have focused on other things. I have always taken great pride in my studious work, and I frequently judged my siblings for not being as serious about their educational experience. So, when I look at today’s gospel reading from the perspective of my life, I realize that for many years I justified my actions by seeing myself as a Mary, thinking I was better because I was really choosing to do the “right” thing, the better thing, the main thing, choosing what I believed was more or most important.
For years, my understanding of this gospel story went something like this: Martha is doing her best to show hospitality to Jesus and the rest of her guests, busily working away on the food, while Mary does something very unusual. Normally in the ancient world, all the adult women would have shared in the responsibility of preparing a meal, but Mary does not do so. Instead, she intentionally chooses to quietly sit at Jesus’ feet, a posture normally reserved only for men in that ancient culture. Like a student or disciple, she intently listens to what Jesus is saying.
Well, Martha gets upset about this, and worry, anxiety and frustration bubble up within her. Tired of doing all the work while Mary sits, Martha lets her feelings be known. Instead of going directly to Mary, she goes to Jesus and reprimands him, trying to get him to tell Mary to get to work. Jesus then gently scolds Martha and seems to take Mary’s side in the dispute when he says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen it; Mary has chosen the better part.” And there you go – for years, that understanding of this story provided my justification for the way I focused on my studies!
However, I have gradually learned that, if I am going to really understand what this story is saying to us, I need to grapple with Jesus’ response. Just why does Jesus praise Mary and defend her against Martha? Is he criticizing busy work, “busy work Christianity”? In other words, is he saying to Martha, “Stop being so busily religious and start being more spiritual, like Mary?”
I think not. Martha was not doing something trivial. Showing hospitality and cooking the meal were of utmost importance. After all, being hospitable means that somebody must cook the meal and set the table. And, when I think of church life and consider some of the busy work we see in our faith community – filling our food pantries, caring for the refugees and transporting them to places they need to go, getting communion set up for weekly Sunday morning worship, sewing quilts for Lutheran World Relief, serving on Church Council, helping with Vacation Bible School, maintaining the church building, the list goes on and on – all of these are the forms love and faith take. I do not believe Jesus would say to us, “You people are preoccupied with busy work. Leave the children, the needy, the ill, the lonely behind. Come sit and meditate for a while. This is the better part.”
I believe that to get close to the real heart of this story, we must look at it within the context of where it is found in Luke’s gospel. The Mary and Martha story comes right after the Parable of the Good Samaritan which we heard last week. That parable illustrates love of neighbor – the action of the Samaritan, something the Samaritan did. Today’s story illustrates love of God, and you cannot separate the two. You cannot say, over here is the love of neighbor and over there is the love of God. No, both are intimately intertwined, mixed together, and of one piece. They cannot be separated.
There is nothing wrong with Martha’s busyness. And, quite honestly, there is something absolutely essential in showing one’s love of God and neighbor by baking the bread and slicing the potatoes, by working on our roof fundraising event, by driving one of our refugee friends to school or Immigration Court, by filling the pantries, by helping with VBS, by participating in the work of the Green Team, by practicing welcome to all who are in the margins of society. These are the ways people show love, hospitality, and care and, frankly, we could stand to see more of this. Martha’s act of service is a good and necessary thing. But, if we try to do this kind of service apart from hearing and receiving the nourishing, life-giving Word of the gospel, apart from the vision that comes from God, apart from what Nadia Bolz Weber calls the “MAIN thing,” we will finally wear down. Mary, on the other hand, has chosen to listen to the Word. Jesus, the life-giving, living Word – the MAIN thing – is present to her, right in her house. And, if she is going to love God and love neighbor, show hospitality to the stranger and care for the lost, then everything depends on hearing and trusting that Word. Making room for the life-giving Spirit of God to breathe freely into us renews our living and serving. One response is not better than the other. What matters most is the ability to discern what to do in each moment.
In this story, Martha's anxiety ridden busyness simply seems rather ill-timed. As my friend suggests, it’s not the busyness by itself that's the problem, but maybe the timing of it. Theologian, Paul Tillich, once put it this way. "There are innumerable concerns in our lives and in human life generally which demand attention, devotion, and passion. But they do not demand infinite attention, unconditional devotion, ultimate passion. They are important, often very important, for you and me and for the whole of humankind. But they are not ultimately important...."
Figuring out what is ultimately important – the MAIN thing – and putting that first is the challenge of the Gospel. In fact, when talking about today’s reading, I love the way Nadia Bolz Weber describes “the MAIN thing.” She writes:
The main thing – the thing that will not be taken away and that we (myself included) so easily forget is our sacred story. It’s a simple story, really. Even as it is unfathomable in its beauty… So here it is again…since I too often forget – there is a God who created us and all that is, this same God spoke through prophets and poets, claimed a people to be God’s own and freed them from the shackles of slavery. This same God led those people through the wilderness to a land of milk and honey, and told them to always welcome the stranger and protect the foreigner so that they could remember where they came from and what God had done for them. Then in the fullness of time, and to draw ALL people to himself, God came and broke our hearts like only a baby could do and made God’s home in the womb of a fierce young woman as though God was saying, from now on this is how I want to be known. And Jesus God kissed lepers and befriended prostitutes and baffled authority. Jesus ate with all the wrong people and on the night before he died held up bread and told us to do the same thing and he promised us so much: that he would be with us, that forgiveness is real, that we are God’s, that people matter, and that grilled fish makes an awesome breakfast. And from the tree on which Jesus hung he pronounced judgment on us all. “Forgive them Father, they know not what they are doing”.
We never do, really, we never seem to know what we are doing and sometimes we think the Bible is going to solve that for us…that a story like Jesus’ visit with Martha and Mary is going to give us a clear moral lesson so we can know what we are doing, [so we can justify what we do.] And then we think we’ve got it down and then we begin to judge the actions of others and the moment we do this we’ve once again lost the plot.
Oh, yes. The sacred story of God’s love IS the MAIN THING! We need to hear this story over and over and over again, and it can never be taken away from us because it is always forming us. As we gather around Word and Sacrament, it is always shaping who we are as God’s people, as the body of Christ. Today’s reading is not about hearing OR doing. It is about hearing AND doing. The good news is that when we sit down and eat our fill of the life-giving Word of God, when we have been nourished at this table, we will also be ready to put hands and feet, hearts and minds to work.
This is a special musical performance of Holy Thy Name by the Summer Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
Another mass shooting, another community devasted, another community deeply grieves. Supreme Court decisions that increasingly show not only a lack of care for the oppressed, but also lack of care for the earth itself. The world seems so very heavy right now. So, I needed to hear Jesus’ words today, words that always reroute us in the only direction God desires for us – the way of love and compassion for all others.
Have you ever met people who become so focused on the law that, for them, their narrow interpretation of the law is ultimate? When focus on the law – the ten commandments – becomes ultimate, the law is no longer received as gift. Then, obedience to the law becomes behavioral proof of faith. When this happens, the gospel message is no longer a word of love but one of judgement. Grace is no longer understood as God’s gift to ALL people. When law becomes our focus, then our actions must be justified by our understanding of and obedience to the law as humanly defined. Far too often, this perspective allows us to live with the illusion that we are in control. It reinforces the idea that a life of discipleship is a life marked by knowing good from evil, rather than a life of knowing God and God’s mercy and grace. The lawyer who encounters Jesus in today’s gospel reading lives and functions out of this perspective. And Jesus’ teaching today means that this lawyer’s world, as ordered by his increasingly narrow definition of neighbor, must end. You see, his definition of neighbor has been increasingly defined by the letter of the law and not by the gospel which is all about love and grace.
This lawyer, an expert in the Law of Moses – the Torah – is on a fishing expedition as he comes to test Jesus. He wants to know if Jesus will use the law in a proper way to answer his weighty question when he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by answering the question with another question. Jesus asks, “What do you think is the answer? What is written in the law? What do you read there that might address your question?” By doing this, Jesus forces the lawyer to put his cards on the table. When Jesus asks, “What do you think is the answer?” he slowly begins to reel the lawyer in. And it is as if this lawyer had been waiting for this opportunity all along because he intimately knows the law and Hebrew scriptures. So, he quickly responds by giving Jesus a comprehensive statement of proper ethical conduct as he says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus praises the answer, but he is not yet finished with this lawyer. So, he begins to pull the attorney into deeper conversation. He pulls him in to the place where proper words and proper actions meet. It is here that Jesus offers a surprisingly simple summary statement. "Do this and you will live." Well, the lawyer takes the bait. He is hooked, and he continues his lawyerly line of questioning by asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Well, never missing an opportunity to teach, Jesus responds with a story.
Now, it is important to remember that Jesus’ stories were designed to shatter perceptions and perspectives and shake people out of their mindset. The parables of Jesus were not meant to be comfortable, sweet stories. They were always meant to turn people’s thinking inside out and upside down. In fact, one theologian calls Jesus’ parables narrative time bombs designed to explode people’s minds into new awareness.
Anyway, Jesus tells the suspenseful story of a man traveling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We can surmise from the way Jesus tells this story that the traveling man was probably Jewish because this was a road going right through the heart of Judea. In his story this traveler is ambushed, robbed, beaten, stripped, and left to die in a pool of blood. And the big question is who is going to stop and help? Two experts in the law walk right on past the beaten, nearly dead man. They know the commandments to love God and neighbor. But they don’t stop to help a stranger at the point of death. The twist comes with the third traveler, a Samaritan, an outsider, a hated enemy whose religious interpretation and practices make the lawyer’s blood boil and his stomach churn. This reviled, despised Samaritan is the only one who shows the dying man hospitality, kindness, mercy, generosity, and love to the extreme. The one who is hated and reviled becomes the hero of the story and Jesus again shockingly turns social norms upside-down and inside-out!
The learned lawyer requested a definition of neighbor, and he receives a downright scandalous description of mercy, grace, and love, leaving him with the most soul-searching question of all. Of each of the characters in this story, where does he find himself and who is the neighbor?
This story does not bear the impact of parable for us because it is so familiar to us. But, if we were to reinterpret this story and understanding of neighbor for our own time, who are those we would least expect to see and comprehend as neighbor? Who are those who sit on the margins, stereotyped as being “less than” because their religious views, culture, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or even political views are different from us? Professor, author, and theologian Amy-Jill Levine, when teaching about this parable and the compassion of the Samaritan, insists,
We should think of ourselves as the person in the ditch and then ask, “Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge, ‘She offered help’ or ‘He showed compassion’?” More, is there any group whose members might rather die than help us? If so, then we know how to find the modern equivalent for the Samaritan. To recognize the shock and possibility of the parable in practical, political, and religious terms, we might translate its first-century geographical and religious concerns into our modern idiom.
Who is the one who proved neighbor? Who is the one who loved God with heart, mind, soul, and strength and loved neighbor as the self? In a lecture on this parable, before an audience who had experienced the horrors of 9/11 firsthand, Professor Levine suggested the one who proved to be neighbor was a member of Al-Qaeda. (Feasting on the Word, p. 242.)
So, for us, considering what is happening today in our culture, “Who are the ones who love God with heart, mind, soul and strength and love neighbor as self?” Wham!! Suddenly, for us, this parable begins to bear the perception shattering, explosive nature it did for our learned attorney. As we work on living together in society and community, the Samaritan lives among us by many other names, the names of any we consider enemies, any we loathe, any we consider “other”. And the big surprise is that God shows up and is present in the most unlikely, unexpected places, working through the most unexpected people – even those we may despise.
Now, our definition of neighbor is redefined. Furthermore, consider the idea that each one of us is the person in the ditch, the one who lies helpless and wounded beside the road, the one who needs to be rescued. And along comes a Good Samaritan, a Good Samaritan named Jesus – despised and rejected – he is the one who comes to save us, speak tenderly to us, tend to our wounds, lift us into his arms, and take us to the place of healing.
Today, we grieve regarding the injustice in our own culture. Our country is not practicing love. But the gospel is love, and that is what we as Christians are called to live. The gospel of love calls us to be present and to show up in the places of pain, to stand with any who are facing oppression. It is in those places of pain and oppression, under the shadow of the cross, where Jesus promises he will meet us to be present with us offering mercy, love, hope, and transformation to new life.
So, again, as we think about what is presently happening in our country, the question for each of us is who is your neighbor, who are you called to serve, to love, and be present to as neighbor? Who has been neighbor to you? Jesus Christ, the crucified one has been neighbor to you. Have you felt God’s mercy make your own heart merciful, compassionate, and loving? Then in your heart you will know what this means: Go and do likewise!
This is a special musical performance of He's Always Been Faithful by Tammy Heilman at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
On this holiday weekend as we celebrate the formation and founding of our country and our independence as a nation, we frequently find ourselves thinking about certain characteristics associated with American identity. Characteristics like individualism, invulnerability, and self-sufficiency are often celebrated. Today, in our present time and culture, we are also seeing the growing disease of extreme individualism and Christian nationalism. These malignant ideologies are not at all representative of Christianity, and they do not at all represent the Christian message or connect in any way to the teachings of Jesus. Frankly, perceptions of American individualism and self-sufficiency infuse almost every aspect of our lives, including religion. We, as a people, preserve and perpetuate the myth that we are a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life. This is reflected in so many aspects of culture. Think of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” Think of movies in which famous actors like John Wayne render a rugged brand of individualism and self-imposed justice.
As Americans, we have fallen in love with the idea of the self-made person, the rags to riches story. We have created the myth that if you make it to the top of your profession, you deserve a huge salary because you are the one responsible for getting to the top. We have this sense in which we are to live as invulnerable human beings. This rugged individual ethos permeates virtually every aspect of the way in which we think about achievement, education, work, and vocation. It infuses our understanding of how we are to live, how we should raise our children, and even the way in which we understand religion and faith. As a matter of fact, the concept of decision theology – the belief that a person must accept Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior and the idea that each individual must accept God’s gift of salvation – developed in and grew out of the 19th and 20th century American focus on individualism. When writing about the challenge of individualism in our present culture, theologian, David Lose, suggests, “this individualism we celebrate is as much a myth of the culture as is our invulnerability. The pilgrims and pioneers who settled this land were incredibly aware that their survival depended on each other. The colonies they eventually established, after all, we called ‘commonwealths,’ places where the good of any individual was inextricably linked to the good of the whole. And as Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, ‘We must hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.’” The truth of the matter is, the people who founded this country needed each other and needed community in order to survive.
It is striking to me that, on this holiday weekend as we celebrate our nation and our identity as people, we have a Bible reading that teaches us not about individualism and invulnerability. No, it teaches us about vulnerability and community. When it comes to a life of faith the reality is that the Bible paints a picture of life that rarely coincides with our culture’s most commonly held assumptions. Today, we hear the antithesis of an individualistic, self-sufficient, invulnerable way of thinking and being as we learn about Jesus sending his disciples on a mission. Jesus sends seventy disciples out and he does not send them to be self-sufficient. No, he sends them out completely unprepared! They are not permitted to have anything that might enable them any level of self-sufficiency. As a result, they go forth into this mission as vulnerable disciples; their well-being is utterly dependent on the people to whom they have been sent, some of whom will respond with hostility rather than hospitality. And you can never tell which you’re going to get until it’s too late.
I love the way this story is told in The Message translation of the Bible. We hear Jesus say the following:
“What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So, on your knees; ask the God of the Harvest to send harvest hands. On your way! But be careful – this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack. Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage. Don’t loiter and make small talk with everyone you meet along the way. When you enter a home, greet the family, ‘Peace.’ If your greeting is received, then it’s a good place to stay. But if it’s not received, take it back and get out. Don’t impose yourself. Stay at one home, taking your meals there, for a worker deserves three square meals. Don’t move from house to house, looking for the best cook in town. When you enter a town and are received, eat what they set before you, heal anyone who is sick, and tell them, ‘God’s kingdom is right on your doorstep!’ When you enter a town and are not received, go out in the street and say, ‘The only thing we got from you is the dirt on our feet, and we’re giving it back. Did you have any idea that God’s kingdom was right on your doorstep?’”
Inescapable vulnerability is implicit in the mission to which Jesus calls and sends his disciples. He sends them out in pairs, and he instructs them to rely entirely upon the hospitality of others. He sends them out two by two – this is not something they do alone as individuals. He is blunt about how difficult and dangerous this mission might be. The seventy will be going into a hostile world, yet Jesus does not arm them for battle; rather, they will go out like lambs – lambs among wolves. Jesus sends them seemingly very unprepared, very vulnerable, and quite uncertain of what they will encounter. And, no matter how hard they try, they cannot control the outcome. The outcome depends totally on God. Some of the people they visit will not share in the message and peace they offer; sometimes whole towns will reject them. But the gift Jesus gives them as he sends them out two by two is the gift of his presence – the promise that he goes with them – and the gift of solidarity they find as they work together while trusting his promise. In their working together, their hope and welfare are inextricably linked to that of those around them and those they meet. Jesus commands vulnerable dependence from his disciples as he sends them to proclaim the good news that God’s kingdom has drawn near. And, they are told to do this through relational, grateful, gracious presence and conversation.
Today’s reading is instructional for us on this holiday weekend. As we live in a world that seems to become increasingly individualistic, more “I” and “me” centered with progressively harsh edges that divide, we follow in the footsteps of the seventy messengers. We have been called as a community of people, not individuals, a community of people to share with those around us in the greater community the good news of God’s forgiveness, love, grace, healing, and peace. And, we do not work alone. Our mission is a shared mission. We work together as the community of Christ and our hope and welfare is inextricably linked to that of those around us. Together, we have been appointed to go out into the world and announce that God’s kingdom has drawn near. In fact, it is right on people’s doorstep! And we go together, remembering Jesus’ promise that he is with us, as we too invite others into this mission of which we are a part. This Jesus’ mission is one of compassion, grace, forgiveness, love, meaning, and purpose. Participating in this Jesus mission means working and living together in intimate community, becoming vulnerable, and giving up our need to control. And, quite frankly, that kind of vulnerability makes this work a lot more fun because it is then all about what God is doing and has done, and it is not about us. All we need to do is tend to the harvest God has already planted! This Jesus mission has to do with the very life of life itself because it is all about God, the One who gives life, the One who sustains life, the One who exists and is present to us as life-giving community, and the One who will ultimately bring all life to a glorious conclusion. And, I am so grateful that we get to do this Jesus mission together. Quite frankly, I find it makes this mission deeply meaningful and makes it a mission that is filled with joy.