Wise and Foolish

Sermon preached Sunday, November 12, 2023, the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, in North Chesterfield, VA. 

This is kind of an in-between time. We just had two major festivals: Reformation and All Saints Sunday. In two weeks, we’ll enter into the season of Advent…but, in the meantime, we’re back to the color of green, back to the season of ordinary time, back to quote-un-quote “Normal.” Except, not really. It’s almost as if we’re in a time of “Pre-Advent,” where our readings already have us anticipating Jesus coming into our midst in a different way.

This morning’s reading is from the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. This is the chapter right before Jesus’ passion begins. Soon, the religious leaders will be conspiring against him and finding concrete ways to bring him down. Things will begin to happen quickly as Jesus enters his last few days in Jerusalem. As the tension builds in the narrative, Jesus tells three parables about his second coming. The first is this one about the ten bridesmaids.

Does anyone know what the word “parable” means? [look for raised hands.] Para means “along side of” and ballo means “to throw.” A parable is a story used to throw two things alongside each other to make a point. In this case, the image of the bridesmaids and bridegroom is thrown alongside the anticipated kingdom of heaven and return of Christ. It’s important to keep this in mind because this is not an allegory and it shouldn’t be treated as such. It is a story used to illuminate, not to explain. If we push the parable too far, take it too literally or assign it too specifically, it will fall apart and will no longer be helpful. This is a parable about preparedness, not judgement. That’s where our focus is drawn.

So, here we have ten bridesmaids—five of them are apparently foolish and five of them wise. When we hear it, we are prone to fall prey to two temptations. The first is to self-identify as the wise, prepared bridesmaids, and believe that this parable has nothing to tell us because we’re already set to go. The second is to be terrified that we are one of the foolish bridesmaids and drive ourselves crazy trying to work ourselves into having enough oil, whatever it is oil is supposed to represent.

We become obsessed with this oil. We become obsessed with making sure we have enough: enough faith, enough good deeds, enough credits in our “respectable Christian” piggy bank to make sure we’re ready for the bridegroom when he arrives. It becomes about checking things off a list, which is exactly the kind of thing the prophet Amos takes people to task over.

Amos was writing to the Northern Kingdom of Israel not too long before they will be overrun by the Babylonians and the Israelites will be scattered and taken captive to Babylon. He warns that destruction is imminent because of their sinful behavior. He takes them to task for worshiping other gods…but, perhaps more importantly, he berates them for their treatment of the poor. They have been continuing to do the proper things to worship God: the correct rituals and the appropriate prayers, but they are lacking in caring for the most vulnerable among them.

This is why God is so angry here: “I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” (Amos 5:22) In other words, it doesn’t matter if the Israelites say the right words or perform the right actions if they fail to do the bigger, more important work of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. The Israelites figured they were doing okay, but forgot that it’s not just about following prescribed rules.

They lost sight of the big picture.

We lose sight of the big picture. We pay attention to the showier parts of our faith…but sometimes we forget about the on-the-ground work that we are called to do—the work of ushering in God’s kingdom.

We’re presented with these two groups of people in today’s parable. Our tunnel vision means that we try to figure out whether we are foolish or wise and how to be sure we have enough oil. To be honest, though, it doesn’t matter all that much which group we fall in. Both groups have things to learn. Both groups have things to teach us.

The bridesmaids with brightly lit lamps and plenty of oil are prepared. They have plenty of whatever it is oil might represent: justice, kindness, righteousness. They are ready for the bridegroom’s coming. They are ready for the Lord’s coming. It wouldn’t matter if it was delayed for even longer. The other bridesmaids have little to no oil; little to no mercy or compassion. They don’t shine light into the world but are focused in on themselves.

If we find ourselves standing with the foolish, we know that we still have time. We, here today, still have time to engage in our mission as disciples of Christ. Although the believers in Jesus’ time believed the second coming would happen in their lifetime, we know that we can no neither the day nor the hour…but as of now, as of this moment, we still have time. We have the chance to do better. We have the grace of a second chance.

And if we find ourselves standing with the wise…well, we don’t get off scot-free, then, either. I mean, to be honest, they’re not exactly showing their best colors. When the foolish come to them and ask for help, they are rebuffed. “No, you can’t have any of our oil. It’s ours and you should have thought further ahead. You don’t deserve our help.” Nice, huh?

Would we expect people full of God’s love to speak like that, to treat people like that? Or would it be more fitting for them to say, “Come with me. Perhaps I can’t fill your lamp, but we can walk together by the light of mine.” If we find ourselves identifying with the wise, it is imperative for us to remember that we are not isolated. There are people all around us who are in need of oil, in need of help. People who could use some guidance in how to live in God’s light; people who maybe want to participate in the reign of God, but need a little coaching. We cannot ignore the cries of others simply because we believe we’ve got ourselves sorted out.[1]

So even here, we see that the wise are little foolish: they are still unable to understand what their fellow bridesmaids need. And the foolish are a little wise: they recognize their deficiencies and ask for help. Which are we?

The good news is that, in the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, we’re probably a little bit wise and a little bit foolish. In the end, because of who God is, we are given all the oil we need: all the grace, love, hope, comfort, healing, and joy we could possibly require. In the end, the bridegroom arrives in due time and we can walk comfortably and confidently in the glow shining from the Light of the World.

Amen.

[1] Inspiration for this characterization and the second quote come from Fred Niedner’s notes/handout for his workshop, “Preaching Reformation, Repentance, and Renewal,” at the Institute of Liturgical Studies in 2017.

Sowing God’s Word

Sermon preached Sunday, July 16, 2023, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

Andrew and I bought our first house together back in Gettysburg in 2018. The market was competitive and one of the concessions that we made in purchasing this particular house was that the yard was completely overgrown. I mean, it was a riotous mass of weeds and overgrown shrubbery. You couldn’t even tell that there was a garage in the back by the alley—and when you finally got close enough to realize that fact, you also realized that there was a giant rosebush climbing up the walls and finding its way under the roof. The weeds were several feet high and the rest of the vegetation, flowers, and bushes, and ivy, had gotten so out of control that it was hard to even know where to start. When we had our inspection, we were even told by the inspector that the air conditioner wasn’t running very efficiently, but that was probably because the outside unit was hugged on all sides by plant life.

After several weeks of trying to do some of the work ourselves, we quickly realized it was too big of a job and hired the outdoor sexton at the congregation I was serving to clear the rest for us. He did a great job and, in the spring, he planted grass that came up really well.

I should add here that neither Andrew nor I have ever really needed to care for a yard ourselves. When I was growing up, we had people come once a week and we had automatic sprinklers. When Andrew was growing up, his dad took care of it all. So, it’s no surprise that we didn’t pay attention to how much it was raining—or not raining. We realized too late that the lawn wasn’t getting enough water once we hit July and the new grass wasn’t strong enough to hold on. Then, we also realized too late that morning glories were making their way in from the sides of our yard and were quickly taking over.

Between us not acting quickly enough, me being heavily pregnant with Owen, and Andrew’s work schedule, we pretty much lost the progress we’d made on the yard and were back at square one.

The following spring, we were determined. We were out in the yard during a lot of Owen’s naps, pulling up weeds and preparing the ground for another attempt at grass. Some of it had survived, but most of it was long gone. We pulled and dug and raked and, finally, we were ready to plant the grass seed!

As we walked around the garden center, we decided to get a motorized spreader. I mean, it wasn’t that much more expensive than the hand crank one and it would surely work better, right?

Wrong. It got congested and clogged every few minutes and made it basically impossible to use. So, what choice did we have? We needed to get the seed in the ground now, before more weeds popped back up, and before we lost the seasonal planting window. And so, we grabbed handfuls of seed and sowed, not unlike the sower in this parable.

Some of it landed on the slate path that led from the garage to our house. Some of it landed on the old tree stump. Some of it landed in a separated bed that we hadn’t gotten around to clearing out yet and was still full of weeds. And some of it landed where we wanted it to: in the midst of the already established grass and in the wide swathes dirt.

And then we waited and watched, hopeful that our work would pay off, hopeful that even if our yard wasn’t perfect, it would be a little closer than it was at that moment.

I’ve got to admit, ever since that experience, I hear this parable differently. Now, I see myself as the sower and not as the ground or as the seed.

Jesus tells us that a sower went out to sow some seed. As with all parables, this story is open to interpretation. Jesus sort of gives a partial explanation, but there is still some room to maneuver.

Here’s how I tend to hear this parable now. If the seed is God’s Word, and God’s love, and God’s grace, we, like God, are sowing it out into the universe. We sow in hope and anticipation, praying that this seed falls on good soil, soil that is receptive and that will yield much good fruit.

But this parable also reminds us that that won’t always happen. Sometimes the seed will be eaten up by birds. Sometimes it will begin to flourish but quickly die out because it lacks deep soil. Sometimes it will be scorched by the sun. Sometimes it will be choked by thorns and weeds.

I would often hear this parable and think of myself as the grown into which the seed is sown. I would wonder, “So how do I make sure I’m good soil? How to I make sure that God’s word, planted in me, will yield a hundredfold?”

The problem with this question, though, is that it misses the point of the parable. The soil, the ground, never does anything. Things happen to the seed and sprouting plant, but the ground is not necessarily the main actor.

The seed is eaten up by birds. Maybe this is like when good news is preached but someone says, “This news isn’t for you. It’s for people like me, people who do x, y, or z.”

The seed dies out because it lacks deep soil. Maybe this is like when a very shallow faith and view of God is taught. Everything in black and white with no shades of grey and no room for doubt. Any hint of uncertainty makes it all collapse.

The seed is scorched by the sun. Good news is preached, but overshadowed by the community of faith doing something to discredit itself: scandal, oppression, narrowmindedness.

The seed is choked by thorns and weeds, competing voices that argue that God is not gracious and God is not loving and God’s will is not reconciliation with all of God’s good creation.

And then the seed falls on good soil. Soil that is soft enough to allow for questions. Soil that is deep enough to bear seasons of doubt. Soil that is mineral rich enough to support and nourish and enhance faith.

The ground is not so much us, as it is the environment into which God’s word is sown, often sown by us!

When we set out to sow, we have little control over where our seed lands. But we hope. We hope and we pray that at least some of it makes it to good soil. And we do our best to cultivate an environment of good soil in our churches and in our homes and in our communities—an environment where God’s seed bursts forth into life-giving fruit.

Today’s service has a lot of additional elements added in: we are commissioning our VBS teachers and volunteers, we are welcoming new members into our midst, and we are bidding farewell to a family who has been so active the past couple of years.

In each piece, we’re celebrating sown seeds and seeds that will continue to be tossed out in hope and anticipation. We see and notice and remember ways in which faith has been planted, nurtured, grown, and brought to fruition. And we know that God will continue to be at work, here at LCOS, and in the places we go from here.

Amen.

Have Mercy on Us Sinners

Sermon preached Sunday, October 23, 2022, the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Chesterfield, VA.

Most of the time, we hear the parable Jesus tells today and are pretty sure we have a handle on it. I mean, it’s pretty cut and dry, isn’t it? The Pharisee is bad for being proud. The tax collector is good for being humble. Done. End of story. Parable interpretation finished!

But that’s not the way parables work. I’ve been making this point all summer as we’ve heard parable after parable. They are always open for more thought. They are designed to make us think. They are meant to push back against our preconceived notions and teach us something about God we may not have considered before.

When we read this parable and go with the simplest, most obvious interpretation, we are prone to fall into a trap: an us vs. them mentality or a superiority complex. It is incredibly easy to look at the Pharisee and immediately start pointing out the ways we are different, the ways we are more humble, the ways we might be more faithful. We’re nothing like that haughty Pharisee who looks down their nose at others.

All of a sudden, we start to sound like the Pharisee, even as we protest any similarities. Like the pot calling the kettle black, we are only digging ourselves in deeper as we describe how much better we are. In the words of one commentator, this might lead us to say things like:

“Lord, we thank you that we are not like other people: hypocrites, overly pious, self-righteous, or even like that Pharisee. We come to church each week, listen attentively to scripture, and we have learned that we should always be humble.” (David Lose, WorkingPreacher.org, Commentary on Luke 18:9-14)

Get it? It’s so tempting to laud the ways we are not like the Pharisee that we might end up resembling him. It’s so tempting to announce how humble we are that we end up distancing ourselves from the real and honest plea of the tax collector and don’t show any true humility at all.

Truth be told, we’re fine with aligning ourselves with the tax collector when it comes to this parable and being humble. What’s wrong with that? Humility is a virtue! But the tax collector’s humility comes from his acknowledgement of his sinfulness and we have a little more trouble with his admission: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

As Lutherans, our theology frequently admits that we are always both saint and sinner. We are redeemed children of God, but we are still prone to push God away and rely on our own ability. It’s something that is so commonly talked about that it’s easy for us to say. It’s easy for us to joke about. Saint and sinner! No problems here! Little errors become funny incidents to point to as our “sinful” side.

It’s much harder, though, to truly live into the reality of that statement. We are sinners. We are redeemed, we are forgiven, we are loved by God, but we are still sinners. This isn’t a surface designation that refers to white lies or not giving as much to someone in need as you could. This is a soul-deep, real designation.

We hurt people. We participate in unjust systems. We can be unfair, unkind, or cruel. Our indifference can negatively impact others. We can even let ourselves down by not loving who we are as God’s children.

Frankly, we don’t always like to admit just how deeply ingrained our sinfulness goes. If someone calls us a sinner in a non-joking manner, we bristle and try to defend ourselves. If we are asked to confess our sins, we immediately go for the “easy” ones, to try avoiding admitting to the ways we have turned away from God and our neighbor in very real ways.

There are so many ways that we sin. Sometimes it’s in obvious ways. A lie here, a caustic comment there. Sometimes it’s in institutional ways, like the tax collector. He is a sinner because he is colluding with the empire. He is working with the Roman Empire against his own people to collect taxes for an oppressive regime. He is stuck. He says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” but he doesn’t indicate that he plans to change his line of work. He is caught up in a systemic structure of sin and doesn’t have an easy way out.

That can happen to us, too. We may sin because we are unable to see the ways in which our actions hurt others. We may sin because our culture has always told us that something is okay, even if it harms the human family. It’s hard to understand the repercussions of even seemingly innocuous things. Something being legal or permissible doesn’t necessarily mean that it is just. In fact, it is a challenge and a struggle every day for us to recognize the ways in which our actions are complicit in the larger system of sin.

It might be the products we consume which exploit workers at different levels of the supply chain. It might be habits we’ve never examined that lead to excess waste and harm our environment. It might be an attitude of “I succeeded on my own, anyone who doesn’t isn’t working hard enough” that ignores the collective impacts of poverty, discrimination, and just plain bad luck.

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We share this plea with the tax collector. We echo his desperate prayer. “God, be merciful to us, sinners.” This is our prayer. This is also our hope: hope in God’s promise to be there for saints and sinners alike.

God’s forgiveness and God’s love is for people who follow the religious expectations and for people who cannot even bring themselves to look up to heaven out of shame. This open welcome is evident in scripture and offered freely in our worship here.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus encounters all sorts of people who others would consider unclean, or outsiders, or “too sinful.” What does he do? He talks with them, heals them, forgives them, shares meals with them, encourages them, and loves them. He offers the Samaritan woman at the well living water. He heals the ten people with leprosy. He welcomes children, who weren’t looked at as full people. He calls uneducated fishermen to be his disciples. Over and over again welcome, understanding, and love is offered.

We in turn pass that welcome on. There is no entrance exam or righteousness text to be a part of God’s community here. It doesn’t matter if you worship every Sunday or if this is the first time you’ve ever found yourself in a church. It doesn’t matter if you give ten percent of your income or one percent. It doesn’t matter if you have a strict devotional life or if you tend to pray more sporadically.

What matters is that the water in this font is for you. It is cleansing water that unites us with Christ forever. What matters is that the bread and wine on this table is for you. This is the body and blood of our God who welcomes us to the great feast.

What matters is that all of us, Pharisees and tax collectors alike, are saints and sinners, are redeemed and simultaneously in need of forgiveness. God, be merciful to us, sinners. That is our prayer. That is our hope.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Tenacious Faith of a Mustard Seed

Sermon preached Sunday, October 2, 2022, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

We don’t hear from the prophet Habakkuk that often in worship. He is considered one of the minor prophets and his book is only three chapters long. There frankly just isn’t enough there to warrant too many Sundays worth of texts.  In fact, our Lectionary only has it appear once with a possibility for a second chance if the worship planner opts for an alternate reading.

And because he’s a “minor prophet” we also don’t know much about his life. Based on clues in the text, Habakkuk lived just before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and before the Babylonians exiled most of its inhabitants. The words of this prophet speak to fear and anxiety, not knowing what will come next and crying out to God for help. As the Babylonians power rises and their threat grows, the people of Jerusalem, and the kingdom of Judah as a whole, grew concerned. Habakkuk reminds the people that faith in God is not misplaced or misguided, but rather a life-giving hope.

Habakkuk will stand at the watchpost, station himself at the rampart and will watch and wait for God to act. That is his role. That is his identity: the prophet who waits on God to do as God has promised.

This notion of identity is a bit of a thru-line in these texts. In the letter to Timothy, we hear two identities highlighted, both those of the sender and the receiver. Paul claims his own identity as an apostle and herald. Timothy is reminded that his identity is rooted in his baptism, in the laying on of hands and the gifts that were bestowed upon him in that moment.

In a couple minutes, several people who have been part of our community for a will make affirmation of their baptismal promises and they “officially” join our congregation. Charlene and Chris and Katie will affirm these promises for themselves, and Christ and Katie will also affirm the promises they made on behalf of Mason, Lucy, and Emma when they were each baptized.

These promises are not just nice things to say and then put away until we’re confirmed or until we join a congregation. They can and should shape who we are as children of God. In baptism, we promise to:

• Live among God’s faithful people
• Hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper
• Proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed
• Serve all people, following the example of Jesus,
• And strive for justice and peace in all the earth

These are big things that, when taken seriously, have a big impact on our identity.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus talks about identity, too, although the parable presented is a bit problematic. In the parable, Jesus uses a story of someone enslaved, putting the listener into the position of the slaveholder. It’s not a good look, for the listener, or, really, for Jesus as we hear it now. And enslaved person’s identity is not that of a slave, it is not that of their bondage. Their position and enslavement is not their defining feature.

But I think the point being made here is that if one embraces their identity, the works and actions that flow out of that are natural and expected. So while I don’t think this particular metaphor works with the idea of slavery, I do think it works with the idea of baptism.

So while we know that the identity of enslaved people is not their enslaved status, we can also hear in this parable the truth that there are things we are called to do because of who we are. And if who we are is a disciple of Christ, then there are actions and words and responses that fit accordingly.

This year we’ve been mostly hearing from the Gospel of Luke and I think it’s helpful to go to Luke one more time. When Jesus kicks off his ministry, he does so in his home synagogue. He takes out the scroll of Isaiah, the appointed text for the day, and reads:

¹⁸ “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’”[i]

Then, he rolls the scroll back up, hands it back, and sits down, telling everyone that this reading has been fulfilled in their hearing.

As you all hear me preach and teach more and more over the years, you’ll know that I frequently refer to these two verses as “Jesus’ mission statement.” These are the things Jesus announces that he has been sent to do—anointed to do.

And these are the things we are called to do and participate in as disciples of Christ. And if you weren’t sure, they are echoed in those baptismal promises I just read a minute ago.

It can feel a bit daunting. A lot of pressure. A lot is expected of us. But the good news is that we aren’t doing any of it without God at work in us.

What keeps us going through all of it is our faith, faith that the disciples ask Jesus for more of! “Increase our faith!” they cry. And it is a cry I can empathize with. There’s been more than once occasion when I have wanted my faith increased!

The thing is, though, faith isn’t quantifiable. I don’t think we can ever really say that someone has more faith or less faith, but I do think that faith is something that can feel deep and tangible, but also wispy and frail, depending on where we are in our life and in our journey with God.

Jesus says that, with even the faith of a mustard seed, the disciples could uproot a tree and plant it in the sea. I actually looked up mustard seed and this is what I learned: mustard is an extremely hearty plant. It’s considered a weed in many places and even considered an invasive species in California. It is tough. Not killed off easily.

So maybe this is another way of understanding what Jesus says, not about the size of their faith, but about the heartiness of it, the tenacity of it, the hard-to-kill nature of it.

As Lutherans, we baptize individuals at all ages, and most of the time, that means that infants are baptized long before they can speak, walk, or even hold their own head up!

We baptize in this way because we believe that it is God’s action and God’s action alone working in baptism and that through those waters and through God’s words of promise, God instills a seed of faith and we are grafted into this community of believers.

It is this community of believers that will hold us, support us, love us, comfort us, encourage us, and push us. And it is this community of believers that will remind us where to look when we feel like we need more faith, always pointing to the waters of the font.

When our faith is feeling wispy, we can return to baptism to remind us how tenacious it is, how tenacious God is, in never letting us go. How wonderful it is to have the faith of a mustard seed.

Amen.

[i] Isaiah 4:18-19. NRSV

One More Time for the People in the Back

Sermon preached Sunday, September 25, 2022, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA.

Okay, so you know that there are some weeks where our readings don’t have a super clear through line or theme or maybe there are a whole bunch of different things happening…but that’s not today. Today, the message is clear: wealth, unchecked and hoarded, will not lead to happiness, life, or wholeness. Not of self, not in relationship with others, and not in relationship with God.

The prophet Amos doesn’t mince words, holding up a mirror to all the ways the people of Israel reveled in their food, wine, and resources while the poor, the widows, the orphans, the stranger, are left out in the cold.

In the second reading, the letter to Timothy, Timothy is reminded that in his baptismal promises, he is committed to advocating for those who are oppressed. He is also encouraged to remind others who have riches that their true wealth is in their life of faith, in the blessings they have received from God and in the things they share with others and use for the work of God’s reign.

And, of course, there is once again a parable from Jesus, this time about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus, who is covered in sores and who longs for even a tiny bit of food that might fall from the rich man’s table. Instead, he dies and, while he his carried away by angels to be with Abraham, the rich man also dies and is sent to Hades where he is in terrible torment.

The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them and Abraham’s response makes a good point: you and your brothers have already had all the law and the prophets, you’ve already had God’s Word, why would they listen if someone came to them from the dead?

I feel like we can hear Jesus speaking directly to all of us—the listeners then and each of us now—saying basically the same thing: you have been told, through scripture, through the words of the prophets, living and dead, that the love and idolization of wealth is a path of death.

And it’s not a path of death because God makes it so, but rather because when money, when wealth, when power becomes the ultimate goal, we lose relationships, we lose love, we lose compassion, we lose all the parts of life that make life worth living.

This juxtaposition of wealth and power against deprivation and oppression was especially on display the past week. We witnessed one of the most opulent funerals, probably of our lifetime, filled with pageantry and pomp and just massive amounts of money spent. We also continue to hear stories from around the world that highlight those wealth inequities. Pakistan still has huge swaths of land underwater. Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico, causing devastation of homes, businesses, and crops. In our own backyard, we hear stories of how rising prices continue to squeeze wallets and force families to make impossible decisions.

I don’t have super strong feelings one way or the other about Queen Elizabeth II, or about the English monarchy in general. I do, however, have strong feelings about well-done liturgy, and so I watched several clips over the past few days of the service, wanting to hear the music, the homily, the prayers.

And you know what? Strip away the trappings of royalty, of wealth, of power, of status…the service itself, at its core, was almost identical to the service I would officiate for any one of you at the time of your death, or, since I hope not to do any of your funerals any time soon, identical to any number of services I’ve done in my years of ministry.

The words of scripture are the same. The prayers are the same. The hope that those who loved and now mourn this great monarch need to hear is the same hope that every grieving person of faith has to hold on to.

The gospel reading that Queen Elizabeth selected for her service? John 14:1-9a. The passage where Jesus reminds us that there are many dwelling places prepared for us and that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Easily two-thirds of the funerals I’ve done have featured this reading. Not because it’s required, but because it means deep and abiding comfort to people in pain.

I mention this because it’s worth repeating: when it comes to our who we are at our core, our deepest and truest identity is a beloved child of God.

No matter our title, how much money we have in the bank, the size of our house, the amount of food in our pantry—no matter any of it, we are God’s children, not any better or worse, not any higher or lower. We all make up the body of Christ. When one part is hurting or deprived or weakened, it doesn’t matter how well others are doing, the whole body is.

So, what does that mean for how we live?

It means that any way of thinking that is “us-them” or “me first” is antithetical to reign of God. We are called to look around and see who isn’t currently at our table, look for who is sitting outside the gate, hoping for scraps—and we are not called to offer them scraps, but to invite them inside, care for them, and welcome them to a seat at the table.

It can be so tempting to focus merely on ourselves, to only make sure that we have what we need, even if it’s at the expense of others. But when we do that, we ignore our siblings in Christ.

Even across two thousand years, the parable of Lazarus and Rich Man still has the same sense of urgency and irony. Like the Rich Man, we have heard, over and over again what God is calling us to do with the wealth and resources we have been made stewards of. And, like the Rich Man, over and over again, we too often opt to secure power, privilege, and prosperity for ourselves, maybe tossing a proverbial bone to Lazarus, but never taking the real message to heart.

So today, we hear it again.

And today, we are reminded again of what Moses and the prophets have to tell us.

The challenge is, what are we going to do about it?

Will we strive to change the way we live, the way we think about our money, the way we treat others who have less?

Or will we nod attentively, then shrug our shoulders and turn back in ourselves?

The question is there. The urging of God is there.

What are we going to do?

Amen.

The Way We Use Our Wealth

Sermon Preached Sunday, September 18, 2022, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

If I were to rank the parables of Jesus from the most confusing to the most clear…this parable about the “shrewd manager” would be right up, if not at the top of the list.

The first time I can really remember reading it was when I was in college, working at camp one summer. The curriculum that year was using this parable for one of its daily themes about justice. In the materials to create bible studies, it was clear that the curriculum writers wanted us to talk about forgiving debts, like how the manager cuts the debts of the people he encounters to ingratiate himself with. And, okay, I can get that.

But still, I have always had a very hard time getting past this notion that Jesus might be calling us to dishonesty or underhandedness, even if the final results are good. Do the ends really justify the means?

Some of the trouble here, I think, comes with the translation. When we hear “shrewd,” we usually have a lot of negative connotations: underhanded, conniving, sneaky. When I look at my Greek New Testament and find this word, I see only “wise” and “clever,” with none of that negative baggage. Even the word in verse nine translated as “dishonest” is more commonly translated as “unrighteous” or “unjust” in other places in Luke’s Gospel—it doesn’t make the manager’s actions right, but it does adjust the hearing.

As I mulled over these things and gathered with other pastors and deacons in text study this week, one of them lifted up a really helpful passage from a book they’ve been reading. The book is “The Voice of Luike: Not Even Sandals,” by Brian McLaren. It’s a paraphrase of the Gospel of Luke with devotional notes.

This is how McLaren chooses to re-tell the story. See if you can hear how it shifts:

“Once there was a rich and powerful man who had an asset manager. One day, the man received word that his asset manager was squandering his assets.

The rich man brought in the asset manager and said, ‘You’ve been accused of wrongdoing. I want a full and accurate accounting of all your financial transactions because you are really close to being fired.’

The manager said to himself, ‘Oh no! Now what am I going to do? I’m going to lose my job here, and I’m too weak to dig ditches and too proud to bed. I have an idea. This plan will mean that I have a lot of hospitable friends when I get fired.’

So the asset manager set up appointments with each person who owed his master money. He said to the first debtor, ‘How much do you owe my boss?’ The debtor replied, ‘A hundred barrels of oil.’ The manager said, ‘I’m discounting your bill by half. Just write 50 on this contract.’ Then he said to the second debtor, ‘How much do you owe?’ This fellow said, ‘A hundred bales of wheat.’ The manager said, ‘I’m discounting your debt by 20 percent. Just write down 80 bales on this contract.’

When the manager’s boss realized what he had done, he congratulated him for at least being clever. That’s how it is: those attuned to this evil age are more clever in dealing with their affairs than the enlightened are in dealing with their affairs!

Learn some lessons from this crooked by clever asset manager. Realize that the purpose of money is to strengthen friendships, to provide opportunities for being generous and kind. Eventually money will be useless to you—but if you use it generously to serve others, you will be welcomed joyfully into your eternal destination.”[i]

Parables are meant to be open for debate, discussion, and interpretation, and McLaren’s retelling of Jesus’ words here helped me to break this parable open in a new way.

If we think about most of Jesus’ parables, we tend to think about them allegorically, right? Jesus tells the story and we assign the roles of God, or Jesus, of the righteous or the unrighteous, of the ones who “do the right thing,” who we connect ourselves to, and “the ones who do the wrong thing,” who we connect anyone but ourselves to.

But the more that I think about this parable, the more I am convinced that trying to allegorize it is a fatal error. The only redeemable characters here are the people who have their debts reduced. The rich man doesn’t seem to care that he is holding people in debt and, when his manager goes behind his back, he takes this as a good sign, that now this manager’s cleverness can be put to good use for him. The manager, yes, reduces people’s debts, but he does it either to hurt the rich man, who will now have to honor those debt reductions or lose face, or to save himself when he is fired. Do we want God to stand in for either of those people? Do we want ourselves to stand in for either of them?

I don’t know about you, but for me, the answer is no.

And so I get much more out of this parable not using it as an allegory, but instead using it as a way of understanding God’s bigger picture. Parables teach us something about God and this story teaches us about how God would prefer we use our money and think about our money.

The manager uses and manipulates money and wealth to create relationships with others so that when he is without a job he will have people who will take him in. If even an unrighteous man like this can use wealth to build relationships, why can’t we?

We can use the resources we have to create and strengthen relationships, to build community, and to support one another.

The Gospel of Luke does not shy away from these conversations about money and the underlying theme is always that money, wealth, these treasures we have on earth, are not actually ours. They are God’s, given to us to stewards and shepherd for a period of time.

And because it all belongs to God, it is not our job to hoard what we have been entrusted with, or to enable unsustainable and damaging debt because it might line our pockets. No, what we have has been given to us to serve one another, to support the Body of Christ, and to care for our fellow human beings and the fullness of God’s creation.

As a congregation, we see that play out in the ministries that this congregation supports, ministries like Richmond Friends for the Homeless, our food pantry’s, Lutheran World Relief, and more.

Beginning next Sunday, several members of LCOS are going to be sharing with you about why they, personally, feel it is important to give back to God and to their community. Each of them will have their individual and personalized reasons and passions, but I imagine that there will be a connecting thread that ties back to this idea: because God gave it first.

We give because God gave first.

We forgive because God forgave first.

We love because God loved first.

Everything we have and everything we are, because God was generous first.

Amen.

[i] Brian McLaren, The Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2007) 111-112.

When God Finds Us

Sermon Preached Sunday, September 11, 2022, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, in North Chesterfield, VA.

How do you react when you get lost? It doesn’t happen to me often anymore, thanks to the GPS on my phone, but everyone once in a while by phone loses signal, or the address I type in is not actually the place I’m supposed to go. My reaction to getting lost varies. On my good days, I think of it as an adventure and laugh about the situation. I roll with the punches and eventually find my destination just fine, cracking a joke about why I was delayed. On my bad days, I’m a wreck. I get worried that I’m going to run out of gas without finding a gas station, or that I’m going too far in the wrong direction and will be far too late when I finally arrive at my destination. These are the days that usually end up in tears of frustration and hoping desperately for anything that will help me get to where I’m going.

I think that last bit is human nature: when we’re lost, we will take hold of anything that might get us home: a sign with a street name that sounds vaguely familiar, a convenience store that we’re pretty sure we had passed before, a car ahead of us that we think might be going to the same place. We put our faith in these wispy connections and hope for the best.

I can’t take this metaphor too far without it falling apart, but there are so many other ways that we are lost. There are so many times that we look around and have no idea what we’re doing, or who we are with, or where we are. There are so many times when the way forward is unclear or unknown and we are genuinely lost. Lost in our personal lives, in our jobs, in our health, or in our faith. Lost in the sense that up suddenly becomes down and east becomes west and nothing is clear.

When we are lost like this, we look for signs, we look for something to help us. Not unlike when we are lost while driving, we search desperately for anything that could get us to where we want to be, that is, no longer lost. Anything is better than nothing, even if it means doing more harm than good.

I think you might recognize some of these landmarks and signs we search for. It might be a friendship that we think can make us more exciting or more popular, but is actually toxic and harmful. It might be a job that has a great salary but causes us to compromise our values. It might be an abuse of alcohol or drugs which seems to make us feel whole in the moment, but leaves more damage behind. It might be a false gospel of prosperity which promises that if you believe enough, you will become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams, but has no words of truth or comfort when that money doesn’t come.

Do you know what all of these things really are? Do you realize what these things become? Idols.

When we hear the word “idols” we usually either think of a singing competition on Fox, or we think of our ancient ancestors in the faith who struggled and made idols when they were lost in the wilderness. God brought up the Israelites out of Egypt, but they grew restless. They grew tired of wandering around, lost. They got fed up with their leader, Moses, and thought they knew better than God.

Then they had an idea: create a new god, an image of a calf that they can worship and make sacrifices to and then this god will help them find their way. This god, unlike the God of their ancestors, will save them from being lost. This was their idol, the thing that they loved more than God.

That’s exactly what our idols are, too: things we love more than God, things we trust more than God. And so, when we’re lost and we put our faith in alcohol or a job or another person or a false gospel, we are making these things idols. We are putting them above God. We are making God a secondary character and believing that our salvation can come from somewhere else.

I think it’s important to point out that God does not take this lightly in Exodus. In scripture, we read how God is incredibly angry with the Israelites and plans to punish them with a wrath that will “burn hot against them.” This is how seriously God takes it when we seek life and salvation from somewhere else. But Moses intervenes and pleads with God to have a change of heart. Moses reminds God of the promise that God had already made to multiply the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and give them land to inherit. God remembers this promise and relents…and God continues to remember.

God remembers this promise when the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus in our Gospel text from Luke, grumbling about his behavior. They accused him, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” This statement is supposed to be shocking, but for we who are followers of Jesus, it is no surprise. Of course, he welcomes sinners and eats with them. God made a promise to forgive, to love God’s people, no matter what, and that includes people labeled “sinner.”

I should point out here, too, because I frequently need to be reminded, that we are all sinners. This is not a distinction that we can use to separate ourselves from people who we want to think are worse than us. As human beings, we are simultaneously saint and sinner and have the enormous capacity for both destruction and creation in equal measure.

And so, when the Pharisees and scribes try to disparage and vilify Jesus by saying that he welcomes sinners and eats with them, Jesus doesn’t let it be an insult. Jesus doesn’t let them dictate what his actions mean, and he takes control of the narrative. Jesus tells the story of a lost sheep and the shepherd who goes off to find it. Then he tells the story of a woman who loses one of her ten coins and turns her home upside-down until she finds it. And he reminds them of God’s promise of love and forgiveness, even if he doesn’t use those words: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

And there’s more good news here, too! Not only does Jesus welcome sinners, as the religious leaders say, but his parables highlight the fact that he seeks them out. No matter who lost we are, no matter how many idols we may make for ourselves, no matter how bound in sin we are—God comes searching for us. God will turn the house upside-down to find us. God will search through hill and vale to track us down. And—this is the best part! —and when God finds us, there is not recrimination or condemnation, but rejoicing! God’s reaction to finding us after we have been lost is not to punish us, but to celebrate and remind us why we need no idol when we have our God.

The Pharisees and scribes got upset because Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them…Jesus still does that. Every week. Every week at this table, Jesus welcomes me, Jesus welcomes you, Jesus welcomes us, sinners, and reminds us that we are never so lost that we cannot be found by God. And every time Jesus meets us here, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.

Amen.

How Do You Approach the Table?

Sermon preached Sunday, August 28, 2022, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, in North Chesterfield, VA.

I think all people suffer from an internal disconnect. I believe that, at least occasionally, we are able to completely distance ourselves from reality and accept a fiction we create for ourselves. There is often this great chasm between the way we think we behave, or that we want to behave…and then there is the way we actually behave.

In my mind, I am the most gracious of creatures. I am a paragon of virtue and charity. I always give up my seat for someone else. I am always generous with my money, giving it freely to all who are in need. I am always looking for a way to “pay-it-forward” while quietly turning down any recognition. I am constantly humbling myself in service to others.

This is in my mind. This is how I want to be. This is the occasional “Instagram” image of myself, the one picture with the perfect lighting at just the right angle that shows the right balance between nonchalance and aspiration…not the version that I took fifteen pictures of before deciding to delete them all.

Because the reality is, I struggle. I struggle a lot. As much as I want to be that model person, I fail quite often. I sometimes resent the person who sits next to me on the plane because they’ve forced me to move my bag off their seat. When I go to see a movie, I get there early enough to camp out the best seat in the theater before anyone else can. I am tempted to avoid doing some things because it will be difficult or servile and I would rather have someone doing things for me! When it comes down to it, I’d much prefer being at the head of the table than at the foot. I like the status, the authority, the power and glory of being seen and lifted high.

This is where that disconnect comes in. Jesus talks about this table where some take the lowest seats and some take the highest. Frankly, as much as we want to be the ones who choose right away to humble ourselves and sit at the lowest seat, we are much more often the ones fighting to snag a seat at the highest in some status-making version of musical chairs.

Some may not agree with this characterization. They will say to me, “I would never fight to sit at the head of the table! I would willingly sit at the foot.” But I tell you, this desire to exalt ourselves can be more a lot more insidious than we think. It isn’t always so apparent. Maybe we will sit at the lowest, and tell ourselves that it’s out of pure altruism. We’re doing it because we are humble and we do want to serve others…but in fact it’s just the opposite. We hear Jesus tell us those who humble themselves will be exalted and we hear it as directions instead of a mere statement of fact. We hear it and think, “Aha! That’s what I’ve got to do. I’ll humble myself and then I’ll for sure be exalted later. Brilliant.”

Do you see? For many of us, becoming humble is more of a means to an end than a true way of living. It’s sort of like the publicity stunts politicians or other public figures sometimes do. Maybe they really do want to feed people at a soup kitchen or clean up trash in a run-down neighborhood…but I’m sure they are also thinking of the photo-ops and good press they’ll get out of it. This isn’t the way we are called to live. We shouldn’t be taking the lower spot with the goal of being asked to “move up.”

Jesus’ words at this dinner in Luke’s Gospel have to do with finding one’s “place.” Where do we belong? Who do we belong with? What place will we have? I think about school beginning and remembering those first few days. It’s stressful, coming into a classroom and figuring out where your “place” is. At recess and lunch, where is your “place”? What people will you be with, where will you sit? It’s an important decision!

It doesn’t change all that much as we get older, does it? All kinds of places become important. Our place in line at the grocery store. Our parking spot at work. The place our office is located. The neighborhood we live in. The best seat at a table in a restaurant. Where we are located says a lot to the world around us about who we are, what our status is.

We are so concerned about having the better place…when in fact it is more about the people we may encounter at whatever place we take. When we take our place at the foot of the table, at the lowest place, we are surrounding ourselves with the people Jesus so often had around him: the outcasts of society, the ones considered “unclean,” the ones others loved to ignore or revile. Jesus even summarizes who some of these people are when he outlines who to invite to a banquet: the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.

Why these people? I think there are two reasons: first of all, as I said before, these are the people who would normally be overlooked. As invitations go out, there wouldn’t be any desire to “sully” an otherwise nice evening with an undesirable guest. The other reason is laid out pretty clearly by Jesus. He says, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.” (Luke 14:12) We invite the outsiders and outcasts because they are welcomed even without the possibly of repayment. There is no greater sign of hospitality than giving to others without expecting reciprocity.

Jesus talks about meals while having a meal. It’s a pretty common staple in Luke. There are ten stories about Jesus sharing meals with friends and foes alike. There is a reason, then, that a meal is one of the places we meet God. Every week, we meet God in a holy meal around this table.

Christ is the host of this meal. It is Christ’s table. At our best, we are stewards and shepherd of God’s gifts. At our worst, we are gatekeepers and hoarders.

Jesus is the host of this table, but we like to think that we are. We like to play host. We like to invite people who are like us: who look like us, who are in the same socio-economic circles, who agree with us about things, big and small—or, more often, people who can do things for us.

As a church, we often talk about being welcoming or wanting more members, but we often have some unspoken caveats: we want new people if they want to do things the way we already do them and if they have money to put in the offering plate. We want them to bring something more to the table than just the essence of who they are. If not, our warm welcome sometimes get a little chillier.

There is another way. As followers of Christ we are called to live out “radical hospitality,” the notion that since every person is a child of God, every person is welcome in this place and at this meal—just because they are. Just because they are.

The invitation is there, let’s make it explicit. All are invited and, in the end, no one is seated any lower or any higher than one another. We are all together, on equal footing, shoulder to shoulder, gathered around this meal of bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ.

After all, it’s not our table, it is Christ’s table.

And all are welcome here. You are welcome here.

Amen.

The Great Feast

Sermon preached Sunday, October 11, 2020, the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

There’s a lot of imagery that shows up over and over in scripture: water, for example, is all over the place. So is light. Or shepherding. In fact, I have an entire book in my office dedicated to the top twenty-five images reflected in the Bible.

This morning, we get to hear about one of them: the image of the feast.

From Isaiah:

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

  a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,

  of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” (25:6)

And Psalm 23:

 ”⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.” (23:5)

And, of course, from the Gospel:

“Then [the king] said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (Matthew 22:8-10)

Although the details and the surrounding narrative or poetry is different, all of these texts share some common themes—namely, a feast is going to be spread by God. A feast made up of the finest foods and richest drinks there are and this feast will be perpared and offered to all, regardless of merit or status. As a seminary friend of mine put it, “God’s abundant goodness on full display at the end of the age.”

This is certainly good news…but it is dampened by the details that accompany the imagery in the parable Jesus tells. These details—the violence, the murders, the casting out to where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth—these details we’re tempted to gloss over or set aside because they don’t sit well. But we can’t ignore. We must acknowledge and struggle and search for the through-line of God’s love and grace. Eugene Peterson encourages readers of the Bible to acknowledge its complexity: “Eat this book,” he writes, “it will be sweet as honey in your mouth; but it will also be bitter to your stomach. You can’t reduce [scripture] to what you can handle; you can’t domesticate [it] to what you are comfortable with.”

This parable is an excellent example. “Even as it alludes to God’s expansive welcome and indiscriminate generosity, the story also depicts God in a troubling light. Is God the kind of king that reacts to a snub with outrageous violence, letting his son’s wedding dinner get cold while he wages war against those who’ve declined to show up? Is God the kind of king that burns his own city to the ground in order to destroy his neighbors? Is God the kind of king that inspects his guests’ attire, seizing and expelling anyone who doesn’t meet his high standards (in spite of the late and unexpected invitation)? If this is God’s nature, then the joy of God’s great and promised feast is dampened a little, isn’t it?” (Rev. Nate Sutton, Sermon for October 11, 2020)

I’ve said several times over the past several weeks that we can’t take the parables of Jesus as straight metaphors or allegories. They’re too complicated for that. And, in this case, it’s especially important. The king’s severe reaction is exaggerated for effect and certainly more impetuous than we would hope God’s might be. In other words, the parable “doesn’t mirror the truth so much as it evokes it,” to borrow a phrase from another preacher.

As we contend with the king’s shocking violence and strange hospitality, it’s helpful, first of all, to keep Matthew’s context in mind. Many interpreters believe, for instance, that the image of the burning city reflects the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in the year 70, a devastating event for Israel that is in plain view as Matthew writes his Gospel. Moreover, Matthew’s community of Jewish Jesus followers is marginal and likely alienated from their synagogue, another significant loss.

This speculation might allow us to have some empathy for Matthew’s version of the story, recognizing that there’s fresh trauma there. How does the evangelist make sense of the changing landscape of Judaism at the end of the first century and his community’s place in it? What does it mean to be invited to God’s great banquet in light of the terror and turmoil all around them? What kind of responsibility does discipleship imply?

That last question leads us to examine the jarring conclusion to Jesus’ parable, the expulsion of the wedding guest on account of his failure to dress for the occasion. It’s a bit unjust, isn’t it? How could this guest have known he would be invited? Why should he have been prepared at a moment’s notice? Yet, if the message trumps the logic of the parable, then the significance of the wedding robe can’t be overlooked.

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,” the apostle Paul writes, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” God’s invitation to the feast implies a commitment: to be clothed with Christ, to put on the garment of our baptism as a sign that we’ve been changed. God’s love has made us lovers; and if our cups are running over, then they overflow to others.

So, come to the banquet, friends. Come at the invitation of the one who is both the host and the meal itself. Clothe yourselves with his love, and receive his life given and poured out for you, a feast of rich food and well-aged wine. Then, filled with the good things of God, go feed the world with a word of hope, the promise of the feast to come, where all peoples will gather at God’s invitation, where none will hunger and thirst, where God will wipe away every tear and swallow up death forever.

Amen.