It is common during the season of Lent to read and meditate on the passage before us this morning, of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Clearly, the 40 days in the wilderness is meant to evoke the image of God’s ancient people, Israel, wandering for 40 years in the wilderness - you may remember that those four decades come, remarkably, on the heels of their dramatic exodus from the chains of slavery. Tragically, having been set free from slavery in Egypt, God’s people of old exhibited the oh-so-human tendency to forget about God’s goodness, faithfulness, and love, about his power to redeem and about his concern that we humans live our lives in a certain kind of way that brings God’s goodness, peace, and justice to bear in this fallen world in a pattern that makes for human flourishing, our own and others. But the wilderness generation was just like the rest of us when they were showing what it looks like to be a broken and sinful people. They were demonstrating that the human condition is universally a broken mess; this mess is sometimes given the label, original sin. However, when we hear language like, original sin, it can be tempting to think of it as some sort of abstract concept like, in the words of one theologian, “a great metaphysical curse hanging over humanity”. But it is probably more helpful to talk about it in this way: Rowan Williams goes on to say, “there is a tangle that goes back to the very roots of humanity.... In humanity's history, the ingrained habit of turning inwards, turning in upon ourselves, is passed on. We learn what we want.... by watching someone else wanting it and competing for it. Before we begin to make choices, our options have been silently reduced in this way.... Our learning how to exist is mixed in with learning what does not make for our life or our joy. And every failure and wrong turn in the history of a person as in the history of our species locks us more and more firmly into ourselves. No wonder we drift further from peace, become less and less free to give. Something needs to reverse the flow, to break the cycle..... Only a human word, a human act will heal the process of human history; it isn't ideas and ideals that will do this, but some moment in history when relations are changed for good and all, when new things concretely become possible.”
That human act is Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His human success in loving God in the wilderness is the beginning of that reversing of the flow that Williams talks about above. Jesus’ mission can be summarized in many ways but one way of talking about it is to say that he came to pioneer a new humanity, to put human beings in proper relationship with God and with each other by being in proper relationship to God and to his fellow human beings. (Ultimately, this mission would entail his death on the cross, which would also accomplish the forgiveness of ou sins. ) But back to the passage at hand: as a human being, his “saying no” to the devil in the wilderness is the first time a human had said an unmitigated yes to God since Adam’s and Eve’s fall from grace.
As the new Adam, the first representative of the New Exodus, he enters into the darkness of temptation in the wilderness so that we might know that he is near to us in our darkest moments. In our dark moments, he is there to break our cycles of self-destruction, to help us love others as we are meant to, to enable us to forgive those who hurt us, to be peacemakers in our families and communities. How about you and me this morning? Are you in the midst of a cycle that needs to be broken? If so, and we often are, Jesus is near you in your temptation and he is there to break that cycle for you and with you. Is there something in your life that you need to name and of which you need to repent hat is taking away your freedom to love others as you are meant to love them and want to love them? If so, Jesus is near to you and wants to help; will you ask him? Is temptation to bitterness and envy threatening not only to steal every ounce of joy from your life but ruin your friendships and work relationships? Have pride and self-sufficiency kept you from turning to God to ask him to help you grow into the person he wishes you to be? In all of these dark patterns, Jesus is near to you in any and every moment of your struggle to say yes to God; he is there to help you.
When you come to this communion table this morning, remember, “God has heard the cry of his people”. He is drawing near you - not in harsh judgment but in sympathetic love and with the power to redeem.
There are many different ways to summarize the gospel but one way to talk about it is as the response of God to the cries of those who are trapped in slavery. Slavery can take many forms. We talked about spiritual slavery, so to speak, before communion but the spiritual is never sealed off from the physical in scripture and God cares about what we do (and what others do) to our physical bodies.
The form slavery took among God’s ancient people at the time of the great Exodus from Egypt is similar to a great deal of the slavery that still goes on today. As I am sure most of you know, heinously, many millions of people today experience slavery through human trafficking, and various forced labor scenarios. It happens in the United States more than anyone usually wants to talk about; the most terrible and terrifying examples have to do with the trafficking of minors in prostitution - the ads for sex trafficking make media companies wealthy (e.g. lots of classifieds owned by ‘reputable companies’). What an awful situation!
When Jesus announced that he is preaching good news to the poor and to those who are
enslaved he has in mind people suffering at the margins of society and those who cannot really do much if anything to help themselves. He has in mind the people among us in the world today who are radically poor, enslaved, or at the margins of our world. One of the things that I wanted us to think about - and feel - on the way to communion this morning was that the good news of God’s coming kingdom is MEANT to feel liberating and compassionate to you. But how does that work out for those who are modern day slaves, or trapped in deep, multi-generational poverty. With regard to these people, we who have power and wealth have a large measure of responsibility as to whether or not we have made the gospel to be good to news to the poor or the exploited. Those of us with status and power must realize that the reason we have the resources of the world is to share them with those who do not. It is tempting to try to prescribe how to play this out in details but really I think with most of us we need to acquire or reacquire the discipline to realize moment by moment that we are here on this earth to join with Jesus on mission, to help those who have less than we do and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
1. As mentioned above, Jesus’ unmitigated yes was the first in human history since “the fall”. What has Jesus’ yes made possible for us who are united in his life, death and resurrection? Maybe framing your answer in response to this passage would be an interesting exercise. Romans 6:1-7.
2. If we are free to say yes to God in Christ, why don’t we always say yes? Perhaps you might frame your response to this in light of this passage: 1 John 1: 5-10
3. In light of what was drawn out in the two meditations above, why is it important to know that Jesus has given us the power to say yes to God?
4. Can you think of something new you can do that will make the gospel to be good news for the poor and exploited?
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
the blind leading the blind
Psalm 100 Call to Worship
Romans 12:9-18 Lesson 1
Luke 6:37-42 Lesson 2
As we mentioned last week, Lent is not so much a season to come up with epiphanies (little liturgical humor there - very little) at least not epiphanies of things we have never thought of before Rather, it is a time to wake up to what we know but what we don’t often apply in our lives. For example, we know that we are meant to be people who are joined to Jesus in his movement to reconcile people to God and to each other but we, ourselves, often prefer to brood over the wrongs we have suffered than desire to be energized to reconcile and see people hopefully. Sometimes we even get addicted to a sort of grinding pathology whereby we only look at peoples faults, rather than the good God is doing in their lives. It is hard to move in the direction to being at peace with people, as our first lesson exhorts us this morning, when you look at people that way. What helps is to remember that if we are to make any progress at all in this regard we must be disciplined to see people the way that God sees them, through the lens of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection - to see them in a new context, the context of his love for them and the future he has promised to them. If you do that you will be more likely to have your default set to desiring to love and forgive others as God has loved and forgiven you.
There may have been a twinkle in Jesus’ eye when he said the proverb about the blind leading the blind, because that little saying, together with the story of the log and the speck, are meant to conjure funny mental images which, in turn, would be easy to remember. The blind leading the blind really is like something out of the British comedy troupe, Monty Python. Think of it like this: a blind person says to the person sitting next to him in the village square, “hey I need to go to my next social appointment, would you guide me?” The fellow says, “yes, certainly”, but the joke is on the first guy - because the guide ends up being blind too and off into the ditch they go.
Now, the first thing to note about this little story is that it is meant to be confrontational to a certain way of approaching life. It is not offered as an abstract principle about how to choose good teachers, though it is adaptable in that way; it is rather a warning to Jesus’ followers that if they continue approaching their life with each other and God according to the way the current religious leadership of the day were teaching them, they were going to end up in the ditch. Jesus was saying that those who opposed his message of God’s grace and love for all people were blind and should not be followed. Follow the Pharisees and you end up not being able to get past their blindness which is what is meant by the comment about a student not being able to get past her teacher.
What follows in our text from Luke is a description of the way in which many of Jesus’ rival teachers were approaching human relationships and, in turn, their relationships with God. What a depressing image of a community we have here: a group of people who are bent on pointing out the faults of others, presumably in order to feel better about their own lives.
(You may remember from last week, the story of the good Samaritan, wherein the religious leader was seeking to justify himself by attempting to gain a definition of who qualified as his neighbor, a definition that would would make being a neighbor manageable, so to speak. However, Jesus disturbs him and his approach by telling the story that makes it plain that the neighbor can be anyone and anywhere. That seems to be a common theme among Jesus’ opponents, a desire to smugly justify themselves through an adherence to a manageable moral code and a manageable approach to ritual purity, all the while ignoring the condition of their hearts. Jesus said elsewhere of that approach that it was like straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel.)
Here in our text today Jesus exposes the condition of the human heart by drawing, with his words, a cartoon that describes the way we often are with people. The little picture he draws is potent! I mean it really does look silly, right? Someone is running around with a log jutting out of his eye who, instead of being worried about the log, is more worried about what he perceives to be a bit of sawdust in his neighbors’ eye. What an absurd vision but I bet it describes all of us at one time or another.
When we desire to hold power over others based on our perception of their faults, rather than being so aware of our own sins and of God’s love for us in spite of them, we can become addicted to that way of looking at others. Eventually, having only an interest in appearing to be better than others, we lose sight of the darkness in our own hearts and become numb to God’s love - what a mess!
What is the cure for this? what keeps us from running amok in that way? Well, a bit later in the gospel, Jesus says that we are to build on a firm foundation. That firm foundation includes a daily confession that Jesus was right when he said, in so many words, over and over again, that God “does not forgive us because we are good but he makes us good by forgiving us (Rowan Williams).” May that gospel truth lead us out of the ditch of self-righteousness and into the hospitable path of God’s love for all people. There is your firm foundation!
1. Have there been occasions for you where you realize that you have desired to look at people first and foremost in the context of their faults? What alarm bells go off in your head and heart when you head in that direction? Do you listen to the alarm bells?
2. Should you feel free to point out the sin of someone else? If so.....
Under what circumstances should you do that? What gives you the justification to do that? What should you say? How should it be done?
3. Is it ever right to confront someone else about something they have done wrong without leading off by choosing something appropriate to confess as a weakness or sin of your own?
Romans 12:9-18 Lesson 1
Luke 6:37-42 Lesson 2
As we mentioned last week, Lent is not so much a season to come up with epiphanies (little liturgical humor there - very little) at least not epiphanies of things we have never thought of before Rather, it is a time to wake up to what we know but what we don’t often apply in our lives. For example, we know that we are meant to be people who are joined to Jesus in his movement to reconcile people to God and to each other but we, ourselves, often prefer to brood over the wrongs we have suffered than desire to be energized to reconcile and see people hopefully. Sometimes we even get addicted to a sort of grinding pathology whereby we only look at peoples faults, rather than the good God is doing in their lives. It is hard to move in the direction to being at peace with people, as our first lesson exhorts us this morning, when you look at people that way. What helps is to remember that if we are to make any progress at all in this regard we must be disciplined to see people the way that God sees them, through the lens of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection - to see them in a new context, the context of his love for them and the future he has promised to them. If you do that you will be more likely to have your default set to desiring to love and forgive others as God has loved and forgiven you.
There may have been a twinkle in Jesus’ eye when he said the proverb about the blind leading the blind, because that little saying, together with the story of the log and the speck, are meant to conjure funny mental images which, in turn, would be easy to remember. The blind leading the blind really is like something out of the British comedy troupe, Monty Python. Think of it like this: a blind person says to the person sitting next to him in the village square, “hey I need to go to my next social appointment, would you guide me?” The fellow says, “yes, certainly”, but the joke is on the first guy - because the guide ends up being blind too and off into the ditch they go.
Now, the first thing to note about this little story is that it is meant to be confrontational to a certain way of approaching life. It is not offered as an abstract principle about how to choose good teachers, though it is adaptable in that way; it is rather a warning to Jesus’ followers that if they continue approaching their life with each other and God according to the way the current religious leadership of the day were teaching them, they were going to end up in the ditch. Jesus was saying that those who opposed his message of God’s grace and love for all people were blind and should not be followed. Follow the Pharisees and you end up not being able to get past their blindness which is what is meant by the comment about a student not being able to get past her teacher.
What follows in our text from Luke is a description of the way in which many of Jesus’ rival teachers were approaching human relationships and, in turn, their relationships with God. What a depressing image of a community we have here: a group of people who are bent on pointing out the faults of others, presumably in order to feel better about their own lives.
(You may remember from last week, the story of the good Samaritan, wherein the religious leader was seeking to justify himself by attempting to gain a definition of who qualified as his neighbor, a definition that would would make being a neighbor manageable, so to speak. However, Jesus disturbs him and his approach by telling the story that makes it plain that the neighbor can be anyone and anywhere. That seems to be a common theme among Jesus’ opponents, a desire to smugly justify themselves through an adherence to a manageable moral code and a manageable approach to ritual purity, all the while ignoring the condition of their hearts. Jesus said elsewhere of that approach that it was like straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel.)
Here in our text today Jesus exposes the condition of the human heart by drawing, with his words, a cartoon that describes the way we often are with people. The little picture he draws is potent! I mean it really does look silly, right? Someone is running around with a log jutting out of his eye who, instead of being worried about the log, is more worried about what he perceives to be a bit of sawdust in his neighbors’ eye. What an absurd vision but I bet it describes all of us at one time or another.
When we desire to hold power over others based on our perception of their faults, rather than being so aware of our own sins and of God’s love for us in spite of them, we can become addicted to that way of looking at others. Eventually, having only an interest in appearing to be better than others, we lose sight of the darkness in our own hearts and become numb to God’s love - what a mess!
What is the cure for this? what keeps us from running amok in that way? Well, a bit later in the gospel, Jesus says that we are to build on a firm foundation. That firm foundation includes a daily confession that Jesus was right when he said, in so many words, over and over again, that God “does not forgive us because we are good but he makes us good by forgiving us (Rowan Williams).” May that gospel truth lead us out of the ditch of self-righteousness and into the hospitable path of God’s love for all people. There is your firm foundation!
1. Have there been occasions for you where you realize that you have desired to look at people first and foremost in the context of their faults? What alarm bells go off in your head and heart when you head in that direction? Do you listen to the alarm bells?
2. Should you feel free to point out the sin of someone else? If so.....
Under what circumstances should you do that? What gives you the justification to do that? What should you say? How should it be done?
3. Is it ever right to confront someone else about something they have done wrong without leading off by choosing something appropriate to confess as a weakness or sin of your own?
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
How Big Is Your Neighborhood?
This morning we come to a story that is familiar to many of us and, indeed, we have looked at this story as recently as last year during one of the homilies. However, looking at familiar truths during the time of Lent is a good practice because Lent is not meant to be a time to think about things we have never thought of before; rather, Lent is a time to think of things we have thought about quite a lot - but perhaps that is where it has stopped for many of us with regard to certain familiar truths of the gospel; we have thought quite a lot, but in many instances have not sought to actively apply the truths to our life-settings. Lent invites us in a focused way to ask of God’s spirit to expand our faith and couple our faith with the courage to act in accordance to the familiar truths we know.
So, a few things about this familiar story.
The lawyer asks the question who is my neighbor, Luke tells us, seeking to justify himself. That might puzzle us at first glance - seeking to justify himself? What is he fishing for here that could help him to justify himself? New Testament scholar GB Caird offers this insight - - and I paraphrase:
“many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, in a passionate devotion to the OT Law, attempted to make it applicable to every eventuality of daily life - their method? To spell out in detail the exact requirements of the law in such a way as to define the limits of their liability.”
In other words, they worked out a schema for all of life that told them exactly what the limit of their responsibility would be in any given situation - they wanted to define life so that they could always see their responsibility to God and others within the category of limited liability - I have done what I am supposed to do and I have acted for whom I am supposed to perform so now I am done here; I am justified.
The lawyer was fishing for a definition of neighbor that would help him to justify himself.
However, Jesus messes this up by turning the lawyer’s reasoning and question on its head. Iinstead of giving a definition, Jesus tells a story that makes it clear that to represent God’s hospitality in this fallen world we must be preoccupied with a different question: am I a neighbor to whomever needs a neighbor regardless of who this person is and where I find them?
So, back to Caird - “The question, 'who is my neighbor', is a request for definition; and the answer of Jesus frustrates the desire of the lawyer to define his liability. Jesus offers a definition of neighbor that asks the lawyer to embrace an ethic of unlimited liability.”
One of the Lenten actions that some of our families at Grace will be doing with their children this week really drives the message of this parable home in a practical way by asking us to take a look at where our clothes are made. The action simply suggests, look at your stuff and see where it is made - leaves the rest up to you.
For the thoughtful person, finding out, or remembering, that one's clothes are made far away (as they are for many of us), is an immediate reminder to us that our neighborhood is bigger than we initially may have thought. And, in light of our theme today, I suggest that it would require an unimaginative, if not insincere, reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan to not see that, in our contemporary setting, we must have a large enough and holy enough imagination to recognize that our neighbor is someone living across the world and making our clothes and other stuff. What are our responsibilities to these neighbors? The answer will be a bit different for each of us but Jesus’ teaching calls all of us to recognize one thing for sure: they are our neighbors.
But what about our responsibility in situations such as these? I fear that in the United States we are either too distracted to think about this much - which is a whole problem unto itself - or, if we do think about it very much we are too mired in our political opinions about whether US businesses should be taking advantage of cheap labor overseas to think about what our own response as a follower of Jesus ought to be to the neighbor who made our what-nots and thingamabobs.
Some may advocate that our government should do something about all of this - to regulate and legislate in such a way as to end the opportunity for businesses here to make a profit on the backs of those who suffer workplace horrors. Others say, that is not the answer: "do you really want to take away the contribution our economy is making? "Better", these folks say, "for our relationships to continue to allow for slow reform over time, etc." Both of these views can be and are often held by faithful followers of Jesus - neither is un-Chrstian per se - but neither really has much to do with the gospel either.
What I want to suggest is that both of these political positions can end up distracting us from having as deep and meaningful a reaction as we ought to be having to the dire situations we have come to know about some workplace horrors overseas, Each of these political positions can keep the problems overseas distant from our hearts because if, on the one hand, we imagine that it is a problem just for policy people to fix we are tempted to limit our liability by transferring it to the halls of congress; on the other hand, if you want the markets to work it out and leave it at that then you are willing to limit your liability by transferring it to the invisible hand of capitalism to eventually help those who are sometimes working in situations that we would never allow to befall a loved one or friend.
I am not suggesting an easy, one-size fits all action-plan for every Christian regarding this issue. I am simply suggesting that the circle of people who include our neighbors, according to the gospel-logic of Jesus’ story before us this morning, includes many people we may initially be blind to, including those who make our stuff.
At the very least, when we become aware of injustices done to those overseas who are making our stuff (and by the way - I am not suggesting that every company is guilty of this, but some have been) - when we become aware we need to resist the initial impulse to think about the issue as a problem for someone else. We first must realize that it is a problem for us to pray about, and ask God what we are to do.
Perhaps the starting point for each of us after prayer would be to think about and formulate what we might want to say about this issue in the public square and start saying it; but when we do, we must do it humbly, for most of you are more like me than not when it comes to being a consumer - this sermon was typed on a computer made overseas and printed on a printer that was probably made overseas so we are all in this together. The first thing that came to my mind when I prayed about this was to write a letter to several companies I do business with and simply say that I care about this issue and from here on forward I will be giving more careful consideration to my consumption based on what I find out about how that company operates with workers in other countries.
Whatever we do, as Christians, we must be clear that the purpose of the gospel is to say to empire and power, whatever empire and power looks like when and where the gospel is preached, that Jesus is King and that he holds everyone with power accountable for the well-being of their neighbor who lies bleeding on the other side of the road. Specifically, as Christians, we must stand for an ethic that leads us to those who lie bleeding on the other side of the road, because an ethic of limited liability leads us away from the generous love we ourselves have received from God. May God give us wisdom, imagination and courage to work out what it means to be a neighbor to any and all.
1. What do you think God might want you to do differently in the midst of your mundane life in light of you most recent experience (this Sunday past) with this parable in worship?
2. An “ethic of unlimited liability” can sound pretty scary in terms of what it asks.... how do you embrace this sort of approach to the needs of others while maintaining the rest of your life and obligations? Examples would probably be helpful here..... for example, is the best approach to work with the idea of percentages of time and resources, by feel, etc.?
3. Do you think the church allows partisan politics to gag her voice on issues of social justice?
So, a few things about this familiar story.
The lawyer asks the question who is my neighbor, Luke tells us, seeking to justify himself. That might puzzle us at first glance - seeking to justify himself? What is he fishing for here that could help him to justify himself? New Testament scholar GB Caird offers this insight - - and I paraphrase:
“many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, in a passionate devotion to the OT Law, attempted to make it applicable to every eventuality of daily life - their method? To spell out in detail the exact requirements of the law in such a way as to define the limits of their liability.”
In other words, they worked out a schema for all of life that told them exactly what the limit of their responsibility would be in any given situation - they wanted to define life so that they could always see their responsibility to God and others within the category of limited liability - I have done what I am supposed to do and I have acted for whom I am supposed to perform so now I am done here; I am justified.
The lawyer was fishing for a definition of neighbor that would help him to justify himself.
However, Jesus messes this up by turning the lawyer’s reasoning and question on its head. Iinstead of giving a definition, Jesus tells a story that makes it clear that to represent God’s hospitality in this fallen world we must be preoccupied with a different question: am I a neighbor to whomever needs a neighbor regardless of who this person is and where I find them?
So, back to Caird - “The question, 'who is my neighbor', is a request for definition; and the answer of Jesus frustrates the desire of the lawyer to define his liability. Jesus offers a definition of neighbor that asks the lawyer to embrace an ethic of unlimited liability.”
One of the Lenten actions that some of our families at Grace will be doing with their children this week really drives the message of this parable home in a practical way by asking us to take a look at where our clothes are made. The action simply suggests, look at your stuff and see where it is made - leaves the rest up to you.
For the thoughtful person, finding out, or remembering, that one's clothes are made far away (as they are for many of us), is an immediate reminder to us that our neighborhood is bigger than we initially may have thought. And, in light of our theme today, I suggest that it would require an unimaginative, if not insincere, reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan to not see that, in our contemporary setting, we must have a large enough and holy enough imagination to recognize that our neighbor is someone living across the world and making our clothes and other stuff. What are our responsibilities to these neighbors? The answer will be a bit different for each of us but Jesus’ teaching calls all of us to recognize one thing for sure: they are our neighbors.
But what about our responsibility in situations such as these? I fear that in the United States we are either too distracted to think about this much - which is a whole problem unto itself - or, if we do think about it very much we are too mired in our political opinions about whether US businesses should be taking advantage of cheap labor overseas to think about what our own response as a follower of Jesus ought to be to the neighbor who made our what-nots and thingamabobs.
Some may advocate that our government should do something about all of this - to regulate and legislate in such a way as to end the opportunity for businesses here to make a profit on the backs of those who suffer workplace horrors. Others say, that is not the answer: "do you really want to take away the contribution our economy is making? "Better", these folks say, "for our relationships to continue to allow for slow reform over time, etc." Both of these views can be and are often held by faithful followers of Jesus - neither is un-Chrstian per se - but neither really has much to do with the gospel either.
What I want to suggest is that both of these political positions can end up distracting us from having as deep and meaningful a reaction as we ought to be having to the dire situations we have come to know about some workplace horrors overseas, Each of these political positions can keep the problems overseas distant from our hearts because if, on the one hand, we imagine that it is a problem just for policy people to fix we are tempted to limit our liability by transferring it to the halls of congress; on the other hand, if you want the markets to work it out and leave it at that then you are willing to limit your liability by transferring it to the invisible hand of capitalism to eventually help those who are sometimes working in situations that we would never allow to befall a loved one or friend.
I am not suggesting an easy, one-size fits all action-plan for every Christian regarding this issue. I am simply suggesting that the circle of people who include our neighbors, according to the gospel-logic of Jesus’ story before us this morning, includes many people we may initially be blind to, including those who make our stuff.
At the very least, when we become aware of injustices done to those overseas who are making our stuff (and by the way - I am not suggesting that every company is guilty of this, but some have been) - when we become aware we need to resist the initial impulse to think about the issue as a problem for someone else. We first must realize that it is a problem for us to pray about, and ask God what we are to do.
Perhaps the starting point for each of us after prayer would be to think about and formulate what we might want to say about this issue in the public square and start saying it; but when we do, we must do it humbly, for most of you are more like me than not when it comes to being a consumer - this sermon was typed on a computer made overseas and printed on a printer that was probably made overseas so we are all in this together. The first thing that came to my mind when I prayed about this was to write a letter to several companies I do business with and simply say that I care about this issue and from here on forward I will be giving more careful consideration to my consumption based on what I find out about how that company operates with workers in other countries.
Whatever we do, as Christians, we must be clear that the purpose of the gospel is to say to empire and power, whatever empire and power looks like when and where the gospel is preached, that Jesus is King and that he holds everyone with power accountable for the well-being of their neighbor who lies bleeding on the other side of the road. Specifically, as Christians, we must stand for an ethic that leads us to those who lie bleeding on the other side of the road, because an ethic of limited liability leads us away from the generous love we ourselves have received from God. May God give us wisdom, imagination and courage to work out what it means to be a neighbor to any and all.
1. What do you think God might want you to do differently in the midst of your mundane life in light of you most recent experience (this Sunday past) with this parable in worship?
2. An “ethic of unlimited liability” can sound pretty scary in terms of what it asks.... how do you embrace this sort of approach to the needs of others while maintaining the rest of your life and obligations? Examples would probably be helpful here..... for example, is the best approach to work with the idea of percentages of time and resources, by feel, etc.?
3. Do you think the church allows partisan politics to gag her voice on issues of social justice?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
When a Father Refuses to Be 'Un-Fathered"
As we embark on the season of Lent we will be meditating a great deal on the importance of taking in God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and love - hence, the thoughts leading up to communion. Really, when we think about it for a little bit it becomes pretty obvious that the whole of Jesus’ ministry is focused on bringing people into reconciliation with God and with each other. Jesus, by the example of how he lived, by what he taught, and through the power of his atoning death, created and creates the context for people to forgive those who sin against them.
So, it is no surprise that we find Jesus’ emphasis on reconciliation amplified in the New Testament writings of the early church. For example, Paul develops this theme as he summarizes what it means to imitate God’s love: to forgive others as we have been forgiven by God.
Ephesians 4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
However, anyone who has seriously tried to live as an imitator of God in this way knows that it is a hard discipline to learn and we will spend our whole lives learning it.
Perhaps the most basic reason why this is a hard discipline to learn is because we allow the injustices done to us by others to control us and make us into people who become defined by a wish for revenge. It often the case that we have a passion for those who hurt us to be punished and excluded forever from our lives instead of hoping for them to be forgiven and then given back to us in reconciliation.
(Now, a quick parenthesis - there are many instances on this side of the world to come where victims need to not speak with again or even be in proximity to those who violated them; but even then, the desire for the enemy to be reconciled to God and to the one sinned against, even if only in the world to come, is the gospel shaped passion that Jesus’ followers are to pray for and strive for).
At the heart of the gospel stands Jesus who refuses to allow his identity to be shaped by those who hate him . All the way through his crucifixion we hear him forgiving those who have persecuted him and sinned against him. So, the question we will consider is how can we become imitators of God in this way? How can we become those who conform our lives to Jesus’ pattern of being an agent of reconciliation?
Our thesis: the degree to which we feel secure in God’s love for us as his daughters and sons will be the degree to which we are able to absorb his identity as an agent of reconciliation. There is arguably no better story in the scriptures that can form us in this way than the story of the father and the two lost sons.
There is so much in this parable for us and every time I come back to it I find something new or I see something a little differently, but what I want to concentrate on in this homily is the father’s work as a forgiver and an agent of reconciliation.
The first thing I want to note is that Father refuses to, in the lovely words of the theologian, Miroslav Volf, “construct his own identity in isolation from his sons” (he does not let his identity be shaped by the wrong done to him by either of his sons but remains their loving father). The Father knows who he is - he is a father to both of his sons and he will not respond to either of them as anyone other than their father. The younger son fantasizes that he will be accepted back as a hired hand but the son cannot become anything less than a son because the father will not be anything other than a loving father to him, desirous of full reconciliation.
The older son, ironically, betrays his own distance from the father as one who had lived as a hired hand in spite of being a son; but, as the father realizes this he reaffirms his beloved status as son by going out to him - just as he had gone out to the younger son when he was on the edge of the village - and the one who un-brothers his brother is invited to reclaim him as brother. The father takes his bitter words, “this son of yours” and simply pushes them to the side by saying to him, “your brother”.
So, in the instance of each son, they are not allowed to un-son themselves. Their identity as sons is based not on their ability to follow the rules or even to rest in the father’s hospitality. The only power that keeps them as sons is the strong identity of the father; he will always be to each of them father, so that they may be to him, as sons, and to each other, as brothers.
If we are to be agents of reconciliation in a way that can be recognized as an imitation of God’s love for all of humankind it will be because we have come more fully to understand our identity as daughters and sons of a father who refuses to be un-fathered by our resistance to his love and grace. The more we allow his identity, as the one who is constantly father, to make our own identities more secure as his daughters and sons, the better we will be at returning good for evil and being agents of reconciliation in our families, groups of friends, and all of our life-communities.
Questions for discussion:
1. Do yo agree that it is hard to desire to forgive those who hurt you? In your own words, how do you feel when you have been a victim of another person’s meanness towards you?
1a. Can you describe the steps you would take to get to a point where you desire to forgive the person who has wronged you?
2. What might you do differently in your life, in terms of spiritual practices, that would help you be more assured of God’s love for you as his son or daughter?
3. Do you identify more with the younger brother or the older brother? What events in your life have made you like that (identification)?
4. Why do you think Jesus left this story open-ended with regard to the older brother? (Hint: the older brother probably = the religious leadership of Jesus’ day who opposed his eating with sinners).
So, it is no surprise that we find Jesus’ emphasis on reconciliation amplified in the New Testament writings of the early church. For example, Paul develops this theme as he summarizes what it means to imitate God’s love: to forgive others as we have been forgiven by God.
Ephesians 4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
However, anyone who has seriously tried to live as an imitator of God in this way knows that it is a hard discipline to learn and we will spend our whole lives learning it.
Perhaps the most basic reason why this is a hard discipline to learn is because we allow the injustices done to us by others to control us and make us into people who become defined by a wish for revenge. It often the case that we have a passion for those who hurt us to be punished and excluded forever from our lives instead of hoping for them to be forgiven and then given back to us in reconciliation.
(Now, a quick parenthesis - there are many instances on this side of the world to come where victims need to not speak with again or even be in proximity to those who violated them; but even then, the desire for the enemy to be reconciled to God and to the one sinned against, even if only in the world to come, is the gospel shaped passion that Jesus’ followers are to pray for and strive for).
At the heart of the gospel stands Jesus who refuses to allow his identity to be shaped by those who hate him . All the way through his crucifixion we hear him forgiving those who have persecuted him and sinned against him. So, the question we will consider is how can we become imitators of God in this way? How can we become those who conform our lives to Jesus’ pattern of being an agent of reconciliation?
Our thesis: the degree to which we feel secure in God’s love for us as his daughters and sons will be the degree to which we are able to absorb his identity as an agent of reconciliation. There is arguably no better story in the scriptures that can form us in this way than the story of the father and the two lost sons.
There is so much in this parable for us and every time I come back to it I find something new or I see something a little differently, but what I want to concentrate on in this homily is the father’s work as a forgiver and an agent of reconciliation.
The first thing I want to note is that Father refuses to, in the lovely words of the theologian, Miroslav Volf, “construct his own identity in isolation from his sons” (he does not let his identity be shaped by the wrong done to him by either of his sons but remains their loving father). The Father knows who he is - he is a father to both of his sons and he will not respond to either of them as anyone other than their father. The younger son fantasizes that he will be accepted back as a hired hand but the son cannot become anything less than a son because the father will not be anything other than a loving father to him, desirous of full reconciliation.
The older son, ironically, betrays his own distance from the father as one who had lived as a hired hand in spite of being a son; but, as the father realizes this he reaffirms his beloved status as son by going out to him - just as he had gone out to the younger son when he was on the edge of the village - and the one who un-brothers his brother is invited to reclaim him as brother. The father takes his bitter words, “this son of yours” and simply pushes them to the side by saying to him, “your brother”.
So, in the instance of each son, they are not allowed to un-son themselves. Their identity as sons is based not on their ability to follow the rules or even to rest in the father’s hospitality. The only power that keeps them as sons is the strong identity of the father; he will always be to each of them father, so that they may be to him, as sons, and to each other, as brothers.
If we are to be agents of reconciliation in a way that can be recognized as an imitation of God’s love for all of humankind it will be because we have come more fully to understand our identity as daughters and sons of a father who refuses to be un-fathered by our resistance to his love and grace. The more we allow his identity, as the one who is constantly father, to make our own identities more secure as his daughters and sons, the better we will be at returning good for evil and being agents of reconciliation in our families, groups of friends, and all of our life-communities.
Questions for discussion:
1. Do yo agree that it is hard to desire to forgive those who hurt you? In your own words, how do you feel when you have been a victim of another person’s meanness towards you?
1a. Can you describe the steps you would take to get to a point where you desire to forgive the person who has wronged you?
2. What might you do differently in your life, in terms of spiritual practices, that would help you be more assured of God’s love for you as his son or daughter?
3. Do you identify more with the younger brother or the older brother? What events in your life have made you like that (identification)?
4. Why do you think Jesus left this story open-ended with regard to the older brother? (Hint: the older brother probably = the religious leadership of Jesus’ day who opposed his eating with sinners).
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Does Anyone Know a Good Roofer?
Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for
all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all
our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless
fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life
may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal,
and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ
our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Mark 2:1-12
Wow, this is the kind of gospel story that will just preach itself if you don’t mess it up too much.
The first thing I want to point out to you is the role of the paralyzed man’s community of friends in bringing their friend to Jesus. New Testament scholars point out that the grammar of the passage suggests that the faith Jesus is referring to is the faith of those who brought their friend to Jesus - at the very least, it is all of their faith together that Jesus praises. Now, this should give us pause because we ought to be immediately asking ourselves questions like this one in light of the teaching here: are the needs of those in my community important enough to me? To be able to answer this question in light of this text we need to ask another question: will we rearrange our schedule and lives in such a way as to make time to bring those who are hurting or isolated into the presence of Jesus. If we are willing to do this and actually do it sometimes then we are likely on the right track. If we are not actively pursuing those opportunities then we probably have our priorities out of whack.
So, as we approach the season of Lent, I suggest that is a good idea to ask ourselves, “are we passionate about people in such a way that we desire to bring them to the same environment in which we breath the air of God’s love and forgiveness?” Jesus is not physically in a house where we can bring people so we have to think about what it would mean for us to bring people to Jesus. That is why I like to talk about it as the environment where we breath the air of God’s love and forgiveness; we experience Jesus in our community of faith, whether in a church service or in the context of those life-giving relationships in other social settings. Are we comfortable bringing outsiders to the faith to those settings?
The second thing I want to note from this passage is related to this notion of bringing the friend into the presence of Jesus. Here it is: faith is about outcomes that only God can achieve with a person as God relates uniquely to that person and as that person relates uniquely to God. This is such an obvious conclusion to draw from this passage that it is sort of easy to miss. Look at it this way. If these guys would have really obsessed over the outcome of this scheme to dig a hole in the roof so that they could lower their friend down to where Jesus was they would not have done it. The dramatic tension of this story reminds us that more things were likely to go wrong in this scenario than would go right. It would be too easy to get stuck on concerns like these: what if this makes Jesus angry? What if we all get in trouble with the authorities over this? What if someone beats the tar out of us before we can even get the roof open?! Faith cannot ask those questions because faith is motivated not by passions and thought processes that are tied to trying to predict or engineer desired outcomes. Faith, at least in this story is seen to be faith when people, out of deep love and compassion for someone else, do their very best to bring their friend into Jesus’ presence so that Jesus can do whatever he will do. To be sure, the hope is for healing but that is an outcome that was beyond their control and we ought to remember that outcomes are beyond our control too. Also, we would do well to remember that we don’t show the proper respect for the person or for God when we fret over, or try to manipulate/control the encounter of someone with God.
Last thing for this morning: we need to take note that Jesus uses this opportunity to identify himself as the one who will bring to pass the promises that God had made to Israel regarding the new covenant, that there would come a time when God would bring to pass, with the coming of the Messiah, a forgiveness of sins that would be final and complete. Jesus, in identifying with the Son of Man prophecies of the OT, claims to have the authority to do just that, to bring God’s forgiveness to people in a way that suggests that something of a change of epochs is taking place. Those who knew their Old Testament might have been wondering if the promises of God to the prophet Jeremiah were coming to pass:
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,* says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
And so in that house on that day God revealed his heart in Jesus. The forgiveness and physical healing promised through the prophets was finally coming to pass in this fallen grace-starved world. So powerful and life-giving is an encounter with this new thing God is doing in Jesus that drastic measures are the order of the day; risks must be taken; outcomes must be left in God’s hands. How about you and me? How often are we at points during the course of our mundane life where we could either, so to speak, dig a hole in the roof to be in Jesus’ presence, or just go back to whatever banal activity we choose to use to distract ourselves from what is really important and life-giving? Good question as we move into the season of Lent. The good news is, of course, that God smiles every time we make the slightest movement in his direction - we don’t even have to dig through a roof. May we move in his direction more and more in the week that comes.
Questions for discussion:
1. Do you leave enough room in your schedule to respond to the needs of those around you? How would you be able to tell if you do or not?
1a. Do you see the work of the gospel as being about helping others in need regardless of their orientation to the gospel?
2. Do you actively seek to include those outside of the community of Christ in your communities of Christ followers? Is there a way to do this that makes the non-Christ-follower feel like an object? If so, how do you avoid that?
2a. Do you feel like you try to engineer outcomes, even if only subconsciously?
3. Related to question #2: what would you say to your non-Christian friend if she/he were to ask you this question: “are you friends with me only in the hopes that I might convert?” Then, how would you answer this likely follow-up question from her/him: “well, do you think I have to be a Christian to love God?”
all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all
our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless
fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life
may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal,
and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ
our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Mark 2:1-12
Wow, this is the kind of gospel story that will just preach itself if you don’t mess it up too much.
The first thing I want to point out to you is the role of the paralyzed man’s community of friends in bringing their friend to Jesus. New Testament scholars point out that the grammar of the passage suggests that the faith Jesus is referring to is the faith of those who brought their friend to Jesus - at the very least, it is all of their faith together that Jesus praises. Now, this should give us pause because we ought to be immediately asking ourselves questions like this one in light of the teaching here: are the needs of those in my community important enough to me? To be able to answer this question in light of this text we need to ask another question: will we rearrange our schedule and lives in such a way as to make time to bring those who are hurting or isolated into the presence of Jesus. If we are willing to do this and actually do it sometimes then we are likely on the right track. If we are not actively pursuing those opportunities then we probably have our priorities out of whack.
So, as we approach the season of Lent, I suggest that is a good idea to ask ourselves, “are we passionate about people in such a way that we desire to bring them to the same environment in which we breath the air of God’s love and forgiveness?” Jesus is not physically in a house where we can bring people so we have to think about what it would mean for us to bring people to Jesus. That is why I like to talk about it as the environment where we breath the air of God’s love and forgiveness; we experience Jesus in our community of faith, whether in a church service or in the context of those life-giving relationships in other social settings. Are we comfortable bringing outsiders to the faith to those settings?
The second thing I want to note from this passage is related to this notion of bringing the friend into the presence of Jesus. Here it is: faith is about outcomes that only God can achieve with a person as God relates uniquely to that person and as that person relates uniquely to God. This is such an obvious conclusion to draw from this passage that it is sort of easy to miss. Look at it this way. If these guys would have really obsessed over the outcome of this scheme to dig a hole in the roof so that they could lower their friend down to where Jesus was they would not have done it. The dramatic tension of this story reminds us that more things were likely to go wrong in this scenario than would go right. It would be too easy to get stuck on concerns like these: what if this makes Jesus angry? What if we all get in trouble with the authorities over this? What if someone beats the tar out of us before we can even get the roof open?! Faith cannot ask those questions because faith is motivated not by passions and thought processes that are tied to trying to predict or engineer desired outcomes. Faith, at least in this story is seen to be faith when people, out of deep love and compassion for someone else, do their very best to bring their friend into Jesus’ presence so that Jesus can do whatever he will do. To be sure, the hope is for healing but that is an outcome that was beyond their control and we ought to remember that outcomes are beyond our control too. Also, we would do well to remember that we don’t show the proper respect for the person or for God when we fret over, or try to manipulate/control the encounter of someone with God.
Last thing for this morning: we need to take note that Jesus uses this opportunity to identify himself as the one who will bring to pass the promises that God had made to Israel regarding the new covenant, that there would come a time when God would bring to pass, with the coming of the Messiah, a forgiveness of sins that would be final and complete. Jesus, in identifying with the Son of Man prophecies of the OT, claims to have the authority to do just that, to bring God’s forgiveness to people in a way that suggests that something of a change of epochs is taking place. Those who knew their Old Testament might have been wondering if the promises of God to the prophet Jeremiah were coming to pass:
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,* says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”
And so in that house on that day God revealed his heart in Jesus. The forgiveness and physical healing promised through the prophets was finally coming to pass in this fallen grace-starved world. So powerful and life-giving is an encounter with this new thing God is doing in Jesus that drastic measures are the order of the day; risks must be taken; outcomes must be left in God’s hands. How about you and me? How often are we at points during the course of our mundane life where we could either, so to speak, dig a hole in the roof to be in Jesus’ presence, or just go back to whatever banal activity we choose to use to distract ourselves from what is really important and life-giving? Good question as we move into the season of Lent. The good news is, of course, that God smiles every time we make the slightest movement in his direction - we don’t even have to dig through a roof. May we move in his direction more and more in the week that comes.
Questions for discussion:
1. Do you leave enough room in your schedule to respond to the needs of those around you? How would you be able to tell if you do or not?
1a. Do you see the work of the gospel as being about helping others in need regardless of their orientation to the gospel?
2. Do you actively seek to include those outside of the community of Christ in your communities of Christ followers? Is there a way to do this that makes the non-Christ-follower feel like an object? If so, how do you avoid that?
2a. Do you feel like you try to engineer outcomes, even if only subconsciously?
3. Related to question #2: what would you say to your non-Christian friend if she/he were to ask you this question: “are you friends with me only in the hopes that I might convert?” Then, how would you answer this likely follow-up question from her/him: “well, do you think I have to be a Christian to love God?”
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Empathy and The Gospel
Texts:
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
2 Corinthians 11:29-30
Mark 1:40-45
Homily Title:
Empathy and The Gospel
When we were in the midst of our homily series on the meaning and purpose of the church we often came back to this wonderful quote of Luke Timothy Johnson’ on the nature of the church:
"The church is, in a real sense, the continuation of the incarnation, the embodied presence of the resurrected Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit... the church is.... the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth."
So, if this is this is the case we need to pay careful attention to how it is that we represent God’s love to each other within the Christian community because how we are with each other can either show the world a hopeful picture of God’s love at work between people or quite the opposite.
What I want to suggest to you this morning is that one of the ways we show the world how God works is by coming to each other through our shared weakness and not in our perceived strength. Far too often when we approach each other we do so in a way that makes it seem that we are desiring to bring another person along to our level of achievement; we assume a spiritual maturity in ourselves that actually gets in the way of another person’s finding the same love of God that we have found.
Rowan Williams in his wonderful book on spiritual formation, Where God Happens, puts it this way: “Living Christianly with the neighbor, living in such a way that the neighbor is ‘won’—converted, brought into saving relationship with Jesus Christ—involves my ‘death.’ I must die to myself, a self understood as the solid possessor of virtues and gifts, entitled to pronounce on the neighbor’s spiritual condition. My own awareness of my failure and weakness is indispensable to my communicating the gospel to my neighbor”... “We love to think that we know more of God than others; we find it comfortable and comforting to try to control the access of others to God” …. “To assume the right to judge, or to assume that you have arrived at a settled spiritual maturity that entitles you to prescribe confidently at a distance for another’s sickness, is in fact to leave others without the therapy they need for their souls; it is to cut them off from God, to leave them in their spiritual slavery—while reinforcing your own slavery”
“The fundamental need as far as the counselor is concerned is first of all to put oneself on the level of the one who has sinned, to heal by solidarity, not condemnation”....”the plain acknowledgement of your solidarity in need and failure opens a door: it shows that it is possible to live in the truth and to go forward in hope”
Is our greatest desire to see someone deepen their experience of God’s love so that they change in God’s time to become more deeply who they are meant to be in relationship to Christ? Or, is our deepest desire to see the person change in the way that we demand for them to change in order for us to approve of them?
A good question I suggest for us to ponder on the way to the Lord’s table of love and acceptance.
In the passage from Mark’s gospel we have a truly amazing encounter between Jesus and the man with leprosy. The first thing I want to call your attention to is that the leper is breaking the purity laws of Israel in approaching Jesus - he was to remain with the outcast in the leper colony. The second thing I want you to note is that Jesus is inviting this transgression and joins in it himself when he accepts, touches, and blesses the leper. Now, number three: Jesus asks for the leper to step into the process of honoring the ritual laws by doing what is prescribed for a leper who has been healed but the man seems to ignore that as well as ignoring Jesus’ command to keep silent about the healing. As one NewTestament commentator puts it: “Commands and prescriptions seem to have little power in this narrative, rather the humanity and compassion of Jesus and the experience of freedom that the healed man enjoys are the main center of attention.”
Now there is much that could be said about this passage but there is only one thing I want you to think about as you get on with your week - and it is this - Jesus does not allow for messy situations, or the opinions of others to keep him from being compassionate and inclusive. What person or people in your life do you keep at a safe distance when you should be including them in your redemptive life and community of love? We all have attitudes towards people that keep us from showing them the love and acceptance we ought to. May God chip away at those defenses and self-protection pathologies that cause us to push people away from our experience of God because we set ourselves up as an authority over people when we should find ways of expressing our solidarity as fellow-sinners. God has not let our messiness keep us from him; let us give others the same blessing.
Questions for discussion:
1. Does living in solidarity with fellow-sinners (as Williams outlines above) mean that we are agnostic with regard to the sin in our lives?
2. When might you be called to speak to someone about a pattern of behavior in the person’s life that you perceive to be sinful? Should you wait for a person to invite that conversation or not? When would you wait? When would you not?
3. Do you expect for those close to you to come along in their growth in Christ according to your own designs on them? If so, why do you think you do this?
4. Since there are probably no lepers in our lives on a regular basis, can you think of a person who needs to literally of figuratively touched by you? If so, is it appropriate to share that example with the group?
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
2 Corinthians 11:29-30
Mark 1:40-45
Homily Title:
Empathy and The Gospel
When we were in the midst of our homily series on the meaning and purpose of the church we often came back to this wonderful quote of Luke Timothy Johnson’ on the nature of the church:
"The church is, in a real sense, the continuation of the incarnation, the embodied presence of the resurrected Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit... the church is.... the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth."
So, if this is this is the case we need to pay careful attention to how it is that we represent God’s love to each other within the Christian community because how we are with each other can either show the world a hopeful picture of God’s love at work between people or quite the opposite.
What I want to suggest to you this morning is that one of the ways we show the world how God works is by coming to each other through our shared weakness and not in our perceived strength. Far too often when we approach each other we do so in a way that makes it seem that we are desiring to bring another person along to our level of achievement; we assume a spiritual maturity in ourselves that actually gets in the way of another person’s finding the same love of God that we have found.
Rowan Williams in his wonderful book on spiritual formation, Where God Happens, puts it this way: “Living Christianly with the neighbor, living in such a way that the neighbor is ‘won’—converted, brought into saving relationship with Jesus Christ—involves my ‘death.’ I must die to myself, a self understood as the solid possessor of virtues and gifts, entitled to pronounce on the neighbor’s spiritual condition. My own awareness of my failure and weakness is indispensable to my communicating the gospel to my neighbor”... “We love to think that we know more of God than others; we find it comfortable and comforting to try to control the access of others to God” …. “To assume the right to judge, or to assume that you have arrived at a settled spiritual maturity that entitles you to prescribe confidently at a distance for another’s sickness, is in fact to leave others without the therapy they need for their souls; it is to cut them off from God, to leave them in their spiritual slavery—while reinforcing your own slavery”
“The fundamental need as far as the counselor is concerned is first of all to put oneself on the level of the one who has sinned, to heal by solidarity, not condemnation”....”the plain acknowledgement of your solidarity in need and failure opens a door: it shows that it is possible to live in the truth and to go forward in hope”
Is our greatest desire to see someone deepen their experience of God’s love so that they change in God’s time to become more deeply who they are meant to be in relationship to Christ? Or, is our deepest desire to see the person change in the way that we demand for them to change in order for us to approve of them?
A good question I suggest for us to ponder on the way to the Lord’s table of love and acceptance.
In the passage from Mark’s gospel we have a truly amazing encounter between Jesus and the man with leprosy. The first thing I want to call your attention to is that the leper is breaking the purity laws of Israel in approaching Jesus - he was to remain with the outcast in the leper colony. The second thing I want you to note is that Jesus is inviting this transgression and joins in it himself when he accepts, touches, and blesses the leper. Now, number three: Jesus asks for the leper to step into the process of honoring the ritual laws by doing what is prescribed for a leper who has been healed but the man seems to ignore that as well as ignoring Jesus’ command to keep silent about the healing. As one NewTestament commentator puts it: “Commands and prescriptions seem to have little power in this narrative, rather the humanity and compassion of Jesus and the experience of freedom that the healed man enjoys are the main center of attention.”
Now there is much that could be said about this passage but there is only one thing I want you to think about as you get on with your week - and it is this - Jesus does not allow for messy situations, or the opinions of others to keep him from being compassionate and inclusive. What person or people in your life do you keep at a safe distance when you should be including them in your redemptive life and community of love? We all have attitudes towards people that keep us from showing them the love and acceptance we ought to. May God chip away at those defenses and self-protection pathologies that cause us to push people away from our experience of God because we set ourselves up as an authority over people when we should find ways of expressing our solidarity as fellow-sinners. God has not let our messiness keep us from him; let us give others the same blessing.
Questions for discussion:
1. Does living in solidarity with fellow-sinners (as Williams outlines above) mean that we are agnostic with regard to the sin in our lives?
2. When might you be called to speak to someone about a pattern of behavior in the person’s life that you perceive to be sinful? Should you wait for a person to invite that conversation or not? When would you wait? When would you not?
3. Do you expect for those close to you to come along in their growth in Christ according to your own designs on them? If so, why do you think you do this?
4. Since there are probably no lepers in our lives on a regular basis, can you think of a person who needs to literally of figuratively touched by you? If so, is it appropriate to share that example with the group?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
For the Sake of the Gospel
We continue in the season of Epiphany this Sunday, a time in the life of the church where we are invited and encouraged to take a fresh look at who Jesus is revealed to be according to the gospel writers. If you are anything like me you need to take fresh looks at Jesus; for, one of the perpetual problems that Jesus’ followers have is that we tend to imagine that we know all we need to know about Jesus. We think, maybe even subconsciously at times, that we have in some sense got the total picture of Jesus’ meaning for us - and so when we come back again and again to the same stories we don’t come in the posture of the life-long learner who expects to learn something new, or expects and desires to have a fresh encounter with Jesus. As we look at some familiar passages from Mark during Epiphany and Lent, may it be that the Holy Spirit will open our hearts and give us fresh experiences with Jesus.
In this passage before us this Sunday morning we meet Jesus doing more miracles so I want to think with you a bit about what it is that Mark wants us to notice about Jesus’ miracles. The first observation is the obvious one. One preacher puts it this way - Jesus cannot help but do miracles; everywhere he goes he heals the sick and releases people from the control of the powers of darkness, as he casts out deacons and yet (and we will see this born out more and more in Mark’s gospel as we go along).... and yet it is clear that Jesus sees miracles as subsidiary to his central mission (Mark 1:38). This is because the human condition must be fixed from the inside out in order for God to accomplish his redemptive goals for humankind. So, the central mission of Jesus in the gospels was not to do miracles but to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom, which mission is accomplished in Jesus’ death on the cross where the cosmic victory is won, where forgiveness of sins is accomplished. The power of the cross and the resurrection, in turn, empowers the new humanity in Christ, to live as a foretaste of the world to come where miracles will not be needed because God’s desires for humanity will no longer be thwarted by evil or sin. So, if we look and listen carefully to the way Jesus approaches miracles in his overall ministry we are reminded that our greatest need(s) is dealt with by Jesus on the cross and cannot be fixed by miracles.
This has important implications for our lives not because we should not desire miracles but because we so often forget what is our greatest need. Our greatest needs: to be forgiven, to be able to forgive others, to be able to love as Jesus loved us - all of this comes from the heart of Jesus’ ministry where he changes us from the inside out and prepares us for the world to come.
OK, that is all true. Miracles are subsidiary to the central mission of Jesus; however what we often forget is that the whole reason Jesus was always moved with compassion, the whole reason he did miracles, was because the focus of the central mission drove him to alleviate human suffering as often as was possible. If we understand that what drove Jesus to the cross was his passion to reverse the effects of sin and enable human beings to flourish as God intends, then we will not be able to help ourselves when it comes to being moved with compassion to alleviate human suffering. May God give us the grace and wisdom to organize our lives so that we always adorn the central mission of the gospel with compassionate acts of mercy for any and all whose life circumstances are wrought with the suffering that comes from living in a world that is still awaiting final redemption.
Questions for discussion:
1. What tends to distract you from recognizing your central needs as Jesus defines them according to his mission. Can you give some examples?
2. Can you think of some things you can do on a regular basis that will push these distractions away?
3. Is there anything wrong in strongly desiring God to act on your behalf miraculously? Can you want a miracle too much relatively speaking in comparison to the rest of your needs and wants?
4. Are you accustomed to thinking of Jesus’ passion to miracles as flowing from the same passion that drove him to the cross? Do you accept this theological view? If not, why not? If so, can you think of some ways that this insight might help you talk about the mission of Jesus with those who have not yet joined Jesus’ mission?
In this passage before us this Sunday morning we meet Jesus doing more miracles so I want to think with you a bit about what it is that Mark wants us to notice about Jesus’ miracles. The first observation is the obvious one. One preacher puts it this way - Jesus cannot help but do miracles; everywhere he goes he heals the sick and releases people from the control of the powers of darkness, as he casts out deacons and yet (and we will see this born out more and more in Mark’s gospel as we go along).... and yet it is clear that Jesus sees miracles as subsidiary to his central mission (Mark 1:38). This is because the human condition must be fixed from the inside out in order for God to accomplish his redemptive goals for humankind. So, the central mission of Jesus in the gospels was not to do miracles but to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom, which mission is accomplished in Jesus’ death on the cross where the cosmic victory is won, where forgiveness of sins is accomplished. The power of the cross and the resurrection, in turn, empowers the new humanity in Christ, to live as a foretaste of the world to come where miracles will not be needed because God’s desires for humanity will no longer be thwarted by evil or sin. So, if we look and listen carefully to the way Jesus approaches miracles in his overall ministry we are reminded that our greatest need(s) is dealt with by Jesus on the cross and cannot be fixed by miracles.
This has important implications for our lives not because we should not desire miracles but because we so often forget what is our greatest need. Our greatest needs: to be forgiven, to be able to forgive others, to be able to love as Jesus loved us - all of this comes from the heart of Jesus’ ministry where he changes us from the inside out and prepares us for the world to come.
OK, that is all true. Miracles are subsidiary to the central mission of Jesus; however what we often forget is that the whole reason Jesus was always moved with compassion, the whole reason he did miracles, was because the focus of the central mission drove him to alleviate human suffering as often as was possible. If we understand that what drove Jesus to the cross was his passion to reverse the effects of sin and enable human beings to flourish as God intends, then we will not be able to help ourselves when it comes to being moved with compassion to alleviate human suffering. May God give us the grace and wisdom to organize our lives so that we always adorn the central mission of the gospel with compassionate acts of mercy for any and all whose life circumstances are wrought with the suffering that comes from living in a world that is still awaiting final redemption.
Questions for discussion:
1. What tends to distract you from recognizing your central needs as Jesus defines them according to his mission. Can you give some examples?
2. Can you think of some things you can do on a regular basis that will push these distractions away?
3. Is there anything wrong in strongly desiring God to act on your behalf miraculously? Can you want a miracle too much relatively speaking in comparison to the rest of your needs and wants?
4. Are you accustomed to thinking of Jesus’ passion to miracles as flowing from the same passion that drove him to the cross? Do you accept this theological view? If not, why not? If so, can you think of some ways that this insight might help you talk about the mission of Jesus with those who have not yet joined Jesus’ mission?
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