Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
There is a scene in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, where the now old Ryan visits one of the WWII era military cemeteries in Europe. Accompanied by family members, he locates the grave of one the soldiers sent to rescue him after his brothers had been killed in Allied invasion of France. Finding the headstone, he falls to the ground weeping. As his wife and family reach out to him he pleads, "Tell me I've lived a good life. Tell me I've live a good life."
I've always thought this scene a wonderful illustration of God's grace and the Christian life. God seeks us, God draws us out, rescues us so that we might live the lives we are meant to live. And as Jesus' parable in today's gospel says, some respond to this rescue as Private Ryan does, but some don't.
I'm not trying to work out any ultimate answers about our standing before God. I'll leave it to God how God's love will respond to those who seem to live without any awareness of God's grace. But for those who have experienced the gift of God's love, the call of Jesus which invites us into the way of life, true human existence, Private Ryan is not a bad model. A good life, a life that bears fruit, a life that in some small way embodies the Kingdom, this seems the only real way to say, "Thank you."
I have to admit that I'm a little confused by some of the logic in today's gospel reading. The story is straightforward enough. Jesus is invited to dinner at a Pharisee's home, and while there a woman "who was a sinner" (this status is never a point of contention) comes into the home a begins to cry on Jesus' feet, wiping the tears with her hair, and then anointing Jesus' feet with ointment. Presumably this woman's status is well known to Jesus' host and many other of the guests, and they are understandably a bit mystified that Jesus permits this to go on.
Being polite host, the Pharisee says nothing, but Jesus doesn't let that stop him from having a discussion about the matter. Jesus asks his host a question about a creditor who forgives the debt of two who owe him money, one a great deal and the other a small amount. The host, named Simon, easily answers Jesus question about who would love the creditor more, and Jesus then applies this analogy to the woman.
And this is where I get a little lost logically. The woman seems to have "shown great love" prior to her sins being forgiven. Her behavior anticipates what has not yet happened. Or does it? Has she already recognized God's love for her in Jesus, already sensed God's embrace in Jesus?
I'm really not sure. But while the order is confusing, what seems certain is the relationship between love and forgiveness. As Jesus puts it, "Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."
Left unanswered by Jesus is the question of what makes a person "one to whom little is forgiven." Is this a simply statement assuming some need lots more forgiveness than others. Or does it imply that religious folks who assume that they are right with God don't realize their own need for forgiveness, and hence do not show great love?
A lot of us like to believe we bring as much to our relationships as we take out. Many of us prefer the balance to be a bit in our favor, imagining that our friends and lovers are lucky to have us. I think it rarer for us to be in relationship where we say, "I can't believe this person wants to be with me." And I wonder how much of a problem this poses for relationship with God.
Although some gospel accounts leave us with the clear impression that John the Baptist recognizes Jesus as Messiah from the get-go, today's reading in Luke presents the Baptist as, at the very least, having second thoughts. John, by this time in prison, sends his disciples to Jesus asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"
When Jesus gives John's disciples an answer, presumably he thinks it a convincing one. "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."
What is it that makes Jesus the Messiah? When Christians try to convince others that Jesus is the one, what is it that makes the case? A great many Christians focus on the topic of personal salvation. But Jesus' answer to John says nothing about this. Instead Jesus points to a new age dawning. All the things Jesus mentions are signs of the Kingdom, God's new day, that has come near. Many Jews believed that the dead would be raised at "the last day," and so the fact that Jesus raises the dead is an especially powerful sign of this day's nearness.
On top of all this, Jesus' remark about blessings upon any who take no offense at him sounds quite different from traditional Christian belief formulas. He doesn't say "Blessed are those who believe in me," or "Blessed are those who publicly profess my name." Instead he says "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me, who doesn't stumble over me."
What makes Jesus the one? If we go by what Jesus says, and then say that nothing in the world has changed except the "saved" status of some individuals, we imply that Jesus was wrong about the Kingdom drawing near. Is Jesus the one? Do we see signs of God's new day? It's possible that these are pretty much the same question.
Growing up in the Church, I regularly heard stories of Jesus healing people and even raising people from the dead. I don't know if it was because of how I heard them or how they were presented to me, but what I primarily took away from these stories was what an amazing, powerful guy Jesus was. He was clearly from God. Look at what he could do.
Certainly these stories mean to point out God's power present in Jesus. But in more recent years I find myself seeing something different in them. I see them revealing something about God's heart.
Take today's gospel reading in Luke. As he journeys, Jesus happens upon a funeral procession. And it's not just any funeral procession. The dead man is a the only son of a widow. In that day and time, his mother was now terribly vulnerable, with no one to care for her. Luke tells us, "When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her..." When Jesus raises the son, it is an act of great, divine power, but it takes place because Jesus sees her predicament, and is moved.
I take comfort in knowing that God's heart is moved by human pain and suffering. I'll admit that I have no definitive answers for why a God so moved permits so much pain and suffering to go on, but if Jesus gives us our best glimpse into God's heart, then God must be moved by every moment that makes me ask, "Why?"
I have no easy platitudes for a world filled with hurt, but for those of us who would follow Jesus, surely our hearts must become more like Jesus' heart. We must be moved by pain and suffering whenever we see it. And if the Church is, in any real sense, to be the body of Christ in the world, then surely the Church must be filled with compassion and use all the power we possess to help.
On World Communion Sunday, the usual Prayers of the People was replaced with a sung prayer for all nations. Jeremy Roberts and Kay Rieve were soloists who sang the names of nations and peoples while the congregation prayed, "Peace be yours."
I know that some people detest sports metaphors, but I grew up playing sports and am a big sports fan, so I can't help myself. One pattern I've noticed over the years is football teams that have struggled on offense promising to "open things up," to bring in a passing attack that will rack up the points, only to see things remain the same. Coaches who've promised to throw lots of passes revert to old habits of running the ball up the middle. On occasions I've even seen a new coach brought in to jazz up the offense only to end up looking much like his predecessor.
I don't know if coaches who say they're going to run a more wide open offense are just saying what they think fans want to hear, or if they seriously intend to throw the ball more but simply slip back into comfortable patterns. However, I do know how easy it is to be attracted to a new way of doing things but then fall back into old habits. And Christians sometimes look like football coaches who have seen a new and better way, but then act as they always have.
Jesus encounters such in our gospel reading. He is addressing people who are drawn to him, who I suppose could be said to "believe in him" when he says, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?" To apply sports metaphors ad nauseum, "Why do you call me a coaching genius, and not do what I say?"
Human beings are creatures of habit. As a pastor I see this every Sunday when people come in and sit in exactly the same place they sat the week before, and the week before that. This is not all bad. It's nice not needing to decide where to sit every week. But we will persist in habits that are not helpful, even persist in habits that we say we want to break. We're also pretty good at insisting our existing habits are just fine, even that they are sanctioned by God. It wasn't so long ago that mainstream American Christianity proclaimed segregation God's will.
Old habits die hard, but the first step in killing off bad ones is to recognize them. Do our habits align with what Jesus told us? Do our habits fit with being a disciple of Jesus, or have we simply gotten so used to the way we live that we presume it must be fine with Jesus?
Love your neighbor, including the enemy. Help the poor. Offer kindness to the stranger and the alien. Care for the hungry. Those who try to save their lives will lose them while those who lose their lives find them. Do not return evil for evil. All these things and more are at the heart of Jesus' message, and yet many of us follow habits that don't always align very well with what Jesus says.
"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you? Do our habits help us do what Jesus tells us? Jesus says that developing habits that do builds our lives on a solid foundation that will stand the test of time.
How many of you believe in Jesus? I know that seems a rather odd thing to ask at Sunday worship, but play along with me. How many of you believe in Jesus? Raise your hands. Okay now, how many of you came to worship today because you were worried that you were about to stop believing in Jesus, that it had become so difficult that you might not be able to keep it up? Raise your hands again.
Seems that this is not a big issue for most of you. Not many are worried that your belief in Jesus is so fragile it could collapse at any moment. I realize that a show of hands might not be the best proof of this. Many might not want to admit such a thing publicly in the sanctuary. But still most of your are probably not struggling just to maintain belief in Jesus.
So let me try a different question. How many of you would say you have faith? Raise your hands. Still a lot of hands, but different looks on people’s faces. This question is a little different because people can mean a number of different things by faith. What does it mean to you? How do you define faith?
This is not the first time I’ve ever asked such questions. And in my experience some people think of faith as pretty much the same thing as belief, but others think of faith as more complicated, including belief but also things such as trust. But of course trust itself is a bit complicated. Some folks mean trusting that if you believe in Jesus you will get into heaven, and others mean trusting Jesus enough to actually do as he says.
But even though faith is complicated, I’m going to artificially simplify it for the moment. I’m going to divide faith into two camps. In Camp 1, faith is mostly about belief and things associated with belief, about believing in Jesus and any hoped for benefits from that. Its concerns tend to be about believing the right things. For those in this camp what is distinctive about their faith is the particular things that they believe.
The other camp is mostly about following Jesus and doing as he says. For this camp, faith is about trusting Jesus’ instructions enough to actually follow them. For those in this camp, what is distinctive about their faith focuses on the actions they take. Can they truly pray for and do good to their enemy? Will they let go of their own money and possessions and give to the poor? That sort of thing.
Again, this division is huge over-simplification. What one does is impacted greatly by what one believes. Still, I think there is merit to this division, and I think that many of us can identify more with one camp or the other. With that in mind, I want to look at the request the disciples make to Jesus about faith. When they cry out, “Increase our faith!” what exactly are they asking?
It’s a little hard to imagine that these disciples need help believing in Jesus. Some of the doubts that can arise with us were probably not problems for them. They had seen God’s power at work in him in the most dramatic ways imaginable. And so they probably don’t need much help believing the right things, but doing the right things is something else.
Jesus has just spoken to the disciples about their work shepherding the faithful, how they must not cause others to stumble and how they must correct sinful behavior but be ever ready to forgive. The disciples seem to be worried about their ability to do this, and they cry out to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”
Jesus’ response seems far from pastoral. “If you had even a hint of faith, you could do remarkable things. And even then, they should regard yourselves as ‘worthless slaves’.”
Some of you will remember that in my first couple of years we brought in an Alban Institute consultant named Al Bamsey to help us work through lingering problems associated with the traumatic departure of my predecessor. Al did a number of interviews with groups of members and staff and leaders. Out of this he wrote a report that included our recent history as well as some conclusions about where we were as a congregation. He also held a Saturday event to explain the report and to work on any issues that might keep us from moving forward.
Al was concerned that there might be some latent conflict that needed to be addressed. And so for a long time he queried the 75 or so of us gathered that day about those conflicts. This produced several flip-chart pages worth of comments, but Al got more and more frustrated as this went on because none of these comments described conflicts. Instead, they were programs or activities that people wanted to see. Al kept pleading, “These are wants. I’m interested in conflict.” But only more wants were forthcoming.
Finally, Al’s frustration reached the point where he lost all pastoral restraint, and he blurted out, “You bunch of babies! There are 75 of you here, and you could do every single item on this list if you just decided to do them.” Naturally, many people took offense, and he had pretty much lost control of the meeting. But that “You bunch of babies!” line was a memorable one, and I’ve heard it repeated in conversation many times over the years.
It strikes me that, from a pastoral standpoint, what Al Bamsey said had a similar feel to what Jesus said about worthless slaves. And on the surface, the content of what Al said may seem similar. The tasks before you seem daunting, but you could do them if you just try. But in actuality, what Al and Jesus say are not similar at all. Al Bamsey was talking about a long to-do list of programs and activities that people thought we should do, or ought to do, or that they wanted offered. Jesus is talking about something quite different, what he commands us to do.
Jesus employs the metaphor of a worthless slave, something that sounds terrible offensive and off-putting. But as I mulled over this metaphor, I began to see something liberating in it. A slave, especially a worthless slave, would not be asked to do too much. He would simply been given something simple to do, a task. Jesus seems to think he has done something similar with us. He has given us simple tasks. They sometimes require hard work, but we are more than capable of doing them.
However, we in the Church often make things complicated. We think we need the latest whiz-bang programs, innovative educational opportunities, and inspiring mission events. We need the latest and greatest thing that the church down the street has or that the big mega-church is doing if we are going to keep up.
But we don’t. We don’t need more and more. We simply need to listen and hear the work Jesus gives us. We need to set aside those things that come from our own egos or assumptions or expectations about what a church is supposed to be. We need to take a look at our lives, both here, at home, and at work, and ask ourselves, “How have we gotten ourselves overwhelmed and frazzled and burned out by chasing after things that do not truly matter?” We need to stop, to step back from our busyness, and listen for Jesus’ voice. Each of us needs to hear Jesus telling us what our work is, what our task is. Individually, and as a congregation, we need to separate religious busyness for the work Jesus gives us to do.
When we do that, the work may be hard, but it will not be overwhelming. It will not cause burnout, and our faith will be more than enough for the task. When we listen, Jesus speaks to us as he once did to those first disciples. “You already have faith aplenty. Just do as I have commanded you, and watch what happens.”
Most Christians are likely familiar with Jesus saying, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." Most of us are also familiar with how difficult this can be (along with how easy it is to chastise others for their failure to do so). But for some reason, a different part of today's gospel reading caught my attention. "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them."
Why is it that we love others? Why is it that we love anything? It certainly makes sense that we would love those who love us. In fact, this is probably how we learn to love. Children learn to love because they are loved by parents and family. And we learn to love in the way Jesus speaks because we are loved this way. As it says in 1 John 4:19, "We love because he first loved us."
Very often, loving our enemies is seen as one of those idealistic, impractical, even impossible demands of faith. But what if we viewed it more like the process of a child learning to love? A child who never learns to love is maladjusted and faces real difficulties in developing adult relationships. Might the inability to love those who do not love us work in similar fashion? Might it be a kind of maladjustment that severely hampers us in being the fully human creatures God desires us to be?
One popular understanding of Christianity says that believing in Jesus is the critical thing. Other stuff, such as loving you enemy, is in the extra credit category, a good thing, but not essential. Yet Jesus certainly doesn't talk this way. He commissions his followers to make disciples of all nations by "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." And if Jesus is what it means to be fully human, then perhaps his telling us to love our enemies is like a parent telling a two year old to share a toy with a sibling. He is trying to teach us what is absolutely necessary if we are to live with others as we are meant to live.
Most of us are probably more familiar with the Beatitudes from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount than we are with the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. The blessings are so similar that both seem to be rooted in the same teaching of Jesus. But Luke's account contains something not found in Matthew, a corresponding list of woes, and so we see both sides, the blessed and the cursed.
The final woe or curse hits me a little hard. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets." Different things motivate different people, but one of the things I crave is the approval of others. Nothing strokes my ego like a "Good sermon," or receiving a number of positive comments on a blog post. So should I be glad when no one says anything, and should I worry when I receive a few extra pats on the back?
If you read through the list of woes, you'll probably find one or two that gore your favorites, but what does this mean? If would be fairly simple to get people to speak badly of me. I could preach sermons that condemned my congregation for its failures. But would that mean God was happy with me, that I was blessed.
At the risk of spiritualizing Jesus' words, I wonder if both the Sermon on the Plain and the Sermon on the Mount aren't about aligning ourselves with the Kingdom, with the new order of things that will exist when God's will is done on earth as well as in heaven. In our world, being rich generally requires others to be poor. And having people speak well of me often requires me to assure people that the way we live and the things we chase after are perfectly compatible with God's coming reign.
It seems to me that one of the most difficult things about following Jesus is genuinely receiving God's love while at the same time hearing God's call to become something we are not. How do we live in ways that reflect God's Beloved Community while being honest about the ways in which we fall horribly short? It is easy to live at either pole. It is easy to be a community of affirmation where God blesses every conventional aspect of every member's life. And it is easy (if less popular) to be a "prophetic" community that calls down God's wrath on every conventional aspect of society. More difficult, it seems to me, is genuinely to embody God's love while also embodying a call to repent, to turn and become more and more like Christ, agents of God's dream for Creation.
