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.
Frost on the last two mornings in Columbus seems to have put an end to my gardening for the season. I don't have space for a big garden, but I manage to plant some tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers each year. And being from the South, I grow a bit of okra. (If you've never had fried okra, you don't know what you're missing.) I think I enjoy gardening because of the concrete results it produces. Usually my efforts are rewarded with tasty vegetables, often so many that we share them with friends and neighbors. It is a nice change of pace from my work as a pastor, where the impact of my work is often not so tangible.
However, I am not the most patient gardener. In the spring, I watch anxiously for my seeds to sprout, or for the first tomatoes to show. In my impatience, I've occasionally picked something before it was really ripe, or even knocked a tomato or pepper off with my constant examining of the plants. And if I buy a variety of plant that doesn't produce, you can bet I won't buy it again the next year.
And so I understand the frustration of the landowner in Jesus' parable of the fig tree. Year after year he comes to see if the tree has produced any figs, but each year it is barren. Finally, he tells the one who tends his vineyard, "Cut it down!" That seems a logical course of action. But the gardener begs for more time, promising to give it tender care, hoping to coax it into blooming and producing fruit.
A lot of people look at parables and try to figure out who is who in them. Is the landowner God and the gardener Jesus? I suppose a certain amount of that is unavoidable, but I much prefer to simply look at the bigger picture the parable paints without turning it into an allegory.
The elements of this painting are simple. There is a tree that is supposed to bear fruit, but it does not. Clearly fig trees without figs are faulty on a fundamental level, and cutting this one down and replacing it seems more than warranted. But not in this garden. Here every effort is made to allow the tree to become what it is meant to be.
This parable speaks of purpose, of judgment, and of grace. And it ends with waiting. Will grace and tender mercy help the tree become what it is created to be? To frame the question larger, will God's creation be set right? Sometimes religious folks want to hurry the parable along. We want to end the waiting. Some end it with judgment, others with grace, but either move seems to me to hurry the parable. Thankfully the gardener in the parable is the patient sort.
Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray. (Psalm 5:1-2)
Some people are surprised to learn that a huge number of the Psalms are cries for help. These are often referred to as psalms of "lament," and according to many counts, they comprise the largest single group of psalms. Some of these psalms sound desperate, some plead, and some are downright angry. Some people are surprised by this as well because somewhere along the line they got the notion that railing at God, questioning God, or shaking a fist at God was either an act of disbelief or of disrespect.
And yet a recurring theme in the psalms and many other parts of the Bible is the longing of faithful people for things to be set right. In the Beatitudes, Jesus speaks of those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" being blessed by God. This simply means that those who long for a broken world to become a place of goodness, peace, hope, and mercy, who experience pangs similar to thirst and hunger when they dream of an end to evil, hate, violence, and exploitation; these are among those God calls blessed.
Curiously, many Christians have exchanged this longing for a better world for a longing for heaven. Indeed some Christians actively disparage people who work to care for the earth because "God's just going to destroy it some day soon anyway." Yet Jesus calls us to pray for God's kingdom and God's ways to come here on earth, as they now are in heaven. It is Jesus himself who holds out the hope of a world where God's will is done. It is Jesus who holds out a vision of a redeemed and transformed world for us to long for, await, and work for.
What do you long for? What does your faith call you to long for? "Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry."
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” What on earth for!? What would possess anyone to do such a thing? Did you pray for Osama bin Laden in the days after 9-11?
George W. Bush, who probably wore his Christian faith on his sleeve more so than any president in more than half a century, argued quite forcibly for attacking our enemy before he attacked us, creating the new American doctrine of preemptive war.
And on an individual level, we don’t celebrate the person who calmly “takes it,” who endures abuse. We celebrate the one who stands up for himself. I grew up when Westerns were still popular on TV and the big screen, and the hero was often an every day fellow who, when pushed to his limits by the bad guys, rose up gave them what they had coming.
Truth is, we just don’t know what to do with this love your enemy stuff.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ Beatitudes flow right into his words on loving enemies and turning the other cheek. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is not as familiar to some of us as those found in Matthew. Not only are the blessings more concrete in Luke – blessings on the poor rather than the poor in spirit – but they are paired with a corresponding list of woes.
Those in the blessed category are the poor, the hungry, those who are weeping, and who are reviled. On the other hand, the rich, those who go to great dinner parties, those who are laughing, and the popular folks are in the “woe to you” group. But this doesn’t sound right. It’s backwards, just like loving your enemies. I don’t know many people who want to be poor, hungry, sad, or unpopular, and the reverse doesn’t sound like a curse to me, far from it.
When I was a kid, The Smothers Brothers were quite popular, with a string of records and a television show. For those who don’t know of them, this musical comedy team involved one of the two brothers, Tommy, playing the fool. In real life he was the one who had created the act, but on stage the comedy came from his misunderstandings and foul-ups played against his “smart,” straight-man brother.
A recurring bit in their act was Tommy’s feeling of inadequacy expressed in the line, “Mom always liked you best.” They even had an album with that title. The album cover featured the two brothers posed like children. Dick stands there grinning as he wears a toy gun and holster, surrounded by a wagon, bicycle, scooter, beach-ball, and assorted and sundry toys as a dog gazes at him. Tommy, on the other hand, is seated, gazing up at his smiling brother. He has not a single toy and is holding a rope, used as a leash for a chicken. The album title is above him, depicted as his spoken words. “Mom always liked you best.”
The “truth” of Tommy’s words is clear for everyone to see. His smiling, happy brother is surrounded by good things while he has almost nothing. Any fool can see that his Mom favors his brother and slights him.
We humans are quite sensitive to such things. “That’s not fair!” cries the young child whose sibling has gotten a slightly larger slice of cake. Even if the Smothers Brothers stretch it for comic purposes, we are anxious about what others have, compared to what we have. From an early age, we compare ourselves to those around us, noticing who is different, who seems to have more, who seems to have less.
When you think about it, we humans are a rather insecure sort. I suppose that there are biological, evolutionary advantages to this. It could provide drive to gather or hunt for enough food to get through the winter. It’s a good survival instinct to notice which potential mate might be likely to provide enough to raise children. It makes sense to worry about whether or not a shelter is sufficient to keep out the elements. From a survival standpoint, our insecurity makes sense.
But once we leave the realm of survival, our insecurities cause more problems than they solve. It begins when we are small. We clutch at what we have, worried we may lose it. We don’t want to share. And we worry about fitting in. We will change our appearance, our clothes, so we can belong. Worse, we will belittle others to make ourselves feel more secure.
Many of us always feel that we are just short of having enough. If we just made a little more money, just looked a little better, just had a little hotter boyfriend or girlfriend, just had that latest high tech gadget, we’d be happy. But somehow we never quite get there.
And when things are going badly, our insecurities really kick in. As we wind down the current political campaign, candidates on both sides play on our insecurities and fears. They know that we worry about all sorts of things, and they seek to stoke those worries, telling us that their opponents don’t simply disagree with them, but they’re out to destroy our way of life, to take away our jobs, our things, our money, our happiness.
Even the Church has insecurity problems. For years mainline churches have looked at mega-churches with a mixture of envy and loathing. Presbyterians have lamented our loss of prestige and power. Fortunately there is always some congregation that is much worse off than us, and we can feel better about ourselves when we realize that we look a lot more successful than that sorry congregation over there.
Often we draw God into our insecurities. Some claim the Presbyterian Church’s woes are because we’ve failed to believe certain things or understand the Bible correctly. Others say America’s woes are because we’ve abandoned certain religious values, taken prayer out of schools, or said “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”
We seem to think God operates out of the same insecurities that we do. Listening to some Christians you’d think God was worried that all creation could come unhinged. I hear people say God will have to do this or have to do that if people don’t straighten up. Wow, it must be awful being God and having to worry about all the things that could go wrong.
But Jesus presents a very different view of God. Amidst our insecurities about having enough, being good enough, being popular enough, Jesus speaks of God’s blessings poured out especially on those who have next to nothing. Jesus even speaks of those things our insecurities drive us to chase: wealth, popularity, and so on, as being a curse. As a 1st Century, Palestinian Jew, Jesus was prone to speak in hyperbole, but still, he warns us that the insecurities that so motivate us, tend to drive us away from God
Tomorrow is All Saints Day, so we are celebrating it today in worship. But over the years Christians have distorted the original meaning of “saint” so that it now describes a super Christian, someone who has out-Christianed the rest of us. Out of our human insecurities, we have undermined the Bible’s insistence that each one of us is an integral a part of the body of Christ, and we’ve insisted that some are better and so more valued.
But the good news of Jesus is that God is not like us. God has no insecurities. God is not frightened of anyone or worried that someone could undermine God’s happiness or God’s plans. And so God is totally free to love. It upsets our human sensibilities sometimes, but God loves us, not because we are good enough or because we believe the right things or because we belong to the right group. God simply loves us. God loves you, whoever you are, whatever you’ve done or failed to do, and wants what’s best for you, even if God’s understanding of “best” looks quite different from what our fears and insecurities lead us to chase.
On this day when we remember the saints of this congregation who have died, we also remember that Jesus calls us all to be saints. Saints are simply those who have experienced God’s love embracing them, who have discovered that the security of God’s embrace liberates us from our fears and insecurities, and allows us to live as the children God longs for us to be. And when God’s love frees us from our worries and insecurities, the transformation is remarkable. Secure in God’s love, we are free to love, even something so foolish as loving our enemies.
I've blogged on this before, but Peter raises the issue himself in today's gospel. "Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?" Modern day Christians, especially Protestants, are prone to think of the Bible as an evangelical tool. We presume that everything in it is spoken for everyone, that if we could just get everyone to read it and believe what it says, the Kingdom would surely come.
But of course this is a relatively modern, Protestant notion. For the first 1500 or so years of Christianity, almost no Christians owned a Bible. And no one gave Bibles to non-Christians. It took the invention of the printing press and the development of high literacy rates before Protestants could insist that every individual should read Scripture for himself or herself. And this idea needed to become ingrained before handing out Bibles made any sense as a conversion technique.
All of this is to say that for most of Christian history, the Bible and its teachings weren't not necessarily thought to apply equally to everyone. Jesus himself, in today's reading, suggests that those who weren't aware of what Jesus' return meant would not be held accountable the same way his followers would.
Some Christians are quick to condemn non-believers, but Jesus seems to say that it is believers who need to be on their toes, that they are the ones who will be held to higher standards and scrutiny. And I suspect that if we believers did hold ourselves to higher standards, that might prove to be the most effective sort of evangelistic witness.
I grew up reading Mad Magazine which featured Alfred E. Neuman and his stock phrase, "What, me worry?" Neuman's lack of worry seemed the product of a general cluelessness, not necessarily something to be emulated. And yet Jesus recommends something of Neumanesque pose. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear."
Jesus also seems to give a nod to another facet of Neuman's character. Neuman appears to be something of a "slacker," not the sort of fellow who would knock himself out to make good grades or participate in lots of extracurricular activities so he would be accepted into an elite college. Our culture rewards endless striving. Parents pick enrichment activities for their toddlers, already worrying about college applications. And yet Jesus says, "And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying."
What do you worry about? What do you expend energy trying to achieve? Some people assume that pastors have an advantage when it comes to living "Christ-like" lives. After all, our work is centered on the faith. And yet we pastors are often caught up in our culture's obsession with success. Countless books and conferences aimed at pastors urge us to work harder and smarter in language that would sound familiar to business managers and leaders. And much of this material that tries to make us "better pastors" feeds off of and adds to a climate of worry. We're worried about church finances. We're worried about aging congregations. We're worried about declining church participation. We're worried about how it looks when a congregation loses membership on our watch.
I don't for a second think that Jesus wants me simply to lounge around doing nothing. But Jesus says my striving should be for God's kingdom, which is not always the same thing as a "successful" congregation, a to-die-for youth program, or a gang-buster stewardship campaign.
What sort of worry and striving occupies your time? What sort of worry and striving occupies your congregation or faith community? I know that a lot of my worrying and striving has little to do with the Kingdom. I wonder if Alfred E. Neuman might be available for a little church consulting.
I readily admit that readings such as today's gospel make me a bit uncomfortable. When Jesus starts talking about being "cast into hell" or how "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven," I struggle to fit this in with other images of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, with his call to love and pray for your enemies. Perhaps, as a modern "liberal," I'm simply uncomfortable with judgment and accountability.
Perhaps... But I also think some of my discomfort arises from texts such as today's being used in an "us versus them" sort of way. Because we are so accustomed to the Bible being employed for evangelical purposes, we often forget that it was originally written for internal use only. The gospel of Luke was not handed out on the streets as might be done today by the Gideons. The vary rare copies of it (all copies had to be written out by hand) were read aloud at gatherings of churches, often house churches. And so these words are aimed almost exclusively at Christians.
I don't know that removes all the discomfort of these verses, but it does change the focus quite a bit. Nothing is being said here about believers versus non-believers. This is about how believers respond when their faith puts them in jeopardy. In this sense the words seem intended more as encouragement than as warning. They are a call to stand fast in the face of persecution, to trust in God's care for them no matter the circumstances.
And when they are persecuted, "everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven." This is a most curious saying. Speaking against Jesus is not a deal breaker, but the Holy Spirit is another matter. There is debate about just what is meant by this, perhaps something along the lines of: If in a moment of fear a disciple speaks against Jesus, that is forgiven, but if a disciple actively rejects the Spirit's efforts to strengthen and encourage them, that is not.
However, what is clear is that the only ones in any danger in this scenario are Christians. Jesus' words are addressed to believers who face persecution. And isn't it strange that we can take words addressed to us, and somehow turn them so that they speak words of condemnation against others who don't believe the same as we do.
Have you ever wondered what Jesus would think if he visited your congregation? I'm not talking about his presence being there but about the Jesus we meet in the gospels walking in off the street and dropping in on a worship service, a fellowship dinner, a committee meeting, and so on. I was prompted to wonder about such things after reading today's gospel and being reminded once again how it took religious people to get Jesus really honked off.
For many of us who grew up in the church, this fact is sometimes missed. Pharisees, scribes, and such have become such stock, bad guys that we don't necessarily see much beyond cartoon, cardboard cutouts. (I grew up in the South where sometimes Catholics got the same sort of treatment. If the Catholics did it, surely it was a bad idea, which explains why Ash Wednesday, Lent, and so on are somewhat new to me.) But what if we replace the term "Pharisee" with something not having the same negative stereotypes?
Today's gospel features Pharisees and lawyers, and I don't think it is all that much of stretch to rename them pastors and theologians. (Maybe Protestant pastors; we'll let the priests and Sadducees be Catholic.) It isn't very hard for me to imagine Jesus lashing out at some of us pastors and theologians for being overly concerned about keeping our churches going, about getting the doctrines straight, about worshiping in the proper manner, without worrying much about issues such as justice. If Jesus visited our committee and board meetings, I can visualize him getting enraged over how little "good news for the poor" gets emphasized and how the poor are often viewed as little more than opportunities for mission projects, who should show gratitude to us for our noble efforts.
It isn't that pastors or theologians are such bad folks, but then neither were those Pharisees and lawyers Jesus addresses. But all of us can get terribly preoccupied with running our little religious enterprises and mistake all that work and energy for loving God and serving others.
It took religious people to really get Jesus angry. Perhaps that is because he thinks we should know better. Perhaps that means we religious types would do well to spend more of our time getting closer to Jesus, letting him invade every little corner of our lives, and letting him rattle our cages now and then so that we get back on the path he shows us.
I've long loved the story of Jonah. It is a remarkable story that contains a great deal more meaning when one listens for its message rather than worrying about historical events. Like the book of Job, the book wrestles with the ways of God. But unlike Job, who becomes enraged over God's unfair punishment of him, Jonah is angry over God's graciousness and mercy.
The story depicts a reluctant prophet who heads off in the wrong direction when God calls him. Finally forced by God to go to Nineveh, Jonah unenthusiastically fulfills his mission, then is angry that God reverses course (literally "repents") on plans to destroy the city. Jonah complains that this is why he ran from God's call. He feared God would show mercy all along.
The story concludes with a curious little aside that is both poignant and humorous. Jonah goes out and sits, perhaps hoping God will yet destroy Nineveh. As he waits, God has a plant spring up to provide Jonah shade. But then God sends a worm that bores into the plant which withers, taking its shade in the process. And Jonah is so upset he asks to die himself. This allows God to respond, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
The story ends there with that "and also many animals?" Jonah is angry that God has not meted out justice to those Gentile Ninevites. Then he becomes so enraged over the loss of a bush that provides shade, he loses all composure. In a mixture of religious self-righteousness and egocentricism, Jonah cannot even see the thousands of men, women, and children he hopes God will kill, not to mention all those animals.
"And also many animals?" Interesting that their fate would weigh on God so. I know many Christians who seem to picture God as remarkably cavalier over the fates of those who don't get their religious beliefs correct. And who even counts animals?
My wife and I decided to get away for a couple of days, a possibility that comes with no children any longer living at home. We went to Ohio Amish country for a relaxing weekend. We stayed in Berlin, OH, visited the many shops on its main street, and watched the Amish families in their buggies. On a nice Fall weekend, we were hardly alone. Traffic in Berlin was bumper to bumper. But we were walking so it didn't much matter.
I had never been to Berlin before so I was not prepared for the contrast between Saturday and Sunday. We left our little cottage in late morning to discover the streets of Berlin nearly deserted. None of the shops we visited the day before were open, and there was scarcely a car to be seen. Berlin, it seems, is closed on Sunday. It reminded me of my native South when I was very young and Sunday was a "day of rest."
I would imagine that Berlin, OH is quite dependent on tourism dollars, and weekends would seem to be prime time for tourists. But, perhaps because many of the shops are Amish, the only shopping going on was window shopping.
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from God comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
I don't think I would want to be Amish, but I do wonder if we haven't become so busy and anxious as a people that we have difficulty finding any time for God. Despite all those things Jesus says about wealth and possessions being a hindrance to relationship with God, we want more. More things, more information, more entertainment, more and more, and we want it now.
The Amish are an exotic novelty to us because they are so foreign, so different from us. They have not bought into our culture's norms. I do not necessarily agree with their reasons for this, nor do I idealize their lives. But still, they do stand as a kind of reminder that happiness and contentment do not always require more.
I often find that when I am swamped with things that need doing in the office, when I am feeling the most stressed, those are the times when I lose touch with God. At the very times when God's presence would seem to be most needed, I am too busy to stop. I am too busy for silence. I am too busy for God?
It is a deservedly famous line from the prophet Micah. "And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" What God requires is a basic religious question. In the case of Micah, the answer rejects much of the traditional religious ritual of that day, burnt offerings and sacrifices. That's not what God wants," says Micah. You know what God wants, justice, kindness, a humble faith life.
The gospel reading for today also touches on this issue of what really matters. This passage is often noted for the way it explodes conventional gender roles. But beyond that, it raises more general questions about priorities. Someone had to get dinner ready if Jesus and the other house guests were to eat. I don't think Jesus or Luke is saying that domestic tasks are bad things. This issue is one of priorities.
All our lives are filled with choices. We have finite energy and resources. If we work 65 hour weeks, something else suffers. Living in Columbus, OH, I've learned of people who live 500 miles away and yet spend every weekend of a home Buckeye football game here in Columbus. Clearly those weekends are not available for other things.
It strikes me that when the passages from Micah and Luke are considered together, they ask people of faith to consider two different sorts of priorities. Luke addresses a more general issue of priority. Where does our faith fit into the other priorities of our lives? Micah, however, asks about the priorities of our faith lives. Where does our religious energy go? It isn't that worship is a bad thing, far from it. But if religious rituals encompass the majority of of faith lives, what happens to those things God requires of you, "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
