Resurrection and Transformation Proper 27C

 

Resurrection and Transformation

In a chapter in which Jesus is tested by the Sadducees, Priests and Scribes three times while teaching in The Temple, the third test is this question about a poor widow who, after her first husband dies, marries one brother after another of his seven brothers. Each one dies. After each marriage she is left childless. [Luke 20 27-40] Which one, ask the Sadducees, will be her husband in the resurrection? Now admittedly, the whole thing sounds weird to us unless we understand that this was a thing in ancient Israel. It’s called levirate marriage. Levirate marriage was designed to help widows who otherwise would have no one to support them marry a brother of her deceased husband. Of course, it was also designed so that she could go on to have children to perpetuate the dead husband’s family line. That she would marry all seven brothers is absurd. And that all eight marriages would end up childless seems far-fetched as well, but possible. Most absurd of all is the idea that the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection, would ask a question about marriage in the age of the resurrection of the dead. So, what gives? 

No doubt Jesus asks himself the same question. What gives? Nevertheless, he handles the situation masterfully! First, he asserts that people are married and given in marriage in this life, but there is no need for marriage in the resurrection of the dead – no need for children, no need for support, no need to extend a family line. Everyone is still dead. “Because,” he says, “they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” Angels and children do not procreate; thus, widows in the resurrection age will have no need for a husband anymore.

Then he gets to the really substantive issue, for he knows the Sadducees are just messing with him. Remember, they do not believe in the resurrection. That’s why they are so sad, you see? But resurrection is the issue. Speaking like true Pharisee or Rabbi, he appeals to Torah, and that moment when Moses is speaking to a bush that is on fire, but is not consumed. I don’t know what is more remarkable: that the bush is not consumed? Or, the fact that it is talking directly to Moses? At any rate, Jesus asserts that it is Moses himself who finds out that the dead are raised to new life. After the bush instructs Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses wants to know who the bush is? Who should I say has told me to prepare the people to leave and to tell Pharaoh to let our people go? The bush replies, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Jesus scores the final knock out: “Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.” And that is why we Pharisees, he seems to say, believe there is a resurrection of the dead! Point, Set, and Match! Unless you want to challenge Moses. In which case, sure, go ahead! 

That he has survived this third round of testing is evidenced by the conclusion of the story, which the lectionary, for some reason leaves out: “Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.” Touche! Thus, proving once and for all that Jesus is a shrewdie! 

What are we to make of all this? Luke, writing after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70 CE, places this just before the final conflict with the Priests, who are aligned with Pilate, who is the appointed authority of Caeser, Emperor of the Empire, and styles himself as a rival God to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Nevertheless, the Sadducees, Scribes, and Pharisees, I believe, sincerely wanted to know if Jesus really was The One sent by God to turn their world right-side-up again. Such testing is part of the culture. When I considered converting to Judaism, Rabbi Stanley Kessler made clear that it was customary for him to test my intention three times before beginning a process of conversion. Something similar was going on with Jesus among the various sub-sects of Israel, some sincerely hoping he might be The One, the New Moses, to lead them back to a life of freedom from the brutal authoritarian dictatorship of Rome.

 

Then there is the primary issue. If the end of the gospel story is to make any sense at all, a case must be made that there is, in fact, a resurrection of the dead. Jesus offers such an argument from Torah, which was the respected group of texts for all the groups testing him. Some of the Sadducees and the Priests, however, were conflicted, since they were effectively on Rome’s payroll and therefore granted some degree of power and freedom. We humans often allow ourselves to be morally compromised to maintain whatever power and freedom we may have been given. This was true for those who collaborated with the Empire. 

Then there are questions about the resurrection. There’s a story that goes something like this: A man on his death-bed, nearing the end of this life, calls his priest to come. “I have listened to everything you have said for years, and I know that you have said that we can’t take it with us when we die. But I really do want to take my vast wealth with me. What can I do?” The priest suggests, “Why not convert your wealth to gold bricks, put them in a suitcase under your bed and see what happens.” The man does this, Sure enough, when he dies, he finds himself, suitcase in hand, facing St. Peter at Heaven’s Gate. “Wow!” he says, “It worked!” He walks over to St. Peter who is looking at him with a puzzled look on his face. “What do you have in the suitcase?” asks Peter. The man opens it up, and proudly displays all of his gold. But Peter looks on with even greater puzzlement on his face? “What’s the matter?” asks the man. “Well,” says Peter, “we’ve never had anyone show up with a suitcase filled with pavement before!”

 

This reflects Jesus’s initial argument that resurrection life will likely not to be at all as we experience life in this age, in our earthly life. All expectations that the life after this life will be familiar ought to be suspended. The question about the eight-time married widow is absurd and irrelevant. In resurrection there will be a radical discontinuity with life in this age. The one reliable continuity, however, is God – the One who transcends death. As New Testament Scholar Charles B. Cousar concludes, “Jesus’ point is simply that God’s future cannot be understood as an extension of our present existence. It is not the case that we can take what we like out of our current life, raise it to the nth power, and call it heaven. Resurrection entails transformation.” 

As we say in our Burial Office, “life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for a dwelling place eternal n the heavens.” (BCP 382) Scribes, Pharisees, Priests and Sadducees all try to test Jesus to see if he truly is the Son of God. They try to pin him down on when the Day of the Lord will come and what life in the age of the resurrection of the dead will be like. Jesus steadfastly responds that only God knows, only his Father, and our heavenly Father, knows any of this and all of this. The one thing we can rely upon, the one continuity in the age to come, is that which is expressed by the prophet Haggai to a people who return from exile to find Jerusalem and the Temple an utter shamble. It is not like they remembered. The Lord God says to them, and to us, “I am with you…my Spirit abides among you. Do not fear!” 

That fourteenth century female mystic, Julian of Norwich, sums it up this way, “All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.” Resurrection entails transformation. God is with us; God’s Spirit abides among us. Fear not. All shall be well! It may not be the same, it may not be familiar, but if we let ourselves live into the transformation God has in mind, then all shall be well, for God’s Spirit does abide among us. Now, and forever. Amen.

Blessed be God, for you have created me! All Saints 2025C

 

Blessed be God, for you have created me!

Some have likened Jesus to a Lighthouse, a beam of light that cuts through the darkness to lead us like ships to safety on the dry land of the kingdom of God. Jesus, the light that shines through the darkness, and which the darkness has not overcome the life that is the light of the world. Jesus, like navigators, also relies on lower lights upon the shore, which in relation to the Lighthouse provides a more precise picture of how to land in life eternal in God’s kingdom. 

All Saints is an annual feast of the Body of Christ, his Church. In the earliest days, all those baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jeus the Christ were referred to as saints, lower case. Lower case, but all-important amplifiers of the Light of Christ, that morning star that knows no setting. Over time, however, this festival of All Saints celebrated the lives of those Saints, upper case, who answered the bell to step up in their generation as those who follow Christ in all that that do and all that they say. Often these Saints were peacemakers in a world of force and violence. Most of all, they were men and women in all generations who one way or another lived lives that reflected a deep understanding of what many consider Jesus’s Magna Charta for Christians: The Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), and the parallel Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20-31. It is a sign of our own time of the need always to remind ourselves of these Saints who represent those core teachings of what it means to follow Christ, for there are American Christians now complaining that the Sermons on the Mount and the Plain are “too woke” and no longer express values relevant to our world. 

There is a list of individuals in our Book of Common Prayer (1979) listed on their feast days beginning on page 19.  Clare, August 11, came from a wealthy family in the often-overlooked town of Assisi in thirteenth century Italy. She was inspired by Francesco Giovanni, or Francis, who had left his wealthy merchant family to “repair” the church, as the voice of Christ on the cross had called him as he prayed in the chapel at San Damiano, outside of Assisi. Francis renounced his wealth and his patrimony, and wandered from town to town gathering stones to rebuild the San Damiano chapel. But then he was inspired to go further: to repair the Whole Church. He gathered companions to found an order of mendicant Friars Minor. They dressed in brown, woolen peasant robes with a knotted rope belt and devoted themselves to Christ and serving the poor and the mortally ill. Clare was moved to join Francis and went on to found a women’s order of Franciscans later called the Poor Sisters. 

Francis helped Clare write a Rule of Life similar to that he had written for the Friars Minor. When Francis died, the Friars had begun to abandon the Rule of Life until Clare held their feet to the fire of the Rule and refocused them on their work of spreading the gospel through service to others, especially to those most in need, thus saving the order of Franciscans for the ages. 

Clare was not the only thirteenth century woman to abandon a life of marriage and wealth, as communities of women living together began to appear throughout Europe. Many of them had heard of Clare and the Poor Sisters. They would write to her for advice on how to order their communities. Some of her letters have survived, and anyone interested in how one might become a peacemaker, live a life of poverty, and withstand being reviled and misunderstood for not living a life characterized by eating, drinking, over self-indulgence, and merriment, can find much to learn from Clare’s letters. It took courage on behalf of Francis, Clare and others, to abandon what most would consider the good life for a life of poverty and service to others in the name of Christ. To become one of those lesser lights that amplify and extend the True Light that still cuts through whatever darkness attempts to prevail against it. 

One such woman was Ermentrude of Bruges, daughter of the mayor of Cologne. She took a pilgrimage in 1240, and ended up living as a hermit in Bruges. She heard of Clare and as a result of their correspondence, she made a pilgrimage to Assisi to meet her, only to arrive two weeks after Clare had died. After meeting with the sisters, however, on returning to Bruges she turned her hermitage into a house of Poor Sisters. In one letter that survives, Clare wrote to Ermentrude, and really to all of us:

Be faithful, dearest, to the one to whom you are promised until death. By Him you will be crowned with the laurels of life. For our labor is short but the reward eternal. Do not be confounded by the clamor of a world as fleeting as shadows. Let not the empty specters of a deceitful world torment you; close your ears to the whispers of hell and strongly resist its assaults…Freely support adversity and be not elated when things go well for the former challenges faith and the latter demands it. Faithfully return to God what you have promised and he will reward you. O dearest, look to heaven which summons us, and take up your cross and follow Christ who goes before us, then, after various and numerous troubles we shall enter through Him into His glory. With your whole being, love God and Jesus his Son, crucified for us sinners, never let the memory of Him slip from your mind… Watch and pray always. The work which you have well begun, swiftly complete, and the ministry which you have undertaken in holy poverty, and sincere humility, fulfil it…Let us pray to God for each other, then in this way we will each hear the burdens of the other in love, easily fulfilling the law of Christ. Amen.

 

“With your whole being, love God, and Jesus his son.” “Faithfully return to God what you have promised and he will reward you.” For All the Saints. Those lesser lights that amplify the True Light and Life of the world. Faithful women and men in every generation who hear the voice of Christ in prayer. As the popular hymns say, “And there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.” For the truth of the matter is that we pray for those who have gone before because they have always been praying for us. And the Saints of the Church are people just like every one of us. We celebrate All Saints to remind us who we have been created to be. Saints. 

 “We all have the inborn wisdom to create a wholesome, uplifted existence for ourselves and others. We can think beyond our own little cocoon and try to help this troubled world. Not only will our friends and family benefit, but even our enemies will reap the blessings of peace,” writes Pema Chodron. By virtue of our Baptism, we all have the inborn wisdom of Christ. We have all been created to be the Saints of the Body of Christ, His Church, to help this troubled world. 

No one knew this more than a young woman from Assisi. On her death bed, the Poor Sisters gathered around her, and Clare said to them, and to us, “Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he that created you has sanctified you, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother.”  Then came her final words, “Blessed be God, for you have created me.” May each of us start each day with Saint Clare’s final words to remind ourselves who we are, and whose we are: Blessed be God, for you have created me! 

May we share the Life and Light of the world with others this day. Amen.

 

It's About Justice For All Proper 25C

 

It’s About Justice For All

Another parable. We read in Luke 18:9-14 that this parable is for those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” Sounds as if there were other people at the time of Jesus, and later Luke, who were like the judge in the previous story who holds God and all other people in contempt believing that only he is righteous. That is, there are those who trust only in themselves and demean all others who are not like themselves.   

Righteous is Bible-lingo that denotes living in accordance with the vision of the covenant as outlined in the first five books of the bible: as Jesus summarized it, a life based in the love of God and love of neighbor. To understand righteousness, one must study the covenant and the prophets to learn that God desires justice and peace for all people, and that we are to respect the dignity of all people. As to being “justified,” we might note that the word comes from the same root as justice: which from the beginning of the wilderness sojourn after leaving Egypt means that everyone has enough, no one has too much, and if you hoard resources from the good of the community, it rots. Justification may also denote the acceptance one has, or hopes to have, in the eyes of God and Jesus, on the basis of what one does to secure justice for all people and respect for every human being. This is the Bible’s understanding of love of neighbor, which of course Jesus extends to loving and praying for our enemies. 

Thus, enter a Pharisee at prayer in the Temple. And like most all Pharisees, he has been fastidious in accepting the responsibilities and vision of covenant living, and yet at the same time his prayer oddly seems to be all about himself, saying “I” four times: “I thank,” “I am not like other people,” “I fast twice a week,” I give a tenth of all my income.” Then glancing at the Tax Collector he says, “I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” The Tax Collector is in the corner by himself, hoping not to be noticed by anyone, because his job is to collaborate with the evil enemy Empire of Rome, taking money from people that could be used to care for widows, orphans and resident aliens, and instead sends it off to Caesar, who styles himself as a God more powerful than the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Caesar uses said “taxes,” more like protection money, to continue the military occupation of Israel, as well as to eat, drink, and be merry while building himself palaces and monuments that honor himself, and himself only, with no regard for God or people. The Tax Collector confesses his unrighteous behavior, and simply asks God for mercy. 

The first trap: The righteousness of the Pharisee is betrayed by his contempt for others. Which amounts to saying something we all say at one time or another, "There but for the grace of God go I." It is a phrase that might express empathy for the misfortune of others, and might acknowledge that it is only God who has spared us, not we ourselves. But often it is a way to separate ourselves from those who are unfortunate. I recall on day being at Paul’s Place, our diocesan soup kitchen in the Pig Town neighborhood of Baltimore. Someone nearby, looking at the poor and homeless who were eating their one hot meal of the day and remarked, "There but for the grace of God go I." The Reverend William Rich turned to me and said, “Really what we need to say is, ‘There by the grace of God am I.’” Meaning, if we truly are the Body of Christ in this world, and in the 25^th chapter of Matthew Jesus self-identifies with those who are poor, sick, hungry, thirsty, in prison, without clothing, and resident aliens, and we truly believe Christ shares a presence with those who are unfortunate, Fr. Rich is right, “There by the grace of God am I.” For it is Christ who seeks to unite us, not divide us. When we self-identify with the unfortunate, we will truly understand what it means to follow Christ in all that we say and do. 

The second trap: we do well not to conclude that the kind of judgmental behavior of this Pharisee as typical of Pharisees in general, let alone of Judaism as a religion. Such judgmentalism may be found among some in all religions, especially throughout the history of the Christian Church right down to this very day. Such conclusions result in ongoing anti-Semitism, surely an offense to a God of mercy, forgiveness, and steadfast love. And there is much evidence to suggest Jesus himself was a Pharisee with his profound understanding of righteousness as covenant living. 

We note that Jesus exaggerates the characters in this parable. The Pharisee is made to be an extremist for there is no requirement to fast twice a week. Like all extremists, he represents those who can only bolster their own self-image by putting down other people – which is not at all a part of covenant life. Prayer, however, is at the heart of covenant life. And the Tax Collector/Collaborator prays simply for mercy for his failure to love God and neighbor, gathering taxes even from widows, orphans, and resident aliens, further compromising their precarious station in life. To continue to support his family, he must go back to work on behalf of Caesar, there being no other source of employment. Jesus, to the surprise of one and all, declares the one who comes in as a self-confessed sinner goes home “justified,” while the one who was so self-sure of his virtue does not: “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The last will be first. The first will be last.   

Which is the main theme of Luke’s version of the good news of Jesus: reversal. For those who follow Jesus the Christ, God will one day move to align us all to serve God as God truly is – not as the Pharisee sees God to be, but a God of the Beatitudes in which there is justice for all people, and dignity for every single human being. This was and is good news for all those who suffered under the brutality of the Empire, as well as all today who suffer judgmentalism on the basis of race, gender, economic status, human sexuality, and political affiliation. 

At the end of this day of prayer, there really is no winner, and no loser. For as one goes home to live as faithfully as the covenant demands, and the other to life as a collaborator and tax collector, both leave as sinners. Both fall short of the mark to faithfully love God and neighbor. Whether personally in how they think of and treat others. Or, in how what they do day by day that fails to support a just society for all people. There is room for both men, and for us all, to persevere in seeking justice and peace for all persons, loving our neighbors and our enemies as Jesus demands as the mark that identifies us as followers, as Christians. 

The biggest challenge for us all is that we all have blind-spots when it comes to respecting the dignity of all persons. At the time of Jesus, it was the Empire, secular, and religious leaders, who sought to divide the population against one another as seen in the Pharisee’s prayer: “I am not like other people…” Well, yes, he is. It was Abraham Lincoln, quoting Matthew 12:22-28, who once said, a house, (and we might say a church, a community, a society,) divided, cannot stand. For it is in dividing us against one another that the Empire maintains power and control, and extracts the wealth and resources that could be used to bring about a more just and prosperous society for all people for itself. This is what it means when we pray the prayer Jesus taught his disciples: that God’s will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Pray Always - Do Not Lose Heart Proper 24C

 

Pray Always – Do Not Lose Heart

The I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Wisdom, frequently counsels, “Perseverance furthers.” 

Jesus’s disciples and the Pharisees were anxious for something to end the nightmare that was the Roman Empire. They ask him when the kingdom of God was coming. He tells them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” [Luke 17:20b-21] He then tells us all a story about our need “to pray always and not to lose heart.” [Luke 18:1-8] There is a judge, who neither fears God nor has respect for people. That is, he has no use for faith-based anything, and pays no attention to opinion polls. For better or for worse he does his job as he sees fit. There is a widow who keeps coming to him looking for justice against an unnamed, undescribed opponent. From the very beginning in Torah, the first five books of our Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus make clear that those who are without family and without resources deserve our special care: widows, orphans, and resident aliens. The Prophets and Jesus continually remind those in both secular and religious leadership that this a foundational dimension of community life and is not to be ignored. 

Nevertheless, the judge ignores the widow’s plea for justice. Then, thinking it through, he says to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” Which one might argue is a kind of prayer. It is also a rather tame translation of the story from the Greek. The word translated ‘wear me out’ comes from the Greek pugilistic lexicon and means to give someone a “black eye.” She keeps coming at him at work, in the marketplace, and perhaps even demonstrates outside his home. It is unlikely she will punch him in the eye. Yet, her perseverance has the possibility to shame him in eyes of the rest of the community. He is more concerned with his own reputation than granting her justice. To preserve his standing in the community, he grants her justice, scoring a TKO for the widow in the Tenth Round! 

Never missing the teachable moment, Jesus reminds everyone that unlike the judge, God is merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and responds quickly to the people he loves, a people of covenant and prayer. We are to see the contrast: if we meditate on our covenant relationship with God and one another, and if even this unjust judge is capable of doing God’s will, how much more will our God of mercy, who abounds in forgiveness and steadfast love, be likely to be responsive to our needs for justice in times of great danger and unfair chaos from the Empire? 

The story means to remind us of the character of God – just, holy, merciful, and responsive. Prayer that is persistent, like that of the widow, is consistent with God’s character: who seeks and demands justice for all people, especially the most vulnerable among us. The story does not promise that God will give us whatever we ask for unless our persistent prayer is consistent with God’s character and concerns – which is based on love of neighbor. All neighbors. 

Then comes the zinger: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That is, will we be committed to justice, mercy, love of neighbor, and concern for the most vulnerable among us: widows, orphans, and resident aliens. Curiously, despite being primarily concerned about his own reputation, the fact of the matter is that the judge does what God and Jesus want him to do. As he grants the widow justice, the answer would be, yes, there is faith on earth. 

And Jesus’s question points back to the previous concerns about the coming of the Son of Man before he tells this parable. After saying there will be no signs, no warning, Jesus then says, “For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” The ‘you’ is plural. The kingdom of God is among y’all. All y’all! This is perhaps the most astonishing assertion of all. 

Jesus seems to say, there is no time or need to look for or to wait for the kingdom of God. What you do today, tomorrow, and the next day can demonstrate to others that the kingdom of God is in our collective attention to the things that most concern God! It has been a long-held understanding among the people of God that if you want to see what people believe, “watch their feet, not their mouths.” People say and confess all manner of things, but it is what we do for others that tells one what we really believe and care about. In the case of the judge, he may not even believe in God, but at the end of the day, granting the widow justice is consistent with God’s will, his character, and therefore is an act of faith, whether he recognizes it as such or not! 

Besides, earlier in Luke [17:1-10] when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, he responds, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Faith comes in all shapes and sizes. The quantity of faith is not ever as important at the quality of faith. Is what we do as a society, as a community, as a church, helpful for the needs of others, and in accordance with God’s will? This is what Jesus is asking. 

The prophet Jeremiah [31:27-34] has a vision that God plants the covenant, the details of God’s will, in our hearts. And the longest psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119, is one long meditation that asserts that continual attention to prayer and God’s Word is the key to access that which God has planted in our hearts – a love of neighbor, most especially those who are most vulnerable to the whims and injustice of Empire:

97 Oh, how I love your law! *

all the day long it is in my mind.

98 Your commandment has made me wiser than my enemies, *

and it is always with me.

99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, *

for your decrees are my study.

100 I am wiser than the elders, *

because I observe your commandments.

101 I restrain my feet from every evil way, *

that I may keep your word.

102 I do not shrink from your judgments, *

because you yourself have taught me.

103 How sweet are your words to my taste! *

they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.

104 Through your commandments I gain understanding; *

Therefore, I hate every lying way.  [Psalm 119] 

Perseverance furthers. Pray always. Do not lose heart. For all that is necessary for the life of the world has been planted within us. For the kingdom of God is already among us. Amen.

One In Ten Proper 23C

 One In Ten

“Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us,

that we may continually be given to good works.”

Grace, Grateful, and Gratitude all come from the same Latin root: gratus = meaning pleasing, thankful; feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness. I remember sitting in the living room growing up in Oak Park, IL, watching Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans teaching us those two Magic Words: Thank you, and Please. In that order. Instilling young people with gratefulness, gratitude, and grace. 

In a village between Samaria and Judea, ten lepers beg Jesus for mercy. He sends them off to the priests in Jerusalem and on the way, they are healed. One turns back to praise God and Jesus. “And he was a Samaritan.” Samaritans were outsiders. They worshipped in a different temple. One in ten expresses gratitude for being freed from stigma. Freed from isolation. Restored to his community in Samaria. Only one in ten stops to say thank you. Only one in ten fully recognizes the amazing grace that had saved them all. And he was a Samaritan. A quintessential outsider. 

We might notice, he is part of the group of Judeans who were isolated from the rest of the community for having a skin disorder. Considered an outsider, because he shared the same disorder, they welcomed him. As they all head to Jerusalem, he stops and realizes his priests are not in Jerusalem. He likely will not be welcomed there. Samaritans and the Judeans, as a rule, did not fraternize with one another. But the skin condition he shared with the others seems to have transcended all of that. No doubt there is a lesson for us all in that small detail of the story as Luke tells it. Despite a polarized population, the health crisis brings disparate people together. Together looking for the grace and mercy we pray for to “always precede and follow us.” 

This story features gratefulness prominently, and in addition to Captain Kangaroo, I thought of Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., currently 99 years-old! In addition to his Ph.D. in experimental psychology, and a life-long pursuit of Inter-Faith dialogue, Brother David has concluded that gratefulness is at the core of the spiritual life in most, if not all, the world’s religions. We may think that pursuit of the spiritual life is about attaining happiness. After all, the right to the pursuit of happiness is enshrined for all persons in our Declaration of Independence. Brother David says no. It’s gratefulness. 

In his extended writing, teaching, and speaking on Gratefulness, he maintains that, “It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It is gratefulness that makes us happy.” [i]  While exploring the connection between happiness and gratefulness, we tend to think that’s easy: people who are happy are grateful. Yet, we all know people who have everything one could imagine but are not happy. Maybe because they want more of the same, or something different than what they already have. And we know people who suffer every kind of misfortune, misfortune we would not like to have ourselves, but who are deeply happy. People who seem to radiate happiness no matter what. Why? Because they are grateful. Because it is gratefulness that makes us happy. 

So, the question becomes, how might we be grateful all of the time? What is gratefulness anyway? Brother David appeals to our experience. We are grateful for something of value that we have. Something that is given to us. And it is truly given. It is a gift. We did not earn it. We have not bought it. We have not worked for it. It was given. These two things need to come together to make us grateful: it is valuable and it is truly a gift! When these two things come together, then gratefulness arises in our hearts, and happiness arises out of our gratefulness. 

But, he says, it is not enough to only experience gratefulness and happiness once in a while. The question becomes how can I be grateful all of the time?  He believes we can become a people who live gratefully. And we can do this when we become aware that each moment, we are alive is a gift. But it is not just the gift that makes us grateful. For with each moment, every gift-moment, there is an opportunity to enjoy life. Opportunity is the gift-within-the-gift! If every moment is a gift, then every moment is an opportunity to be grateful. We say opportunity knocks but once, but understood in this way, opportunity is there before us every moment of every day! 

Brother David suggests that we can have this experience of gift-moments and opportunity all the time if we remember one thing we were taught as a child when crossing a street: we are taught to Stop. Look. And then Go! This is just what the Samaritan does. As he runs off toward Jerusalem with the nine Judeans, suddenly he stops. He looks at the gift of new life he has experienced. He realizes there is an opportunity of gratitude to give thanks. And so, he turns around, gets down on his knees before Jesus and gives thanks and praises God. He is grateful, profoundly grateful. Jesus, also recognizes that this moment of gratitude and praise is another gift-moment itself. Jesus stops, looks, and then says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." Which in turn presents the Samaritan with yet another gift-moment. He learns that he has faith, yet he knows not how! We are not told what this new opportunity inspires him to do next, but we can be sure, given that his story made it into the tradition, that he told others what had just happened to him, he who was isolated and made to live outside of the community, has now been changed by a Judean of all people, and was made whole to experience yet more gift-moments, more opportunities to be grateful, and more opportunities to be happy. Stop. Look. Go. Every moment we live and breathe can be another gift-moment for which we are grateful, and gives us the opportunity to share our happiness with others. All others. 

Brother David Steindl-Rast asks, “Does that mean that we can be grateful for everything? Certainly not. We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation. On the personal level, we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement. But I didn't say we can be grateful for everything. I said we can be grateful in every given moment for the opportunity, and even when we are confronted with something that is terribly difficult, we can rise to this occasion and respond to the opportunity that is given to us. It isn't as bad as it might seem. Actually, when you look at it and experience it, you find that most of the time, what is given to us is the opportunity to enjoy, and we only miss it because we are rushing through life and we are not stopping to see the opportunity.” [ii] 

One final note: the Bible, from Genesis through the New Testament, has a particular understanding of One-in-Ten. In Genesis 28:22, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, has a dream at Bethel, of angels ascending and descending a ladder. He hears the voice of God, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” After which Jacob vows to give a tenth of all he receives from God back to the Lord out of gratefulness.  This would later be codified as “the tithe – ten percent, or one-in-ten – a sign of our gratefulness for each moment we are given to live this life in God’s world. For the Earth is the Lord’s, and everything therein! 

Thank you, and Please. Stop, Look, and Go. Gratefulness. When we stop, look, and go, like the Samaritan, like Jacob, like Jesus, we too can be One-in-Ten. Like Jacob, we can give back to God one-in-ten of all God’s gifts we are given to enjoy, moment by moment, day by day, now and forever. Living this sort of Gratefulness will make us all happier than we have ever known before. If only we will slow down. Stop. Look at the real opportunities before us. And go forward with gratitude. Amen.

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[i] TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful 

[ii] Ibid, TED Talk

The Invisible Ones Proper 21C

 

The Invisible Ones

In the early days of Covid, when the gyms all closed, I went to the parking lot outside my gym and like Forrest Gump, I began running. I had it all to myself, except once in a while when a truck driver parked his rig in the lot over-night. Sometimes he would run as well. When the gym reopened, and some of the other businesses that had offices in the same industrial park were back, I recall one morning as I finished a couple of miles, a voice behind me called out, “Man, you have lost a lot of weight!” I immediately thought, “I’ve been seen!” I turned to find a total stranger, a gentleman who, as it turned out, worked for an environmental group that does the dirty work most of us would like to avoid, e.g. asbestos abatement, lead paint abatement, demolition work, etc. I said, “Thank you,” and introduced myself. I learned that he’s from Guatemala, and he and others have worked here for something like 18 years. I went home, hopped on the scale, and sure enough. I had dropped over 10 pounds. I would have never known but for the fact that someone saw me and cared enough to get to know me. 

People from certain minority groups these days talk about not “being seen.” Some on the Autism Spectrum. Some from the LGBTQ+ community. Women, African-Americans, immigrants, refugees, trans-people, those Veterans holding signs at busy intersections. People whom we often just drive by instead of stopping to say, “Hi, how can I help you today?” Had it not been for my new friend, I wouldn’t know how much it means to otherwise invisible people in our society to “be seen”. Notice, that “being seen” means more than just seeing; it means getting to know the “other,” much as my new friend who had been observing me for weeks. He could see that exercising out in the fresh air everyday had made a difference; had changed me. I was deeply touched that of all the people who now had re-populated the parking lot, some of whom must have remembered me from the gym, it was only my new friend from Guatemala who had really seen me. To others I was invisible. I was one of those “others,” someone not quite like the rest of us. We all want to be seen, really. 

We often talk about these invisible ones without really knowing them. Without really knowing even one of them. And we come up with so-called solutions we think they need without really consulting them. They have become so prevalent in our society, in our towns, in our country, that blues-musician Charlie Musselwhite has penned a song about them which goes in part:

But you don’t see us/You don’t really try

We’re the invisible ones/Left outside

We are the invisible ones/The invisible ones

You’d let die/You’d let die/You’d let die

   -Invisible Ones by Charlie Musselwhite 

It turns out that long ago, Jesus gave invisible ones a name: Lazarus. Lazarus, and all the Lazaruses, are among the “every human being” we promise to treat with respect and dignity in our Baptismal Covenant. Lazarus lies in the street just outside “a rich man’s gate,” with a dog licking his sores. Lazarus is like the Syrophoenician woman Jesus insults, calling her and her people “dogs.” [Mark 7:24-30] Like her, Lazarus would settle for a few crumbs from the rich man’s table. Alas, the rich man does not see him. Only a stray dog seeks to comfort him by licking his sores. [Luke 16:19-31] The rich man has no name. But Jesus has made it his custom to know these “others;” to know these “invisible ones.” As the story goes in Luke, the rich man dies, and so does Lazarus. Lazarus was carried away by angels to Father Abraham, while the rich man ends up in Hades where he “is tormented” to the point of great thirst. He looks up and sees Lazarus, now for the first time in “the bosom of Abraham,” and begs for just a drop of water off of the Invisible One’s finger. The roles are now reversed. The first are last and the last are first. 

Now the rich man knows what it feels like to have been Lazarus in this life. He is now the beggar, asking for mercy from Abraham. Abe says, in effect, you had your chance. You enjoyed good things. “Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” I have five brothers, says the rich man. Please send Lazarus to them to warn them. Nope, we cannot do that, says Abraham. Besides, they have access to the wisdom of Moses and the Prophets. They should listen to them! He said, `No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' Abraham said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." Curtain. 

Now few of us are as rich as the rich man, and few of us are as poor as old Lazarus. Though some of us may feel as invisible as Lazarus, and some of us, like the rich man, may pass by the invisible ones in our world without them a thought. But all of us are very much like the five brothers – there’s a chance we might change our evil ways. There’s a chance we might see ourselves in this parable and, dare I say, wake up to a full understanding of what Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus really mean when they urge us to love our neighbors. Who urges us to recognize that the man or woman on the corner, or outside the supermarket, with a cardboard sign in their hands is our neighbor. Is the “least of my sisters and brothers,” and that whatever we do for them, whatever we don’t do for them, is what we do to Christ – because Christ is in them. They are Christ, holding the sign as a mirror in which we might, if we are fortunate, see ourselves for who we really are. 

I see my friend from Guatemala almost every morning now. His fellow workers all say good morning. We have a short chat each day. Then I look to the news and hear someone like Stephen Miller telling me I ought to be afraid of these immigrant workers; that I should be happy that we, our government who represents us all, that “we” now round up all the folks we can find like them and lock them up, and try to send them out of the country. That somehow this will make America great. Again. We don’t even know who rounds-up all these people on our behalf because they all wear masks. Ironically, they make themselves invisible, on purpose. I don’t use my new friend’s name so as not to identify him to these anonymous gangs who roam our land. 

We read this story of Lazarus and the rich man every three years in church. But do we hear what Jesus is saying? Jesus, who in the previous chapters of Luke tells us in no uncertain terms not   only to see the invisible ones, to see all the Lazaruses, but to invite them to sit at our table to share a meal with them. And yet, as Dionne Warwick sings, we continue to walk on by. We drive on by. We hit the accelerator and pass the invisible ones as fast as we can. Because we are frightened by what we see. To see what is being done on our behalf. To realize who we have become. All Jesus wants us to do is to see “others.” All others. Really see them.  Get to know them. This is how we begin to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. It turns out it is the only way to enter the gates of heaven. It’s the only way into eternal life in God’s kingdom. Here and now. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. When we see one another, truly see and know one another, it makes all the difference. All the difference in the whole wide world.

“Nobody gets into the kingdom of God without a letter of reference from the poor!” Proper 20C

 “Nobody gets into the kingdom of God without a letter of reference from the poor!”

This was a favorite axiom of The Reverend James Forbes, one time pastor of the historic Riverside Church in New York City, and my Homiletics Professor at Union Seminary. Which is to say that the Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and others had made careers out of proclaiming this message to the religious and political leaders of Israel for over 800 years before the time of Jesus. And they were descended from earlier prophets like Elijah and Elisha who had identified the unjust practices of the wealthy and powerful who were, to be kind to them, blinded by their desire for power, prestige, and money at the expense of the general population of the people they were appointed to serve. Without question, Jesus picked up the mantle and tradition of Biblical prophets, most of whom were poets writing what today we might describe as Op-Ed pieces calling for society and its leaders to pay more attention to the plight of those they were meant to serve. The prevailing Biblical economic understanding was that money needs to remain in circulation to the benefit of all the people. Whereas, to accumulate great wealth made it impossible for the majority of the population to survive. As followers of Jesus, as his modern-day disciples, we are called to turn away from society’s obsession with wealth and material goods, and turn towards the hunger and needs of the communities, nation, and world in which we live. This is the “repentance” to which Jesus continually, every day, calls us to live. 

Though some degree of mercantilism existed in the more urban centers in First Century Israel, the vast majority of the “people of the land,” the “am ha’aretz,” were agrarians – usually tenant debt-ridden farmers working for land owners who had bought-up farms that had gone into foreclosure and bankruptcy. The owners would send managers to collect what were unusually high rent, taxes, and at least a tithe, ten percent, of the produce, leaving little chance of the local farmer making any kind of profit, thus going further in debt every year. Not at all unlike what is happening to American farmers today who have seen long-standing contracts with other countries voided due to a tariff-driven trade-war, the cost of farm machinery, fewer farm workers as they are swept up for deportation, and a lack of affordable capital to keep family farms going from one generation to the next. 

Against such a background, and having already been sneered at by those in power for spending too much time with the poor, women, immigrant laborers and tax collectors, Jesus tells a parable, a story, so odd, that for centuries really, scholars have reached little agreement on what the story could possibly mean. Even at the time Luke was assembling his gospel, it appears that he, or others, appended a few sayings to try to make sense of it themselves, and fit it into the longer narrative in Luke and the Book of Acts. 

Most often it is called The Parable of the Unjust Steward, which is immediately suggestive that the principal character is not to be trusted. He is the manager for some farms owned by a wealthy land owner. A group of tenant farmers go the rich man to present charges that the manager is “squandering his property.” [Luke 16:1-14] Yet, the Greek text does not support such an understanding, as it reads, “This one (the manager) was slandered to him (the owner) as spreading his property around.” That is, those bringing “charges” are unjust, as is the owner who keeps the farmers poor. Not the manager who cheats the owner. 

The owner calls for an accounting of his holdings before he intends to fire the manager, who, if it is true that he is spreading the wealth around, is actually compliant with the vision of Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the prophets. The quick-thinking manager goes about the farms and reduces their charges significantly – 20% and 50% reductions of what the farmers owe the owner! We are told he believes that the farmers will take care of him when he loses his position. “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more-shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes…You cannot serve God and wealth. The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.” 

If as usual we believe someone in the parable must represent God or Jesus, we would do well to note that no one in this tale is righteous, just, or at all an exemplary character: the owner is rapacious and keeps the farmers in debt, the manager cheats the owner, and the farmers are unjust slanderers. How does one “make friends with dishonest wealth” so that one day we might be welcomed into “eternal homes”? I will be bold and suggest that this refers to the original “slander” against the manager: find ways to improve policies such that wealth gets “spread around” on behalf of what used to be “the common good” for all people. That is, the manager became, out of necessity, a manager of “unjust” or “dishonest” wealth, spreading the owner’s money to the advantage of the farmers who faced continual foreclosure and debt. 

This is what Luke has in mind. The addition in the comments that seek to make sense of the parable sets out a choice: one can serve God, or you can serve wealth. One cannot serve both! And in chapter 2 of the Book of Acts Luke portrays the emerging church serving God, not wealth: “Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” [Acts 2:43-47] 

Note, church growth is tied directly to the management of wealth, money and possessions so as to meet the needs of the poor: resources are to be pooled together to make sure the needs of all people can be met. This weekend, musicians from across the country are gathering in Minneapolis, Minnesota to raise money to assist the farm bankruptcies which are already outpacing those in 2024, and, according to Illinois Farm Policy News, matching the record numbers seen in 2018 and 2019. [i] You cannot serve God and Wealth to get the letter of reference. 

Our prayer for today says: Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.” Those heavenly things that shall endure includes the Bible’s economic “policies” which value the common good over the increasingly obscene accumulation of wealth among the billionaire and soon to be trillionaire class. The only way forward so as not to be anxious about earthly things is to become managers of unjust and dishonest wealth, which in turn necessitates choosing leaders at all levels of local, national, and church leadership who are willing to serve God over the service of wealth itself. I may be wrong, but I doubt it. I believe this is what Jesus, in this most unusual of his parables, is calling us to do. As the saying goes, “No one gets into the kingdom of God without a letter of reference from the poor.”  Amen.

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[i] https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2025/07/farm-bankruptcies-this-year-already-exceed-2024-levels/