Come and Join the Party Every Day! Lent 4C

 Come and Join the Party Every Day

Luke begins chapter 15: “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So Jesus told them this parable.” Actually, he tells them three parables: One about one out of 100 sheep is lost and found; one about one out of ten coins is lost and found; one about one out of two brothers is lost and found. Well, maybe that last one is not correct since it depends upon which of the two sons we think is lost. And that’s where things get complicated. Is it the parable of the Prodigal Son? Or, the Parable of Two Lost Sons? Or, the Parable Overly Indulgent Father? Or, The Father Who Lost His Two Sons? Or, as an answer to the Pharisees and Scribes it might be, Three Parables of Those Who Are Simply Lost, Not Sinners. 

From the outset we can agree it is much easier to find a lost sheep or coin than it is to find a lost person. Further, when a Jewish story begins, “There was a man who had two sons,” we are immediately expected to recall the history of such stories in The Bible: Cain and Abel; Ishmael and Isaac; Esau and Jacob; and now “a man with two unnamed sons.” The biblical literate amongst those listening to Jesus, especially the Pharisees and the Scribes, know that one is to identify with the younger son. One surprise in this third parable is that the younger son turns out to be an “irresponsible, self-indulgent, and probably indulged child, whom I would notdespite his being Jewish, be pleased to have my daughter date,” writes Amy Jill Levine in her book, Short Stories by Jesus. [i] We can only imagine just how much more the Pharisees and Scribes must grumble at this immediate deviation from the standard “two-sons story.” 

Although our primary attention is to be on the father with two sons, it should be noted that sheep and coins do not sin, they simply get lost. And sheep and coins are more easily found than people, since people can be right in front of us and still be lost. Arguably, both sons in the third story are lost: one discovers the hard way through his own self-indulgent appetites that in fact the grass is not greener elsewhere, and that there is no place like home. While the other brother, after years of watching his father overly indulge his younger brother, feels neglected for all the good he does, and alienated from pretty much everyone. Which may seem perfectly justified since once the profligate brother is given a royal welcome and a party, and that it seems pretty clear that no one, including the father, has invited the older brother to join in the celebration. He hears some carrying on and has to ask one of the family slaves, “What’s going on up at the house?” 

One gets the sense that the younger son is a repeat offender. After running through his inheritance, he ends up in Gentile territory feeding pigs. That, for a young Jewish man, is about as low as it goes. But we note how quickly he comes to his senses, and with apparent ease concocts a speech he will deliver when he gets home suggesting that he might at least return as a hired servant. He practices it all the way home. He has delivered such speeches before, but this time he really has come up with a good one with the new twist. 

Lo and behold! Before he can get even half-way through his speech his father comes running to greet him, throws his arms around him, kisses him, and orders the servants to get the best robe, the family signet ring, and the fatted calf to celebrate, “my son, who once was dead and now is alive again.” The story is so exciting and familiar that we no doubt overlook the resurrection language despite the fact it is repeated twice in the course of this story. Foreshadowing? Perhaps. 

We can imagine the younger son saying, to himself, “Wow! I didn’t even have to get to the best part of my speech, offering to be treated as a hired hand! I can save that for the next time!” Another clue is that he addresses his father as “father,” not Lord or Master. He did not really expect to be taken in as a hired hand. Is the father over-indulgent and going overboard? Or, is he just relieved and happy to have the family back together again? Or, is the family back together? Perhaps he just likes any excuse to have a party! And one should note, the son, unlike the sheep and the coin, was not lost. He walked away of his own volition. Coins cannot do this. Sheep could. The point being that people get lost, some on purpose, some not so on purpose. The older brother is a perfect example. 

When he finds out why there is a party going on, he refuses to join the party. It’s that no good, irresponsible brother of mine again. The father notices that the older brother is lost, missing from the party, and goes out to plead with him to join in. As a sign of just how fractured this family is, the brother starts, “Your son.” Not “my brother.” That says a lot, and is meant to hurt. In a somewhat self-righteous and somewhat justified rant, he catalogs just how everything he does for the father seems to be overlooked while the ne’er-do-well brother gets all the attention despite “devouring” the father’s property on “whores.” There’s no mention of prostitutes, but it sure could be possible that “dissolute living” might include such behavior. “Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'" There’s that resurrection talk again. End of story. We never find out if the older brother comes around. Does the father apologize? Is the family made whole once again? Had it ever been whole, and safe, and sound? We are left to imagine how the story ends. Or, if it does. 

So, there’s a shepherd that leaves ninety-nine sheep to fend for themselves to find just one lost sheep, and throws a party. There’s a woman who finds one lost coin and probably spends two or three of her other eight coins to throw a block party. And a father who seems to reward bad behavior with a lavish welcome home party. Is Jesus suggesting to the Scribes and Pharisees: Do you have a problem with God my Father acting in such extravagant and foolish ways to accept all people to his endless eternal party? Can that possibly be a bad thing? Something to be grumble about? Wouldn’t you like to be celebrated in just such a way as the younger brother in this story of mine? 

Amy Jill Levine sums it up perfectly to my way of thinking:

“A father had two sons - Cain and Abel – and so we realize that to kill an individual is not only to kill a brother: it is to kill a quarter of the world’s population…Cain not only survives: he thrives. We may judge him as guilty, but he has a story to tell. Cain committed fratricide, but that is not the sum total of who he is. The mark of Cain is a mark of divine protection: if God can protect him, surely we can as well. Can we find it in our hearts to reconcile him to the human family? 

“A father had two sons – Ishmael and Issaac – if either is sacrificed then both are. Today some of the children of Isaac and Ishmael can find themselves at odds or at war, as the Middle East shows us. Yet, these two sons reunite at Abraham’s death, and together they bury him. Ishmael’s hand was to be against his brother’s, but Ishmael here proves the prediction wrong. If Ishmael and Issac can reconcile, perhaps their children can do the same. 

“A father had two sons – Jacob and Esau – one who stole birthright and blessing, and one who vowed to murder in revenge. And yet, when Jacob, wounded from his wrestling at the Jabbok River, encounters Esau, the two reconcile. 

a“A father has two sons … The details can be filled in, and filled by any among us. The scriptures of Israel give us hope for the sons in Luke’s parable. They should give us hope for our own reconciliations from personal to international. We need to take count not only of our blessings, but also of those in our families, and in our communities. And once we count, we need to act. Finding the lost, whether they are sheep, coins, or people, takes work. It also requires our efforts, and from those efforts there is potential for wholeness and joy!”  [ii]

Three stories of Hope for Wholeness and Joy. May we all find our way home, May we all find ways to welcome others to come home as well. 

“Hey hey, hey, come right away; Come and join the party every day!” [iii]

 

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[i] Levine, Amy Jill, Short Stories By Jesus (Harper One, New York, New York:2014) p.51

[ii] Ibid, p.75-76

[iii] The Grateful Dead, The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion) lyrics © Boyletown Music, Ice Nine Publishing Co Inc.

Under the Shadow of Your Wings Lent 3C

 Under the Shadow of Your Wings        Lent 3C

Here’s a case where chapters and verses in the Bible are arbitrary – added to the text to make it easier to study, but not always easy. As it stands, Luke 13:1-9 seems enigmatic at best until one is lucky enough to see it as a continuation of what was happening at the end of chapter 12 where Jesus, exhibiting a good deal of frustration, says, ‘You see a cloud rising in the west you know it’s going to rain, and when the wind shifts from the south you know there’s going to be scorching heat. So, why can’t you see what’s going on at the present time? And why can’t you judge for yourselves how to make things right? Why leave it up to a judge to decide? 

Which is to say, do the right thing to begin with and save yourselves a lot of unnecessary trouble. The right answer from anyone who has been paying attention to the young man from Galilee is that it is time to repent. Luke then offers two scenarios to illustrate that the time for repentance is always NOW! You may end up before the judge before you know it. Like that time a group of Jesus’s Galilean neighbors were in Jerusalem to make offerings at the Temple when out of nowhere, Pilate, the local governing Roman authority, slaughtered them right then and there, mingling their blood with that of the sacrifices. Those who were chided for not reading the times ask, “Were they worse sinners than all other Galileans?” “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." 

We easily jump to the wrong conclusion, and much Christian preaching has done just that ignoring the fact that people living in Galilee and in Jerusalem were not all Jews, but a mixture of Gentiles (non-Jews), Jews, and pagans of all sorts. This is not about recalcitrant Jews not accepting Jesus. This is about everyone. All of us, Luke’s readers, included. And it is important not miss that Jesus specifically says those who died were no worse sinners than the rest of us. They just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and their deaths were not some cosmic, karmic, divine retribution or punishment. God my Father does not work that way. Yet, most assuredly we try to make ourselves believe otherwise so as not to look at what Jesus really says – they were no worse sinners that the rest of us. That is the rest of us are sinners, no better or worse than those who died. You never know when your time may come, and you will want to repent before that happens. 

One problem is to think that repentance is some sort of one-and-done ritual. That we can say we’re sorry and move on to the next ritualistic box to check. To repent, suggests Frederick Buechner in his little book, Wishful Thinking, is to come to one’s senses. It is not so much something we do, but rather something that happens to us. Buechner goes on to suggest that true repentance does less time looking at the past and saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ than to look to the future and say, ‘Wow!’ [i] The words in the Bible translated repentance mean either a total change of one’s mind, one’s worldview, or, to realize we have been walking in the wrong direction all along and need to turn and chart a new pathway home. Home being, of course, under those big, cozy, Mother Hen wings we have heard about. 

Psalm 63, which was the Psalm read at my ordination to the diaconate, reads in part, “For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.” [ii] Which tells us at least two things: true repentance is an ongoing, life changing experience, and that we need a someone to help us with our ongoing repentance, and that that helper most often is God. The same God who speaks to Moses out of the bush that was burning but not consumed. And we know that repentance need be ongoing because we keep walking back the same old way and pop out from under those wings-of-God, and need someone or something to send us back in the right direction. 

Jesus is talking to us. Not to individuals, but to those gathered to listen to him, including those who, like the disciples, have already formed a new community of God’s love in Christ. Communities and society are in constant need of repentance, which Buechner also addresses when speaking of ‘guilt’ as taking responsibility for wrongdoing. “Apart from the wrong we are each responsible for personally, in a sense no wrong is done anywhere which we are not all of us responsible collectively. With or without knowing it, either through what we have done or what we have failed to do, we have all helped create the kind of world mess that makes wrongdoing inevitable.” [iii] 

The danger of our guilt, he says, both individually and collectively is not so much that we don’t take it to heart, but that we take it to heart “overmuch” and try to hide it, where it festers in ways that even we don’t recognize. We blame others for the wrong we don’t want to see in ourselves, or in our community. We grow vindictive against those who try to help us see our wrongs as wrong. The resulting inner sense of brokenness often separates us from the very ones who could help us with our repentance and help patch us and the community back together again. We wither, like the fig tree, and become no longer capable of bearing fruit, let alone the good fruit of repentance. Fruit that shows we love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. 

Jesus introduces what may be a hopeful note when he talks about the fig tree that does not bear fruit. The owner of the garden tells the gardener, “For three years I have come looking for fruit, but there is none. Cut it down.” To which the gardener suggests tending to the tree, dress its roots with manure, and give it another year, and if it still bears no fruit, “you can cut it down.” The tree seems to get a reprieve. Perhaps there is still time to repent. Another year?  Maybe, maybe not. But note that the gardener does not say he will cut it down. He says, “You can cut it down.” Why didn’t it bear fruit? Had the gardener not been tending it properly the past three years? Did the owner have unrealistic expectations? Did the Tower of Siloam collapse because those who built it skirted getting the proper permits and cut corners? Did Pilate slaughter all those Galileans because of a bad dream? Or, perhaps indigestion from the night before? 

There we go. It starts all over again. The cycle of guilt. Looking outside ourselves for the answer. Hoping to blame others. What will it take to make us come to our senses and stop looking back at the past? Is there still time to change our minds? To change direction and actually follow the one who says to one and all, “Follow me”? Can we find ways to turn around and get back under the protective wings of God, that Mother Hen of us all? Are we ready to repent? 

“My soul clings to you, your right hand holds me fast,” sings the psalmist. “For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.”  Amen.

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[i] Buechner, Frederick, Wishful Thinking (Harper Collins, San Francisco;1973) p.79

[ii] Psalm 63:7

[iii] Ibid Buechner, p.34-35

I Am the Wings of God Lent 2C

 I Am the Wings of God

The Pharisees. They often get a bad rap in the Church. They are often portrayed in the gospels in disputes with Jesus. And why not? They spent much of their time studying, arguing, and discussing the texts of their peoples’ history and relationship with God. Jesus seems to share those same interests – with ferocious intensity. He is a lot like them. They are a lot like him. 

Beginning with chapter 9 in Luke, Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem.” That is where he knows he has to go. Along the way he is teaching, sharing meals with people, healing people, and generally bringing people – anyone really – closer to his Father. Closer to God. Passing through a town, he has just spoken about who can and cannot get closer to his Father, and finishes saying, “people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” [i] 

“At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’” Not the same Herod the Great who had already tried to kill him when he a baby, but that Herod’s son, Herod Antipas. The one who had recently beheaded John the baptizer. Jesus tells them to tell “that fox” for me that I have much still to do, casting out demons, curing people’s dis-ease, and must be on my way to Jerusalem. The point being, the Pharisees may have disagreed with Jesus on any number of things, but here they are to warn him. To urge him to seek safety from “that fox,” that tyrant, Herod, who will not stop at anything to finish the work his father had set out to accomplish – kill Jesus, feared as a pretender to the throne, King of the Jews. We need to cut the Pharisees some slack. In fact, a lot of slack. They are not the bad guys. If we believe what we pray on this Second Sunday in Lent, “God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son,” then we need to repent of all the bad things that have been said about the Pharisees and the Jews throughout the history of Christ’s Church. [ii] 

Besides, Jesus knows Jerusalem will be even more dangerous than Herod’s kingdom of Galilee. Jesus laments, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” And there it is. Jesus, who embodies the attributes of God’s mercy and God’s fierce protection of God’s people, likens himself, and God his Father as well, as something like…well, a chicken. A mother hen. No doubt as he has traveled through the countryside through largely agrarian towns and villages, he has more than once see a mother hen gather her chicks under her wings to protect them from the fox that has made its way into the hen-house. She is not afraid. Jesus says to those urging him to hide, I am not afraid. I will keep doing what I have come to do: gather the my Father’s lost chicks, feed them, heal them, and cast out the demons who threaten them – be they foxes, so-called kings, politicians, the rapacious landowners. Yet, even in Jerusalem I shall stand my ground to protect the least of these, my sisters and brothers of my Father’s world. My Father’s kingdom. Those who are last will be first, as those who are first will be last. Be not afraid. 

Jesus, and by the associative property God, is likened to a mother hen. We need to ponder this, and then honor the fact that he is not afraid to describe themselves as feminine. A hen, tucking her chicks under her wings. And we know, as soon as five are gathered in, two more escape. It’s a metaphor for our own on-again, off-again, on-again relationship with God in Christ. 

On the west slope of the Mount of Olives outside of Jerusalem is a chapel called Dominus Flevit: The Lord Wept. On the front of the altar is a mosaic of a mighty and courageous hen, wings wide open, yellow chicks huddled under neath, a halo over her head denoting a sacred person, and a determined look on her face. Determined to gather all people – as in making our promise in baptism to seek justice and peace for all people – under her wings. The chicks look happy. The mother hen looks ready to spit fire on any and all foxes who may try to snatch even one of us. The chapel of Dominus Flevit memorializes this moment in the life of Jesus when he is face with danger unto death. And yet, like the mother hen, he is raised on the third day to continue to shelter us under his protective wings. 

Lent gives us a time to ponder just when do we want to get under her wings again? And this time, will we stay there? And will we strive to love people as Jesus loves them? Can we make room under God’s wings for others to join us? Can we find ways to gather others, any and all others, to join with us under his protective and loving wings?   

Jesus says, I am … I am the wings of God. Come live with me forever. For you too can become the wings of God to serve and protect others. Just come in under my wings and walk with me to Jerusalem and beyond. For life with me will be never ending. 

I Am The Wings of God 

I am the wings of God

I am the wings of God

All you hunger, all you who thirst

I am the wings of God

 

Life lived with God never ends

Life lived with God never ends

All you hunger, all you who thirst

Life lived with God never ends

 

We are the wings of God

We are the wings of God

All you hunger, all you who thirst

We are the wings of God

 

Words and music, Kirk Kubicek, Sounds Divine

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[i] Luke 13:29-30

[ii] Luke 13:31-35

In Memoriam: John A. Gettier, Th.D. Lent 1C

 In Memoriam: John A. Gettier Th.D.

John Gettier, a Baltimore native and graduate of the Gilman School in Roland Park, and my instructor in Old and New Testament at Trinity College, also taught me biblical Hebrew, and was my life-long mento and friend. I received notice the other day that John had died at the age of 90 last week. In class he would always say, “All scripture is a combination of history, literature, and theology.” Which is to say, that every passage in the Bible, both the Hebrew and the Greek scriptures, has a context. Often it takes time and imaginative sleuthing to suss out all three dimensions in any given passage, but it is time well spent. 

Take our episode in Luke 4:1-13 that is often called The Temptations of Christ. First, there is the so-called tempter. Diabolos, and later, when the opportune time arrives in chapter 22, he is identified as Satan. Whatever Luke chooses to call this character, he is not the little guy with a pitchfork and long tail running around in red long-johns! We are to think of him, as those first listening to Luke and Jesus himself would understand, as something like a prosecutor, or someone who tests you to find out if you are qualified to be who you say you are. Or, in this case who God has said you are: The Beloved, the Son of God. For it is after Jesus’s baptism by John that we read that Jesus is both full of the Holy Spirit and led by the same Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested to find out just what this all means. Let the testing begin. 

Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days, which means a long time, not necessarily 40 calendar days. And surely is meant to bring to mind the archetypal 40 years of testing in the wilderness by those who had been liberated by the God of that wandering Aramean, Abraham. Abraham who had also been led by God and God’s Spirit to leave his home in Southern Mesopotamia and head off to a new homeland. Luke is recalling this history for who are reading or listening to put Jesus into this context. Like Abraham, and like those who escaped slavery in Egypt, Jesus is about to begin his new life as God’s Beloved Son of God. And after pondering all this for forty days of fasting, Jesus very well may be hungry. 

Perhaps that is why Satan begins the final exam with a softball question: Surely you are hungry by now, there are a lot of stones here, after all this is rocky soil. Another clue that this is a test, not a temptation, Satan begins, “If you are the Son of God, why not turn these stones into bread?” Now this very well could be a useful kind of thing to do if you are about to dedicate the next few years of your life among people who are poor and tired and hungry. But Jesus went to Saturday School growing up and quotes the ultimate, final, and summary book of Torah, Deuteronomy For it is there that when the folks were pestering Moses in the wilderness for more imaginative food than manna, Moses says, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" [Deut 8:3] Good answer. So far, Jesus is batting a thousand! 

Next up, Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answers, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" [Deut 6:13] Wow! Still batting a thousand! He turns down the offer despite the historical fact of living in the harsh occupation of Caesar’s Empire of Brutality in which people had hoped someone like the Son of God or a messiah would put an end to all that. The tradition is equally harsh to insist that political compromise is linked to betrayal of the first commandment to worship only God. Not Satan. Not Rome. These are God’s kingdoms, not Satan's. One can almost hear Jesus’s grandmother saying, “That’s our boy! He knows the tradition and what side our bread is buttered on!” 

The final test: If you are the Son of God, jump off the top of the Temple pinnacle, for after all Psalm 91 says, “'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,'  and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" It turns out the chief messiah inspector general is up on his scriptures as well. Jesus is not fooled. "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" [Deut 6:16] I have to say, says the Satan, you are very sharp and well prepared to be the Son of God. That’s all for now, but I will be back to be sure. And we know that is when Satan enters into Judas Iscariot later in Luke 22 verse 3. 

That’s a lot of history and biblical literature wrapped up in just a few verses. And Luke expects the reader to notice a pattern here. For even though he has been fasting in the wilderness a long time, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God, the Beloved, knows the tradition inside out and answers each question on the test from Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, and no surprise here, Deuteronomy! And why is that, we might ask ourselves? 

And oh, how I wish Dr. John were here to witness this final move, for this is where the theology comes in. Which theology is derived from the history and literature of the Deuteronomist him or herself. For the Deuteronomist not only gives us the summary book of Torah, but also wrote the history after the wilderness sojourn of the people living in the Land of Promise in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and First and Second Kings. It just happens that the core theology of all the Deuteronomist’s history is: a) "Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one" [Deut 6:4]; b) You shall teach this to your children, and post it at your doorways; and c) we are “strangers in a land not our own,” descendants of the wandering Aramean, and the way we tell our history serves as the basis for a higher ethic, as it says throughout the Torah: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. It is precisely the consciousness of being alien, with its concomitant sensitivity to the other, that ironically grants the right to dwell in the land. [i] 

When asked what is the greatest commandment of all, Jesus again replies from Deuteronomy chapter 6, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” And the second is just like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Because we were once all strangers in a strange land. We were all resident aliens at one time or another. And our God, YHWH, who is one God and One God Only, heard our cry, led us through the wilderness for forty years, and has been present to us and to all people everywhere ever since. So it is that we are to care for the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien in our midst as if she or he is one of us. We are to love them as our God has loved us all these centuries, at home, in exile, and in diaspora throughout the world. 

Jesus of Nazareth lives out of the core values of the Deuteronomist in all that he says and all that he does. He is not here to do magic. He is not here to dominate the kingdoms of the world. He is not here to test our God. He is here to love God and to love all people all the time. No exceptions. Lent means to ask us, can we do the same? Amen.

That's history, literature, and theology. Thank you, Dr. John Gettier! 

 

[i] “My Father Was a Wandering Aramean…”: The Ethical Legacy of Our Origins in Exile

By Rav Rachel Adelman Aug 28, 2018

Transfiguration: Seeing The Face of God Last EpiphanyC

Transfiguration: Seeing The Face of God

Eight days after asking his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Eight days after Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah of God!” Eight days after he told them to keep silent; to tell no one. Eight days after he said, “The son of man must undergo suffering and be rejected…and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Eight days after he said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.” [i] 

Eight days later he took Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. A while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him…they were speaking of his exodus, his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. [ii] 

The appearance of the face of Christ changed. It was bright! It was transcendent! As he prayed for the poor, the hungry, the blind, the people of the land, his face changed, so deep was his love for them all. So deep were his prayer that suddenly there appeared Moses and Elijah. Two more of the elders of Israel. First, there were Simeon and Anna at the Temple when he was just 40 days old. Those two elders of the community had been there a long long time awaiting his arrival. Now two who had been waiting even longer answered his prayers. Moses who led the first departure from Egypt, the Exodus from slavery to new freedom. Moses of whom it is said that no one knows where he was buried. And Elijah. Elijah who fed starving widows. Elijah who gave new life to a dying child. Elijah whose exodus, whose departure in a chariot of fire has long been believed to return one day to signal the arrival of one who would announce the beginning of the reign of God. Moses and Elijah come to see Jesus whose face has changed, whose clothes had become dazzling, blindingly white and bright! 

Once upon a time, there was a little man, not even five feet tall, a bishop in a poor diocese in Brazil, who in 1968 visited the United States of America. Bishop Dom Helder Camara had been working to help the poor in the Diocese of Recife and Olinda and to fight the repressive fascist regime that had taken over his country. On his visit here he found that there was profound poverty in America. He visited with Mother Theresa. He visited with Dorothy Day. Two women who had dedicated themselves, like their Lord Jesus, to lift up the poor and the working class. He spent time with Caesar Chavez speaking to the United Farm Workers in California. There is a movie, Excuse Me America, which documents his visit. 

At one point Dom Helder says to the UFW workers, “Beware of being divided. Beware of individualism. The powerful have an interest in dividing you. If the poor are divided then they have no strength.” Then, after Communion, they all sang We Shall Overcome. And if you see the movie, that’s when it happens. As they sing, “We are not afraid, we are not afraid, today…” Dom Helder’s face is changed. His eyes look upward as if he sees the face of God in the singing. His face begins to shine! It is bright as he looks into the face of God. The appearance of his face is changed, like Jesus on the mountain. It is a moment of transfiguration as I watched the movie. I was sure I was looking at the transfigured face of God in that little man who had challenged the fascists; who had found food and housing for the poor; who came all the way to America so that we might see in a person what it looks like, what it sounds like, to pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus. 

Back in Brazil, although his ministry engendered a great deal of love among the common people, among the rich and powerful who were in charge it engendered hate. Dom Helder himself would say, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist.” At first, he was blacklisted by the fascist regime. Then censors forbade the media from interviewing or quoting Dom Helder. Yet, he persisted to preach the Good News of Jesus against injustice of all kinds. Then one day there was a knock on the door of his little house. When he opened the door there was a man pointing a gun at him. “I’ve been hired to assassinate you,” the man said. Dom Helder replied, “Then you will send me straight to the Lord.” 

Astounded by this reply, the assassin – himself from the impoverished classes – lowered his gun and let loose his tears. “I can’t kill you,” he sobbed, “You belong to God.” A moment of transfiguration in the face of a stranger sent to kill. An assassin had seen the face of God in the tiny bishop of Recife and Olinda. 

Transfiguration is that moment when we understand that we all belong to God. This was Dom Helder’s message. This is what Peter, James, and John were to learn when suddenly a cloud overshadowed the mountain and a voice out of the cloud declared, “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to him!” Dom Helder had listened to Jesus and followed him faithfully. One could see it in his face, in his eyes. But most of all in every word he said, and everything he did. 

Whatever Jesus was praying on that mountain top when Moses and Elijah showed up, I am sure now, having seen Dom Helder Camara, bishop of Recife and Olinda in Brazil transfigured that day with the United Farmworkers, I am sure Jesus prayed that one by one every single one of us would one day be transfigured so that one day the face of God could be seen in every human face. 

This must be what Transfiguration means: to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. After seeing Dom Helder in Excuse Me America, I began to see the face of God in others. I worked with children and teen agers who lived in group homes and a foundling hospital. I could see the face of God in the little boys I was tasked to teach the Lord’s Prayer who, when I started to pray, “Our Father….” stopped me and one after another said, “I don’t have a father. How can I pray this prayer?” I saw the face of God in the medical ward in a young girl lying in a hospital bed who had been born with no brain, only a brain stem, who still could respond to touch and prayer. I saw the face of God in a thirteen-year-old girl who was pregnant and did not know what to do next. And I saw the face of God in my supervisor at the New York Foundling Hospital, Sister Anne Flood, Sisters of Charity. 

Christ’s transfigured face can be seen anywhere and everywhere when we hear the voice from whatever cloud obscures our vision. It tells us, implores us, to listen to Jesus. Listen to him, and see the face of God. And like Jesus that day on the mountain top, we will be changed, and we shall shine like the Sun, and we will begin to see the face of God everywhere, in everyone, and in everything.

World without end, Amen. 

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[i] Luke 9:18-27

[ii] Luke 9:28-37

Jesus's Third Way Epiphany 7C

Jesus’s Third Way     Epiphany 7C

The Sermon on the Plain in Luke continues. As if the choices Jesus offered in his Blessings and Woes were not challenging enough to his emerging Community of Love, along comes the commandment to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” [i] To love God, love neighbors, and to love ourselves is demanding enough for most of us most of the time. But our usual response toward enemies, whether within or beyond the Community of Love, is either to fight or flee – fight or flight. Love is about the last thing we might consider when confronted with those who hate us, those who curse us, and those who abuse us. 

Fortunately, Jesus offers some examples that help us to see that this “Love” he is talking about is less a noun, characteristic, or emotional state, than it is an action. It helps to know that Jewish teaching [Exodus 23:4-5, Proverbs 24:17; 25:21] commands helping and aiding enemies “in order to ‘subdue the evil inclination.’” [ii] Perhaps Jesus is suggesting a sense of fairness toward one’s enemies. 

Yet, the examples seem to point to the enemies of occupation: the legions and bureaucracy of Rome. By the time of Jesus there were reminders stretching all along the roadways of those thousands who had resisted the occupation now crucified and left as an example for all to see every day. By the time Luke was writing, the Temple and Jerusalem had been burned to the ground to quell the Jewish insurrection. It was common practice for a centurion or even a bureaucrat to slap an insolent person on the cheek. And it was typical of a landowner to demand of those indebted to him a cloak, an outer garment, as a pledge until the debt is paid-off. If you were to refuse, you might be taken to debtors-court. In either case, we tend to  hear this giving away, or turning the other cheek, as a kind of passive giving in to injustice and becoming a “Christian doormat.” Attempting to fight or flee would carry dire reprisals. 

Walter Wink, in his little book, Jesus and Nonviolence suggests that Jesus appears to be offering what he calls A Third Way. Instead of withstanding the punishing slap on the cheek, turn the other cheek. In a dominant right-handed world, the slap would be done with the left hand which in 1^st century society was the hand used for unclean tasks. Backhanding was the common way to admonish inferiors: masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; Romans, Jews. But if you turn the other cheek, he is almost forced to slap with the palm of the hand or a fist, which is to acknowledge you are a peer. You rob the oppressor of the power to humiliate. And you seem to say, “Go ahead, try again! I refuse to be humiliated. You cannot demean me. I am a human being just like you.” Far from being submissive or passive, turning the other cheek becomes an act of nonviolent defiance! [iii] 

Similar with the debtor and the cloak. The poorest of the poor could have their only cloak revoked. It was often one’s only source of warmth on the cold desert nights. Again, Wink suggests, if you not only give up your outer-garment, but also your under-garment, now you are naked. If this happened in court, you would surely lose the case, but now you have turned the tables. You have refused to be humiliated, and registered a stunning blow against an unfair system that spawns onerous indebtedness. In any event, nakedness was taboo, and the shame fell not on the naked party, but on the person viewing or even causing the nakedness. You nonviolent act of defiance has unmasked the creditor not as a fair money lender, but rather as party to a ruthless system that reduces an entire social class to landlessness and destitution. No Christian doormats here. This is one way to love one’s enemies.” 

At the center of this portion of the Sermon on the Plain, is the imperative that in all situations in this life we are to be “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful… for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Mercy is a central dimension of what it means to love one another, even our enemies. To which Jesus adds an example not only of the quality of mercy, but the quantity as well. As to the qualities of mercy and love, Jesus piles up the imperatives: do not judge, do not condemn, always forgive, always give, and as Psalm 37 commands, do not fret and refrain from anger. These are meant to be qualities of life within the Community of Love, as well as qualities of mercy and love we might do well to apply to ourselves if we are to have any chance of loving others as ourselves, and as God loves us and is merciful towards us. 

Jesus is essentially in agreement with The Beatles when Paul sings, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” But of course, this is Jesus Christ the Son of God who always challenges us to go one step further in our love and mercy for others: the measure of love and mercy you will get in return for loving others will be “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." We tend to overlook just what Jesus is really saying here. Whenever I in the past, or now in the present, have asked one of our children or grandchildren for a cup of flour when I’m in the kitchen, as Jesus says, they would always come with at least a cup and a quarter or more, spilling all over the counter, the floor, and all over my lap. It turns out the measure of love and mercy we give to others results in even more you get back from God our Father, who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. With no offense to Sir Paul, but the love you take will be greater than the love you make when you love God and love neighbors and enemies as you love yourself! 

There are always those who will say none of this is practical; fight or flight are the only things that really work; the Third Way of Nonviolence is pie in the sky. To which one might say, “Tell that to Ruby Bridges, or John Lewis, or Ghandi, or Oscar Romero, or Mother Theresa, or Dorothy Day, or St. Francis of Assisi.” There are those who have tried Jesus’s Third Way of Nonviolence and have made the world a better place. Again, Luke’s Sermon on the Plain presents a fork in the road; a choice to be made. Will I judge others, condemn others, be angry with others, or will I be merciful and love others, as our Father is merciful and abounds in steadfast love? 

Walter Wink concludes, “Many people have not aspired to Jesus’s Third Way because it has been presented to them as absolute pacifism, a life-commitment to nonviolence in principle, with no exceptions. They are neither sure they can hold fast to its principles in every situation, nor sure that they have the saintliness to overcomes their own inner violence…. We can commit ourselves to following Jesus’s way as best we can. We know we are weak and will probably fail. But we also know that God loves and forgives us and sets us back on our feet after every failure and defeat…Jesus’s Third Way is not an insuperable counsel to perfection attainable only by the few. It is simply the right way to live, and can be pursued by many. “ [iv]

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[i] Luke 6:27-38

[ii] Levine, Amy Jill, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press, NY:2011) p.126

[iii] Wink, Walter, Jesus and Nonviolence, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2003) p.14-16

[iv] Ibid, Wink, p.102-103

Which Way Will We Go? Epiphany 6C

 

Which Way Will We Go?

At one time or another, we all come to a fork in the road and need to decide which way to go. Often, we will sit down and make a list of pros and cons to help us to decide. In evangelist Luke’s version of the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seems to be doing just that: unlike Matthew 5:1-12 which lists 9 blessings, Jesus in Luke 6:17-26 presents 4 blessings and 4 woes. The setting is also different: Matthew places the teaching atop a mountain, whereas Luke describes Jesus, his newly chosen 12 disciples and other disciples, coming down from a mountain top to meet with people on a level ground. That is, he comes down to meet the crowds where they are. Where they are is in great need: in need of hearing him speak, and in need of being healed from various diseases; from what we might call various kinds of dis-ease. 

Jesus says that those who are blessed are poor, hungry, weeping, and reviled. To be blessed is not to be happy as we might look at it, nor is it to adopt a particular moral character. It is something more like “congratulations” or “fortunate” – as you might congratulate a friend who has won the lottery. Which seems like an oxymoron. Which seems outrageous and just plain weird. It seems equally foolish and weird in our culture to declare that those who are wealthy, well fed, happy, and of good reputation are in any way unfortunate. What is the teacher up to? 

We can be sure that the Jews in this highly diverse crowd from Gentile and Jewish territories recognize this. It is an important part of their past. They recall that the diverse group of former slaves who escaped from Egypt, after forty years, that is several generations, are about to cross the River Jordan into the land YHWH the God of the Exodus has promised to be their new home. Moses sits everyone down to make sure they (and we) remember all they have learned during their wilderness sojourn. He says there is a choice to be made: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” [i] The crowd has been at this fork in the road before. They recognize Jesus is channeling Moses. Trust in the ways of the Lord, or succumb to the loneliness and death-dealing of self-sufficiency. 

It is the same choice the prophet Jeremiah sets before the people some six hundred years prior to the time of Jesus: Cursed are those who put their trust in mortals; Blessed are those who trust in the Lord. That is, life that is true life, life that is like a tree planted ‘by water,’ will be nourished in the ways of the Lord and able to withstand years of drought, years of anxiety, and know that in the end all shall be well. Those who trust in mortals “shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness.” [ii] Trust in the Lord, or succumb to the withering anxiety of a self-sufficiency that never believes there is enough. 

Psalm 1 offers a similar choice: “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful! Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night.” [iii] The way of life and happiness is for those who delight in Torah, the teachings of the Lord gleaned in the wilderness sojourn. Not so for the wicked. The psalmist concludes, “for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” (v.6) 

It has been noted that the Hebrew word for ‘happy’ begins with the first letter of the alphabet, and the word for ‘perish’ begins with the last word of the alphabet. Psalm 1, in a sense sums it all up, from beginning to end, A to Z, Alpha to Omega, from Aleph to Tav. This happiness is not self- gratification or self-sufficiency, but rather means to be connected to the source of life thru the study of Torah, God’s instructions. One is happy when one is connected to the source of all life. Whereas the scoffers, the wicked, are those not open to instruction. They know it all. In either case, happiness is not a reward, nor is wickedness a punishment. Wickedness is simply a choice not to be connected to God and to others, since God’s instruction is all about how one is to live with and among and for others. In that sense, wickedness throughout the Psalms means to be self-centered and self-directed rather than God-centered and God-directed. In a word, wickedness is autonomy, which literally means you are “a law unto oneself.” [iv] 

Again, those in the crowd from Jerusalem and Galilee, at the center of Torah, God’s instructions, is Love. Love understood not as a romantic quality, but as the foundation of how one respects the dignity of every person, and seeks to meet the needs of others. All others. Which is what Jesus teaches – to Love God, and to Love our neighbors as ourselves. As to who is our neighbor, Torah and Jesus expand neighborliness beyond nearby friends and family to mean all people in need of healing, love, and care: the widow, the orphan, and even enemies like the Samaritans, and immigrants fleeing warfare, danger, drought, famine, repressive regimes, and all sorts of “natural and man-made” disasters. Later in Luke Jesus defines the unboundedness of such love of neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan. A story rooted in the most ancient understanding of God’s love and solidarity with all those beyond the community of faith and of any and all ethnicity. Torah teaches, “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”[v] We are not taught to be self-sufficient, but to care for one another. This is the very heart of Torah. This is the Gospel – The Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God. 

In his sermon on level ground, the words of Jesus rest on the conviction that when God created the world, it was good. Good means that there was enough richness, beauty, and abundance to nourish the whole creation and every creature therein. God made enough for everyone and everything to flourish so that everyone could look and say, “This is good. This is very good.” Richard Swanson recalls his grandmother saying, “God made enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Blessed are you who are hungry. God made the miracle of creation so that there will be someone to feed you. Woe to you who are rich. You have filled your pockets by refusing to share. “Give to everyone who begs from you,” says Jesus. “As you wish people to do for you, do the same for them,” he says. Love your neighbor as yourself and all will be blessed. All will be happy. I wonder, asks Swanson, if anyone believes Jesus’s words? [vi] 

We find ourselves at a fork in the road. Which way will we go?

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[i] Deuteronomy 30:19-20

[ii] Jeremiah 17:5-10

[iii] Psalm 1:1-2

[iv] McCann Jr, J. Clinton, Texts for Preaching (Westminster John Knox Press, Lexington: 1994) p. 145

[v] Leviticus 19:34

[vi] Swanson, Richard W., Provoking the Gospel of Luke (Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2006) p.108-109.