Sixth Sunday of Pentecost (Year A)

June 30, 2013

 

Luke 9:51-62

 

 

 

 

⁵⁷ On the road someone asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said.

⁵⁸ Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.”

–Luke 9:57-58 (The Message)

 

I’ve always had issues with this passage, for the simple reason that it didn’t make sense.  Why was Jesus telling that one guy who wanted to follow him that he wouldn’t have a place to stay?  Why was he so unconcerned about the man that had to bury his father?  Why was Jesus, as  Lutheran pastor Russell Rathburn notes, such a jerk?

The translation found in the Message bible helps clear things up.  Jesus was trying to get people to understand their priorities in life.    To the man that said he would follow Jesus wherever he went, Jesus warns him that he might lead the man to some places that were not comfortable.  To the man that needed to bury his father, Jesus says he must choose life over death.  To the one that wants to say goodbye to his friends and family, says that one that looks back isn’t fit for God’s kingdom.

The temptation in modern American society is to make our faith one of many priorities.  We want our faith to be predictable if we want faith at all.  We want a faith where we are in charge.

But here’s the thing: if we are following Jesus, we aren’t in charge.  We are following Jesus, and that might take us to some strange places, places we would never dream of going.  And maybe that’s why this passage bothers me; it lays bare my desire to be in control, to choose my faith.

In 2011 UCC Minister Lillian Daniel caused a bit of  stir when she wrote an article for the Huffington Post called  “Spiritual But Not Religious?  Please Stop Boring Me.”  The essay skewers those who tend to see themselves as “spiritual” but don’t feel they need to be connected to a church, let alone committed to anything or anyone. She has critcized what she believes to be a made up faith that is more in line with American consumerism than it is with the Church.  In a longer version of the essay that appeared in the Christian Century, she says the following:

“…in the church we are stuck with one another, therefore we don’t get the space to come up with our own God. Because when you are stuck with one another, the last thing you would do is invent a God based on humanity. In the church, humanity is way too close at hand to look good. It’s as close as the guy singing out of tune next to you in your pew, as close as the woman who doesn’t have access to a shower and didn’t bathe before worship, as close as the baby screaming and as close as the mother who doesn’t seem to realize that the baby is driving everyone crazy. It’s as close as that same mother who crawled out an inch from her postpartum depression to get herself to church today and wonders if there is a place for her there. It’s as close as the woman sitting next to her, who grieves that she will never give birth to a child and eyes that baby with envy. It’s as close as the preacher who didn’t prepare enough and as close as the listener who is so thirsty for a word that she leans forward for absolutely anything.

It’s as close as that teenager who walked to church alone, seeking something more than gratitude, and finds a complicated worship service in which everyone seems to know when to stand and when to sing except for him—but even so, he gets caught up in the beauty of something bigger than his own invention.

Suddenly it hits that teenager: I don’t need to invent God, because God has already invented me. I don’t need to make all this up for myself. There’s a community of folks who over thousands of years have followed a man who was not lucky—who was, in the scheme of things, decidedly unlucky. But he was willing to die alongside other unlucky ones, and he was raised from the dead to show there is much more to life than you could possibly come up with.”

 

Jesus Walks.  Jesus walks to places we would never consider and that can make us quite uncomfortable.  That will make us quite uncomfortable.  Jesus had a hard road to walk, but in the end it was so worth it.  Our walks with Jesus and encountering the lost and lonely will also make a difference in that we will all see God in places we never would have expected.

Jesus Walks. Will you follow?

 

Go and be church.

More Resources

 Here is what other scholars and pastors have to say about this week’s passage:

Janet Hunt: No Turning Back

Rick Morley: Facepalm

Ann Howard: Home Free

Ragan Sutterfield: Stay Close

Dennis Sanders is the Associate Pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis.

Third Sunday of Pentecost (Year A)

June 9, 2013

Luke 7:11-17

 

 

¹⁶ Awestruck, everyone praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” ¹⁷ This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding region.

–Luke 7:16-17 (Common English Bible)

 

If you’re like me, you’ve been to a few funerals over your years.  There really isn’t anything surprising about funerals.  You expect to have a service where a pastor preaches, maybe some will do a eulogy talking about this person’s life and so on.  After the service we might then go to cemetery to commit the body.  Again, this is all the we expect.  We expect to be sad.  We expect to cry.  We know what to expect.

No one expects a body to come back to life.

And yet, that’s what happens in today’s text.  Jesus enters the town of Nain and he sees a funeral procession taking place.  It’s the funeral of a young man and Jesus can see the man’s mother.  In those days, women had to rely on a husband or some man to support them.  We don’t hear about a husband, so we can assume this woman had no husband.  This meant her son had to take care of his Mom.  But now he was dead.  This woman was now alone with no one to support her.

You can imagine Jesus locks eyes with this woman.  He had compassion towards her and ends up bringing the young man back to life.

What I find interesting is not simply that Jesus brought this man back from the dead.  What is fascinating is how the crowd of  guests react.  First it’s with a bit of fear (which makes sense.  Ever seen a zombie movie?  I’d be scared too.), but then it becomes excitement and praise.  “God has come to help his people!” they say.  Luke notes that the word of the miracle spread the region.  The people of Nain spread the story of God doing a mighty work for God’s people.

So, how would we react? What would happen if we were sitting in a church somewhere with the casket up in the front of the sanctuary.  What if a young guy in his thirties comes up, opens the casket and raises the person back to life?  What would we do?

How do we respond when we see God acting in the world.  Do we shrug or is it possible that we don’t even bother to see God acting in the world?  Have we become blind to God and therefore not excited to tell others of the good news of Jesus?

Back in 2011, Methodist pastor Chad Holtz caused a stir when he wrote on his Facebook page that he no longer believed in hell.  Long story short, he got fired from his job.  A few months later, Holtz wrote in his blog that he was heading for treatment for sex addiction.  Last year, he surfaced again after months of blog silence.  His first post back showed a man who had “found religion” as they say:

I wasn’t feeling that the night of July 7, 2011, when my wife told me we were finished for good after discovering evidence of yet another adulterous affair.  A 20 year addiction to pornography, chat rooms and illicit phone calls led finally to this.  Amy, a shell of the woman I married 8 years before had had enough.   A month later I received divorce papers and a month after that I was sitting in divorce court, contemplating ending it all.

My addiction and adultery all took place while serving as a pastor and going through seminary.  I knew a lot about God but did not know God.  I had no fear of God, denying that such a loving God could ever send a soul to hell.  But if there was ever a person to whom our Lord would say, “Depart from me, I never knew you,” it was most surely I.

I arrived at Pure Life Ministries on Nov. 3, 2011 for no other reason than wanting to escape my misery.  Any place had to be better than the roach motel that had become my home for months.  I told my friend who dropped me off that my highest hope for my stay here was that I would come away with at least 7 months sobriety under my belt – more than I had ever had in my adult life.  Of course, “sobriety” at that time was a very low bar: no pornoagraphy or affairs.  The idea that I could be free from lustful thoughts, fantasies or self-gratification not only seemed impossible but hilarious…

One of several breakthroughs for me happened in late December when we were challenged to take seriously Charles Finney’s “Breaking Up the Fallow Ground” reading.   I pressed in, and spent all of Wednesday writing out the many ways I have neglected God and sinned against He and others.  I found myself prostrate, here in the chapel, crying out to God, undone by my own wickedness.  I saw the cross for the first time as it truly is and wondered why on earth God would do that for such a wretch like me.  I saw the price that Jesus paid not just for the world, but for Chad Holtz.  And it cut me to the core.

As I repented I cried out to God for my wife, Amy.  Her despair over our marriage and the 8 years of hurt I put her through left her clinically depressed, filled with anxiety and faithless.  Watching her husband preach from the pulpit each week while being the only one who really knew me made her sick, and she told me one day that if God existed at all He never would have let her marry a monster like me.  I pleaded with God to take from her all her pain and depression and unbelief and to cast it onto me.  I deserve it all! I cried.  Lord, if you do nothing else for me in this life let me bear her suffering!  And in that moment Jesus whispered to me, “I already bore it.”  

Jesus has done far more abundantly than I could think or imagine in this place.  He saved me.  I know today that I am free, redeemed, delivered, unchained.  I know what it means to live at the cross and to walk in daily repentance.  I know what it is to fear God and the joy of holiness.  By God’s grace, what I thought 7 months ago was impossible and hilarious is now my testimony.  The chains that bound me for decades are gone.  The blood of Jesus has washed me clean!   Hallelujah!

In my evangelical and black church upbringing this is what they would call a testimony.  A testimony is nothing more than telling what we have seen God do in our lives, what we have seen God do in the lives of others.

The people of Nain saw something wonderful that day.  They saw a man who was dead, deader than dead, come back to life.  They saw this as God working in the world, and they would not, could not, keep quiet.  They had to tell people.

Chad’s new found faith and sobriety is not because of will power.  Chad can tell it was because of what God had done in his life through Jesus.

What about us?  Are our eyes open to God?  Are we wanting to tell others of the mighty works God has done?  Does our faith matter?  Does it make a difference?

God has come to help his people.  Do we believe that?

Go and be church.

More Resources

 Here is what other scholars and pastors have to say about this week’s passage:

Frederick Buechner: You Do Not Need to Understand Healing to be Healed

Rick Morley: No Formulas

Lisa Scholl: How to Heal Like Jesus

Dennis Sanders is the Associate Pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis.

Second Sunday of Pentecost (Year A)

June 2, 2013

Luke 7:1-10

 

 

⁶ Jesus went with them. He had almost reached the house when the centurion sent friends to say to Jesus, “ Lord, don’t be bothered. I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. ⁷ In fact, I didn’t even consider myself worthy to come to you. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. ⁸ I’m also a man appointed under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it. ”

–Luke 7:1-10 (Common English Bible)

 

This story is fascinating for a lot of reasons.  First, the centurion is a Roman solider, the very face of the occupying force that is oppressing Israel. Second, this same soldier is on friendly terms with the Jewish community, even building a synogogue for the residents.

But there’s something else that’s interesting.  We never “see” the centurion.  He never leaves his house to meet Jesus face to face.  We really don’t know why.  He does mention that he doesn’t feel worthy, so maybe he was aware of his position and felt unworthy to meet Jesus.  Maybe he wanted to attend to his sick servant and didn’t want to leave him for a moment.  Whatever the reason, Jesus and the soldier never meet.  Instead, the centurion sends emissaries to meet with Jesus.  The first group comes out and describes the situation, while the second group make a plea based on nothing but faith in Jesus.

Jesus was amazed by the centurion’s faith.  “ I tell you, even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this,” he tells the crowd following him.  But what’s even more amazing is the role the centurions Jewish friends play.  It had to be odd for a Roman solider, who was not usually considered favorably by the local population to have relationships with the people he was supposed to oppress. His friends go to Jesus not once, but twice to plead to heel his servant.

Faith matters, but faith is not something that’s a solitary exercise.  Faith at its best is communal, it lives when strangers become friends and carry each other when times get rough.

A few years ago, pastor Lillian Daniel made waves with an eye-opening essay called “Spiritual But Not Religious?  Please Stop Boring Me.”  Daniel thinks the latest interest in being spiritual but not religious is the latest iteration of American individualism, a faith that basically doesn’t need anybody else except me, myself and I.  Daniel sees the church as a place that is countercultural to the prevailing individualism:

In church, we hear scriptures like the one in which Jesus says to ordinary, fallible Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” In other words, you people are stuck with each other.

Now there is much in the church I do not want to be stuck with, including Qur’an-burning, pistol-packing pastors. It’s no wonder that many good people are like the pop singer Prince: they want to be a person formerly known as a Christian.

The church has done some embarrassing things in its day, and I do not want to be associated with a lot of it—particularly when I have been personally involved in it.

But—here’s a news flash—human beings do a lot of embarrassing, inhumane, cruel and ignorant things, and I don’t want to be associated with them either. And here we come to the crux of the problem that the spiritual-but-not-religious people have with church. If we could just kick out all the human beings, we might be able to meet their high standards. If we could just kick out all the sinners, we might have a shot at following Jesus. If we could just get rid of the Republicans, the Democrats could bring about the second coming and NPR would never need to run another pledge drive. Or if we could just expel all the Democrats, the fiscally responsible will turn water into wine, and the church would never need another pledge drive.

But in the church we are stuck with one another, therefore we don’t get the space to come up with our own God. Because when you are stuck with one another, the last thing you would do is invent a God based on humanity. In the church, humanity is way too close at hand to look good. It’s as close as the guy singing out of tune next to you in your pew, as close as the woman who doesn’t have access to a shower and didn’t bathe before worship, as close as the baby screaming and as close as the mother who doesn’t seem to realize that the baby is driving everyone crazy. It’s as close as that same mother who crawled out an inch from her postpartum depression to get herself to church today and wonders if there is a place for her there. It’s as close as the woman sitting next to her, who grieves that she will never give birth to a child and eyes that baby with envy. It’s as close as the preacher who didn’t prepare enough and as close as the listener who is so thirsty for a word that she leans forward for absolutely anything.

The reason the servant is healed isn’t just because of the centurion’s faith, even though that is important.  Healing came because his friends carried the message to Jesus, who in turn healed the servant.

This faith that we encounter is one where we come together and worship and learn to bear each others burdens.  We pray for each other.  We care for each other.  We do this because we have faith in God and can see in each other how God is working in and through us to bring healing to the whole world.

Daniel is right that churches are far from perfect.  But it is in these countless faith communities where we pray for each other and work together to bring healing for a friend and for all of creation.

Go and be church.

More Resources

 Here is what other scholars and pastors have to say about this week’s passage:

Jeannine K. Brown: Commentary of Luke 7:1-10

David Lose: Unexpected Faith

Lauren Winner: The Centurion’s Friends

Dennis Sanders is the Associate Pastor at First Christian Church in Minneapolis.