This week, the role of the preacher in American society has become a topic of conversation. It's not that I don't think about this. As a preacher in a congregation, I think about this all the time. Every Sunday. Actually, every Monday when I start thinking about next Sunday and the work I will attempt to do to convey a message to the people in my church. I also think about the fact that I mostly preach to the choir, as they say. The people who come are the people who come. I do not see guests every week. I often wonder if my preaching has something to do with that. No one is inviting anyone to come and hear the Word here. But that's the ego talking. There is a more pressing situation, though. At the present moment, the voices of those who are proclaiming violence, discrimination, fear, and exclusion are loud and boastful and arrogant and rude. They are emboldened by the election results. Right now, a lot is happening that is causing fear and even panic. The inauguration and the executive activity this week provokes response. So, do we give one or not? And to whom are we responding? I don't have millions of followers or a popular podcast. It makes me wonder if what I say, which is what I do, matters?
On Tuesday, the Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Washington DC, preached a message at the inauguration prayer service, in which she implored the President to show mercy to particular people: people who identify with the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants, especially undocumented people who live and work here, whose children are citizens who go to school here. She asked him to be merciful and to create safety and possibility for people who seek asylum from violence and poverty. It was a bold public message directed to the President of the United States. In the tradition of Moses to Pharaoh, Nathan to David, Elijah to Ahab, Jesus to Pilate, Paul to Caesar, Bishop Budde spoke the gospel to the president. He didn't like it very much. She may become a target of his ire. He may endanger her life. She counted the cost of her speech and her silence and choose to use her office as Bishop and preacher to appeal for mercy. I think that is the role of the preacher in society today. To know the gospel is good news for those who suffer and to find a way to announce it publicly, which carries risk. But, how do we preach publicly? I don't think congregations most congregations are public institutions. They are mostly perceived as private religious social clubs for members. I have been asked if someone could bring their extended family to Sunday morning worship, if they are not members. Consider your own faith community. How "public" is it? And, who does the gospel comfort and confront every week? Are any leaders with power addressed? Who is listening? This begs a larger question:
I went to see the movie, "A Complete Unknown", about the rise of Bob Dylan from Greenwich Village folk singer/ songwriter to rock music icon. It covers about a 6 year period in Dylan's early career. From his first album to his sixth, from 1961 to 1965. He wrote "Blowin' in the wind", "The times they are a'changin'," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," "With God on our SIde" "My Back Pages", "It Ain't me, babe", and "Like a Rolling Stone." Any of of these songs reveals an inspired poet speaking to a time and a generation having serious moment.
In a ten year period Dylan released eleven LPs, including the double album, "Blonde on Blonde". He was about as prolific as the Beatles in the same time period.
Dylan is a poet and a revolutionary. His musical style and lyrical sensibilities evolved quickly, faster than his fan base. He didn't care. He wrote for himself mostly and sometimes his words and music connected deeply with American youth in the 1960s. He seems to have a way with the American zeit geist, he read the times like a prophet.
I confess that I was not a Bob Dylan fan. I knew Dylan's music, because I'm an American and a music lover. I'm a Gen Xer. I grew up in the late 70s and 80s. My parents listened to pop music, country and rock. I became a fan of the Beatles. They were my musical inspirations. I was not interested in their early pop tunes. I was captivated by two albums: "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver". That the same band could produce such vastly different music in the matter of a few months astounded me. Their evolution from "Plesase Please me" to "Strawbery Feilds Forever" was the thing that hooked me. The psychedelic and eastern sounds, the rhythm, harmonies, and lyrics. And "Here Comes the Sun" is my favorite song and will be played at my funeral.
The 1960s was characterized by its music. Dylan, the Beatles, CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Joan Biaz, Otis Redding, Motown. They elevated folk music and gospel music to become popular music. They sang protest songs and freedom songs and love songs and resistance songs and laments. Their music spoke to and for a generation struggling with global existential crises and threats--nuclear bombs and rising imperialist miliarism in the wake of WW2; Vietnam; assassinations; race and civil rights; feminism; sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was a creative and violent decade, that went through a lot of change in a brief period of time. Change that brings greater equality, possibility, and peace is welcome change. Change requires unrest, resistance, and persistent action. Change demands unity and sacrifice. Good change involves an awakening and a grounding in the limits of humanity as well as a vision, a dream, a horizon worthy of our greatest efforts. Change inspires protest marches and civil disobedience and speeches and bold, risky moves. The first revolution is internal; the first revolution is of the mind. The great philosophers say it. Its what the old bible word 'repent' actually means. It means to change your mind. Father Richard Rohr says, "Jesus didn't;'t come to change God's mind about us, but to change our minds about God." Why? Because when our god is wealth or success or power or personal achievement at any cost, we are lost. It is only when God becomes human, joining us in life's journey, that we can see that God is actually love, compassion, mercy, peace.
Now is a time of change, revolution, adaptation. Now is the time to sing a new song!
I have pretty eclectic musical tastes. I want to hear songs that say something, that mean something,that tell the truth about things that matter. Since seeing the movie, I have been listening to Bob Dylan. The prescience of a song like "The Times Theyare a changin'" is worth hearing, given our present situation.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
At present, the global, existential threat of climate change is concretely realized in the wildfires taking place in southern California. The violence of nature is experienced in drought, flood, storm, fires, and dehabitation. Climate displacement and climate refugees are found on almost every continent. As result of these changing environmental conditions, humans are reacting in dangerous ways. We are experiencing trememndous wealth accumulation among a very few people. There are 835 US billionaires. Globally, the richest 1% own almost 48% of the world's wealth, while people who earned less than $10,000 per year account for more than 40% of the global population and in total have less than 1% of the world's wealth. The world's 26 richest billionaires have more wealth than the GDP of maby countries including, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Australia, and Spain. Those 26 people are worth $2.872 trillion!
President Jimmy Carter, who died this week at the age of 100, once said that the most pressing problem that must be addressed in the world is economic inequality. So much else is driven by these two realities: Climate change and economic inequality. As Elon Musk takes over the American empire as a shadow leader beside the president-elect, we will likely see increased poverty, violence, and environmental destruction. We will also continue to see rising sea levels, global warming, and the effects of ecological disruption.
It is a lot to take. The news is hard to watch and hard to avoid. The existential threats are burning down towns and flooding cities and turning farms into deserts. Meanwhile the 26 richest people are hoarding resources from billions of other people, who will die in poverty. It is hard to be hopeful, to not become cynical, jaded, and ambivalent. It's hard to know where to put the anger, the rage, the grief, and the fear. In the past, when civilization was going through a time of darkness, a time of uncertainty, people created art and music.
Now is a time of change, of revolution, of adaptation. Now is the time to sing a new song!
I'm wondering today, how can we sing a new song? Who will sing them? What language do we need to protest, to resist, to demand concrete material change? What songs will we sing to console, comfort, and connect us? What songs will we sing to denounce the billionaires and their political friends? I'm hoping for a new singer and a new song.
Our religious traditions bring us many songs to sing; hymns, spirituals, psalms, and canticles. The resistance song of Mary, the mother of Jesus: "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty." The spiritual, "Wade in the water, Wade in the water children, Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water." "When Moses was in Egypts land, let my people go. Go down, Moses, way down to Egypt land;tell ol' Pharaoh, let my people go." But fewer of us are religious and know the old songs. We should keep singing them and we need new songs. I'm looking and listening. For a new song. A song like Dylan sang. A song like Aretha sang. A song like Nina sang. A song like the children of Israel sang. A song like Jesus' people sang.
Are you listening? Are you aching for a new song? Are you waiting for someone to come along?
Happy New Year. I have not contributed to a blog in over 4 years. It's not that I have run out of things to say or write about. I guess I spent my time in other ways. Did anyone read what I was writing before anyay? I think I wondered about audience, connection, and interests. Did I have anything interesting to say? Anything worth writing or reading? Also, there are so many blogs, podcasts, videos, and general content out there in the democratized space of amateur journalism that exists in the social media context in which we live our lives, that I doubted I could get anyone's attention long enough. Is that the point? Getting people's attention? Do I want people to pay attention to me? Do I need people to pay attention? To read or listen to what I say? What I really want is for people to pay attention to their own lives and the lives of the people around them. I want people to pay attention to the trees and the birds and the insects and the soil and the wildflowers in the restored meadow behind the Methodist church. I want people to pay attention to their neighbors. And people who pay attention to the divine, to the will of God, to the presence of the sacred. We have got to pay better attention. We have got to wake up and stay awake! This is hard, painful work as it turns out.
A lot of things have transpired nationally in the last 4 years. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. An attempted coup failed. Just when we thought authoritarianism and fascism was defeated, Trump defeated VP Harris in a presidential contest that surprised the world. A global pandemic killed millions of people and climate change is accelerating in various ways, both visible and invisible. Israel and Palestine are at war. Russia and Ukraine are at war. War persists in various other parts of the world. Gun violence and the violence of poverty and addiction threaten American society. Mass shootings have become common. A deep cynicism, uncertainty, and mistrust pervades our society. People want enemies to blame, and strong man leaders to promise easy fixes to hard problems. Demagogues, dictatorships and various forms of religious nationalism are replacing democracies around the globe. Christian nationalism has arisen in the US as a driving anti-demoractic force to restore patriarchy, heteronormativity, and a narrative of dominance and greatness that excludes certain out groups from equal status.
I finished my doctoral thesis in 2024. That was a considerable piece of writing that nearly killed me last year. I had to finish it by February or I would not be able to graduate. I started the doctoral journey in 2016-2017 and COVID interrupted me. But I got to write about the Wittel Farm and how it has changed me, what it has taught me. I'll share what I have learned here.
I took on a third position in my vocational life as a pastor and farmer. In 2022 I joined the staff of POWER Interfaith, a faith-rooted community organizing movement for racial and economic justice on a liveable planet. (I like this tag line). The work is meaningful and has given me opportunity to connect and work ecumenically with faith leaders who are interested in justice as a theological response to the world's problems. It is interesting to think about the political and social implications of an increasingly post-Christian society. I studied the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer this year and taught a course on his life and teachings. I'm presently involved in the campaign for housing equity in Lancaster County. I am working with some amazingly passionate people who want to solve a major crisis, by ensuring that our politcs and economics create conditions of well being for everyone, which includes safe, affordable, adequate, and accessible housing for every person who wants it. We have learned about the politics of housing and why some people are left out of the housing market, are stuck in housing that doesn't meet their needs or exceeds affordability. We have learned about the causes of homelessness and what it takes to move unhoused people onto a path toward permanent housing. It takes money and time. It takes responsible political action rooted in a community- based ethics that sees every person as a human being worthy of respect, safety, and equal treatment. As an organizer, my role is to invite people, who are committed to finding solutions to their communities problems, to engage political actors and responsible leaders in a negotiation around an achievable goal. For example, can we compel county leaders to commit an additional $10 million in county rainy day funds to address the deficit in affordable housing stock? How many people will it take to compel political action? Do we need to have enough people to threaten reelections? How will we know? As an organizer I get to find people and invite them to become responsible actors in public life. I especially appreciate the role of the faith leader as a public actor, moving people of faith to act courageously to resist the status quo and become architects of a better world. This is a major challenge because of the internalized powerlessness most Americans experience today. We see billionaires and politicians aligned in their interess and against the interests of people and planet. What can we do? We can organize. Tune in for more writing about the power of organizing to create social change.
I'm also committed to the writing of John Philip Newell and the Celtic spiritual tradition. It shapes my understanding of an enchanted world, full of wonder and danger and beauty and mystery. The sacredness of the earth and our role as beloved caregivers defines and energizes the work I want to do, both with the farm and with people. Can we move toward a restored ecological harmony? What would it take to do so? How do we disentangle ourselves from the post-industrial worldview that continues to consume, waste, and destroy the earth with every choice we make? What is permissable, what must we prohibit, and what is necessary? Should we sell our cars and divest from fossil fuel consumption? If so, how do we live in this society? I have been reading indigenous wisdom, alongside Newell's work, and I have been listening to the poetry of Mary Oliver. There are agrarian writers like Wes Jackson, Norman Wirzba, and Wendell Berry that are informing my thoughts on our role in the natural world. Habitus, our habits and daily practices of living are shaped by our habitations, the places we dwell in and with. And our habits also shape our habitats in good and bad ways. I am not one for new years resolutions, but I'd like to commit to forming habits this year that will contribute to the greater good of the place to which I have become native. I am committintg to planting 1,000 trees in Lancaster in 2025.
Along with Newell, the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 20th century German Lutheran theologian who resisted Hitler and the Nazis, a clearer way of talking about things that matter the most has emerged in my own thinking and speaking. There are a few important matters that need to be discussed. I want to broaden the discussions from the academy to the home. For one, people of faith need to wrestle with the planet's destruction by human industrialization and fossil fuel consumption. We need to think critically about a theology of creation and what it means to be responsible moral actors on earth. What are the scenarios that climate science anticipates given current global trajectories under the conditions of climate change? Do we really only have sixty harvests left, given the depleted soil conditions? What will warming mean for human populations, as habitation becomes more challenging in places currently inhabited? What should we eat?
I think 2025 is a year of necessary change. Adapt or die. So, what if this blog is a contribution to our adaptation? We need to adopt new ways of being, living, acting, consuming, working, and resting. We need to adopt a theology that frees us to live responsibly toward the neighbor, both human and non-human. We need to experience and embrace humility before God and earth, in order to restore order, balance, and possibility of a future. So, I will contribute a weekly post in 2025 of thoughts on ecology, theology, community, and adaptation. What will you contribute?
A couple of months ago I was asked by a respected colleague if I would like to speak at one of their weeknight worship services. These services are supposed to be more casual, open to the public, and for the broader community more than for the congregation itself. In fairness, he sent an email to all of the local faith leaders with whom he has a relationship in our community, asking if any of us would be interested in speaking. I am a raging extrovert and I love public speaking opportunities. I said "YES". It would be in May. I had time. But I immediately began to think about what I might share there. I thought I would talk about the Wittel Farm Growing Project, which I started and direct. We farm a 40 acre piece of land in Elizabethtown, Lancaster County. We plant, grow, and harvest with volunteers. Last year about 500 volunteers served on the farm. Everything we harvest is donated to Lancaster County food relief organizations. We work with about a dozen food banks and pantries. So I thought maybe I would tell the story of the farm and my leadership there. (I left the family farm to follow a call to ordained ministry. 20 years later, I'm farming to fight hunger. Never thought I would put my farming experience to use in the church and community. God has a sense of humor). I love to tell this story and invite people to imagine how God might call them to use their gifts and experiences in life to serve neighbors. Maybe I would mention what its like to be called to grow food, care for the land, and serve the earth during a time of climate and ecological crisis. Knowing that some evangelicals don't believe in climate change or a Christian call to Earthkeeping, I wondered if that would be acceptable or even heard. I believe that we learn when our perceptions and understandings are challenged.
A couple of weeks ago, my colleague emailed me. He was embarrassed and apologetic. It seems that I was the only faith leader who said "yes", but his worship team said "No thank you". They did not accept my acceptance of his invitation because I am a liberal and I have taken an "affirming" position on social media regarding LGBTQ neighbors. They did not want to affiliate with me. Even when my colleagues assured them that I wouldn't seek to offend them, that was not enough. They were worried that my presence in their building would be perceived to align them with a liberal supporter of LGBTQ rights, participation, and full inclusion in the Christian community.
My first response was, "Hey, a free evening!". My second one was lament at how deeply divided the church has become in this culture. We cannot be in the same room with one another when our biblical morality causes conflict. We prefer the comfort of like-minded or "right-minded" friends. The enemy is anyone who doesn't think like me or believe what I believe. We focus on the things that separate us instead of the things that unite us, that we hold in common. This is part of what is killing the church in the west.
I notice in the gospels that Jesus holds company with synagogue leaders and Pharisees, Samaritans and sinners. He brings people together who supported Roman policies and hated Roman policies. He was rejected and ejected from the synagogue. He protested in the temple. He debated religion with scholars. He healed and included people kicked to the margins of society. He challenged economic and ethnic norms that created inequality, poverty, and wealth. He told people to give without expecting anything in return. He fed hungry people without demanding employment. He favored the underclass, the disadvantaged, and the overlooked. He touched families that experienced grief. He made people's broken lives whole. He sought to give them a chance to live. He longed for God's heavenly kingdom to be manifest on earth in the human community. He enacted justice, liberation from suffering, and merciful inclusion of every marginal person. From children to mentally ill ethnic non-Jews. Jesus was a liberal in his social policy of love--of neighbor, enemy, God and one another.
I am labeled in the community as a "liberal pastor." And apparently that is bad, unchristian, unfaithful, evil. If "love your neighbor as yourself" is a liberal policy, then what does it mean to be a conservative Christian? I am tired of the "evangelical conservative Christians" having the public microphone and telling the world that a Christian thinks and acts and sounds like them. And that their values and concerns are exclusively Christian. And that their moral judgments represent the whole Christian church. And that real Christians vote Republican and love Trump. I am tired of one-issue evangelicalism whose lithmus test for authenticity is the size of your church, the wealth and fame of your preacher, and your stance on sex and abortion. (Related issues). What of the Christians who led the abolition of slavery or civil rights or opposed the death penalty or oppose war or serve the poor or welcome the refugee or offer healing or serve the earth? What about the Christians who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, and house the homeless? Liberal Christians or progressives or the Christian left must build and announce a counter narrative, an alternative to the gospel of prosperity and exclusion that is poisoning the air we breathe and the waters in which we baptize. I am a white, educated, cis-gendered heterosexual Christian man and I experience the privilege that offers me all the time. I have voice and vote and leadership experiences and get- out- of- jail- free cards and access to people and places and things. I'm usually the host of the meal and the head of the table, not the unwelcomed guest. I can't even imagine what it is like to be excluded because of my race or gender or sexual orientation or religious faith. But I am willing to become an ally, a friend, and a companion to those who do experience exclusion and oppression and hate because of who they are. I am willing, because I'm a liberal or progressive Christian. I'm willing to fight with and for people who are treated like crap by the church and the policymakers.
I don't like labels, but I would rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude. I do believe in full inclusion, welcome, and the beloved status of every person. I do believe the church is supposed to be a sanctuary for marginalized and oppressed peoples, minority groups, and those without the power to secure their own rights and protections under the law. Black and brown bodies, women's bodies, LGBTQ bodies, addicted bodies, mentally and physically ill bodies, asylum seeking refugee bodies, poor and hungry and homeless bodies---these matter to God and to Jesus and to the church he builds. I see how the church has harmed people by excluding them, rejecting them for who they are, and denying them a relationship with God. I would bet that the church makes as many atheists as the world makes. People don't believe in a church whose god is abusive and hateful and inaccessible. People long for a God who frees people from their captivity to prejudice and hatred. A God who frees people to serve others, to experience the fullness of life in community, in which they are accepted, loved, respected, and cherished. I intend to serve that God--the God of the prophets, the God of Jesus, the God of the apostles. If love and grace and inclusion make me too liberal, then I will wear that! Yes, I am a liberal pastor. I stand in the long biblical tradition of the prophets and in the life of Jesus Christ; I long for the full and complete freedom and inclusion and vitality and health of every living person, every living thing in God's good creation. Until all are free, none are free. To be free is to be accepted as God made you. To be free is to be you. To be free is to have agency and safety and access to sufficient provision. To be free is to live without fear, without discrimination, without the threat of violence. To be free is to have choice and to choose life, to choose mercy, to choose service, to choose to embrace others as beloved siblings. Call me what you want, God has called me beloved child and servant. Nothing matters more.
Sitting at lunch counters and on buses in seats reserved for whites only;
Suing one’s master for freedom from slavery;
Leading your people on an underground railroad,
Going to jail for riding the whites only trolley car and going to the supreme court;
Marching from Selma to Montgomery across deadly dangerous bridges;
Standing up and telling the truth to powerful men until freedom is won for all;
Justice doing is
Marching and protesting and writing letters and campaigning and calling up your congressman or senator or governor to speak your mind on behalf of those who know injustice; It is a demand that power serve the vulnerable, the least, the marginal, the small. It is a demand for the truth in politics and an end to corrupted self-interest. It is a demand for environmental protection and climate action to save the planet from greed and gluttony and abuse. It is children marching to end gun violence in schools and children marching for the planet and children leading us to do what is right, even when it isn’t easy.
Justice doing is
Going to rallies in Harrisburg on buses with strangers who become friends because our cause is the same, our hope is the same, our hearts are the same---until those who are wronged are given every right, we will keep up the fight for justice;
Justice doing is inclusion and compassion and holiness and bodily presence, a blessing of rightness in a world full of wrong. It is knowing what is right and acting for the right and demanding that what is right for me and for the white man and straight woman and for the wealthy family is also right for the black man and woman, the gay man and woman, the trans man or woman, the poor man or woman. Justice doing is a courageous demand for freedom and equality and human dignity and opportunity and reparations for generations of wrong. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mercy loving is
Feeding and clothing and housing the hungry, naked, homeless poor. It is generosity that relieves suffering by giving some of what I have to you so that you have what you need. It is good samaritan funds spent to keep a family housed or the lights turned on or the heat working in winter. Mercy loving is holding space for someone to grieve, to fail, to struggle and to stay with them in it. It is empathy for the strugglers, whose lives are too hard, because isn’t it hard for all of us, aren;t we all strugglers on the journey?
Mercy loving is
Opposing the death penalty and mandatory sentencing that robs our humanity and destroys black bodies, guilty of blackness if nothing else; and encouraging rehab for almost everyone because everyone has pain and everyone suffers and bleeds. It is to want affordable health care for everyone because health is not about money. It is to welcome the asylum seeker and the refugee fleeing suffering in search of mercy; it is to oppose public policies that detain and imprison brown children and deport brown parents and reject entry to a better life for black and brown peoples. Mercy loving is to reject war and militancy as the first resort in global conflict or global conquest. It is to insist that people matter more than profits and bottom lines.
Mercy loving is
Caring for all the creatures like God cares for all the creatures; it is to adore pets and reduce ones impact on the planet and to be concerned about the planet’s health and to consider the needs of all living things when I leave my house and go out for a walk. It is to plant trees and flowers and meadows and feed the birds and the bees and the bats and the butterflies. It is to reduce waste and single use plastic and the throwaway consumerism that kills so much, including the soul; It is to give a little extra to save the Koala and the Polar bear because they have value too; Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy.
Humble walking is a stroll, a meander, a hike from my ego-centric self-indulgence toward a self-emptying, subsistence on God, the earth, and the others walking beside me. It is the insistence that we depend, that life depends, that everything depends on some things we cannot do or accomplish or make ourselves. Humble walking visits the homebound and shows up at gravesides and sorts clothing and packs food and cooks breakfast and doesn’t ask what’s in this for me? Humble walking is worship; Because humble walking is walking toward and with someone else, and God is walking there too. It is not arrogant strutting or mean tweeting or wealth boasting. Blessed are the meek for they alone will inherit the whole earth!
What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Amen.
I’ve never been arrested. Not yet. 2020 might be the year. I feel it coming. Sometimes you have to get arrested for change to come. Christian history is full of arrests for the cause of justice and freedom and mercy. John the Baptist was no criminal. John the Baptist’s arrest is a consequence of the Roman occupation and the oppressive policies they used to control the Jewish population in Palestine. He was arrested for calling out, publicly shaming, or protesting the bad behavior of a certain political ruler--Herod Antipas. Jesus’ public ministry began as a response to John’s arrest. And he begins to preach John’s message. Knowing that it was John’s mouth that put him in jail, he shouts it anyway! Change is coming, God is near! Change is coming, God is near. Change is coming, God is near. He takes up John’s work, but he doesn’t stay in the predominantly Jewish south. He goes north to the Galilee of the Gentiles, so called because of the mixed population there. For over 800 years, northern Israel was ethnically mixed. Judea and Jerusalem were much more Jewish. Israel was segregated, north and south. Some Jews were prejudiced against other Jews, and then there were the Samaritans. This is when oppression causes the oppressed to see themselves as inferior and divide themselves from one another. It is always the powerful’s rule to divide the conquered in order to diminish them and weaken them, to hold them down.
Jesus takes John’s message to a mixed community of Jews and non-Jews. Because suffering underneath was and is not an exclusively Jewish situation.
Jesus invites fishermen to follow him. He suggests that their skills as fishermen may become instruments of God’s work. Their everyday skills and tasks could be applied to the mission field. They’re going fishin’. Fishermen know the fish don’t come to you. You got to locate the fish, net the fish, catch the fish, clean the fish, fry the fish. Now I’m getting hungry. And maybe that’s part of it. Are we hungry to connect with others? What’s our net? Where are the fish? Is the message so meaningful to us that we want others to hear it, know it, experience it? And fishing is full of hard work and failure. You try one spot, nothing. Try another spot, nothing. Try another spot, jackpot! Go back there the next day, nothing. Fishermen know how to fail and keep going.
Jesus’ followers observed that Jesus did four things. He went throughout Galilee; teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom; curing every disease and sickness among the people. These four things, Matthew says, characterize Jesus’ activity.
Forgive over and over again.
A little faith does a lot.
We are worthless slaves.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Was none of them found to return, praising and thanking God, except this foreigner?
For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.
Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.
A series of wisdom sayings are built into the narrative. A chapter like 17 can feel a bit disruptive, with less narrative consistency and more sort of wisdom teaching. But Jesus is inviting us into internal work, soul or heart work, mind-changing work. The book "Breathing Underwater" by Father Richard Rohr applies the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous to the Christian life. He suggests that we are all in recovery from self delusions and denials about ourselves and God.
We may ask ourselves, what teaching is speaking to me right now? Is it a need to forgive someone who has wronged us? We may hear that forgiveness is not a one-time thing, but that we may need to keep on forgiving again and again. Sometimes a single past act continues to cause us pain and we need to talk our way into forgiveness. Sometimes we focus on the scar and fail to see that time has healed us and the pain has dissipated. Sometimes the pain persists and the offense lingers. So, keep on forgiving. Its for you, as much or more than for the one who offended or sinned against you.
To the disciples, faith is accumulative and the more you have the better things will be. Don't we even say, that person has a lot of faith or is really faithful? Jesus says that faith is not like money. It is like food coloring in water; a little changes everything. A little faith is powerful stuff, because it opens us up to a world beyond ourselves, our limited minds and senses.
The slave analogy is hard to hear from Jesus' lips. Namely because he suggests that his followers are like slaves, called to be obedient to their master. I'm not sure how to deal with this right now. But we must acknowledge it as troubling and perhaps archaic. Is it a word we ought to forget now? Slavery is never right. The thought is, faithful people are called to obey God's commands.
People are crying out for mercy. Where have you heard their cries? Yesterday, I heard the cries of a father and a mother whose children attend toxic public schools, where asbestos and lead threaten the health of their children. How does Jesus respond to cries for mercy? He stops, listens, acts, and sends them on their way to receive healing and rejoin the community.
Gratitude is a bold announcement of faith! God has shown mercy. God has provided. God has protected. God has rescued. God has healed. God has saved. God has intervened. God has spoken words of love and forgiveness. Thanks is the natural response.
God is nearer than we see or think. We are always looking somewhere else to some other place or time. The grass is always greener, we say. Jesus says God is present immediately and completely in the present moment, here and now.
Surrender. Let God be God. Learn to trust. How hard it is for us to do these things. We are self-sufficient lovers of security. We have fooled ourselves into thinking we protect ourselves with our wealth or homes or relationships or jobs or insurance policies or elected leaders. We have been hurt by being vulnerable and trusting. Self-protection is human, too. To trust God is to give up on all the false securities. It is to stay vulnerable. This is not easy. It is a lifetime of internal work. We are all in recovery after all.
My congregation (Zion Lutheran, Akron, PA) is on this journey toward antiracism and has joined the fight against racial injustices that plague our institutions, governing systems and policies, local economies and housing markets. We are a 100% white congregation in the whitest denomination in the U.S. Our lack of racial diversity is symptomatic. But my little, aging white congregation has been on a journey toward antiracism for almost two years and we are not alone. We are part of something that keeps us moving toward becoming allies in the fight for racial justice.
Primarily we are working with POWER Interfaith, a statewide antiracism organization based in Philly. To learn more about POWER click here: https://powerinterfaith.org/.
We are forming an interfaith coalition in partnership with POWER in Lancaster County. Over twelve congregations are currently participating, many for more than two years now, in the formation of a faith-rooted antiracism organization. Eventually, we will become Lancaster POWER Interfaith. In the meantime, we are participating in a statewide education campaign to end education apartheid and the gross funding inequity that exists in PA. (See the video above.) We attend rallies, call and write our elected officials, and seek out additional congregations to join us in this work. We also continue to learn the history of racism, to analyze current events and policies, and become aware of implicit biases and prejudices that prevent us from building a changed community of justice for all the children of God.
We have realized that the invisible hand of white privilege has isolated us from the struggles of black and brown neighbors. We have not acknowledged our silence, our complicity, our acceptance of white privilege that perpetuates a racialized culture and systems that do harm every day. Four hundred years ago, the seeds of racial division were sown in the Virginia colony. The U.S. was organized racially as a mechanism to divide and hold power in the hands of wealthy, landowning, white elites. The U.S. constitution codifies racial segregation in the 3/5 clause. Even the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery, opens the way to criminalize blackness, setting the stage for Jim Crowe, lynchings, and mass incarcerations. (At the bottom of this entry, I have named 6 books worth reading in the next 6 months.)
Wealth and greed and dishonesty seem to be on Jesus' and Luke's mind in this chapter. Jesus seems to have a problem with all three of these things. They do something to the soul, turning us inward, making us selfish and dishonest for the sake of our self-interest. The wealthy struggle to divest of their wealth, even for compassion's sake and for another suffering human. But Jesus believes in a great economic reversal in which equity and justice will be established and the poor will be glad in the kingdom of God.
Economic inequality is pervasive, systemic, transcendent of time and place, deeply embedded, and immoral--robbing the poor of basic dignity. These parables highlight the 1st century Palestinian situation under Roman imperial taxation, in which the poor were exploited. Our present day circumstances, under free market capitalism, exaggerates income inequality and the ever-widening gulf between the rich and the poor. Jesus' parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus at the gate illustrates how selfish greed and acquisitiveness can overthrow our basic humanity, making it possible to ignore or even reject the person in poverty before us. We do so at our own peril, says Jesus. He suggests that our present greed has eternal consequences. I'm not sure what that means, but I am sure most Americans would be shocked to hear it. Our fascination with wealth and our desire to obtain it at the expense of the global poor endangers millions of people. We see the consequences of our blind consumption in the climate crisis we now face or deny.
It is impossible to escape the judgment leveled against the rich in these texts. Not the first words of indictment in this gospel; they began with Mary's song in Luke 1. Luke sees the gospel as a great liberator of the oppressed and poor, the great equalizer of the poor and rich, the maker of a social justice-reoriented world where all have enough and none are invisibly forgotten or neglected. May it be so.
This picture hangs in my office. No Jesus story speaks more to me than this one. I have written, preached, studied, and appreciated this story for many years. To me this is the entire gospel in one story.
This chapter contains the three parables of lost things; lost sheep, lost coin, and lost sons. I will focus on the latter story. It is an extended story about a father and two sons, known as the Prodigal son. The story is told in the context of a serious accusation that the religious leaders lob at Jesus. "He eats with tax collectors and sinner." In other words, the company Jesus keeps damages his reputation, tarnishes his image as a righteous Jew, and erodes any teaching authority he may be exercising in his public life. Jesus responds with these three stories. His point? God rejoices over one sinner who repents, more than 99 self-righteous people who need no repentance.
A Father has two sons. This is a Jewish story. Genesis is full of these stories. Cain and Abel. Ishmael and Isaac. Esau and Jacob. God favors one son over the other. Often, the favored one is not the one expected to find favor with God. In any case, God favors forgiveness and acceptance and brotherhood over envy and anger and violent retribution.
A father has two sons. The father in this story is absurdly kind and generous. He is almost foolish in his submission to his sons' requests. He is persistent in his acceptance of them, despite their behavior toward him and one another. When the younger son asks for his half of the family inheritance, takes it and runs away, he is tells his father that he would rather have the money than the relationships. He is telling his older brother that he doesn't value their rule as siblings or sons, that he doesn't respect the work, or that he cares about the family's future. When the elder son confronts his father for welcoming the younger son home, it is clear he doesn't see himself as a son and heir but as a slave. He sees his father as an employer or a benefactor rather than a loving parent. And yet, the Father's actions demonstrate his compassion and love for his sons.
Does Jesus tell the story about himself? Isn't he the prodigal son, leaving his father's house to spend his life with the sinners and the pigs? Aren't the religious leaders the elder sons, self-righteous, bitter, and envious? Don't they see themselves as hardworking, loyal, and deserving?
Aren't we both? Luther said, We are at once both saints and sinners. Sometimes I'm envious of the impious and irreverent and immoral. Sometimes I'm impious and irreverent and immoral.
Do we know the Father's love? As a parent, I know that there is nothing my children could do to make me love them less. They are loved. Period. And that's the point. Prodigal or self-righteous snobs---God loves us all and welcomes us home and throws a feast for us.
I love the image of God's kingdom as a banquet or a gathering for a feast in Luke's gospel. To me that is what heaven will be like. The story of God, according to Jesus, is a family love story. Different than mythologies in which all powerful deities exist but do not act in human history, the story of Israel's God is the story of a God who acts, who shows up, who rescues, who intercedes, who feeds, who nurtures, who protects. It is a love story, in which God is parent and we are children. This is the Jesus innovation on the story of Israel.
A great book on the parable of the prodigal son is Henri Nouwen, "Return of the Prodigal Son."
Who gets invited to be guests at dinner parties? When you host, how do you invite? I have served two congregations that hosted community meals to feed hungry neighbors. Those experiences have been windows into Jesus' kingdom or the kingdom of God. Neighbors and strangers eat together; food is prepared and shared generously. Mostly, people from low income or poor households attend. Sometimes the servers eat with the guests. That is when stories are told, tears are shed, prayers are requested and spoken, and people who often invisible in our consumer culture are seen and heard.
Another place where I have experienced the Jesus table is at dinner church: a gathering of disciples around a meal for worship, prayer, breaking of bread, story, and song. Dinner church is an emerging expression of church in the U.S. It is a space of connection and relationship-building, in which we meet our neighbors, tell stories, pray, sing, and eat. We always sing a spiritual called "The welcome table" that reminds us that all are welcome at the table of grace and that there are some who have been excluded, uninvited, or denied welcome by the Church. We have heard Jesus' story from Luke 14 and believe that the table is a place of sacred encounter, in which both God and neighbor become present to one another in life-changing ways.
Where there is food and fellowship there is healing and hope. All we need is a table, some empty seats, open hearts, and the humility to invite those neighbors who do not get invited because they can't pay their way. We see the table and the food we share as a free gift. There are no good excuses for rejecting a gift. Who does that? Who says "no thanks" to a free gift that everyone needs? Jesus noticed that there were people who excused and absented themselves from the community. They were too busy acquiring people, animals, land---consumers acquiring property. Like his, our culture is acquisitive and consumer-driven. We likely live in the most acquisitive and consumerist economy ever known on earth. How often our things, our possessions, our property become barriers to relationships.
It is at the table and the meal that good relationships are formed, strengthened, and sustained.
Who could you invite to eat with you this week? What would make that a sacred experience?
Bad things happen. We assign blame in order to make sense of tragedies. But sometimes we are victims to forces we cannot see or control, systems of injustice and oppression that create conditions for tragedy to happen. Mining accidents come to mind. We are not supposed to assign blame, but offer assistance. We create the rules that create the conditions that cause suffering. We create barriers that prevent us from supporting, helping, or caring for someone else. We build walls and ghettos and even gated communities. Segregation was a legal policy that denied non-whites access to economic opportunity, education, employment, housing, and health care. Many whites never viewed it as unjust because they never saw or experienced the conditions of their non-white "neighbors". Out of sight, out of mind. Justified by prejudices and negative biases that supported segregation, kept people apart and disadvantaged people based on race. Humans have a great capacity to punish.
Sometimes doing justice requires that we break the rules, when the rules are bad rules that harm others. According to Luke, Sabbath-keeping had become a rule that harmed some people, by preventing others from providing support and help to them. Sabbath becomes a privilege for the well and the well off. It becomes a burden for those who never get a break from pain, from shame, from labor. Segregation prevents us from seeing the needs of the other.
Jesus sees. He sees a woman bent over and he liberates her. There are really two Torah commands around Sabbath---one based on Genesis 1 in which God the creator rests and commands us to rest. (Found in the ten commandments in Exodus 2). And one from Exodus in which God liberates the people from slavery in Egypt. (Found in Deuteronomy 5). Jesus ignores work prohibition (Genesis 1) in order to liberate a suffering child of God. This is how God acts. Always for the broken ones. Always to bring relief, mercy., and comfort to those who are in pain or struggle.
The Kingdom of God is not an army, a castle, a royal family, or treasury filled with gold. It is a seed, like yeast in the dough. The kingdom of God is organic, present and hidden, subtle yet alive, working its way, becoming, emerging, growing. It is in the smallness, the seemingly insignificant that God comes. God has a greater capacity to heal.
Warning! The current way of things in the world is changing. There is a crisis underway. It's serious, a life or death crisis. Some, those who are most comfortable with the way things are, will object, deny, and resist what is coming. They will shout, curse, fight, argue, and do whatever they can to keep things the way they have been. They are nostalgic traditionalists, who claim that their values and way of life are being stolen from them. They detest foreigners and have a clear perspective of insiders and outsiders, good guys and bad guys, the blessed and the cursed. They use religion, even the bible, to support their mastery, their supremacy, their self-righteousness. Wealth is viewed as a sign of greatness, success, security, and divine blessing. Poverty, the opposite. There is much anxiety and worry spent over who is right and who is wrong, over the need to acquire and possess. There is a lot of fear and anxiety. The daily news is driven by it.
Adapting to massive cultural shifts, such as the one that took place during the 1st century world of Israel/Palestine, the high Roman imperial period, is challenging. Jesus was born into a time of disruption, inequality, suffering, and division. We are currently living in such a time. The ecological crisis, the crisis of growing economic inequality, the religious crises (extremism, fundamentalism, and the decline of religion in the west) are threatening life on the planet. Divisive politics are both a response to and an instrument of this crisis moment in history. Current global politics seems to be exacerbating the massive challenges we face as humans. Massive displacement of peoples due to war, poverty, and climate disruption has created border and refugee crises. Rather than address them with compassion, we see mass incarceration and deportation and violence. Rising nativism and demonization of refugees denies human rights and basic dignity--even in the U.S., a nation founded on liberty and justice for all, a place of welcome for the persecuted and the displaced. Here we see a growing ambivalence or even rejection of non-white, non-native born citizens. Election politics demonstrates this ambivalence.
There is much in this chapter from Luke worth hearing: From an indictment on wealth and self-sufficiency that says, "You fool, this very night your soul is being demanded from you, and all these things whose will they be?" To a rejoinder not to worry or fret or fear in the midst of reactionary, petty, inhumane treatment given and received by those threatened by changes they cannot control. We ought to anticipate generational division as part of this cultural shift. It's always true that those who have benefited from the current way of things the longest are most invested in it. It may be that the idealism of youth is a perspective worth keeping.
We do hear promises of protection and provision here as well. And this is good news when the crisis is real and vulnerability is high. Living in troubled times, times of social change, can be difficult. To whom or what do we cling? How do we survive, cope, hold on?
People of faith are invited to let go and cling to God with hope and anticipation that ultimately God is the force of life working everything toward goodness and life.
Jesus and the prophets have always warned the world: If you put your faith in yourself, other people, wealth, governments, or ones social status, you will be disappointed and you may even suffer. But trust God and you will have life. Yes, we face real crises. Climate change threatens everything. But, "It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." That's Jesus way of saying, God is good and generous and actually loves us. We have life right now. We ought not to hoard it, or hide from it. We are invited to share, to give, to live into this vulnerability and receive the gifts that abound in God's economy. For in it there is enough for all.
Where does power come from? Are you powerful? What makes you strong enough? When do you feel powerful? When do you feel weak or vulnerable?
Chapter 11 is about power. A lot of Luke's gospel deals with power. Powerful governments and systems of oppression. The power of money, violence, and cultural affirmations. Who is powerful in our cultural context? Men? Those with wealth? Whites? Organizations that claim to empower people--women, minorities, marginalized peoples---start with the idea that power resides outside of those groups and within some other groups. Power has to be taken. It is rarely shared or surrendered. People don't easily give up their power. With power comes privilege, voice, resources, access. Power is often concentrated among a few. And the majority population is rendered powerless. Even in electoral democracies we wonder who has the power---since the choices at the ballot box are limited to those who often already have power---wealth, public fame, white maleness. White men are still disproportionately in charge of corporations, government, and other institutions that influence society at large.
Prayer on the lips of everyday people is a form of subversive power. Calling on God, the all powerful creator of light, to hear and respond to us is audacious and maybe even insane. Yet Jesus prays and invites us to do so, as if we are asking a parent for bread. Jesus also sees prayer as something more than just selfish asking for bodily sustenance. Prayer aligns our hearts and minds with God and places us in opposition to that which is not aligned with God. There is evil. Demonic systems of oppression that cause suffering, illness, exclusion, and hatred. People, from individuals to whole groups (races, ethnicities, non-confirming genders, sexualities) are demonized by the powerful who decide what is "normal" and "good" and what is not. Jesus suggests that power is given and spent to confront hatred and the things that separate us from God and one another. There is a religious elitism and exclusion that Jesus rejects. Confronting the powerful with the Spirit's power can be dangerous and also transformative. Even abusers of power can be turned around by God. Prayer begins with an acknowledgment: I am not GOD. God is God. God is almighty sovereign. This is the first step into the life of the Spirit.
And I am needy and vulnerable. Every day. My life depends on others. I do not survive in isolation. Acknowledging that there is no self-sufficiency, but that all are connected, is the second step into the life of the Spirit. This is the source of true power. God is great. God is good. I am not. I need God. God is generous and supportive. That which is neither generous nor supportive is not of God. In the power of God, I confront and reject all that stands against God's love and justice (which has been revealed to people and passed down to us through the holy scripture, the law and prophets, the Word.
What is power? The ability to act. What is the power of the Spirit? The ability to act in concert with the mind and heart of God. Jesus has this power and offers it to us. This is prayer. To ask God. To seek God. To knock on the door of God's house. To welcome the kingdom of God in our midst.
Sometimes people get beaten up on the way, abused, taken advantage, robbed, left for dead, ignored, and avoided. Sometimes we are the ones getting beaten down. Sometimes we are the ones who do the beating or the ignoring. But we also know that when there is a need, when there is trouble or crisis, people ought to act. We needn't act alone, but ought to seek a partner to assist us. Otherwise, we may become overburdened and eventually grow bitter toward others who do not do what must sometimes be done. There is more than enough pain to share. Find partners. Care together.
Jesus sends people in pairs into the towns and villages he intended to go. They are to travel light, vulnerably, and to seek out households of peace who will welcome them and offer them hospitality. They are to be guests. They are to treat everyone with mercy and to share one message, with those who welcome them and those who don't: the kingdom of God has come near you. This nearness of God to them means that God has not abandoned them. People often feel abandoned, hopeless, helpless. Showing up reminds us that we are not alone. It is critical to the human project that we show up for one another. Vulnerably, openly, and willingly--even when we are not welcomed. Jesus' people enter homes and remain there. This is not door knocking evangelism. (Our references to this sort of activity are Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, and salesmen. But this is not that.) It is relationship-building and community formation. Jesus is organizing the kingdom and its subjects by household. It may be time for the 21st century Christians to imitate our 1st century ancestors.
Jesus doesn't celebrate their accomplishments with them when they return from their mission. He reminds them that their names are written in heaven! They already belong and their status before God is indelibly marked forever, whether they are successful or not.
The Good Samaritan story is one of the most well known of Jesus' parables, found exclusively in Luke 10. It is a response to a legal test. Jesus is asked what are the limits of one's obligations as a law-abiding citizen. They question "Who is my neighbor" is also "Who is not by neighbor?' What are the boundaries of one's moral obligations? Who resides outside of those boundaries? Is it OK to avoid or ignore the needs of certain others? The parable requires 1st century ethnic bias to understand the fullness of its meaning. Samaritans and Jews were not neighborly. There was tension, enmity, between them. (Think Democrats and Republicans). Samaritans were not considered good people. It pains me to write this. Because Jesus has to exploit this bias to make his point. One is required to show mercy to anyone who needs mercy. Period. The Samaritan does not only have empathy and provide first aid to a victim of a violent roadside robbery. He spends his own money, solicits the assistance of another person, and promises to repay any expense. We do not know the impact he makes, whether the injured man lives. I wonder, however, if Jesus was once that injured man. Is this a personal story? Is that why Jesus is antagonistic toward the religious, temple leaders and sympathetic toward outsiders? Was he rescued by a Samaritan?
And what of the Mary and Martha story? Another example of what the Jesus community is about. Not about busyness, activity, or even hospitality. Called to listen, to learn, to a posture of receptivity. Guests in a host culture. What can we learn from our neighbors? How can we show mercy toward our neighbors? How can we bring fruitfulness to our neighborhoods? How do we build communities of mercy and welcome that overcome our biases and prejudices? Practice. Go and do. Act mercifully. Practice. That is the way to be on the way. So, here's the simple plan of action for Jesus' followers: Look for the pain. Find a partner. Go together. Travel lightly. Bring peace. Give generously. Be supportive. Don't judge those who sit one out. Love your neighbor as yourself.
It has become clearer, that Luke's work is not only about Jesus but about the people around him---his questioning opponents, his curious students, and his needy neighbors. Chapter 9 is a transitional chapter. John is dead. Jesus is at the height of his popularity. And his public work has been identified as the work of God, the prophet, or the Messiah--the divinely anointed King of Israel. But we also see Jesus handing over his work to his disciples. We hear him talk about losing one's life, taking up the cross, following him toward death. His mission is changing from giving life to others to accepting death from and for others. He is resolute and laser-focused on his mission, his vocation, his life purpose. He has been divinely identified and called as God's chosen messenger. Nothing will prevent him from fulfilling his duty. He exemplifies a passionate obedience to God.
Here we see Jesus on the move, in large crowds, among his handful of disciples, and in prayer. He is handing over responsibility for his mission and activity to the disciples--sending them ahead to heal and proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God. This good news or evangelium is a direct counter-narrative to the imperial news that would have dominated the headlines. The emperor, his army, his exploits, his wealth, his activities always dominates the news cycle. It seems that Jesus' activity is at least heard by the local leadership (Herod Antipas). Herod is intrigued by Jesus, as he was by John. He does not like to be publicly shamed by a loud prophet or publicly overshadowed by the good works of an itinerant Jewish preacher.
Jesus' disciples are supposed to imitate Jesus, doing what they have seen and heard him do and say. But they are easily intimidated by large hungry crowds or the demonic behavior of a young man. Once again, Jesus suggests that faith, or the lack of it, prevents the disciples from acting with power. Faith is the key to unlocking the power of God among them. Jesus' faith does not leave room for competition or for dismissive attitudes toward children, certain ethnic others, hungry crowds, or discouraged fathers. He has a quick retort for anyone who will prevent him from acting with consistent, compassionate concern for those who encounters on the way. And that is the things about him. He is integrated and consistent in his dealings with those he encounters on the road. From the least to the greatest, he sees people as they are. Their individual selves. Not as a group to dismiss. He sees people, especially those society wants to make invisible.
We hear a story of Jesus' on the mountaintop, alongside Moses and Elijah. He takes his place among the great liberator and law-giver and the great prophet. Both of them encountered God on the mountain and brought the Word of God down with them to the people in both actions and words. Jesus stands in their midst. But they are observed by Peter, James, and John. These three stand in contrast to the great men of God. And yet they are present on the mountain. They are bearers of the vision and hearers of the voice. Jesus is glorious and humanly vulnerable. And he invites friends, people, to walk with him. he does not operate alone. He forms a community.
To follow Jesus faithfully is to surrender, to abandon one's own pursuits, and to journey on toward God in a community of sojourners. Feeding hungry people, healing and liberating people, welcoming children, and drawing near to God in mountaintop experiences are all part of discipleship. Prayer is not so much conversation as a kind of personal intimacy with God or knowing closeness. A sense that God is near. Jesus has this kind of faith and it powers his life's work. May it power yours and mine, too.
https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+7 (click on the link to continue the story)
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Jesus proclaims and brings the kingdom of God. Another way to think of this is that Jesus lives his faith in God in his behavior, thoughts, words, and actions. As such, he has students, disciples who are learning this kingdom of God way of life.
Who follows Jesus? Women. Men. "Sinners". People who are struggling with "Demons".
Parables are stories that point toward something hidden, kind of like analogies or metaphors. Then parable of the sower is an observation, not a prescription. Jesus observes that some people are more receptive to God's Word in their lives. There are many things that can prevent us from hearing, receiving, and embracing faith in God. Worries of life. Darkness and evil in the world. Pain and suffering. Faith is a kind of rootedness, a connectedness to God.
Faith is a relationship. He says, my mother and brothers--my family---are those who hear and do God's will.
Faith endures life's storms with an abiding sense of peace, rest, surrender. Jesus literally surrenders to the storm, trusting that God will protect and save them.
Faith confronts the demons of society, facing the death-dealing darkness that they create. And there are many demons! Violence. Addiction. Prejudices. Jesus confronts these demons and orders them to release the one who suffers.
The story at the end of the chapter is a sandwich of two stories that reinforce each other. This is a story about God's unconditional love for women and girls---a revolutionary idea for a patriarchal society that largely blamed women for the sins of the world. (Eve being responsible for Adam's sin.) Faith in this story is trust in God for healing, trust in God for comfort in a time of grief and loss. Faith gives us hope when things seem bleak, unbearable, and impossible.
Jesus shows us that God is able and willing to reach us, connect with us, serve and help us, heal and give life to us. It is not God's absence that brings darkness in the world. It is our blindness, our corruption, our distracted minds. God is always near, always willing to give. Are we open to God's generosity?
Jesus heals the slave of a soldier, because Jesus understands how power and authority work. It is not to be used selfishly, or abused for selfish purposes. Power and authority comes with responsibility. In this story, a slave is ill and the Centurion seeks Jesus for help. He goes to Jesus on behalf of another, his slave. More than recognizing Jesus' power and authority, the soldier uses his power to acquire health care for his slave! And Jesus heals the slave because the soldier understands that power is best used to serve the vulnerable. This is a story about advocacy and justice, as the Centurion sought care for his slave. Slavery is always wrong. But in this case we see that a vulnerable and weak slave is supported by a powerful soldier (commander of 100 men). Power is to be shared to lift up those suffering at the bottom of the human pyramid.
And again Jesus demonstrates this use of power by raising a widow's dead son to life. In so doing, he restores her life and her support system. This story is also similar to the story of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath. (1 Kings 17:17-24). Luke he aligning Jesus' ministry with the prophet Elijah. It was said that Elijah would return to prepare the way for the Messiah to come. Could Jesus' acts be a sign that Messiah was coming soon? Or could they be acts of the Messiah himself? Disciples of John the baptist go to Jesus to ask him, while John is in prison. Jesus tells them to tell John what they see and hear. Good news for poor; healing for the sick; recovery of sight for the blind; the dead are being raised. These were all signs of God's powerful presence in the Hebrew Scriptures. Surely, Jesus is enacting the words of promise recorded in the Hebrew Prophets---words that suggested that God's power would come to save, to heal, to forgive, to restore life. And Jesus was embodying these words in his actions.
Luke has Jesus talk about John as a way of talking about himself. John is not the messiah, though some thought he was. He suggests that John is the messenger sent to prepare the way of the LORD. John prepared for another. And where John fasted, Jesus feasts. A party has begun with Jesus, because with him God is acting.
Finally, the chapter ends with Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. A woman kisses Jesus' feet, bathes them with her tears, and anoints them with costly oils. Simon chastises Jesus for allowing a sinful woman to do such a thing to him. But Jesus sees her differently. He sees her as someone who is in need of love and forgiveness in her life, not scorn and ridicule. The one who is forgive much loves much, Jesus says.
In this chapter we see Jesus healing sick neighbors, forgiving sins, raising the dead, and responding to questions. He is demonstrating his power as the son of God. And he is reminding us that we can go to Jesus with our shame, with our concern for others, with our grief, with our envy, with our questions and doubts, our wonder and hopes. We can ask Jesus to heal and expect that he will. We can ask Jesus to carry our grief. We can ask Jesus for forgiveness and love.
Today is St. Nicholas day. Nicholas Bishop of Myra was a fifth century Christian legendary for his generosity to the poor, especially to children. His legend grew into Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas. In many places in the world, today is the day when Christians exchange gifts in celebration of Christmas.
One of the core teachings or principles of Judaism is that God created the Sabbath day of rest for all of creation to be restored weekly, annually, and cyclically. Sabbath-keeping was and is a significant mark of the Jewish life. Friday night sundown until Saturday sundown there are rules of prohibition and permission around what one can and cannot do, eat, etc...it is also the day for Jews to gather in the synagogue to hear the Torah, the teachings of the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.) These teachings include the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments, of which there are over 600 in the Hebrew Bible. Some of these commands relate to treatment of the poor and of certain offerings from the fields to serve the hungry, poor, foreigner, widow and orphan.
This chapter includes conflict around Sabbath keeping. It also includes a core set of ethical teachings known as the sermon on the plain, because of where Jesus delivered them. They are an abbreviated and edited version of the Gospel of Matthew's sermon on the mount (Matthew chapters 5-8).
What are the most challenging of Jesus' teachings? Which ones are the hardest to obey? Do you think these are teachings for religious individuals or are they directed more broadly at a community, a group, or even a nation?
We begin to hear parables, teachings of Jesus that are like analogies or metaphors. Jesus points at a common reference, like a fruit tree, and suggests that people can be like that too. Good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit. He suggests that one's behavior is a product of one's inner moral compass or inner thoughts. As opposed to external dangers that corrupt us, the corruption is internal. So too is the goodness. Are Jesus' teachings black and white, clear cut, or do they seem a bit more grey and uncertain?
The things he teaches about judgment and pointing the finger at others, criticizing or chastising another person is most interesting and relevant. Jesus suggests that self-reflection and self-correction is the way to a transformed life and a better world. Instead of attempting to correct others, to see their mistakes and flaws, we are commanded to look in the mirror. This may be good advice in a time of deep mistrust and division among people. We are suspicious and judgmental. Hearing the teachings of Jesus might remind us that we all have inner work to do, in order to become bearers of good fruit.
