After Thoughts: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 9:51-62

Every time I hear this reading from Luke, I think about Dad. Well, to be honest, I think about him a lot. But there is a specific memory attached to this portion of Luke 9. It was at least 45 years ago, in the ride home from church, he said the pastor’s message that day had been helpful because this particular passage was a challenge for him. You see, Dad loved his parents and could not imagine anything less than total care and support for them. For Jesus to say “let the dead bury their dead” seemed out of line with the Jesus he knew. So what was this all about? I can’t recall what the pastor said that day, only my dad’s ongoing working-out of his own relationship with God through the Son through the Bible.

All these years on, like Dad, I’m still mystified and challenged by the Bible. It pushes me outside my comfort zone. And that is a good thing indeed! So, on this Tuesday morning, as I reflect on this week’s Gospel lesson, here’s what I’m pondering.

The first of the three encounters Jesus has in this passage is with a volunteer. Someone walks up and says “I’ll follow you.” To which Jesus gives a strange reply about foxes and birds and holes and nests. The person had said “wherever you go” as if there’s a destination in the near future. But following Jesus is more about the journey which may have no clear path and no clear terminus here on planet earth. It won’t be easy. Jesus followers will be aliens, without homes, nomads.

Pushing the idea of homelessness even further, Jesus may be telling us that once he comes to live in our hearts, there will be no room left for our egos and our own selfish desires. No ‘prosperity’ Gospel here. We have to die to ourselves and give up our real estate so that the Spirit can move in.

The second encounter is the one that Dad wrestled with. Jesus calls someone to follow him and the person asks first to go back and bury his father. Jesus replies, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” This makes me think about all the rituals we have devised for ourselves, including weddings, funerals, baptisms, and even church attendance. These things may make us feel holy and we may find comfort in the certainty of knowing how to worship God, but what if the kingdom of God is elsewhere?

The third encounter is when the person called asks to return to his family and wrap things up there before heading out. Reading the Old Testament verses that accompany this Gospel lesson is insightful. In this passage from I Kings (19:15-16, 19-21), Elijah calls Elisha by throwing his mantle over him. Then Elisha asks if he can say goodbye to his family first. And so he does. He burns the oxen that he had been working, along with the equipment, feeds the flesh to the people, says goodbye, and follows Elijah. All of the old is relinquished completely as Elisha embarks on this new calling. The oxen, a sign of his economic security – gone, burned up. The family – a sign of his social security – gone, left behind. He has a new vision, a new calling, and this requires that he only look to the future, not the past.

While I don’t think this means to literally burn up our computers, whiteboards, and other tools of economy, what if it means to sacrifice them to Jesus? To see our job, whatever it may be, as a way of proclaiming the kingdom? To see all people, not just our family, as God’s people who we are called to care for? Maybe, as Jesus makes a home in our hearts, he will call us from empty ritual to forward plowing that moves us out of the past into the future. The kingdom is here. The kingdom is now.

After Thoughts: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 8:26-39

There are many ways to approach the text of the Bible and one of my favorites is ‘relationship.’ Reading the Old and New Testaments through this lens helps to bring understanding about God’s relationship to His creation (especially we human creatures) along with insight into our relationships with one another. Luke 8, from whence this past Sunday’s Gospel lesson comes, is rich in lessons about relationship.

The first three verses are about the people who are with Jesus. This is pretty cool – he obviously didn’t need co-workers, he could have done it all himself, but he worked in a team. Then in verse 19, he turns relationship upside down – it’s not about biology or genetics or culture or race or any of those earthly things. Crazy stuff!!

Keep reading and in verse 25, right after he’s calmed the storm, the disciples are so confused. They’re wondering – who is this guy who even has control over winds and waves? They still don’t really know who Jesus is. And yet they follow, seeking relationship, searching for understanding.

And then in verse 28, a demon knows exactly who he is! “When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” The disciples, who have been with Jesus, some since the very beginning, and have seen all that he has done, still didn’t know who he was and yet here is a crazy man full of demons who calls him by name? And it gets weirder because Jesus then wants to know this man’s name. The Son of the Most High God wants to know this weirdo?

After the man is healed, Jesus restores him to relationship with his own family, just like in the previous chapter, Jesus had restored the dead man to his widowed mother. It’s all about relationship. Jesus bringing new life in dead places so that we can love and care for one another.
 
Jesus tells the man, who is desperate to follow him, to return to his home instead and to tell everyone what God has done for him. The story ends with the man proclaiming throughout the city what Jesus has done for him. In the NRSV, the RSV, the KJV, and the NIV, it is the same. Jesus says to tell what God had done. The man goes and tells what Jesus has done. He got it. Jesus and God are one and the same. Even the disciples hadn’t got there yet.

God longs to know us by name. Jesus even ventures into creepy, dark, dead places to reach out and ask – what is your name? It starts with this relationship between Creator and Created. “Hi, God. It’s me. Jennie.” Then through that relationship, God lights my darkness, heals my hurt, brings life to my dead places, and sends me forth to share what He has done. The best way I know to do that is to reach out to all I meet and to ask – what is your name? In that knowing of my neighbor, in the intimacy of relationship, I am able to move beyond the conventional confines of who my family is, to overcome fear of those who are different, and to drive out the demons of anger, violence, and bigotry that seek to possess us.

After Thoughts: Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 7:36-8:3

We can read this passage and think – oh, that sinful woman is so happy because she has been forgiven so much.  But Simon is such a good guy, he doesn’t need that much forgiveness. We might even be so bold as to think – that’s like those of us here at church on any given Sunday.  We’re pretty good so God must be pleased with us, our confessions aren’t that egregious, but let’s not forget to say thanks. Then we check that box, take the bread and wine, and we’re all set for another week.

But what if we read this story all wrong?  What if Simon is the one who has been forgiven five hundred denarii?  And yet he doesn’t even realize it.  What if it’s a challenge from Jesus for less judgement of others and greater awareness of self?  Simon doesn’t appear to be one who does much self-reflection.  He hasn’t welcomed his guest properly, and now here he sits observing this woman’s outpouring of love and thinking to himself – “if Jesus were a prophet, he would know this woman is a sinner.”  Can we extrapolate from this that Simon must have thought Jesus saw snow-white purity inside Simon?  How could he remain so unaware of his own sinfulness even when Jesus says “But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little?”  This doesn’t mean Simon had ‘little’ to be forgiven for.  He just didn’t even realize how great his debt was.

This woman may have been a prostitute, we don’t know for certain.  But whatever she did, it was outside the norm of society. She was forced to live a lifestyle that made her an outcast.  Not uncommon in a time when women’s identity and financial security were tied to a male relative, a husband in the best case, or a son, brother, or other man willing to take on the responsibility.  In the absence of such protection, a woman was left to fend for herself.  As this woman has done.  It is a necessary choice which seems to have brought her great pain and a heightened awareness of her need for love, forgiveness, and mercy.

Simon, on the other hand, is part of the establishment.  He prospers from the existing system.  He can afford to conform and obey the norms of the society because he has helped to create and continues to sustain them.  So much for justice, kindness, and walking humbly.  Simon is large and in charge and sitting on the judgement seat.  And such a debtor unaware.

To be forgiven much, we must first be aware of how great the debt we owe.  Five hundred denarii?  Well, if we read this story and identify with the fifty denarii debtor, we might want to take a closer look.  We’re all in the 500+ plus club.  And, thanks be to God, that is not a bad thing – that is a point of departure, a path to the Light.  Because the awareness of the depth of our sin, the immensity of our need for forgiveness, drives us to the cross where we find Jesus.  And the one to whom much is forgiven, loves so much more.