After Thoughts: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 11:1-13

“One of his disciples said to him…” I wonder which one it was and why he asked at that moment? By this time in the ministry of Jesus, the disciples had been witnesses to many things – a leper cleansed, a paralytic healed, sins forgiven, demons dispatched, a widow’s son returned to life, profound teaching and preaching, and the really big event – the Transformation when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain to pray. And while Jesus was praying, something happened – his physical appearance changed and his clothing became dazzling white. Did this happen every time Jesus prayed? And then the patriarchs appear. Wow!

Why then did it take so long for the disciples to ask Jesus to teach them how to pray like that? They observed the Transfiguration, they were there, but they didn’t quite get it. Just a few verses later, they are arguing about who is the greatest. Jesus has already told them about what awaits him – the Son of Man must undergo great suffering – and again – the Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands. Yet, like small children, they are fighting over rank and hierarchy, worldly aspirations.

Finally, one of them asks – Lord, teach us to pray. Jesus must have sighed with relief. Maybe, just maybe, the disciples were starting to get it. And so Jesus tells them to start by saying “Father.” Now remember all the things they have seen Jesus do and the things that have been done. Like at the baptism of Jesus when a voice from heaven says “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And then, at the Transfiguration, the voice says “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”

How incredible is it that the first word on prayer from Jesus is to say “Father?” To instruct us, mere mortals, to call upon the God of the universe as a beloved parent? In that one word, Jesus, the beloved, the Chosen, chooses to embrace us as brothers and sisters, siblings, children of the most High God, and says - start your prayers by saying “Father.” Daddy. Poppa. Abba.

If the prayer had stopped right there, it would be enough. When we are overflowing with joy, shout “Father.” When we are lost, cry “Father.” When we are suffering, whimper “Father.” And then listen and wait. Because the Master Creator, the Immutable, Infinite, Eternal, God Most High is our Father who is waiting to give us more than we can imagine, things the world can never give.

Today, let us not miss out on the “much more” that God is waiting to give us. Out of the busyness of the world, may we take time to sit quietly, to call out “Father” and to give thanks for the coming of the Holy Spirit. “When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Listen. Wait. We are children. We are heirs. The kingdom is near. The best is yet to come.

After Thoughts: Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10:38-42

This week’s Gospel lesson is the story of two sisters:  Mary, who “sat at the Lord’s feet” while Martha “is distracted by her many tasks.” This story has so many possibilities.  Where shall we start?

Let’s start with a little context around the message of hospitality.  For the past few weeks, we’ve learned much about hospitality from the readings in Luke.  In Luke 7, Simon was admonished for his lack of hospitality when welcoming Jesus.  In Luke 9, Jesus warns his followers that hospitality will be in short supply:  the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out the 70 with instructions to take nothing and to put their faith and future in the power given them by God and the hospitality of strangers. In that same chapter, Jesus gives us the Good Samaritan, the epitome of hospitality which extends beyond our front door and into the vastness of all creation.

Within that context, let’s move into these passages.  First, Martha welcomes Jesus into her home – good hospitality, right?  Well, it started out that way.  And then Martha ignores Jesus, jumping into her to-do list.  Following the social conventions of her time, I’m sure Martha is preparing things in a way that would make Martha Stewart proud.  Best foods, finest pottery, oldest wine, richest linens.  Martha is busy, busy, busy. 

Are we the same?  Busy, busy, busy with the ‘social conventions’ of serving Jesus - church attendance, personal devotions, nitpicking rites and rituals, splitting hairs over creeds and theology – that we fail to “be” at the feet of Jesus.  In all that pomp and circumstance of worship and following and doing our religion do we forget the Guest?  Is Jesus overlooked in all the activity?

As these routine never-ending tasks pile on, Martha becomes angrier, angrier, angrier.  Why is Mary not helping?  It happens.  When we get so caught up with the “doing,” and lose the “being,” it’s easy to get _________ (fill in the blank – angry, frustrated, disillusioned, ?).  So then what is it? Being is better than doing?  But somehow that doesn’t feel right.  Surely Jesus doesn’t want us just sitting around? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Jesus goes on to say that Mary has chosen the better part.  What has she chosen?  Maybe Jesus does mean “being” is more important than “doing.”  Or maybe not.  We know from the earthly life of Jesus that he is not a pure contemplative and does not exhort his followers to take on such a life.  Jesus is on the move, healing, teaching, connecting.  He is all about ‘doing.’  We run into a roadblock if we try to balance “being” and “doing.”  A little of this, a little of that.  Nope.  Then we end up in Martha’s shoes.  One always pushes out the other and we run in tiny, crazy, little circles.  It’s like seeing  the guy on the corner with the “Hot and Hungry – Please Help” sign and thinking about how we should stop and offer help and hope, but if we do, we’ll be late to the Community Outreach and Feed the Hungry committee meeting. So we’ll just pray for him later.  Trying to separate “being” and “doing” just doesn’t hold up.

So forget balance.  Rather, our “being” and “doing” are sequential AND simultaneous. Sequential AND simultaneous?  Crazy, hey?  Kind of like Jesus being fully human AND fully divine.  Like us being sinners AND saints.  Sequential in that the “being” comes first – that’s the best part that Mary chose.  Know our place.  We are at the feet of Jesus.  Everything has been done for us.  Then, from that joyous place of overflowing gratitude, our “doing” pours forth in our hospitality toward our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Being comes before doing, and being comes through doing, and doing comes through being.

I think Martha has chosen that better part as well.  She’s just temporarily forgotten.  Don’t we all?  So Jesus gets our attention, calls us back, to sit at his feet, to be nurtured, to be reminded that we don’t have to DO anything for him.  He has done it all for us.  From that place of being, our “doing” becomes not a way to impress or please or placate God.  Then when the ‘doing’ begins, and the hospitality is offered, Jesus will be right there at the heart of it, his love and grace the foundation upon which all “doing” is sacred, a pleasant offering to the Lord, an acknowledgement that all we have is a gift that has been given to be shared.

 
As our dear Martin writes, “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.” May our “doing” of those good works be light duty as our “being” rests at the feet of Jesus.

After Thoughts: Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 10:25-37

Life is uncertain. Death is not. Its finality was abundantly manifest in these past few days. For those of us on the perimeter of the violence, we tremble. We mourn. And we ask a lot of questions. Why did these things happen? What can be changed? How can we stop this? Who is responsible? When and where will it end?

Questions tend to make us anxious – all that uncertainty can be scary. We want answers. So we rush to find them, sometimes in all the wrong places. There are plenty of suppliers willing to give us a fix. But this path only leads to a deeper addiction to a particular worldview that actually limits possibility and blocks a better future.

What if we could learn to dwell with the questions? To explore them deeper? To turn them inside out and upside down? Ask better questions, get better answers, so it’s said. But what if living with the questions is the path forward? Meditate on these words of Rilke for a moment:

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Jesus asked many powerful questions and the story of the Good Samaritan in this Gospel reading is a beautiful example. It seems fairly obvious from the conversation that the young man is confident of his proper observance of the law. He seems to be seeking assurance from Jesus that he is indeed righteous, an okay dude, guaranteed a seat at the big table in the sky. When he doesn’t get a definitive “yes,” he poses this question: “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus, being Jesus, doesn’t do a Webster breakdown of the word and its origin. He doesn’t suggest a new set of criteria to use in identifying a neighbor. He doesn’t give a profile of who a neighbor is. Jesus tells a story. And at the end of that story, he asks his own question. “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?”

Note the subtle difference. The man asks for help identifying who his neighbor is perhaps so that he knows the boundaries of this requirement. Jesus turns it all around and asks which of the three was a neighbor? Get it? Not who is my neighbor, but who is a neighbor by the action he takes. Jesus is telling him - “You are the neighbor. Just do that. Show mercy.” It’s not about the recipient of all that lavish love, unmerited forgiveness, boundless charity, or prodigal grace – we all absolutely do not deserve any of that. And that’s the point. God gives it to us anyway empowering us to give it to others. It’s all about us, the givers. We are the neighbor. We are the one called to be God’s agent, to have compassion, to show mercy. To everyone. Yes, everyone, today and every day.

Let us go, and do as the Samaritan did. And may we live together along that distant day into the answer.