After Thoughts: Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18:1-8

As Jesus continues the journey to Jerusalem, he tells the story of a widow and an unjust judge. Luke tips us off that Jesus is using this story to teach us about the “need to pray always and not to lose heart.”

What is Jesus revealing about the nature of God in this parable? The judge is close enough that the widow can go to him, knock on his door, bow before him, and speak to him. The judge is far enough above her that he has the power to command justice when he deems the time is right. The judge is both near and far.

Just as God is both near and far, or in theological terms, God is both immanent and transcendent. “God is present and active within his creation, but superior to and independent of anything that he has created.” * Lose the balance between the two and we lose what God has revealed to us about Himself through Jesus.

If we lose the understanding of the immanence of God, we can feel lonely and abandoned. We become reliant on social solutions and human efforts. We seek justice, we thirst for righteousness, and yet nothing changes. We get up every day and work in the world to bring about justice. Poverty, violence, oppression, and injustice just laugh at us. We wonder where God is. So let us not forget to pray, to ask, to plead, to spend time with Jesus, to take our burdens and worries to the cross. Remember in these times that God is near. Like the widow, keep going to the judge. Pray always.

If we lose the understanding of the transcendence of God, we can become despondent and hopeless. We may pray and talk to God often, but we have forgotten that God is outside the creation, He is above all. God’s ways are not our ways. God is not a genie’s lamp – pray all day for everything to go our way, and when it doesn’t, feel let down. Remember in these times that God is working within His creation. God is active, and His action takes place in an eternal framework. God is faithful. Like the widow, trust that the judge will set things right. Do not lose heart.

The Old Testament reading shows us this so beautifully. God’s immanence is evident in Jacob wrestling with him; Jacob physically encounters God, rolls around on the ground, fighting with God. God’s transcendence is evident in Jacob’s request for His blessing and God’s ability to transform Jacob by giving him a new name, one that affirms his identity as a child of God.

If the widow had this much faith in a corrupt, earthly judge, how much more faith should we have in God? Do we have confidence as we confess that “we believe in Jesus, God’s only son...who will come again to judge the living and the dead?” Then let us pray always. Let us not lose heart. God is working in and through creation until Christ returns. Will we be found faithful?

*Thanks to my old text book, Christian Theology, Second Edition, by Millard J. Erickson.

After Thoughts: Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17:11-19

This past week’s readings were full of lepers. From 2 Kings, there was Naaman. In the Luke reading, there are 10 lepers, all of whom are healed, yet only one turns back to give thanks. What this common biblical skin ailment would be called in today’s medical terminology is uncertain; but what is certain is that leprosy was a horrible condition that required those afflicted with it to be ostracized from the community.

The 13th chapter of Leviticus, all 59 verses, is a guidebook for diagnosing and treating leprosy. The priest was the one responsible to examine the spots and sores and then to pronounce a person clean or unclean. If found to be unclean, the person was required to live alone, outside of the camp, away from friends and family. When others approached, lepers had to shout out “Unclean, unclean.”

Chapter 14 of Leviticus goes into the purification ritual once the leper is deemed clean by the priest. It’s a complicated process. The priest goes out of the camp to examine the leper. If it looks good, the patient is allowed back into the camp, but must live outside his or her tent for the next seven days. There is a ritual involving birds, one of which is sacrificed, and one set free. Then everyone waits until day eight at which time the healed leper is to bring two male lambs, one ewe lamb, a grain offering, and a log of oil to complete the ritual. But, if the person is poor, there are other options – only one male lamb or even two turtledoves or pigeons. Suffice it to say, a sacrifice of blood was required for atonement to be made and the leper deemed clean.

Now we fast forward to the Luke reading. Jesus is between Samaria and Galilee –kind of in a no-man’s land, neither here nor there. Out here in the hinterlands, he is hailed by a group of lepers, calling out for his mercy. As I reflected on this, three things stood out. 1) There was no pre-qualification. Jesus didn’t ask nationality, ideology, religious affiliation, or anything related to their identity or status – he just healed them all. 2) When the one turned back, Jesus didn’t send him out to evangelize, write a book, do a talk show…Jesus just told him to get up and go on his way. 3) Even though the other nine did not give thanks, Jesus did not undo his mercy and blessing of healing.

God, in Jesus, came to earth in human form to reveal His true nature to us. From the three points in the previous paragraph, what I see revealed is that 1) Jesus came for all people. 2) Living as a follower of Jesus is about doing the work we’ve been given, loving God and our neighbor, not proselytizing and judging. 3) God’s providence is for all people, God’s care extends throughout the universe. Not because of who we are. Because of who He is.

Here in today’s reading is Jesus, moving toward Jerusalem and his great act of salvation. His earthly time is coming to an end. In this final journey, we are given amazing insight into the nature of God, particularly in this encounter with the leper. In Matthew, Jesus tells us that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And here it is – that fulfillment right here in this beautiful story. By law, what happens when a leper wants to be pronounced clean? He is brought to the priest, and the priest must go out of the camp to meet him. He is examined. A sacrifice is made. He is restored to his place in the community.

Jesus goes out of the camp – he’s in between Samaria and Galilee, outside a village. He meets the lepers. He tells them to go to the priest. Off they go – and yet one of them got it – he discerned the true identity of Jesus. The High Priest and the Lamb of God. So he returned and fell at his feet in gratitude. Then Jesus sent him on his way to be restored to his family and community.

The Law was a shadow of the good things to come. Here in Jesus is the Gospel. In our crying out for mercy, here is our High Priest. In our extreme poverty, here is our Lamb. The Law fulfilled. Atonement made. The unclean now clean.  Relationship restored.  Life redeemed. 

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us.

After Thoughts: Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 17:5-10

Each week, our lectionary gives us four readings, but for the sake of brevity when I began this blog, I intended to stick to the Gospel lesson. Then my dear friend Jill reminded me of the beauty of studying more closely the thread that ties the writings together. Shortly after that conversation, along comes the 19th Sunday after Pentecost with this great passage from Habakkuk, maybe the only time we get a reading from this short three-chapter book. And I can’t resist starting there.

The assigned reading is chapters 1 and 2, verses 1-4 from each. Habakkuk is upset – why doesn’t God fix things? Violence, destruction, strife, and contention everywhere. The law has lost its integrity. There is no justice. The Babylonian Empire looms large. Habakkuk wants answers and he wants them now. He is going to take a stand and not move until God replies.

God’s answer? Wait for it. No, really. Wait for it. God promises that there is a vision coming. It may seem like a really long wait, but keep waiting. The reading ends with the words “The righteous live by their faith.”

So what does that look like when the righteous live by their faith? Habakkuk explains in 3:17-19. Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.

Even when the basics of life are missing, faith rejoices. And it waits.

Habakkuk was written around 6 B.C.E. Now let’s fast forward to the first century C.E. and the verses from Luke. Six, seven hundred years on, and the story is still the same. Violence, destruction, strife, and contention everywhere. The law has lost its integrity. There is no justice. The Roman Empire looms large.

And then everything changes. Immanuel. God with us. Jesus steps right into the middle of the mess, walking, talking, eating with the good, the bad, the powerful, the outcasts, the wealthy, the poor, the healthy, the infirm. He turns worldly social, economic, and political systems upside down. He condemns the perversion of the law that further penalizes the most vulnerable in society and thwarts justice. He warns of the danger of wealth and power, mighty forces which can become our masters, and yet are temporal and vain.

This wealth thing is drilled home in the verses of chapter 16 of Luke. It is blatantly obvious that God’s ways are not our ways, and that wealth and social status are anathema to God’s ways. Then we come to today’s reading. At this point, the disciples have given up a lot. And it’s now pretty clear that worldly riches and power are not their reward for doing so. The road ahead looks ever more challenging, especially without those little perks of money and status. So what could they ask for that would be helpful? Faith. Yes, faith. How could Jesus refuse that? They’d be loaded.

So they tell Jesus to give it to them. Faith, that is. Notice that they don’t ask – hey, could we get some more faith? Or what would we have to do to get more faith? No, they tell Jesus to give it to them like it’s a spare five dollar bill he has folded into the hem of his robe. How does Jesus answer? Yes? No? Maybe? That would be way too easy. Way too worldly. Way too devoid of the good news that changes the world.

Instead Jesus tells them that if they had even a teeny, tiny amount of faith, they could do ridiculously outrageous miracles. And then tells them this strange story about a master and a slave. After a hard day in the field, the slave comes in for the evening to prepare his master’s dinner, clean the kitchen, close up the house, and get a few hours of sleep before starting all over again – what master would expect or accept anything less? Doing all that comes with the job is what one does, especially when one is a slave. It’s the “met expectations” or “average performer” on the annual performance review.

Did you notice that Jesus doesn’t start doling out faith - two ounces for John, a pound for Peter? Faith isn’t something we have in a measurable quantity. It’s something we live by the grace of God. Martin Luther says this:

Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion…They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says “I believe.” That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing…Instead, faith is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God’s grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures.

Faith isn’t about the job we do or the role we have in the world – it’s about our identity as children of God saved by grace and how we take on that servant role. Fixing dinner and washing up the dishes at the end of a long day. Reading a book to a little one. Sitting by the bed of a dying one. Doing the work, whatever that may be, that is in front of us today with a joyful heart. Even a teeny tiny bit of faith moves that mulberry tree of despair, anger, frustration, resentment, regret, or hatred, out of our hearts and into the depths of the sea. Even a teeny tiny bit of faith can turn our work into a blessing, can turn our suffering and loss into hopeful anticipation, and can transform our lives into melodies of praise. We can pray with enthusiasm – “Thy will be done.”

When we demand: “Increase our faith” God says, “I am faithful.” I’m pretty certain we’d all agree that we would prefer God get this rather than rely on the quantity of faith we are able to muster at any given time.

When we cry: “God, why don’t you just fix things?, God says, “Get busy and do your work.” Faith is God’s work in us, with a joyful heart, even when things are hard. Faith is holding on and knowing that God has promised good to us. As Paul writes “I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.”

Despite what today may look like, ‘that day’ of which Paul writes is coming and God is guarding everything until then. So let us be good servants. And wait for it. There is a vision to come. And that’s a promise.

After Thoughts: Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16:19-31

Thrown. That’s the word that got me this week. In my Lutheran Study Bible, the note for verse 16:20 gives us this: The Greek may be translated as ‘thrown at the rich man’s door.’ Which got me to thinking about where I’ve been thrown.

I was thrown into a home with two loving parents, both of whom had jobs. A safe village. A loving extended family. Good public schools. White skin, blue eyes, blond hair, female, heterosexual. An American. Born in the 20th century. I chose none of these. This is where I was thrown. A major key to awareness is to acknowledge this – to step outside myself, to see where I am, when I am, and to live consciously and deliberately within the gift of time and space called my life. For this life is a gift, along with the freedom to do with my thrownness as I will.

We often learn at an early age to get busy and stay busy and never think about this type of thing. This is exactly what the rich man did. First, he hid himself, led his whole life covered up with purple robes, nothing but an empty suit. Then his earthy life was done and all the potential that he had was buried. He was covered up in life and covered up in death, never truly confronting himself, his true being. Unable to know himself, he is unable to have true relationship with others, including His Creator.

Without relationship, we cannot be human. We understand ourselves in relationship to those we encounter, including God. Every encounter is a little bit anxiety-producing because every person we meet is a potential threat to our insular world order. If the rich man had encountered Lazarus, if he had truly seen him, things might have been different. In alienating himself from himself, he annihilated any chance of relationship. A great chasm was created.

Then he gets to Hades and he still doesn’t see. He’s still working with externals, purple robes and positions of power. Abraham is obviously BMOC in this part of the Kingdom, and who does this rich guy dare to address? Does he ask Lazarus to help him? No, his perceptions are still out of focus. He asks Abraham to order Lazarus to act. First, to bring him water and then to go back and warn his brothers. Can you even imagine? He’s asking that Lazarus, who was covered with sores, malnourished, living in the dirt down on earth, go back to that wretched condition to meet his (the rich man’s) needs.

Making the material and temporal the center of our lives is when we lose sight of our eternal self. And this is what we are. Not just a body. Not just a spirit. We are a self. Wealth, contentment, success – these can hide the self from us. Kierkegaard writes that “…only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as a self, never became aware and in the deepest sense never gained the impression that there is a God and that he, himself, his self, exists before this God…”

It’s another paradox. See ourselves. Die to self. Arise to life in Christ.

The rich man was thrown into life as a rich and potentially powerful person. Yet, not only did he not see Lazarus, he never even saw his own self. Did you notice he doesn’t even have a name?

Lazarus was thrown into a poor and sickly human body. Yet, Lazarus has a name, has encountered his self, existed before God as self. When this earthly life ended, it was an easy transition for Lazarus straight into the bosom of Abraham. He’d been resting there all along.

Thrown. Seen. Named. Saved. Rocka my soul.