Category: Faith

[Jesus said:] “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Luke 12:49-56

My sermon from the 10th Sunday After Pentecost (August 14, 2016) on Luke 12:49-56.

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[manuscript was lost at some point.]

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“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Luke 12:32-40

My sermon from the 9th Sunday After Pentecost (August 7, 2016) on Luke 12:32-40.

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So is anyone else paying attention to the Olympics? I love this time of year because, for two weeks, I basically leave my tv on the entire time. The sounds of Barney and Sesame Street and Spider-man – the shows that are usually on during the day – are replaced by cycling, swimming, gymnastics, and sports I’m reminded every 4 years that they exist – like dressage and race-walking. The sounds of Olympic competition becomes my background soundtrack. I really do love the Olympics – but I might, just might, love the commercials during the Olympics even more. They’re just so…amazing, awe-inspiring, and, usually, head-scratching. Like, that commercial that tries to connect track-and-field athletes with the tires for our cars or the ones that tell us we can be just as unique and awesome as Michael Phelps as long as we buy this car, watch this new tv show, or visit this fast food restaurant. And the commercial that recently got my attention is one for Dick’s Sporting Goods. The commercial claims that all of us, in our bodies, carry tiny bits of gold. It’s in our cells, our hair, and in our blood. With an uplifting soundtrack, and a moving narration, the commercial moves to a climax saying that all of us have the strength – the drive – and the passion of an olympian because the highest concentration of gold in our bodies is found in our heart. We all carry the treasure of an Olympic gold medal winner inside of us – so let’s go out there and buy some sporting equipment. 

When we hear in scripture a reference to the heart, we need to take a moment to step back in time and ask ourselves what those standing around Jesus would have heard. And to do that, we need to sort of turn off our brains because the people around Jesus didn’t have our knowledge of the human body. They didn’t know what each organ did and they didn’t know that our brain, what’s in our head, is the source of who we are. They didn’t know that different parts of the brain control our emotions, our creativity, or that it even stored our memories. For them, the brain was just…there. It wasn’t worth much because the source of who we are – the center of our thoughts, our identity, our desires, and our will came from right here – our heart. The heart represented our entire life because it pumps, through our body, the stuff of life. So today, when Jesus is gathered with his disciples, teaching them about their relationship to God, and those disciples hear the word heart – they’re not thinking of only passion or desire or emotions. Jesus is telling them that where they put their treasure, that’s the center of their entire life. What they do with their money illuminates who they are. We might carry trace amounts of gold in our body but where we put our gold, that tells everyone, and God, a lot about who we are.

Which is exactly why brands and companies love the Olympics just as much as we do. If we just buy this car, visit this resort, wear this perfume, or apply for this credit card, we too, can feel like we’re an Olympic champion. We can be unique, different, and important. We can become somebody just by buying the right pair of shoes or pants or messenger bag. Brands and companies advertise in this way because they know this is how money works. We give our money over and, if we have a positive experience, they get our loyalty. They get a little part of our life. When we need a new item or when we want to purchase a replacement, the first thing that pops into our mind is that brand. It becomes a default option for us. And I…I will totally admit that I am heavily tied to my brands. From my iPhone to my macbook, my Red Converse chucks, pants from Uniqlo, and my Jack Spade bags – I am a walking billboard for brands. And I’d like to say that, when I’m up here on Sunday morning, that brands don’t play a role in my presentation…but they do. From where I buy my stoles to the clergy shirt under my alb – there are brands I default too even when I’m worshipping God. Now, being tied to brands is not necessarily a bad thing. Clergy who are not a five foot, 11 inch middle aged man, have a really hard time finding anything that fits and is cut right. It’s only in the last few years that women finally have clergy shirt brands they can trust even though the Lutheran church has been ordaining women as pastors for over 45 years. For us to live the lives we do, brands play a role in how we present ourselves and make a statement to the world. And I don’t think Jesus is criticizing the brands we buy but he does want us to look at what’s under the surface. When we spend our money, we are giving away a promise of loyalty. So when we spend our gold, how does that spending reflect where God is for us, for our household, and for our community? Whenever we use our treasure, is our faith, is our God, being made visible? Are we making Jesus known? 

These are big questions. These are..scary questions too. But these questions are not isolated questions. They don’t come out of the blue. Jesus is asking us about how we spend our money just a few moments after he says ‘Do not be afraid.’ This isn’t a question designed to only scare us. It’s a question to pull us back into the arms of the one who is with us, no matter what comes next. When we’re taking our first steps towards some place new, Jesus is with us. When we’re facing a tough decision where no answer seems right, Jesus is with us. When life seems to be going right, Jesus is with us. And when our life is about to end, Jesus is still with us. When the waters of baptism were poured over us, we didn’t only get a Jesus who is always with us – we became part of Jesus’ brand. We became part of what God is doing on earth. We became part of this love that wants nothing more than to serve all. Jesus is reminding us that our spending of our treasure should make known that we are a piece of God’s treasure – a treasure not just for ourselves but for the world. Gold might be in our veins and we might imagine ourselves with a gold medal around our neck one day, but our true gold rests in a Jesus who claims us, love us, and sends us out to spread that love by bringing a word of healing, a word of mercy,and a word of forgiveness, so that this world can become a place where no one is afraid. 

Amen.

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Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:13-21

My sermon from the 8th Sunday After Pentecost (July 31, 2016) on Luke 12:13-21.

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Yesterday, I was in Philadelphia saying goodbye to my Great Uncle Tony. He died earlier this week, just a few weeks after his 89th birthday. He lived a very full life, a man who loved his family, loved God, and loved a good game of pinochle. He spent his last few years living in a small apartment in an assisted living facility. And he loved it there. He attended mass every day, knew every aide, nurse, and resident on his floor, and he would spend hours outside reading and greeting everyone who came by. But before this move, he lived by himself in a condo. So when he moved into this new facility, he had to downsize. He didn’t need all the furniture and things he had. When the moving truck came, it took everything out of his condo, dropped some off at his new place – and put the rest in my Uncle Mike’s basement. My Uncle Mike has done pretty much everything he can to just give that stuff away. Every time I moved, I’d get an email asking if I needed a mirror or a chair or a coffee table cut out of a giant piece of driftwood. I would, politely, turn down this offer down because I already had what I needed. I already had my stuff. My great uncle Tony has gone to meet his maker – but the possessions he used and collected in this life are still here. He wasn’t a rich man but he still had things – those physical artifacts that make our life work – and they’re now in storage, in a basement bigger than his original condo, waiting for someone to come by and use them, one more time. 

Today’s reading from the gospel is about stuff, about money, about our possessions and what possess us. Jesus is in the middle of his long journey to Jerusalem. He’s walking around, healing, feeding, and teaching anyone who he comes into contact with. And it’s during one of these gatherings that someone comes up to him with a demand. Now, we don’t know any of the backstory behind this demand. We don’t know if this person is claiming something they shouldn’t or if they are being cheated by their brother. All we know is that their parents are dead and these parents had enough wealth to leave an inheritance. There’s money and land in their estate and family members are fighting to possess it. This struggle, this conflict, has consumed them to the point where they have no problem standing in a crowd, surrounded by strangers and people they might know, and, in one sentence, lay at the feet of Jesus their entire family drama. They don’t ask Jesus for a teaching, or for healing or for words. They ask Jesus to judge. They plead with Jesus, in a very public way, to side with them and what they want. They want Jesus to act. And so he does, by doing exactly what the other person doesn’t want him to do: instead of proclaiming a decision, Jesus tells a story. 

Now, there’s a few tricks I’ve learned over the years to help decipher just what Jesus is saying in these stories, in these parables. And the one that I found helpful today is to take Jesus’s words and circle the pronouns. Those I’s and you’s, he’s and she’s, me and mine – they are a window into what Jesus is talking about. The very first pronoun in Jesus’ parable is he, the rich man, who is caught in a dilemma. They are a farmer who earn their wealth through their land. This land – this gift from God that is fed by rain that only God can give – produced abundantly. It produced too much. The rich man has no place to put all this extra stuff. So he has a conversation with himself about what he should do and he comes up with a plan. He’ll tear down his barns and build bigger barns to hold all the abundance that he grew. He’ll rest secure knowing that he has more than enough to keep his life comfortable. In a conversation filled with I statements, the rich man looks to his own wits, his own wisdom, and his own concerns to figure out what he should do with this amazing gift that God has given him. He takes this gift – and stores it, trusting that this abundance will give him life. But there’s a bit of a flaw in his internal conversation. He actually forgets where this gift of abundance comes from. “The crops are mine – the barns are mine…the grain and goods – are all mine. And what is mine is what I trust to give me life.” God is never part of the rich man’s conversation because the man has made his wealth and his possessions the source of his life. He stops trusting God. He, insteads, trusts money. He puts his hope and his security in a bigger barn that he can make. By trusting something other than God as the source of his life, the rich man creates more than just a bigger barn. He creates his own god. He creates an idol. 

When we take this parable and circle the pronouns, we find who the rich man makes as the center of his life: himself. He becomes the source of his life, he becomes his own savior. He’s a person who doesn’t see the gifts he’s received. He only sees what he possess. His trust only extends to himself. He ends up living in a universe of one, a universe of me, myself, and I – and creates a universe of self that’s way too small, with no space even for God. 

When my Uncle Tony died, he left stuff. There are a few old paintings, a lot of 1970s era white and gold furniture, a dozen or so news caps, and a bunch of worn leather loafers sitting in my Uncle Mike’s basement. He was a working class guy, spent over 40 years as a U.S. letter carrier, and whenever you told him about something you’ve done or something you were proud of, he always responded with “holy smoke.” He was never rich, and he didn’t always feel rich, but he did have wealth. He had stuff. He retired from his working life with social security, a government pension, and some long-term care insurance that helped him get the care he needed during the last five years of his life. His wealth always helped him live but his stuff was never his life. He didn’t cling to it for support, nourishment, or hope. He clung to Christ, to his faith, to his church, and to his family because he knew that the universe was bigger than just himself. The source of all he had, the source of his life, was always the Son of God who, 2000 years before, said that life doesn’t consistence in only possessions. Life rests in a God who didn’t send Jesus to be a rich man, who didn’t send Jesus to live in purple robes, gold plated palaces, or ride on a chariot with his name in big letters on the side. Jesus grew up a carpenter’s son, knew fishermen and those who worked with his hands. He called men and women, young and old, rich and poor to be his disciples and sent them off to love the world. And when he was crucified on the cross, he didn’t curse the world but he blessed it, giving new life to all. Christ took his gifts, his wealth, his life – and used it to give everyone a new life too. And with this new life he gives us, we break out of a universe centered on I – and into the universe God made – a universe filled with our families, our neighbors and strangers, friends and even enemies – and we spread this love, this new life, because Christ is our primary treasure – and the rest of our wealth is to spread that love here and throughout this universe that God has made. 

Amen.

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