Category Archives: Sermons

Matthew 24:36-44 A Future With Hope [or Enough With the Rapture Already]

Matthew 24:36-44 A Future With Hope [or Enough With the Rapture Already]

December 1, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

 

For one long summer, I was a day-camp counselor.  Not the super-fun-guitar-strumming kind – just kick that little bit of counselor stereotype right on outta here.  Oh no, I was the 17-year-old-in-charge-of-a-large-group-of-5-year-old-girls kind of counselor.  I was more the protector-against-mortal-peril kind of counselor – think mother hen.  Our location was cool but slightly tricky for herding 12 little girls.  It was a dried out river arroyo near Pasadena, California.  Water hadn’t run through it in eons and it was full of scrub oak and draught-resistant trees and the constant threat of poison oak.  We built a group fort and created a group flag which means that there was fort raiding and flag stealing going on.  It was utter triumph to show up at the end of the day flag ceremony with another group’s flag – a sign of a successful raid.

Victory and shame were the two-sides of that stolen flag event.  The ultimate in victory was to show up at the flag ceremony with another groups’ kid – but for the counselor with the missing kid, it was the ultimate shame.  Any of you want to guess who one of those shamed camp counselors was at the end of the day?  Yup, yours truly.  Oh, the ultimate shame…knowing your kid was taken and knowing the return would be anything but a triumph.  After all, even in this fairly innocent form, being taken was not a good thing…

Being taken is rarely a good thing.  In fact, our gospel writer seems to have a strong bias against being taken, a problem so big that no one would ever knowingly opt into it.  Revisiting the flood story reveals this negative bias.  The people swept away in the flood story, the ones not on the ark, were leading their normal lives until they suddenly were not.  Through the story of those lost in the flood, the gospel writer is setting up the negative lens of being taken.

The negative lens of being taken is the set up to read the next verses.  There are two workers in the field, one taken the other not; and the two women grinding meal together, one taken and one left.  Through the lens of the flood story, being taken out of the field or away from the grinding are big problems in this text.  And of course that’s problematic!  Who would want to be living life in one moment and only to be taken out of it the next?!

In the context of the gospel of Matthew, being taken is a bad deal.  At the time of its writing, chaos was in full force.  The Roman occupation left the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem destroyed, there were wars and rumors of wars, and many people were suddenly being taken away, kidnapped either to be killed or enslaved.[1]  In this text being taken is a bad deal.  For people curious about or hurt by rapture theology, this begs a critical question? [2] If being taken is a bad deal, might the gospel be suggesting that being left behind is the better deal?

For some of us long told otherwise about being left behind, just asking this question of scripture can be good news indeed.  And, for some of us, it may be the only good news needed today.  However, in the interest of full disclosure on the Bible text today, there’s more…you just have to wait for it – which is appropriate because Advent is a time of waiting.

As Advent begins, the first Sunday is filled with the image of actively waiting and keeping watch.  This scripture argues for watchfulness in the midst of life being lived.  Notice that the list of activities of those washed away in the flood were simply normal activities, not tied to judgment – “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.”  The workers in the field and the women grinding meal are doing the work of daily living.  So, by their example, we are also encouraged to be living and working and taking care of the things of daily life even, and maybe especially, in the midst of the chaos of the times.

This is part of the reassurance of this text.  There is a lot that cannot be controlled.  But there is still life to live.  And into the chaos, the wars, the kidnappings, and just as equally into the work, the life, the events of the day, comes the Son of Man.  The Son of Man is also called “the Son” as well as “Lord” in these verses.  All of these labels mean Jesus.  Jesus is the Son; Jesus is Lord; and Jesus is the Son of Man.  It’s important to spell this out because there seems to be a temptation to disconnect the Son of Man in this passage in Matthew from the Jesus revealed in the gospels as a whole.  As if somehow Jesus lived, loved, healed, and died, and then resurrected in a seriously bad mood ready to wield some divine wrath upon a fallen humanity.

It is not so difficult to fathom how idea of the Son of Man became disconnected from the Jesus who died on the cross.  It is the same disconnect made by the criminal on the cross from our gospel reading last week, hanging next to Jesus who was also on a cross and challenging him to save them both if he was the actually Messiah.  Regardless, the one who hung on the cross is also called the Son of Man.  And this is a word of comfort and hope to Jesus followers during the confusing times of the first century and the equally if not more confusing times of the 21st century.

Because, as Pastor Pederson reminded us yesterday at Nina Forgo’s memorial service, Christian people model life not on one particular morality or philosophy or piety.  In relation to this text today, I would add that Christian people do not model life on panic or fear either.

Rather, Christian people’s lives hinge on promise, God’s promise.

God’s promise that insists there is more to the human story and God’s own story than that which has been experienced already.

God’s promise that the Son of Man, for whom we wait and stay watchful this Advent, is the Christ who walked the earth as healer of those in need and died on a cross for all.[3]

God’s promise that draws us into the fullness of the future, a future with hope.[4]



[1] Barbara R. Rossing.  The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 178-181.

[2] Ibid.  Rapture theology is a 19th century construct.

[3] Arland Hultgren.  Commentary on Matthew 24:36-44 on WorkingPreacher.com. [http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1912

[4] Jeremiah 29:11 – For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Luke 6:20-31; Part of a Larger Remembering [All Saints’ Sunday] …and Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31 “Part of a Larger Remembering” [All Saints’ Sunday] …and Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23

November 3, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 6:20-31   Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. 27 “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

 

Today we sing with the saints.  After all, it IS All Saints’ Sunday – a day that comes around every year and is celebrated in the wider church in all kinds of ways.  Here is this place, with these people, we accompany the saints with our own singing as part of a larger remembering.

Today we sing with the saints.  We sing with the prophets of times gone by like Daniel – prophets who dream dreams and see visions during times when chaos seems to have free reign around the world; prophets who bring a God-drenched word of hope in confusing times with uncertain outcomes.[1]  But saints such as Daniel do more than bring a word of hope in the face of despair.  It is their word but it is also their action in the power struggles of their times that move our minds but also our bodies into the struggle.[2] Today we sing with the prophets – Daniel, Anna, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa and so many more who not only spoke but took their bodies into the struggle, and who inspire us to do the same.

Today we sing with the saints.  We sing with those saints described in the Psalm today – saints who carried the two-edged sword.  We sing even as we wonder about the dangers of thinking ourselves on the faithful, and therefore on the right, side of any war.  Today we sing with the saints of the two-edged sword – Joan of Arc, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and so many others who lived and died as warriors and as faithful saints.

Today we sing the saints.  We sing with the apostles of times gone by like Paul who wrote the Ephesians reading we heard today – apostles who encountered the risen Christ and were sent away from that encounter to speak the good news of Jesus.  The good news that tells the truth about our flaws, our sin, and where Jesus meets us in all that flawed, flailing around.  Or as Paul puts it in the reading today, “with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.”   Today we sing with the apostles – Paul, Thomas, Peter, Mary Magdalene and so many more whose stories of the risen Christ draw us into the hope of faith.

Today we sing with the saints – the poor, the hungry, the crying, the lonely – these saints among us whose existence afflicts the more comfortable among us.  The comfortable are afflicted by the people who reveal the Kingdom of God without qualification or contingency.  The saints among us who bear almost all the weight of the most painful life experiences and who leave the others of us wondering what part we play in that poverty, benefiting from structures of power that create pain for others.  Today we sing with the nameless saints who are poor, hungry, crying, and lonely even when our song should be silenced so that we can hear the suffering and do something about it.

Today we sing with the saints – those people we know and love who died within the last year – saints who were part of this baptized community and saints who were connected to this baptized community in many other ways.   We sing through tears of loss and grief as we mourn those who were with us for the briefest of days to the longest of lives.  Today we sing with the beloved saints whom we name as we remember their time with us and as we cling to the promise of joining them when we too will die and pass from this life to the next.

Today we sing with the saints next to us in the pew – family, stranger, or friend.  You heard me right.  You, me, them…saints.  We ourselves and those people sitting next to us are deeply flawed people, sinful people, who by the very grace of God in Christ Jesus are at the same time beloved saints.  Right here and right now we are one hundred percent saint and, at the same time, one hundred percent sinner.  This is the radical calculus given and revealed in each one of us.  And I can say with clarity that is not I who live but Christ who lives in me and it is not you who live but Christ who lives in you.  It is this Christ who presents us as saints to the eternal God and as saints to each other in the here and now.

Today we sing with the saints.  Thanks be to God.



[1] Steed Davidson, Working Preacher Commentary: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18 for November 3, 2013.  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1842

[2] Ibid.

 

Daniel 7:1-3; 15-18   In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: 2 I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, 3 and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 
15 As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. 16 I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: 17 “As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. 18 But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”

Psalm 149   Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. 2 Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. 4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. 5 Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, 7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, 8 to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, 9 to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the Lord!

Ephesians 1:11-23   In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory. 15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Luke 17:5-10 What Faith is Not [or Holding God to God’s Promises]

Luke 17:5-10 What Faith Is Not [or Holding God to God’s Promises]

October 6, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 17:5-10  The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”   The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7“Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

 

Some of us make this faith thing really hard.  And pretty much by “some of us”, I mean at least me and maybe some of you too.  Those of us who make faith hard complicate it with a lot of stuff that makes no sense in the conversation about faith.  Take the disciples in our story who demand that Jesus increase their faith.  What does that even mean?!  “Increase our faith!”  It’s kind of a desperate request, isn’t it?  It sounds like they think they don’t have enough for what this life has in store.

Jesus’ answer is great.  He basically tells them that they have enough.  After all, who actually needs to make a mulberry bush jump in the ocean?   (I imagine him telling them this while secretly wishing he could send them into the sea along with the mulberry bush.)

After Jesus tells them that they have enough faith, he launches into the slavery comparison to tell them that they have all the faith they need to simply show up and do what needs to be done.[1]  A lot of us are just trying to make it through the day.   Our lives move along in ordinary ways – work and play, highs and lows, are all the stuff of our mostly ordinary lives.  And we are given enough faith to make it through the days.

Which begs the question of what is expected of faith?  The disciples are worried because Jesus has been talking about things like forgiveness, giving money to the poor, and picking up crosses and following him.  This is a big to-do list that seems to require some big help to get through.  It’s no wonder the disciples were asking for an extra sprinkle or two of faith.  How could they possibly have enough to get it all done?  And if they think they don’t have enough faith with Jesus right in front of them, how could we?

One of the wrinkles in this text is that faith doesn’t seem to be a measurable thing.  And yet we tend to think that faith equals agreement to each point on a checklist about God.  Like if we intellectually agree 100% with each statement of the Apostle’s Creed then we have a lot.  As if faith can be boiled down to some kind of mathematical proof that has form and measure and only then we can trust in it.  The problem comes when we try to explain how this all adds up to enough faith in the right things.  The problem comes when we think we can measure it at all.

Last week I had a chance to hang out with the 9th graders who are participating in the ritual of Confirmation in a few weeks.  I asked them to explain the scientific method to me.  They did this as easy as 1-2-3.  First you make a hypothesis about something being true, then you set out to collect the data to prove your hypothesis, and you make a conclusion that proves or disproves the truth of your hypothesis.  I then told them that we are not teaching them to argue the faith by way of the scientific method.  We are not making statements about Jesus and proving them.  Rather, the ritual of Confirmation is yet one more point in the baptized life where we are able to pause and take stock of what faith means in our everyday lives.  This is the place where our brains show up.  After all, we don’t leave our minds at the church door.  Plenty of brilliant scientists and gifted minds spend their lifetimes figuring out how to talk about the faith, the meaning and the mystery of it, in their own lives.

Like Timothy, in the second reading, whose faith moves through his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice to him, the Christian faith lives, in part, through what our ancestors of the faith have been moved to confess about God.  It is a confessing faith that is both in tension with the ordinary things of our ordinary days and woven through them.  Like Paul writing to Timothy, faith rests in trusting God to be God “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”[2]  This confession of faith allows us to hold God accountable to God’s promises made in baptism.

God’s promises in baptism are this…[3]

God promises in baptism to be in relationship with you.  God’s presence is true even, and maybe especially, if you don’t think it is or feel like it is.  And because God is the God of today, tomorrow, and forever, these promises are eternal.  And so, trusting God to keep God’s promises, we confess the life everlasting.

God promises in baptism to always be reconciled with you, always open to your return to God.  And so, trusting God to keep God’s promises, we confess the forgiveness of sins.

God promises in baptism to draw you into a deeper relationship with God, into discipleship.  And so, trusting God to keep God’s promises, we confess the holy catholic church and the communion of saints – the community of people in which our lives as disciples are nurtured.

 

The disciples have one thing right.  Faith does come from Jesus.  This is a faith that rests on the promises of God made to us in our baptism; a faith that moves within our lives no matter what the outcome or how we think it gets measured.

May Christ Jesus gift you faith for today, tomorrow, and all of your days.  Amen.

 



[1] David Lose in “Dear Working Preacher…” on WorkingPreacher.com for Sunday, October 6, 2013. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2773

[2] 2 Timothy 1:12-13.

[3] John Pederson, personal conversation about the promises of baptism.

Luke 16:1-13 “Seriously? Be Like That Guy?!”

Luke 16:1-13    “Seriously? Be Like That Guy?!”

September 22, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?’ He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 10 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

 

Here’s a conversation that came up in our house:

Kid: Mom, how much money do you make?

Me: That’s not really something I want to share with you.

Kid:  Why?

Me:  Well, you don’t have a frame of reference for what that means, where it all goes.

Kid:  Well, do you and Dad make more than six figures combined?

Me:  Again, this is not something I’m comfortable sharing with you right now.

Kid:  Why? How do you expect me to learn about real life when you won’t talk about it?

 

My daughter has a way of cutting to the chase.  She can see through our conversations to the problem.  Not always but certainly more often than is fun for me.

 

Here’s the conversation as I hear it in Luke:

Rich Man:  I just heard that my property manager is doing a terrible job.  If it’s true, he’s so fired.

Manager (to himself):  I can’t dig or beg…I have to figure this out!  I know, I’ll cancel some debts for people who owe my master so they’ll treat me well later.

 

So the manager goes and does just that – cutting one debt by 50% and another debt by 20%.  Here comes the mind-bender…the master praises the shrewd, dishonest manager and Jesus is telling his disciples they should be more like that guy.

What can be made of Jesus’ directive?  Just for fun, next time you have a few minutes, web search this passage in Luke and see what comes up.  There are all kinds of interpretations of this text that leave the reader wondering why it’s sitting in scripture and maybe even wishing some sly scribe would have edited it out centuries ago.

In the midst of those feelings, here’s why I’m grateful for this parable.  No matter how you look at it, the manager seems to have one thing right.  He understands that money, and how it is used, is ultimately relational.  The way money is gained and how it is spent affects life for people and between people.   We know who treated last for lunch and we know the neighborhood we live in compared with other neighborhoods.  We notice all kinds of things that define our relationships in terms of money.   This is all publicly traded information based on all kinds of assumptions.  We can see it.  It is visible.  And yet, we make the quick almost automatic move to stop conversations about money because money is personal.

A piece of the good news in this text is that money is put into the public conversation of the church by Jesus.  This means that we, as people of faith, can talk about the nuances of money and how we put it to use in our lives.  This is a lesson for the disciples that they may not have understood as a possibility because money can be seen as everything but a spiritual concern.  Just as some of us can be inclined to see the body as not as spiritual as the mind, others of us can be inclined to see money as not spiritual, period.

We think of money as having no spiritual value for a couple of reasons.  In part, it’s because of Bible stories like this one.  In stories like these we are warned about serving God versus serving money.  They set us up for a mental dance around the subject and we want to separate ourselves as fast and as far as possible away from the idolatry of money.  The separation of church and state does a number on our thinking as well.  And religious hucksterism in churches through the centuries seems to ice the cake of all the excuses and makes us twitchy when money comes up in the church.

But we are not above the fray because money is spiritually suspect and we are somehow spiritually superior because of faith.  Rather, we are in the fray with money and each other because we are people on the planet affected by money and each other.  The shrewd manager knows this and so does Jesus.  It is not money that is suspect.  It is us.  Our use of money, our assumptions about money, and our desire not to let any critique of our use or assumptions about it are all suspect.

One of the reasons I love the confession and forgiveness at the beginning of the worship service is because it shows me my limits as a person – as much as I might want to imagine it otherwise or behave otherwise in the day-to-day.  At the same time, I love the paradox that is set up in the confession and forgiveness as I’m reminded that I’m in the hands of a limitless God.  The paradox is this:  When I feel limitless, God reminds me of my limits; when I set up a false limit, God says look in the other direction and reminds me of my freedom.

In the parable today, Jesus challenges the disciples, and their assumptions about money, by telling them that the dishonest manager has something to teach them.  We are just as dumbfounded as they are in the face of this challenge – caught by the sin that affects our relationship with money and each other.

Here’s the good news.  As church, Jesus frees us into honesty about being saints and sinners at the same time.  This is one of the gifts of the cross to the whole church.  This means that our lives of faith are our whole lives…our 24/7 lives.  As such, we are free to think and talk about our 24/7 lives in church.  This includes talking about money – the way we gain, lose it, and spend it – and the way all that gaining, losing, and spending affects our own lives and each others lives.  Thanks be to God!

 

 

Luke 14:1, 7-14 “Jesus Stole the Table”

Luke 14:1, 7-14  “Jesus Stole the Table”

September 1, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 14:1, 7-14  On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

 

 

Picture this with me…you’re in a school cafeteria… … …do you have that picture?  Picture the other kids.  Who are they?  Where are they sitting?  More importantly, where are you going to sit?  You have your tray or your brown bag or your lunchbox and you’re standing there, trying to act chill but you’re not feeling chill at all.  Picture it…where are you going to sit?  You see a few open seats at one table but you’re not friends with them.  You see another seat but the person sitting next to it kind of scares you or intimidates you.  You see another open seat next to a kid you talk to sometimes in History class.  You’ve been standing awhile now and so you bee-line over to that seat, plunk down and start eating.

Now you know and I know that finding a seat in a busy cafeteria full of other kids is tricky.  It’s about who you know, who you don’t know, who you don’t want others to know that you know…it’s tricky.  It’s also about strategy.  If you’re headed toward more popularity, you sit in those seats.  Less popular, sit in those.  See?  Still tricky.

Let’s make it trickier.  I was talking with some kids recently who were talking about teenage jobs and which ones were cool and which ones weren’t.  When I asked how this all gets figured out and why even talk about it, one of them said to me, “Well, grown-ups are the same way about jobs.”  This led me to thinking about jobs, meetings and this TED video I watched recently about who gets a place at the table, literally, when important decisions are being made.[1]  Are you starting to get an idea about how my brain works?

Anyway, one would think that the metaphor of the table and the actual table itself would be completely cleared of all helpful meaning but evidently we’re not tired of talking about it or sitting around it. This table thing is here, there, and everywhere.  21st century?  1st century?  Doesn’t matter.  People love to talk about the table and, more specifically, who gets to sit where.

Dinner at a leader of the Pharisee’s home sounds much like the tables in the school cafeteria.   The seating ranges from not-so-good (read: humble), good, better, and the best.  Jesus sees the situation for what it is and begins to talk about it almost as if to say that to find the best seat, look for the least appealing seat and sit there.  Which of course, when you’re involved in seat-shifting shenanigans only serves to flip them in the opposite direction, creating a whole other kind of seating hierarchy but a hierarchy nonetheless.  So the labor for a good seat continues, only now the question becomes one of identifying as the most humble among us all which, ironically, is just the other side of the pride coin.  There is nowhere to sit and nowhere to hide.  So what in heaven’s name did Jesus just do?

Well, on this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to suggest that Jesus just ran away with the table, the seats, and our labor to make sense of ourselves in the way we stack up over and against, or under and against other people. This is Jesus as his prankster finest.  Ashton Kutcher’s efforts pale in comparison to what Jesus has up his sleeve.[2]

My own life as a prankster was cut short in kindergarten.  I thought it would be really funny to pull the chair out from under someone as they were sitting down and it was straight to the principal’s office for me.  A failed attempt at replicating the old pepper-in-the-face gag to make my little sister sneeze ended even more miserably – for her and for me when my mother caught wind of it. Still today, my discomfort with pranks is so high that I’m often moving fast away from the one organizing the prank.  What I’m trying to say, albeit not very well, is that it sometimes takes a prankster to spot one.

And in this story, I spot Jesus pulling a prank as he gives us nowhere to sit at the table without consciously thinking, “Is this humble enough?  How about this?  Or this, is this humble enough?”  And as we stand there wondering where to sit, we catch sight of ourselves in the mirror hanging on the wall… …  Caught again…

Caught again in our own labor to create meaning by stacking ourselves over and against our fellow humans in whatever way our seat assignment at the table defines our rank and defines our selves.   Without the table there, we see ourselves and each other in this mirror.  If we’re not really careful, this exposure to our own shenanigans and each other’s shenanigans can lead us to an easy cynicism about other people’s motives.  Seeing them clearly, so trusting no one.

All we had to do to see this cynicism in action this week was open a newspaper, news website or your favorite blog to check out the latest on Miley Cyrus.  Everyone’s taking sides, mostly in critique of her although there are a few writers who come to the table dance with a bit of compassion.

However the conversations go, the table, the chairs and the seating chart are in place and we think we see the shenanigans fully revealed.  If there’s anything to be learned after the week’s news about Syria was overshadowed by the week’s news about Cyrus, it’s that the move to easy cynicism has become a chair in which many find themselves seated.

But the prank that Jesus pulls by removing the table isn’t his final move.  It’s not simply about mischief making that exposes our humanity.   It is about God entering humanity in Jesus and replacing the tables of our own making with one of his own.  Replacing the table through that same humanity. [3]

It is this table, brought to us by Jesus’ decent into death from the cross, which levels the seating.  We tend to picture the mighty falling and being replaced with the humble at the seat of honor, which would be the way we might see if it were our table.  But this table exalts the humble even as the lofty are humbled so that no one can claim to be above the line or push anyone else below it.  This is the table from which we can see the cafeteria game for what it is.  It is also the table the beloved Reverend King marched from with a multi-ethnic, multi-religious band of people to declare our common humanity.  Some table!

Jesus shakes up the way we labor over our seating and gives us each a place so that we all may come to his table at communion and hear that Jesus is “for you.”  Jesus replaces the tables of our own making – seating shenanigans and all – with one of his own and says, “All are welcome…including you.”

 



[1] Sheryl Sandberg, TED Talk: “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders.” December 2010. http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

[2] Ashton Kutcher, Punk’d on MTV.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk’d

[3] For those of your reading this, I move from the preaching spot to stand at the communion table.

Luke 13:10-17 – “Freed Into Rest [or Jewish Patriarchs through Moses in 2 Minutes or Less]”

Luke 13:10-17 –  “Freed Into Rest [or Jewish Patriarchs through Moses in 2 Minutes or Less]”

August 25, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 13:10-17   Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

 

I’m going to show my hand and let you know straight out of the gate that my sympathies lie with the leader of the synagogue.[1]  Not because there are parallels between his position and my own as pastor – that would be way too easy  of a target; plus it would leave you all out of it which basically means I’d be preaching to only myself which I can do on any old day without you sitting here while I do it.

To give us some understanding of the leader of the synagogue, think with me for a bit about the history of our Jewish cousins and our common ancestors of faith.  The story of Abraham and Sarah gives us the courageous travelers, uprooted by God and sent to a land far away.[2]  We can appreciate the romantic adventure of their tale from beginning to end; or we could read it through the hard lens of being migrants and immigrants.  Regardless, they were free people.

Sarah and Abraham’s son Isaac and the shenanigans of Isaac’s sons Jacob and Esau lead us right into the Joseph story.[3]  Joseph, the favorite son sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, ends up second-in-command of Egypt – saving his band of brothers as the sun sets dreamily in Egypt over the happy family reunion.  Okay, that last part smacks of Hollywood cinematography but you get the picture.  We get to end of the book of Genesis on a high as Joseph, with his dying breath, tells his brothers once more about God’s promises.[4]  So far, these are great stories of deeply flawed people but wildly free people.

We can literally turn the page to the book of Exodus and all manner of hell has broken loose.  Hundreds of years have passed, the new king does not know Joseph, and has no appreciation for the numerous descendents of Joseph and his eleven brothers.  “The Egyptians came to dread the Israelites…and became ruthless in imposing tasks on [them], and made their lives bitter with hard service.”[5]  These were hard times that lead to harder times that led to Moses’ leading the Israelites out of slavery to the Egyptians into…well, the wilderness.  But they were a free people there!  They were a free people who were given laws – laws given by God to preserve life and protect people’s relationships with God and each other.

Some of you could likely come up with the ten big laws, a.k.a. the Ten Commandments.  The one I’m really interested in this morning is the third one.[6]  After being told to have no other gods and to not misuse the name of God, comes commandment number three to:

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”[7]

Just sit for a moment with this and think about how huge it must have sounded to a newly freed people who were freed from ruthlessly imposed tasks and bitter lives of hard service.  Just imagine that.  It’s difficult at best to understand the magnitude of the freedom given by this law.  At worst, our understanding of it becomes blasé in our current context of labor laws, workers’ rights, and weekends off.  But for the Jewish people of the 1st century, keeping Sabbath meant to be freed into rest by the law of God!  Freed into rest.  Take a breath on that one for a minute.   Freed into rest….

The leader of the synagogue would have worked very hard to make sure that the people followed this law because it was for their good and for their God.  This doesn’t mean he had pure motives when confronted by Jesus’ healing the woman.  It’s a given that he didn’t.  But it does mean that the Sabbath being held up by the leader of the synagogue is a good thing.  So then where does it go awry for the synagogue leader?

Listen again to the beginning of the story:

“ Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”

Jesus is teaching away, he sees this woman who he can help and so he does.  The problem is that Jesus does this on a day when there is a rule of law about work; a rule of law that has the big history and current meaning of being freed into rest.  And the leader of the synagogue becomes indignant on behalf of this law, starts talking to the people about coming to be cured on any other day but the Sabbath, and gets an earful from Jesus.  Not just any old earful, but a shaming earful.

Jesus clearly did not get the current parenting advice about public shaming.  You may have heard some of this advice.  If your child or grandchild or someone else’s child is up to no good, you are to talk to the child privately to preserve their dignity and create a safe space.  It’s good advice.  It’s even wise advice.  It’s advice that applies well to adults too.  Jesus didn’t get the memo.  While I feel for the leader of the synagogue, I’m grateful for what comes next in the story because then Jesus makes an interesting move that actually isn’t about shaming.  It’s an exegetical move – a move that interprets scriptural law as it has been handed down through the centuries and lived out in that synagogue, a move that breathes new life into the law.

The leader of the synagogue had become so bound into the law, the law was no longer doing its job of preserving life and people’s relationships with God and each other.  Jesus’ interpretation of the law frees the law so that, at least the woman, could be freed by the law.  I like to think that the leader of the synagogue took some time later to ponder the moves that Jesus makes in the synagogue – first freeing the woman from that which binds her, then freeing the law from the person who would try to bind it, and, maybe, just maybe, freeing the lead of the synagogue, the very one who would bind the law.

My sympathies lie with the leader of the synagogue because we can get curved in on ourselves and the law in the same way.  We are given a law to preserve life and protect people’s relationships with God and with each other.  And then we bind up that law, playing a kind of keep-away game between Jesus and law, wondering what will happen to that which we hold dear if we are compelled to a different interpretation of the law – slavery and the role of women in the church are two recent historical examples.  It is into this bound up, curled up mess that Jesus saves by the power of the Spirit.  Calling us on all the ways in which we bind ourselves and each other into the law and freeing us back into the law as a place of rest.

For this and for all that Jesus has done and is doing, thanks be to God!



[1] David Lose, “Dear Working Preacher” for Sunday, August 25, 2013.   http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2699

[2] Genesis 12-20.

[3] Genesis 21-34.

[4] Genesis 35-50.

[5] Exodus 1:12-13, New Revised Standard Version.

[6] In Jewish tradition, the commandment to keep the Sabbath is number four.  Luther’s Small Catechism lists it third.

[7] Exodus 20:8-11, New Revised Standard Version.

Luke 11:1-13 “…and yet, I pray”

Luke 11:1-13 “…and Yet, I Pray”

July 28, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 11:1-13 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” 5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

 

As an adult, I spent a several years outside the church before being captured by grace through the Lutheran tradition.  There’s a lot I can say about that time but one of the most curious things to me is that I continued to pray.  Specifically, this means that I said a lot of quick things to God – flash prayers if you will.  Things like, “Please!” and “Seriously?!”  Occasionally these prayers were simply crying or sometimes I would laugh at God ala the likes of Sarah in the book of Genesis.[1]  I find this all very curious because, at the time, I wasn’t even sure who God was.  But how I prayed, and what I prayed, spoke volumes.  How we pray gives us a lot of information about who we think God is and how we think God moves in the world.  Maybe even more curiously, how we pray and whether we pray gives us a lot of information about how we see ourselves in relationship with God.

Theologians and church-types love to talk about what happens when we pray.  Dissecting it into parts and giving us theories on how prayer works and how it doesn’t work and how God works in the midst of prayer.  Out of all of those theories, some which come from tangling with our text in Luke today, I haven’t found one that is intellectually satisfying.  I have prayed desperate prayers and silly prayers and everything in between to all kinds of outcomes.  So the outcome of prayer is simply a mystery to me.   The mystery of prayer is especially true when my or someone else’s world is torn apart by loss.  And yet…and yet…I pray.  I continue to pray desperate prayers and silly prayers and everything in between.

My prayers have been added to in both content and form from the flash prayers – although I still use those too.  But much more importantly, I simply became comfortable praying.  So much so that now guess what happens at the start of a church meeting or meal…yup, you guessed it – “Pastor, will you pray for us?”

What happens at a church meeting or meal or gathering when the pastor says, “Would anyone like to pray for us?”  … … … … …  Exactly!  Crickets.  Because of this response, I hear the disciples’ demanding, “Lord, teach us to pray,” and Jesus’ answer to them, as good news.  They demand to be taught and he teaches them.  Notice that when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray he doesn’t launch into a three-point didactic instruction with power-point.  He doesn’t say things like, “Well, first you have to have a good theological understanding of the intersection between God and faith and the world.  None of that!  He simply prays.  What might this mean?  Perhaps that prayer can be learned.  Not as technical proficiency but, much more importantly, disciples can simply become comfortable praying through the practice of prayer.  So when someone says that they can’t pray there is a possibility that it could feel differently for them.   I have a good friend who said to me a long time ago that praying out loud is like chewing rocks. Now my friend is a lay assisting minister in her congregation and is praying the Prayers of Intercession…out loud!

The prayer that Jesus teaches the disciples is the prayer we pray together as “The Lord’s Prayer” during worship.  It is a corporate prayer; meaning that all of us, the whole body of Christ, pray this prayer together and on each other’s behalf.  Some of us widen the net a bit with this prayer and pray it in the morning before we get out of bed or on airplanes when the weather is bad.  This is a go-to prayer.  This is a prayer that has served the faithful for over 2,000 years and will continue to serve the faithful long after we’re gone.  We pray this prayer with our ancestors and with those yet to come.  This is THE most persistent prayer of the body of Christ.

During worship we also pray with the worship leader who prepares and prays the Prayers of Intercession when we “pray for the church, those in need, and all of God’s creation.”  This is a prayer for yesterday, today, and tomorrow – the concerns of now, this week.  The person who leads us in this prayer names names and gives voice to individual and community worries, wonderings, events, gratitude, praise, and so much more.  Week after week, like Abraham, we approach God in humble determination with petitions of prayer, holding God accountable to be God.[2]  Our prayers offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ just as we’re encouraged to do by Augustana’s mission statement.[3]

The point is that we already are praying and we pray well together.  So I’ve been wondering what it could look like if we, as the body of Christ, turned toward each other and continued praying on the foundation of our Sunday prayers and beyond.  In essence, turning toward Jesus and saying, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  And rather than a prayer tutorial, we simply begin praying more.  We practice.  I’m so curious about what this could look like that I’ve invited a team of Augustana people to wonder about this with me as part of something called Augustana Praying Project; so named because we are actively praying as well as working on different ways to pray – some that will work in our lives together and some that won’t.  Augustana Praying Project will take shape over time and change shape over time responding to the different needs people have and the different ways people pray.

I also wonder how much our practice of prayer, as David Lose suggests, “attunes ourselves to God and to our shared life.”[4]  In all that we bring to God in prayer, we are essentially putting our lives through the filter of faith.  Prayer as a connecting point between our lives of faith and our daily life gives us language for both.  So, at the very least, perhaps prayer creates fluid connections between the faith we claim as Christian people on Sundays and our lives as Christian people throughout the week.[5]

The disciples demand, “Lord, teach us to pray…”  When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, his prayer attunes them with God our Father and with each other and “our” needs.  Prayer, as Jesus instructs it, is highly relational even as it’s spoken by a single person.  We are set free into this prayer as our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray by praying.  We are also set free to pray our daily concerns so that our prayer reflects this life we live connected with this God in whom we have our being.

Thanks be to God!



[1] Genesis 18:1-15 – Hebrew Bible lectionary reading for July 21, 2013.

[2] Genesis 18:20-32 – Hebrew Bible lectionary reading for today, July 28, 2013.

[3] Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO.  Mission Statement: Guided by the Holy Spirit we gather in Christian community, reach out and invite, offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ, and walk humbly with God.

[4] David Lose.  “What is Prayer?” Blog: …In the Meantime, February 2013.

Find full post at:http://www.davidlose.net/2013/02/what-is-prayer/

[5] Ibid.

Luke 10:38-42 “Taste of Forever”

Luke 10:38-42 “Taste of Forever”

July 19, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

New Beginnings Church at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, Denver, CO

SIT AT YOUR FEET – Oil on Board

Bryn Gillette (artbybryn.com)

Used with permission.

Luke 10:38-42 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

Here’s how I’m afraid most of us hear the Martha story: “Hey, people, stop all that inconsequential doing, sit down and focus on Jesus!!!   You are delusional in the way you think about what’s important for survival and the things that you’re doing are useless!!!!!” [I use multiple exclamation points so you readers hear this in a very loud, stern voice].

Now, is it possible that we focus on some things that might be unnecessary?  Probably.   But I don’t think that this is what the text is challenging us toward.  And I don’t think this is the good news in this text.  After all, the story of the Good Samaritan, just before this one today, finds Jesus telling the lawyer to “Go and do likewise” after the example of the Good Samaritan.  The act of doing is simply not the problem.  We are commanded by scripture to do all kinds of things that show love for neighbor and love for ourselves.

So if doing is not the problem then what is the problem in this story?  Part of the problem seems to be Martha’s concern about what Mary is doing, or not doing, and trying to bring Jesus on her side against Mary.  This is a common human action that actually does create problems among us and against each other.  After all, if I can get Jesus on my side, then my side automatically puts me on the right side, and I can feel oh so much better about what I’m doing for and with Jesus.

So if Jesus is not invalidating Martha’s work, not siding against her, and is also not siding with her, then what is he doing?  Here’s where the story of Martha and Mary gets interesting.  Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet.  This is a student’s posture, a posture of one who is learning and listening to someone who has something important to teach.  This posture is reverent and focused and ready to receive.  In the first century, this posture was one reserved for students in the temple, traditionally male students.  So this posture, taken by Mary as she listens to Jesus, would be seen by first century people as radical.  But this story is so much more than simply one that breaks down the gender norms of its day or even our day.

In verse 42, Jesus says that Mary’s experience of receiving what Jesus has given her “will not be taken away from her.”  What Jesus gives her “will not be taken away from her…”   All well and good for Mary, but what might this mean for us who live now, worried and distracted by many things today?  It means that those who sit at Jesus’ feet are being given something eternal in the here and now.  If something can never be taken away and is given here, now, today, then it is indeed a taste of forever here and now.  

Did you notice that there is no “if” in our text today?  What Jesus gives, what Mary receives, is for always.  There is no contingent clause that sounds like Mary will only keep what’s been given to her if she performs a certain set of actions.  This means that:

When Jesus comes to you in the proclamation of forgiveness by the power of the Holy Spirit , He will not be taken away from you.

When Jesus comes to you by the power of the Holy Spirit in the waters of baptism by the power of the Holy, He will not be taken away from you.

When Jesus comes to you in bread and in wine by the power of the Holy Spirit, He will not be taken away from you.

Jesus remains with you today, tomorrow and forever…and you with him…which will not be taken away from you.

Thanks be to God!

Luke 10:25-37 “Enemy-Neighbors Who Save [aka The Good Samaritan]”

Luke 10:25-37 – “Enemy-Neighbors Who Save Us [aka The Good Samaritan]”

July 14, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver CO

 

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

 

It was Christmas Eve 2002 and my Pops, my step-dad who raised me, had entered his final days of life out in Palm Springs, California.  We lived here – Quinn was five years old and Taryn was three.  My in-laws were coming in for the holiday.  It was a perfect storm of events that immobilized me.  I stayed in touch by phone.  Pops rallied on Christmas morning but by Christmas night was no longer responding.  His fast decline shook me loose from my indecision and I flew out early as early as I could on the 26th to join my mom and a mix of my siblings and step-siblings.

The number of people in the house and the emotions of grief created their own kind of chaos.  Pops died just two days later.  Rob and I decided that I would stay put in Palm Springs with my mom through the funeral scheduled for a week later.  Somewhere in those next days, a friend from church called me.  I was on the phone in my parents’ kitchen.  She told me that she had rallied some meals and also a child-care schedule so that my husband could continue to work.  Her carefully constructed plan knocked me over, almost literally, as I sat down on the kitchen step-stool in a bit of shock that she had figured it all out.  She didn’t ask, she just did the kinds of things a really good friend does when trouble stirs itself into the mix.

Jesus asks the lawyer, ““Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  To which the lawyer responds, “The one who showed him mercy.”   This is a bit of a twist to the way many of us hear the story.  After all, the lawyer was the one who asked, “Who is my neighbor?”  To which Jesus responds by telling the story of the Samaritan.  Interestingly enough, the Samaritan ends up the one with the label of neighbor.

Samaritans are the villains in the story.  Samaritans were Jewish people long ago who intermarried with people who were not Jewish and therefore ritually “unclean”.  A few weeks ago, just two stories before our story today in the book of Luke, we found the disciples asking to rain fire down on the Samaritan village that did not receive Jesus – certainly not a neighborly reaction to the people of the town.  The shock of the first century Jewish listener to Jesus’ story about the Good Samaritan would have been enormous.  Because, unlike my friend who helped me and my family around Pops’ death, the Samaritan felt compassion for the man left half-dead by the side of the road – a man likely to have been his enemy on any other regular, not half-dead, day.

Who is that guy in the ditch?  We know that he was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho.  And we know that he is in no position to help himself after being beaten half-dead by the robbers.   Indeed, he is completely at the mercy of everyone else passing by him on the road.  We can infer from the story that he was likely Jewish given how shocked we are supposed to be about the priest and the Levite not helping him.  Whoever he is, we can be clear that he is someone in need of help and no one on the road is willing to help him until the Samaritan walks by.

So here’s a kicker of a question.  Does part of loving your neighbor as yourself mean that you let someone be a neighbor to you?  Might there be something to learn about loving yourself in letting your neighbor help you?  To take it a step further, might the person you would least like help from be the very one who can show you how to love yourself?  We tend to think of this in the opposite direction – that I am being a good neighbor when I take care of someone that I don’t really like or don’t approve of.  If it was that hard for me to let my friend help me, I can only imagine how difficult it would be to receive help from someone that I don’t like.

The help my unlikeable neighbor gives me can indeed be of the wound-tending kind.  But the help can also come in other ways.  It can take the form of a mirror being held up to me that confronts my privilege and my prejudice – two things that turn my neighbor into my enemy by my own slight-of-hand.  The George Zimmerman trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin is one obvious mirror.  A tense stand-off between neighbors leaves one young man all the way dead and another young man accused of murder.  The death and the killing and the color of these young men hold a mirror up to an entire country of people and have us asking some very difficult questions about race, privilege and prejudice – difficult, painful but important questions that expose important truths that, in the end, can also save lives.

The guy in the ditch needs some pretty serious saving of, at the very least, the wound-tending kind.  He is half-dead and likely headed toward mostly dead unless there is a dramatic turn-around.  The Samaritan gives him that chance.

When I read this story this past week, one of my first thoughts is that we are the half-dead guy in the ditch and Jesus is the Samaritan.  I love a good allegory that stacks up tidily.  After all, we cannot save ourselves much like the guy in the ditch can’t save himself.  And placing Jesus in the position of the one who saves doesn’t really get much more theologically clean….except that it isn’t that tidy or clean – either as an allegory or a theological truth.  In this reading, we lay in the dirt on the side of the road and our enemy, the One from whom we are naturally inclined to turn away, walks over to save us – saving us by bringing us into relationship with the eternal God today, here, now.  He walks over to save us because we cannot in any literal, figurative, allegorical way, save ourselves.  He walks over to save us out of compassion for us.

There are two other places in Luke where the Greek word for “pity”, sometimes translated “compassion”, in our story shows up.  It is used to describe Jesus’ reaction to a grieving mother and then also used to describe the emotions of the Prodigal Father when his son returns home from self-imposed exile.[1]  This divine compassion is boundless, healing and unfathomable in scope.  Being moved towards others, towards our neighbors as neighbors ourselves, by the compassion of Jesus has roots in Jesus’ compassion for us.  Because Jesus Christ is the one who saves, his boundless compassion is gifted to us in our baptism by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And once we are unbound through divine neighborly compassion there is no telling which self-imposed, enemy-limited boundaries might come tumbling down next…and who might get to live because of it…

Thanks be to God!

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 “What if the Means ARE the End?!”

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 – “What if the means ARE the end?”

July 7, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

 

I am immediately curious when a story begins with, “After this…”  My first question is often, “After what?”  So I want to back up.  Not too far; simply to a story that is told right before our story this morning.  In that story from Luke, chapter 9, Jesus had just “set his face toward Jerusalem” for the first time.  This is Lucan code that Jesus’ journey to the cross has begun.  Jesus and his disciples had entered a Samaritan village.  The Samaritans do not receive Jesus and the disciples’ response to this is to ask Jesus whether or not they should rain fire down from heaven and consume the village.  Let that one sink it for a minute…  Since when did it become an option for them to rain fire down from heaven?!

Fortunately for all involved, Jesus rebuked them (I like to imagine that he also rolls his eyes and gives himself a slap on the forehead) and they continued on their way in a mysterious conversation about foxes and birds.

After he rebukes his disciples’ raining fire plan, Jesus appoints seventy disciples to go into the towns ahead of him.  He must figure they need some guidance as they announce that “the kingdom of God has come near” because he gives them some basic instruction about how to be a good guest.  I like to imagine Jesus this way, “OK, tempers were running a little hot in that last town so here’s the game plan on visiting the towns – stick together, greet the people in peace, eat what they give you, and stay put – no trading up if you get a better offer.”

Perhaps more importantly, given the disciples penchant for retribution, Jesus instructs them on what to do if they are not welcome after they greet the town in peace.  Jesus tells them to dust off their feet in protest (read: no need for fire) and still to tell them that that “the kingdom of God has come near.”

Jesus gave them a job to do and the means to get it done.  The kicker is that the job Jesus gives them is still their job regardless of the townspeople’s’ response – an outcome they have no control over.

In the last few years, some faithful leaders of Augustana spent some time praying, reading scripture, talking, listening and working on a mission statement.  Mission statements are one way for congregations to organize their life together – taking advantage of the diversity and gifts given to that congregation by the Holy Spirit.    At their best, mission statements prioritize ministry decisions and mobilize a diverse congregation into action for the sake of Jesus Christ.  Similarly to what Jesus does by sending out the 70 disciples in different directions for the common mission of telling people that the kingdom of God has come near.

If you would, please take your worship bulletin and find Augustana’s mission statement on the back cover in the upper right hand corner.  Are we all there?  Please read it out loud with me. “Guided by the Holy Spirit we gather in Christian community, reach out and invite, offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ, and walk humbly with God.”  It’s lovely in its simplicity.  And from my perspective, earns extra points for getting the Trinity in there as the guide.

Augustana’s mission statement is something I read and thought about during the pastoral call process.  And it is mentioned occasionally in meetings here as a reference point when various decisions are being made or the future of Augustana is being discussed.  By my way of thinking about this mission statement, Jesus has given Augustana a job to do and the means to get it done.  The kicker is that the job Jesus gives us is still our job regardless of people’s response to us – an outcome we have no control over.

You may have heard the expression, “The end justifies the means.”  People use this expression to justify doing anything and everything that they feel is necessary to achieve their goal, their intended end. Yet,this gospel story is all about the means.  Jesus tells the disciples what to do and how to do it – the outcome, the end, the way people respond, isn’t within the disciples’ control.  It makes me wonder if the means ARE the end – for the disciples and possibly for us.

Augustana’s mission statement is all about the means.  Here’s what we are to do and how we are to do it, at least in general terms.  The outcome, the end, the way people respond, isn’t within our control.  Again, it makes me wonder if the means ARE the end.  This is to say more explicitly that the means ARE the end for us, not for God.  Because God’s going to do what God’s going to do as far as the end is concerned.  We don’t control the outcome, God does.  And I hear this as the very best of the good news.

While we’re on the subject of means, some of you may have heard the expression “means of grace.”  Lutheran Christians use this means-of-grace language to describe the ways in which God comes to us, meeting us on our level.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) website offers a quick explanation of the means of grace.  It goes like this…

“Jesus Christ is the living and abiding Word of God. By the power of the Spirit, this very Word of God, which is Jesus Christ, is read in the Scriptures, proclaimed in preaching, announced in the forgiveness of sins, eaten and drunk in the Holy Communion, and encountered in the bodily presence of the Christian community.  By the power of the Spirit active in the Holy Baptism, this Word washes a people to be Christ’s own Body in the world.  We have called this gift of Word and Sacrament by the name ‘the means of grace.’  The living heart of all these means is the presence of Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit as the gift of the Father.”[1]

Jesus directs the disciples into the towns, giving them the means through which they are to proclaim the kingdom of God coming near.

The Holy Spirit guides this congregation by our mission statement, giving us the means through which our life together takes action.

And Christ the Savior commands us to make available the means of grace and to avail ourselves of the means of grace, giving us the means through which God forgives and sustains us in faith.

In these three situations the logic of the incarnation, of God coming to us, of the means as the end, is real.  In these three situations the actual end, the consequence, the outcome is on God.  For us creatures, who time again pressure ourselves and each other to bigger and better success stories, this is good news indeed.  Thanks be to God.