Tag Archives: Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver

Giving God the Stink-Eye [OR Taking a Leap of Faith] Matthew 20:1-16, Jonah 3:10-4:11, and Philippians 1:21-30

September 24, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on September 24, 2023

[sermon begins after three Bible readings]

Matthew 20:1-16 [Jesus said to the disciples:] ¹“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jonah 3:10-4:11 When God saw what [the people of Ninevah] did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Philippians 1:21-30 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²²If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ²⁵Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, ²⁶so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.
²⁷Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. ²⁹For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—³⁰since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

[sermon begins]

Sometimes all we have is a leap of faith. A leap of faith means that we don’t know what’s going to happen. For some people, leaping in faith means getting out of bed in the morning. For others, leaping in faith means changing careers. Heck, life is a leap of faith. Life choices and events beyond our control all take leaps of faith. In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, a.k.a. the Bible book of Philippians, he took a leap of faith in sending that letter. He encoded it with words that the Roman authorities would see as meaningless – gospel of Christ, faith, salvation, grace, joy and suffering.1 The church folks would know the hidden code, that God turns things upside down. Paul was writing from prison to people who had everything taken away from them by Rome. They knew that suffering didn’t have the last word. Challenging times make it difficult to feel joy much less acknowledge joy. But there’s Paul talking about joy in faith and their faith in the gospel. Trust is essential for experiencing joy in the middle of trauma, political or otherwise. Many people tell me that they don’t know how they would live life without their faith. I know that my faith and the faith of so many others kept me going over the last few months.

The faith that claims us is of a God who “is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” While the psalmist is praising God for those qualities, Jonah gives God the stink eye, accusing God of grace, mercy, patience, and steadfast love.2 How dare God be God with those horrific enemies?! How dare God extend beauty to people Jonah can’t stand, even if they did repent of their murderous ways? Jonah’s stink-eyed grievance is legit. As non-Jews, the Philippians may not have known the story of Jonah, but Paul as a Jewish Christian did know the story of Jonah. He planted churches with faith in Jesus who revealed God’s grace, mercy, patience, and steadfast love. Paul formed these churches as a leap of faith in circumstances that were less than favorable because he believed in the God of his ancestors from whom Jesus was embodied, took flesh, and launched a ministry of grace and God’s kingdom. Jesus wasn’t a professor in front of a classroom. He taught his followers as life presented itself.

Parables were part of Jesus’ teachings. Parables are stories that are open to interpretation and slippery when it comes to direct answers. Just before our parable today in the Matthew reading, Peter had asked Jesus what the benefits of following him were. Jesus gave a convoluted answer but then launched into a parable to try to explain his answer. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…” Then Jesus goes on to say that the landowner hires several groups of people in town. The first group he hires early in the morning committing to paying them a daily wage. The next three groups he hired with the promise that he’d “pay what is right.” At the end of the day, he hires the last bunch without one word about payment. We know the drill. The landowner starts with that last bunch who worked an hour by paying them a full daily wage. The story is absurd. No landowner would have stayed in business if word got out that you could make a daily wage working for an hour.

Let’s go with it for a minute though. Imagine the last hour workers’ joy being able to feed their families for a few days. Imagine their joy. But each group was paid a daily wage, and the early morning group was furious. They were angry. If we read closely, we hear their reason, they said to the landowner, “…you have made them equal to us.” “You have made them equal to us.” A scathing rebuke from the workers to the landowner. It gets better. The landowner questions the workers, “Are you envious because I am generous?” In the Greek, this question more precisely asks, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” In other words, the landowner asks, “Are you giving me the stink eye because I’m good?”

Does anyone relate to the stink eye wielding workers? Maybe a teacher gave everyone an “A” after you studied, actually got an “A,” and they didn’t. Maybe your gifts and skills aren’t recognized or reimbursed in a way that leaves you feeling overlooked and undervalued. Are we inclined to give the stink eye to people who haven’t worked as hard as we have or, even better, to give the stink eye to God for God’s generosity or to people who keep harping on God’s generosity?

We could read this parable and argue for workers’ rights, tying the United Auto Workers’ and The Writers Guild’s strikes against corporate greed to the lesson today. We could also argue that this parable isn’t practical guidance but theological argument for God’s grace available in Jesus Christ to all people at all times. I’m more interested in arguing that we are like the workers – skeptical, cynical, and worried about being declared equal to other people who aren’t. This may be part of the reason we get concerned about helping people. We can think that if we help them too much it won’t be good for them. That rabbit hole contains sticking points that make it hard to leap in faith.

I’ve gone back and forth about talking about Augustana Homes and Bless the Build as a leap of faith, but I think it’s worth the risk. Construction begins in October and this afternoon at 1 p.m. in the Sanctuary we’ll have a brief program that ends in Augustana’s Community Park, right next to the site of future affordable homes built by Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver on land leased to them by you, the Augustana congregation. The land lease keeps the cost of the homes affordable. The project began five years ago.

In March of 2018, four Augustana folks went to a breakfast hosted by Interfaith Alliance and heard about the Congregation Land Campaign. Interns at Interfaith Alliance had been assigned the task of calculating how many unused acres of land in Metro Denver were available on faith community properties. 5,000. 5,000 acres across Metro Denver that could be used to build affordable housing as one piece of Denver’s housing puzzle. After the breakfast, these four folks met with the pastors to share what they learned. Each tiny, incremental step, the congregation’s team made headway, led by retired Pastor Ann Hultquist. A team was formed in the congregation to imagine the use of this land for housing. In 2019, over a year after the Interfaith Alliance breakfast, the congregation voted for the project. With other options to sell the land, I call that a leap of faith. By December 2019, we selected Habitat for Humanity as our construction partner out of three possibilities. And we all know what happened in March of 2020 when the world shut down.

While the pandemic slowed the progress, the team persisted, engaging the congregation and neighbors in ongoing discussions for updates and feedback. There were behind-the-scenes tasks that Habitat and the congregation picked away at with the city and the neighborhood association – rezoning, water issues, build size, you know, the fun stuff. Why all these details? Because ultimately families will have affordable homes because of the inspiration to dream and the determination to see the dream through the details. Families will have homes. That’s the dream. Today is as much about celebrating breaking ground on Augustana Homes as it is about inspiring other people to dream about other empty land with potential for homes. If we can make this audacious leap of faith as a large-ish, reserved, and responsible congregation then maybe other faith communities can dream it too. Building affordable homes is one piece of the housing puzzle in Denver. For the eight families who will own Augustana Homes, it’s THE piece that will make their dream a reality.

It would have been easy, and perhaps even advisable, for the congregation to make a different decision. In light of today’s readings, we could argue that the leap of faith we’re taking is the kind of thing that we’re called to do. We can argue it till kingdom come. In the meantime, we’ll catch glimpses of the kingdom that is like a landowner whose generosity earns the occasional stink eye when generosity is on the line. Thanks be to God. And amen.

Preaching, Sermons

Generosity and Connection: The Antidote to Greed and Despair [OR The Parable of the Rich Fool] Luke 12:13-22, Ecclesiastes and Psalm 49

July 31, 2022 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Generosity by Stig Lofnes (~1960 – present) oil on canvas

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on July 31, 2022

[sermon begins after two Bible readings; Psalm 49 is at the end of the sermon]

Luke 12:13-22 Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus,] “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” ¹⁴But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” ¹⁵And 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.” ¹⁶Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ¹⁸Then 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. ¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ ²⁰But 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?’ ²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

¹²I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem, ¹³applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. ¹⁴I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

^2:¹⁸I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me ¹⁹—and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²²What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? ²³For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

[sermon begins]

Last Sunday, Pastor Ann preached about the audacity of this congregation to live life on Jesus’ terms and not just on our own.[1] To live and pray and serve as Jesus did. To imagine what could be done with the empty land just down the hill from this sanctuary as part of our strategic planning. To vote as a congregation to partner with Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver to build affordable townhomes. Pastor Ann preached about that over four-year process and the persistence of the congregation that culminated in the rezoning vote at the next day’s Denver City Council meeting. I’m very excited to report that this past Monday, Denver City Council voted unanimously to rezone, 13-0.[2]

At the City Council meeting, Pastor Ann and Council President Michael Zumwalt testified on behalf of the rezoning alongside one of our neighbors representing the South Hilltop Neighborhood Association, alongside our partners from Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver. Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer adder her enthusiastic remarks about the congregation and the process it took to get here. There is A LOT of excitement in the City of Denver about this Affordable Housing! (My sermon copies include a link to check it out.) It’s unique to have the neighborhood association, the developer (Habitat), AND a faith community working together towards a shared goal of housing – so that, as Pastor Ann preached, “people we haven’t met yet will have a safe and decent place to call home.”

Homes come in all shapes and sizes. Multifamily homes like apartments and condos. Single family homes from the tiny to the towering. Common denominators shared by all homes are money and people. People need homes and money to sustain them whether they’re rented or owned. We often talk about money as if it’s a disconnected thing. Money’s over there while people are over there. The two topics get disconnected as if one has nothing to do with the other.

I wonder if this could be why Jesus gets right to the point when he talks about money. People and money are as connected as it gets and Jesus focuses on connecting people with God and each other. Like today’s Gospel reading from Luke about the disputed inheritance and Jesus’ parable about the rich fool. It was normal for a younger brother to bring inheritance questions to their rabbis who could settle a dispute.[3] He was likely a younger brother because there was a norm in estate law of the time that either kept the estate fully intact by the oldest son OR that allotted the older brother a double-share with the younger brother receiving a third – much like the younger brother in the Prodigal son parable[4] who received one-third of his father’s estate.[5] Somehow Jesus was on to the younger son’s greedy motives because he answered his question with the parable about the greed of the rich fool.

Even Jesus’ easy parables aren’t easy. At face value, the parable of the rich fool is kind of simple. Simply interpreted: Greed is bad; and so is the man who builds the bigger barn. So what if the man builds a bigger barn? It’s HIS grain. He can do what he wants with grain produced on his land. But the reality of parables is that they have layers, layers that wrap around listeners and pull us in. Pull us in and shine light on our own lives by the parable. Here’s a layer. Building a bigger barn focuses on HIS wealth, himself and no one else. He’s not simply a rich fool, he’s also a lonely one. His bigger barn builds walls not only around his grain but between himself and his community. He dies alone with no one to give it to. Missing the chance to bless God by blessing others.

Greed as a topic is difficult. No one enjoys self-examination on the greed spectrum. It’s made extra difficult because we humans have a survival instinct that trips us up. This is one reason that the empty tomb of resurrection is helpful. The empty tomb is the end of the story promised through the cross of Christ. Because we know the end is rich in God’s promise, we’re free to examine the middle of the story; our own stories through the lens of the parable of the rich fool.

His greed is one example of self-preservation run amok. He has so much grain at his disposal that his bigger barn turns into his only idea. The rich fool is in an echo chamber of his own making. He turns only to himself about what to do with all his grain. Once he decides to build a bigger barn, he tells his soul to relax, eat, drink, and be merry. He doesn’t talk with his workers, his community, or God. And he curves in on himself even further by taking his own advice. And then he dies alone, curved around his wealth yet unable to take it with him.

Jesus often convicts his listeners, showing them how curved in on themselves they’ve become. Turned inward and, therefore, turned away from God. And turned inward and turned away from neighbors. Jesus attempts to turn the younger son, who is worried about his inheritance, outwards. The parable about the man who builds the bigger barn can be heard as Jesus’ attempt to wake up that younger son along with everyone else who is listening in, and live life on Jesus’ terms and not our own. Jesus’ terms include right-sizing ourselves alongside everyone else. As his mother Mary sang in her Magnificat earlier in Luke, “Bringing down the powerful…and lifting up the lowly.”[6] Leveling and strengthening the connections between each other as a meaningful way to live before any of us flat lines.

Last weekend, a lot of my time was spent with families who were saying goodbye to loved ones who had died. When we celebrate someone’s life, we often say quite a bit about the person who died. We remember them and we remember God’s promises to them. I often remind people during the welcome that as we celebrate the person who died, funerals can also bring up other losses in our lives, allowing grief a sacred space and time. With each funeral, as I listen to the stories about the person who died, it makes me grateful for the ways that I knew that person, grateful for other people in my life who have died, and grateful for the precious fragility of my own life and the people I love.

In Ecclesiastes, the writer known as the Teacher reflects on mortality. In the verses read today, the Teacher is almost cynical about the transience of life. Here one minute, gone the next. The Hebrew word for vanities is “hebel,” meaning breath or vapor.[7] “All is vapor…and a chasing after the wind,” says the Teacher who reminds us what really matters about life. The Psalm is nicely paired with both Ecclesiastes and the parable in getting us to think about the value of life. The parable reveals the value of life in the tragedy of the rich fool who wastes his life by spending abundant wealth only himself, the psalmist reflects the value of life in a matter-of-fact way – you’re mortal and finite so you can either trust God or trust self and wealth; and Ecclesiastes edges toward the cynical before the Teacher turns the book towards hope in later verses.[8]

The value of life is worth wrangling through hard conversations, intense prayer, and careful thinking. Figuring out how to spend our moments and our money makes at least the attempt to align our lives on Jesus’ terms, focusing on life with our short spans of life together here. Encouraging each other along the way lest we fall into despair or turn inwards on ourselves and lose sight of each other and of God. One of the gifts of being part of a faith community is the gift of reminding each other to uncurl from inward turning. Christ unleashes us from the perils of self-preservation at the expense of our neighbors by reminding us that we belong to each other and to God, inspiring generosity as the very antidote to greed and connection as the antidote to despair. In the very next verses after our Luke reading, Jesus tells his followers not to worry. Next week we’ll hear a few of these verses as Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Reminding us once more that out of God’s generosity comes our own. Thanks be to God, and amen.

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[1] Watch Ann Hultquist’s powerful sermon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKgPQP8TXbM

[2] Listen to those 32 minutes about the rezoning vote of the Denver City Council meeting here: https://denver.granicus.com/player/clip/14946?meta_id=1105979

[3] Niveen Saras, Pastor, Immanuel Lutheran Church of Wausau, Wausau, WI. Commentary on Luke 12:13-21 for WorkingPreacher.org

[4] Luke 15:11-16

[5] Saras, Ibid.

[6] Luke 1:52

[7] J. Blake Couey, Associate Professor of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota. Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-3/commentary-on-ecclesiastes-12-12-14-218-23-5

[8] Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. Sermon Brainwave Podcast: #855 8^th Sunday after Pentecost. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/855-8th-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-18c-july-31-2022

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Psalm 49:1-12

Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all inhabitants of the world,

²both low and high, rich and poor together.

³My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

⁴I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the harp.

⁵Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of my persecutors surrounds me,

⁶those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?

⁷Truly, no ransom avails for one’s life, there is no price one can give to God for it.

⁸For the ransom of life is costly, and can never suffice

⁹that one should live on forever and never see the grave.

¹⁰When we look at the wise, they die; fool and dolt perish together and leave their wealth to others.

¹¹Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they named lands their own.

¹²Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; they are like the animals that perish.

Pastor, Preacher, Speaker