Sermon: Costs of discipleship (Sept. 8, 2019)

Pentecost 13C (Proper 15)

Sept 8, 2019 (Church picnic)

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-33

INTRODUCTION

         I’m going to be drawing today from Deuteronomy and Luke, so let’s get oriented to each of those. Our passage from Deuteronomy comes at the very end of the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. At that point, just about to enter the Promised Land, Moses gives a long speech, and today’s reading is its culmination. Moses is reminding the people who they have become over these 40 years, as one scholar writes, “a people formed in the crucible of the covenant, a people who are made and unmade by the grace and ferocity of God.” Living in obedience to the Law, the covenant of God, would be, as Moses says, “choosing life,” for themselves and their people. What a wonderful motto for faith this text offers: “choose life!”

         Our Gospel lesson is… less immediately satisfying, as it contains one of Jesus’ most difficult teachings: to “hate” your own family, give up all your possessions, and follow him. In fact, that teaching may sound to us like the opposite of choosing life! I will unpack that in my sermon, and hopefully squeeze some good news out of it, but here’s how you can start: as you listen, think about what in your life right now gives you life, and, what makes you feel like the life is draining out of you, whether on a small or a large scale? Let’s listen.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

So, I gotta admit… This is not the sort of Gospel lesson one hopes for on the day of the church picnic, a day everyone hopes will be light-hearted and fun. Here we are, with a piñata ready to bust, burgers ready to grill, and having gathered enough food to feed 70 hungry families, a day we are joining with Lutherans all across America for a denomination-wide day of serving others! This should be a joyful day! But then Jesus comes along and says, “You know that’s great that you gathered all that food, thanks for that, but I’m telling you that you have to do the very hardest thing: hate your closest family, and give up everything to follow me.” Yowzah! It’s amazing Jesus had any disciples at all! Why would he give the crowd – and us! – such a demanding list of costs to following him? Doesn’t he want people to follow him? Why would he scare us away with demands like these?

            His purpose, at least, becomes clearer in the analogies or parables that follow: it is about counting the cost of discipleship. A builder doesn’t start building until he knows he has the funds to finish the project. A king won’t go to war unless he really thinks he’s got a shot at winning. Or, in more contemporary terms, you don’t sign your kid up for the traveling soccer team unless you are willing to travel every weekend, missing church and any number of other activities. You don’t retire until you know you will be able to afford health insurance. You count the cost before you make big decisions.

            In short, Jesus is telling us: being a disciple is not gonna be a cakewalk. Sometimes it is rewarding, even fun, and certainly life-giving, but also, there are costs. There are things to consider. Yes, he’s here to bring life and salvation, and this comes as a gift, as pure grace, but when you receive that gift, when you become a true follower of Christ, there are going to be some things in your life that can’t be the same as they were before. Your life will change. And some of those changes may not come very easily for you.

            Demands like this might sound strange to our 21^st century American ears, because for us, being a Christian seems pretty easy! As American Christians we can worship when, where, and how we please, our lives are not in danger for our beliefs, and we can generally go to church on Sunday, put some money in the offering plate, volunteer when we feel up to it, collect some food, and enjoy a picnic and some fellowship now and then. We can engage however much or little as we want in this thing called, “being a Christian.” But texts like this show us that there is something more to the Christian life than that.

            What is that something more, practically speaking? Jesus talks a big game about taking up our cross, and giving away everything and turning away from the people dearest to us… but what does any of that actually look like, in 2019?

Today’s text from Deuteronomy sheds some light. After a discussion on the ways God has put before God’s people the option of life and prosperity, or death and adversity, the author implores us, “Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live!” Well, when you put it that way, it seems like such an obvious choice! Choose life and prosperity or death and adversity? Uh, no brainer! I’ll choose life!

But what if we phrased it a little differently: “Choose what is life-giving.” Suddenly, we are compelled to consider: what is life-giving? What choices do I make during the course of the day that are life-giving, for me, and for the people around me? Are there choices I make that are life-giving for me, but bring death (metaphorical or literal) to someone else? And then of course the flip side: are there are choices I make that are not life-giving, even for myself?

There’s an Ignatian spirituality practice that asks these very questions at the end of each day: what did I do today that made me feel full of life, and what did I do that made me feel that life was draining out of me? They are hard questions to ask, because if you ask them seriously, and reflect on them deeply, you may find that some of the things you do that are automatic, or that are coping mechanisms for your stress, are in fact the very things that drain the life out of you: working too much, eating junk, drinking or smoking too much. Maybe even, watching mindless TV or YouTube videos, or getting sucked into Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram, or buying more stuff. Anyone guilty?

I’ve done this exercise, and was surprised to find that some of the things that are most difficult for me to do, like getting up early to go for a walk in the morning, are actually, when I think back at the end of the day, my most life-giving activities, and the things I default to, like scrolling through Facebook, make me feel tired and wasted. Choosing life, choosing what is life-giving, is not always such an easy choice, because you know, scrolling through Facebook is a lot easier than going for a walk, or reading the Bible, or praying, or speaking up for the poor, or fighting for justice, or any number of things Jesus calls us to do. But as Jesus tells us, choosing his way, the way of life, comes with costs.

This becomes especially difficult when we apply it back to Jesus’ tough words today, the ones about hating father and mother, spouse, siblings, and children. For many of us, these people are the very thing that brings life to us! Scholars have worked hard over the centuries to come to terms with this – surely Jesus didn’t mean hate in the way we mean that word. Jesus is about love, after all! The most helpful way I have come across to understand this is: hate is not so much a feeling, as an action. To hate something, in Semitic, Jewish, understanding, is to turn away from it, and turn toward the kingdom of God. It might be that turning toward the kingdom of God is turning toward your family, that tending to those important relationships is your most important kingdom job. I talked last week about some of the important work my grandparents did, especially for the church, over their lives, yet my grandmother would have said that her most important vocation was to care for her aging mother. I think my mom would say the same about when she cared for my grandma, difficult as it was, all the way until the moment grandma left this world and entered eternal life.

But sometimes, our prioritizing even these blessed relationships can turn us away from God’s will. I read a reflection some time ago from a female pastor, who grew up in a household in which women speaking in church at all was prohibited. Women should remain silent, and certainly shouldn’t be pastors! But this woman felt so strongly the call to serve God in this role. So she had to turn away, to “hate” her parents, to fulfill God’s will for her. Of course, she still loves them, and spends time with them, even though they disagree on this point. But this pastor had to put the will of God ahead of the will of her parents. In Jesus’ words, she had to “hate” them.

It’s a high price to pay. We sometimes have to make tough calls like that in our lives of faith, to make decisions that best serve the whole Body of Christ, even when they are difficult for us or for our loved ones. It’s good that Jesus warns us that this life of dedication to seeking God’s will and following Christ might require some difficult choices.

It’s good that he warns us, but you know what’s even better? Though Jesus asks us to make some difficult sacrifices, he doesn’t ask that without offering it himself. And when Jesus makes his ultimate sacrifice, the result is not just resurrected life for him. It is new life for us. It is the promise of life and grace and forgiveness, so we know that when we fall short of the demands of discipleship, when we are confused or overwhelmed by all the choices before us and aren’t sure which way is the life-giving way, even when we make the wrong choice: God continues to offer us life. God continues to love us and forgive us, and place before us again the option of choosing life. That is the true gift of God’s grace and unconditional love. That is why we can gather here today to worship and fill bags of food for hungry people and join in fellowship and fun. That is God’s gift of life: thanks be to God!

Let us pray… Life-giving God, sometimes “choosing life” isn’t as easy for us as it sounds. Grant us the courage to make choices that lead to life, not only for us, but for all your children, and for our neighbors near and far. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Showing hospitality to strangers (Sept. 1, 2019)

Pentecost 12C (Proper 14)

September 1, 2019

Luke 14:1, 7-14; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

        

INTRODUCTION

       Today is one of those times when all four of the readings really complement each other, lifting up very similar themes. Their combined purpose could be summarized by the first line from our reading from Hebrews: “Let mutual love continue.” All four readings will describe some of the specific ways we can live in mutual love as Christians: for example, by practicing humility, selflessness, concern for the other even over yourself, generosity, and hospitality toward strangers –especially, Jesus will tell us, toward strangers who have nothing concrete to offer you in return.

       They all seem like nice enough things, and some even joyful… but not a-one of them is easy! And so as you listen, watch for some of those ideals of Christian love, and consider what they each look like, practically or metaphorically, in your life – your personal life, your church life, your life as a citizen. Think about how some of these ideals enacted or embodied as a community, a nation, and as a global neighbor. My sermon will be focus on hospitality and welcome, so think especially about that ideal. Okay, let’s listen.

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This morning's bulletin cover from Augsburg Fortress.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         My grandparents lived in Germany for several years after World War II. They were sent there by the national Lutheran church as a part of what we now know as Lutheran World Relief. They helped rebuild the Church there after the war, and reunite families. During their time in Germany, and throughout their 60+ years of marriage, they kept a guest book. Every guest they had at their home – whether a German dignitary or a refugee child – every guest was asked to sign their book, and perhaps leave a note about their time there. What resulted was volumes and volumes of records of strangers and friends to whom they had shown hospitality over the course of their lives. Really, those guest books are a record of their life of faith, and one of the many ways they lived it out.

         When my brother and I each got married, after my grandparents had both died, my parents gave us each a guestbook, too, and inscribed in the front is this verse we heard from Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.” It’s a lovely verse, isn’t it? I look to my grandparents as models of faith, and want so dearly to follow in their footsteps in the way they welcomed so many strangers into their lives and their home, and in doing so showed them the love of Christ. This is, in fact, one of my favorite verses for this very reason, that it makes me feel connected to my grandparents.

         But now that I have a home of my own… it turns out that showing hospitality to strangers is not easy. Everyone who has signed our guestbook is friend or family. Though we love having people over, we’ve had very few strangers in our home. Maybe you can say differently – perhaps yours is the house where all your kids’ friends hang out, and you constantly provide drinks and snacks for all manner of stranger on a regular basis. Maybe you hosted one of our small groups this summer and called to invite several people you’d never met to enjoy dessert and conversation in your home. Maybe you have hosted an exchange student, refugee family, or traveler. But generally speaking, while inviting friends and family to our homes or our church or wherever can be a real joy, showing hospitality to strangers can be… risky, scary, vulnerable. Because you just don’t know what you’re getting, with a stranger. Yes, they may turn out to be angels, but… what if they don’t?

         This is not just a concern for us on a personal level. Just look at what is happening on a national scale right now. So much fear has been cultivated around strangers, foreigners, especially those who look different from the majority of Americans, and so they're easy to pick out. And so, rather than welcoming strangers, a large percentage of our country wants to build walls to keep them away. Asylum seekers are turned away or put in detention indefinitely, refugee admission caps are being lowered dramatically, and strangers trying to come to our land are not being given basic hygiene or necessary medical care. This week we learned that some people are being deported who are receiving life-saving medical care here that is unavailable in their home country, and being sent back means they will almost certainly die. We seem to be doing all we can, not to welcome strangers, to love them, but rather to turn them away and even cause them harm. What a contrast this is to Jesus’ parable: “Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” he says. “And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”

         How utterly counter this is to how society works! Ours is a society in which, rather than letting mutual love continue, we let mutual backscratching continue. We seek to make connections, to swap favors, to help each other out mostly or especially when we know it will ultimately be to our advantage. Thinking again on a national scale, it has been expressly stated that we’re happy to let strangers, immigrants, in, if they can contribute something valuable to our country. Merit-based immigration, it’s called. But here Jesus tells us, “No, don’t reach out to your rich friends or your family. Don’t do things because you know they will come back to benefit you. Serve others just for the sake of serving others, for the sake of letting mutual love continue (as the author of Hebrews would say). Serve those who really need it – the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Call in all the neediest strangers, and love them, feed them, and serve them.”

         This is the call Jesus issues, and boy, is it difficult! It may not be sound policy! It may put us at risk, whether as individuals or as a country! We may be blessed in the long run, “at the resurrection of the righteous,” as Jesus says, but what about now? Don’t we want to do things to benefit ourselves now, today? Why would Jesus ask of us something so difficult, even impractical?

But here’s the thing: we shouldn’t do this – invite and welcome strangers with no promise of immediate return – we shouldn’t do this because Jesus told us to do it. We extend hospitality to strangers and welcome them because God already did it and does it for us. Yes, it is true – God welcomes us as strangers, even potentially dangerous ones, welcomes us to his bountiful banquet, not because we can do anything to pay God back, but simply because God dearly loves us. When we are the poor in spirit, poor in faith, poor in riches, God welcomes us. When we are crippled by pain, by doubt, by fear, God welcomes us. When we are lame in our walk of faith, turning our faces away from the brokenness of the world, negligent in tending to our relationship with God, God welcomes us. When we are blind to our own sinful ways, God still welcomes us to the feast of love that God prepares for us.

         We certainly don’t deserve, nor do we do anything to earn this gift. Yet still, God invites and welcomes us each to this table, and gives us love, grace, belonging, and salvation. God provides us all that we need, and even when we greedily take it with hardly a thank you, even when we imagine only that we are entitled to these things and overlook the gracious gift that they are, even when we totally squander that gift… God still gives us more the next day. God gives and gives though we could never repay that gift.

         So let us go now to the banquet, brothers and sisters. God invited us, after all, and welcomes us with open arms. And then, nourished by this feast of love, let us go out to proclaim Christ’s Gospel of radical welcome of the stranger, in word and deed, trusting that God’s promises to us are true, and that we will indeed be blessed, perhaps by the angels we encounter, and most certainly in the resurrection of the righteous.

         Let us pray… Welcoming God, our instinct with strangers is often mistrust and fear. Make us bold to extend hospitality to strangers, trusting that in doing so, we might just find ourselves entertaining angels. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Sabbath for freedom (August 25, 2019)

Pentecost 11C (Proper 14)

August 25, 2019 (VBS Sunday)

Luke 13:10-17

INTRODUCTION

The theme to watch for in today’s readings is: sabbath, the 4^th commandment (“remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy”), and what sabbath means for a life of faith. First Isaiah gives us a sense of what God desires from a sabbath, which is different from how people were practicing it. He talks about how people were “trampling the sabbath,” pursuing their own interest and well-being on that day rather than serving others. Then Luke will illustrate that point further, defining what is the purpose of the sabbath, in the fourth of five stories in which Jesus heals someone on the sabbath. So before we get too far into this, let’s remember what we already know about sabbath. Here’s a little quiz: do you remember what is the rationale behind keeping the Sabbath? [God rested on the 7^th day.] Right, God did it, so we should too. It’s a day of rest, a day we don’t work. That’s what Genesis and Exodus tell us. BUT, for a bonus point: the 10 commandments also appear in Deuteronomy. Anyone know what the rationale for sabbath is there? The explanation there says, “Remember that you [the Israelites] were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” See here, the Sabbath isn’t so much about rest as it is about redemption, about freedom. “Remember that I am the God who frees you from what holds you captive,” God says, and implied then is, “On the Sabbath, use this time to remember how I free you.”

         So as you listen to today’s readings, think about freedom, considering what it is that holds you captive – physically, spiritually, or emotionally. And think about what sabbath freedom would look like in these captivities. Let’s listen.

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         Can you imagine being bent over for 18 years? What a powerful image that is: a woman “bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.” There are a lot of reasons I love the story we hear today from Luke’s Gospel, but one of them is that I find that bent over image to be such a meaningful one, because it is a position with which I am myself very familiar – physically and emotionally. So many things cause us to feel bent over. For example, if you have a horrible stomach cramp, what do you do? You bend over. Pain, in heart or body, makes us bend over. If you’re standing near a soccer field and you hear, “Watch out!” what do you do? Duck and cover your head. Feeling unsafe makes us bend over. If you are overwhelmed by life and can’t bear one more thing, what do you do? If you’re like me, you curl up in the fetal position on the couch or in bed and cover your head with a blanket! We bend over! We bend over to protect ourselves from the struggles of the world. Bending over, physically or emotionally, is a natural response to all manner of pain and fear.

It is natural, but when we do this, what happens to our sightline? We can’t see anything except ourselves. And when we can only see ourselves, we lose the ability to make genuine human connection, to see other’s needs, or really even to clearly see our own. Martin Luther has a wonderful phrase for this: incurvatus in se. It’s Latin for “curved in on yourself,” and it’s his definition for sin. When we are curved in on ourselves, we see only our needs, our wants, our perspectives. We become slaves to these things, and so we neglect the needs and the offerings of what is outside of ourselves – our neighbors, and of course, God.

         This past week in Vacation Bible School, we learned about the story of the Good Samaritan, and what it means to be a neighbor. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we explored why those first two people might not have wanted to stop and help, and one reason we came up with was: they were scared. So, Wednesday’s theme was, “Fear not!” The song we sang was, “Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you!” and while we sang, we stood like this [demonstrate]: head up, back straight, a posture of boldness and courage to face the world and whatever troubles it may bring, to us or to our neighbors. We started doing it sort of on a whim, but the more we did it, the more I liked it. Because, tempting as it may be to revert to that curved in position that we think offers us comfort and protection, putting our heads up like this is really the only way to walk forward through our own pain, and certainly the only way to see the needs of the world. It is the only way for us to step out and into our call to love and serve the world as God has loved us.

         Speaking of walking forward through pain… it wasn’t all that long ago that Michael and I were teaching babies how to walk. Do you remember teaching someone to walk? How they first stand, clutching a piece of furniture with dimpled knuckles, their head hanging down to look at their feet, trying to understand this new posture that is so different from sitting or crawling. Eventually, the head comes up, and they start to look where they are going – and their face bursts into a grin as they begin to understand this new way of travel that has so much more to offer than crawling. The child’s loving adult stands before them with outstretched arms, smiling and encouraging, and ready to catch them when they tumble. Eventually, the child learns to trust those arms, let go of the furniture, and toddle with uncertain steps that grow stronger and more confident each day. Eventually, they are no longer captive to their hands and knees and the furniture. Eventually, they are free.

Friends, Jesus holds these trustworthy arms out to us, beckoning us into freedom. Jesus sees us, even when we don’t see him, even when our heads are too bent down from our suffering, our pain, our captivity, too bent down to see him offering his healing, love and grace. Jesus sees us, and Jesus reaches out to us, offering us the very essence of the Sabbath: the knowledge that God frees us from sin, frees us from captivity, frees us from all that would keep us bound.

And an amazing thing happens when we are free, when our heads are lifted and our backs straightened out: suddenly, we can see the world around us, not through our captivities, but through the eyes of our freedom.

One touching moment sticks in my mind from when Grace was learning to walk, when she first discovered this freedom. One day, I was very upset about something that had happened, and I came home and sat on the couch weeping, head in hands. I was bent over in pain and sadness. Grace toddled over to me carefully, holding the furniture, and gently touched me. I looked at her and she grinned at me and said something in baby gibberish, and engaged me in a game. Suddenly, my head was up, and I was laughing. This small human, with her head held high, was able to extend the most basic form of empathy, of compassion, to someone in need. When she wasn’t captive to her hands and knees and her hanging head, she could reach out to love and serve.

This is the amazing thing about the freedom the Sabbath offers us, the freedom the gospel offers us, the freedom that God through Christ offers us. No longer bound by our ailments, we can lift up our heads, look around the world, praise God, and be the servants that God has called us to be, loving and serving the world. Thanks be to God.

         Let us pray… Freeing God, it is so tempting for us to curl into ourselves, even though we know this is not a posture of freedom and service. Help us to lift up our heads and put our trust in you, so that we might live into the freedom you offer us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.