Today is one of those days! Here is Jesus holding up as an example a very dishonest man for his shrewdness. He says that we should be more like this guy!
What???
It’s kind of like that famous scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where the people way in the back of the crowd listening to Jesus
preach the sermon on the mount. They can’t hear Jesus very clearly and wonder
amongst themselves why the Cheesemakers were so blessed.
But it’s really simpler than we think. The gospel today is Jesus’
reminder that mercy is for those who need mercy, love is for those who need
love. Luke’s Gospel remembers Jesus’ words to remind the early church (and us!)
that we must learn to live, minister and work in the real world, knowing that our
expression of God’s generosity and overflowing grace will seem wild and out of
proportion. In this strange, unexpected
parable, Jesus is inviting us to resist the urge to
live inside a bubble. The bubble of the familiar and the safe.
Let’s back up.
In this part of the Gospel, Jesus is traveling around Jerusalem,
preaching
that the reign of God has arrived and is among us. He
is healing the sick, raising the dead, and, in his teaching, he's calling
on the good religious leaders around
Jerusalem to live what they taught. The Scribes and Pharisees grumbled about
Jesus in any way they could. In particular, they complained about his dinner
companions, who were often less than savory
characters. You’ve heard the list…tax-collectors, prostitutes, but also people
who worked on the Sabbath and didn’t pay attention to religious custom
with the rigor that some wished for. You know the
cast.
As
Jesus went about teaching, he told a series of Parables to describe what God was up to
and we have been hearing about them over the past few
weeks.
Remember
the man who had one hundred sheep, and when one wandered off, the man left the
ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep and celebrated with his
friends when he found it?
Or
the woman who had ten silver coins but lost
one. So she lights a lamp and turns her house upside
down until she finds it. When she finds the coin she celebrates with all her
friends.
Jesus
tells the story of a father and his two sons. One demands his inheritance, and then runs off to
the big city and parties away all his money.
Realizing the error in his ways, he heads home. His father, seeing him far off,
welcomes him and hosts a big feast to
celebrate the return of his presumed dead son.
The older brother, faithful, generous, and devout, wanted none of it. But the father reminds the faithful brothers
“This son of mine that was dead is now alive, the one who was lost is now found.”
And today we hear Jesus tell the story of a shady steward who is
about to be fired because he was dishonest with his master’s money. He admits
that he is too lazy for manual labor and is too proud to ask for charity, so he
goes around to all the people who owe his employer money and cuts their bills
in half. He does this so that they would welcome him when he loses his job. In
building relationships with the vendors he is showing himself able to navigate
a dog-eat-dog world, even as he (as a kind of parting shot) is still dishonest
with his master’s money! The surprise comes when the master who was about to
fire the steward praises him for his shrewdness, his initiative, and his
business-sense.
So looking at all of Jesus’ teaching in Luke, here is what we
learn: God seeks us when are lost. God rejoices when we are found. God welcomes
us when we come to our senses. God is patient when we don’t understand God’s
forgiveness. Okay, so far so good. But in today’s Gospel lesson, we learn that
God wants us
to do all this and
also to be wise and competent in the real world.
Jesus is telling us to get real and to not let our holiness become
our blind spot. Don’t let our faith become a bubble in which we hide. Instead, Jesus tells us to take our
faith and then move into the world to show practical, real-life mercy. Just as
God came into our world and lives through Jesus’ incarnation, we are now to live out God’s love and mercy where people live and work,
suffer and flourish.
But we are often reluctant or even afraid to go into the world. We
either don’t want to stand out…to look self-righteous, perhaps even goofy…or we
don’t know what to say…or how to say it.
Jesus says that “the children of this age are more shrewd in
dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” But he is
not only praising the dishonest steward because he knows how the world works;
he is telling us Christians to be just as wise, just as real, in how we bring
the Gospel to our neighbors and the community we live in.
Some
religious communities like to isolate themselves, live in their own world, only
associate with their own kind, only do what the leader or the group tells them.
But over and over again, in the story of the Christian Church, we
find people who got out of their bubbles, did
the risky thing and brought the
Gospel into the world, and along the way, introduced the world into the church.
Like two of my personal spiritual heroes:
Dorothy Day and Frances Perkins who each brought the Gospel to people working in factories and
sweatshops in the early 20th century. Day ministered through the
Catholic Worker movement. Perkins, an Episcopalian, worked as a social worker in New York City and later as FDR’s Secretary of Labor (the first woman to serve as a member of the Cabinet) – it is
Perkins who shepherded the enactment of the Social Security Act.
Then there is my newest spiritual hero, Deaconess Harriett Beddel, for whom our own Daughters of the King Chapter is named. She served native American peoples from Artic Circle in Alaska, to Oklahoma, and among the Seminole Nation in Florida until she died in 1969.
I also think of two other modern spiritual heroes: DietrichBonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller, who trained people for ministry in an
underground seminary in the middle of Nazi Germany but who also worked against
the evils of that regime. Or the theologians Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr who
connected the tensions and possibilities of civic
and Christian life in America. And, of course, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
one of their students, who, following their teaching and example, witnessed to the power of a non-violent Gospel to confront and overcome injustice.
And
there are so many others… folks followed Jesus’ example of serving God and
God’s people outside the bubble of the safe, the expected, and the traditional.
Guess
what? So do we! How? Well, when we, as a
congregation, and as a wider church, do the kinds of outreach and community ministry that
we do everyday, that's how! We open our doors and welcome
our neighbors through our Thrift Store, which at first blush seems to be a
fundraising mechanism for the church, but in fact we are inviting our
neighbors, many on fixed incomes, or mom’s working multiple minimum wage jobs,
or guys seeking work clothes or job interview clothes and to shop for the
things they need in dignity and with respect. Every week we welcome people
seeking recovery and healing through the many NA 12 step meetings that meet
here every week. Good Neighbors, which we host, provides food to many food
pantries in our area, food that might otherwise end up in landfills as “dated”
or “surplus”. The work this parish has done on racial reconciliation, and the
fact that our church is a polling place, shows that we are not afraid to be
part and parcel of the city where God has placed us.
Every
day, you followers, you friends and apprentices of Jesus, take the Gospel into
your homes, workplaces, schools, and daily living. Know it or not, you are the
people who bring the Gospel to ordinary people in everyday ways. Which is why
we have not one but two regular Bible Studies here, why we have church school
for our children, and our music ministry.
To do what we are called to do, and show off the Gospel to a hurting
world, we need to be confident, competent Christians.
 |
| September 15: Students help deliver food to St Andrews Episcopal Church. Two planes of migrants arrived suddenly Wednesday night on Martha's Vineyard. Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images |
And
think of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Diocese of Massachusetts,
where the parishioners at St. Andrew’s Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard rallied
to take in, feed, house, clothe and support more than fifty migrants who were
unceremoniously dumped in their town, in an act of brazen political theater.
All
of this is in keeping with what Christians have done all the time to confront
and address the variety of ways that humans mistreat or neglect one another.
Just as the first Christians took in, housed, and fed, widows, orphans (who
were really often discarded children and women without status, family, money,
or a home), as well as the poor, the hungry, and the sick.
Learning,
living, and doing the work of Jesus requires prayer,
learning, and above all the faith to enter the community we live in with confidence,
boldness, and, yes, even shrewdness.
Jesus knew that his followers —we— would be tempted to live inside
a bubble, with nothing but our worship, our building, and even our holiness to
hide us from the big, bad, world out there. Instead, Jesus sent us into the
world to baptize, teach, and proclaim the Gospel! He called on us to be at once
generous in mercy and wise in the ways of the world to make the Gospel real in
the lives of real people.
In short, he calls us to get out of our bubble.
Here is a link to the Scripture readings.
Here is a link to a video of the sermon.
Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.
No comments:
Post a Comment