Keeping the Season

"José y Maria" by Everett Patterson

Trouble
by James Wright

Leering across Pearl Street,
Crum Anderson yipped:
“Hey Pugh!
I see your sister
Been rid bareback.
She swallow a watermelon?
Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon!”
Wayya mean? She can get fat, can’t she?”
Fat? Willow and lonesome Roberta, running
Alone down Pearl Street in the rain the last time
I ever saw her, smiling a smile
Crum Anderson will never know,
Wondering at her body.
Sixteen years, and
All that time she thought she was nothing
But skin and bones.

"The Visitation," by Claudia Williams (photo by Clive, on Flickr)

Luke 1:39-55
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

"08 -- Empathy and Emotional Intelligence:What You Need" by Roy Blumenthal, on Flickr

Amos 7:7–15
This is what he showed me: the LORD was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the LORD said,
"See, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by;
the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said,
'Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.'"

And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."
Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

Mark 6:14–29
King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some were saying, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him." But others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old." But when Herod heard of it, he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised."

For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it." And he solemnly swore to her, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom." She went out and said to her mother, "What should I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the baptizer." Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter." The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

--
In this weekend's New York Times you will find an op-ed entitled "Empathy is Actually a Choice," in which the authors pull together a variety of research that has been done in recent years on the subject of empathy, the act of entering into someone else’s cares, emotions, and vulnerabilities.

What emerged from all the research is the curious notion that empathy is a choice (and not a matter of genetics), and interestingly enough, there seems to be an inverse relationship between power and empathy, meaning that the more power we have, even temporary power, the less likely we are to show empathy.

Our gospel reading today certainly seems to prove the point. (And it also reads like a bit of a soap opera.)

Herod, the king, is throwing himself a birthday party. He has invited all the powerful dignitaries and members of his court to a fantastic feast, full of rich food and wine, laughter and dancing. It is an expensive and lavish bash. It’s exactly what you would expect of a powerful king who wants to celebrate himself in grand fashion, while also feeding the good favor of his most powerful advisors and constituents.

Now Herod is married to Herodius, his brother Philip’s wife. It is a bit of a scandal. Herod has used his unquestioned power to marry a woman who the law says is off-limits to him. John the Baptist was quick to call foul on this romance, which made Herodius angry - and why wouldn’t it? Here she was, having upgraded her lifestyle from that of the wife of the king’s brother to that of a queen. She wanted John killed for speaking the truth, but it wasn’t in her power to do that, so she settles for letting Herod throw him in prison. Herod, mind you, generally likes the guy, and is fascinated, if not also perplexed, by his teachings.

Anyway, back to the party. The music is playing, everybody has had a little too much to drink, and his daughter dances. Herod, being powerful, drunk, and stupid, makes her a promise: I swear to give you anything your heart desires, even half my kingdom if you want it!
And before he knows what is happening, the girl has consulted with her mother, and comes back to Herod asking not for half his kingdom, but for John’s head.

Herod, the most powerful man in the room, the most powerful man in the kingdom, somehow can’t muster up the power or courage to tell her “no.” We read that he didn’t want to break his oath and, more importantly, he didn’t want to disappoint the guests. So Herod, the man with all the power, plays the powerless fool. He raises up his hand to signal the guards, and sits back as John is killed.

Yes, despite (or perhaps because of) Herod’s great power, he chooses to protect his image rather than protecting John’s life. It is the clash of power and empathy. The greater the power, the easier it is to hold the powerless at arms’ length. The greater the influence, the easier it is not to care.

Certainly, as people of faith, we might each aim to to be prophetic like John the Baptist instead of power-drunk like Herod. Except if we’re being honest, we know that we are all far more like Herod than we’d probably like to be.

Because each of us has been given some measure of power and privilege in life, and with it, we take on the risk of using our power - big or small - for our own gain, rather than for the sake of the powerless.

In this country, there is power in being white. There is power in being male. There is power in being heterosexual. There is power in being young or thin. There is power in being wealthy. There is power in being educated and being employed. And it’s not that any one of us necessarily chose any of this, or that any of these privileged statuses are inherently bad, but if we get too comfortable with our powers and privileges, then we run the real risk of distancing ourselves from the very people God has called us to serve.

Now, the truth, of course, is that it does not take any particular power to proclaim the Gospel, and really, God is often in the business of stripping away people’s comfort and power precisely so that it doesn’t get in the way of that proclamation.

Amos, a herdsman from the southern kingdom of Judah, was called by God out of his comfortable and familiar lifestyle, and sent to prophecy at Bethel, at the heart of Israel, at the center of the kingdom’s worship. It was because Amos was there as a homeless outsider that he was better able to empathize and speak on behalf of the poor and oppressed.

Or what of John the Baptist? Surely he, the son of a priest, could have lived a comfortable life of service in the temple. And yet God called him to proclaim such a radical word of repentance and forgiveness that he took to the wilderness, foraging and wandering - and baptizing and proclaiming God’s kingdom.

Last week, we heard about Jesus, sending the disciples out to the villages to preach good news. He sent them with no cash, no trail mix, no backpacks, no rain gear. He sent them out vulnerable, that that they might be more inclined to reach out to the vulnerable with the hope of Christ's kingdom.

Later, Jesus will tell the disciples that following him requires laying down their lives and picking up the cross. Jesus tells a rich young ruler that he needs to sell everything and give it to the poor. He will tell those who want to be his disciples that they need to be willing to give up home and family and life itself for the sake of the gospel.

And why? Because power gets in the way of empathy. Security gets in the way of the urgency of the gospel message. Wealth gets in the way of mercy and justice. And Jesus tells us that if we can’t muster up the courage to use our power for the sake of the powerless, then we would do better to rid ourselves of our power altogether, rather than exploit our privilege for our own gain.

Jesus knows a little something about setting aside power, doesn’t he? Paul's letter to the Philippians tells us that Jesus, being equal with God, chose not to exploit that divine power. He instead chose to empty himself of power, become human, and die a scandalous death. He chose vulnerability that he might empathize with the human condition, and preach a word of grace and hope into the center of this creation's brokenness and fear.

In the same way, during his last hours of life, Christ took off his outer garments, laid aside his identity as Lord and Rabbi and friend, and took on the powerless identity of a slave, washing his disciples’ feet in an act of love and service.

Christ chose to set aside his power in order that he might choose us in grace. As we are saved by that grace, then we, too, are called to choose empathy over power. Jesus' challenge to us is that we use whatever power we have on behalf of the powerless, even if it weakens us in the eyes of the world; and that if we cannot do that, then we need to choose to give up our power all together.

Jesus calls us to choose love for neighbor. To choose justice and mercy. To choose the courage to break bad promises and change bad laws. This is what Herod couldn't find the strength to do. But just as the disciples were sent out powerless and yet returned to Jesus rejoicing over all God empowered them to do, so also do we have the confidence that God will humble the powerful for the sake of the gospel, and that God will lift up the powerless to do great things in his name.

This week, 30,000 high school students from across the country and the wider world will congregate in Detroit for the 2015 ELCA National Youth Gathering. As individuals, you might think that these youth have very little power. Three-quarters of them aren’t old enough to vote. Half of them aren’t old enough to drive. Many have jobs, but few are self-supporting.

And here is what’s going to happen.

These 30,000 students are going to stay in hotels and take over the convention center and eat meals and buy souvenirs. This seemingly powerless hoard will have the power to offer an incredible boost to Detroit’s struggling economy.

These 30,000 students are going to do projects around the city. They will clean up parks and create public art, volunteer at schools and community centers and charities and social service agencies. This seemingly powerless hoard will have the power to create immense positive change in a city that has neither the money nor the manpower to do all these projects on its own.

These 30,000 students will take whatever faith they have - strong or feeble, sure or doubting - and worship together. Sing together. Listen to speakers who have done incredible things in the name of Christ. This seemingly powerless hoard will have the power of the Holy Spirit buzzing through them like a divine electric charge, inspiring faith and motivating lives of service.

These 30,000 youth have made a choice. They have chosen to put aside their everyday identities in order to come together, vulnerable and excited, that they might know God more deeply, serve their neighbors more intently, and sow the seeds of justice in the city of Detroit.

Pray for them this week. Pray for our youth as they travel. Pray that God might continue to challenge them and us to choose empathy over power, to give up our self-centeredness, to walk the way of the cross.

May God use our weakness as a vehicle for grace. May God use our powers and privileges as a vehicle for mercy. May God give us empathetic hearts and holy hands. May we seek nothing else but lives of love and service. And may we be deeply satisfied by the richness of our calling.

"Des pieds et des mains" by Benoit Courti, on Flickr

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

-Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Luke 1:26-38,46-55
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

Three beautiful thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer about the ways that God loves us and comes to us in Advent and Christmas:

Just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives...

God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly… God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken...

Jesus stands at the door knocking (Rev. 3:20). In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.

-from God Is In the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

"Jesus heals a man born blind" by Peter, on Flickr

John 9:1-41
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.
---

Today’s gospel is one of my favorites. I have a soft spot for Bible stories that make me chuckle. Here we have a man, healed of blindness, and nobody believes him. They pass him back and forth amongst themselves, and they even go visit his parents to double check if he was really blind, and the Pharisees and crowds make him tell his story over and over again, and in a moment of exasperation, the man asks, “Why do you want to hear this again? Do you want to be disciples too?”

It is a story of sight, but it is really a story of people seeing past each other, and people whose sights are set on the wrong questions.

For as many times as I’ve read this passage in my lifetime, I noticed something new in the text as I prepared to preach it. For the first time, I noticed just how preoccupied everybody seems to be with seeing sin.

From the very beginning of the passage, the disciples set the tone when they ask Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” See, in Jesus’ time, there was the belief that sin came with real, physical consequences. Physical ailments and deformities were believed to be God’s punishment for something that you or someone before you did. So to be born blind must have meant that God was pretty unhappy with you.

And then the Pharisees are in rare form in today’s gospel. They reject the healed man’s testimony, writing him off as a sinner. They also call Jesus a sinner for healing on the sabbath. The question of whether Jesus is a sinner is really a question of whether he is doing God’s will or not. The Pharisees believe that they are doing God’s will, upholding the law and being piously religious in all areas of their lives. The Pharisees know that Jesus is not like them, and in fact routinely criticizes them. So in their eyes, only one of two things can be true. Either a)They are doing God’s will, which means Jesus is not, which means that he is a sinner for healing on the Sabbath, or b)Jesus is doing God’s will, which means that they are not. So they are quick to write off Jesus as a sinner, because they are afraid.

And then, finally, the crowds. They, too, are used to seeing this man for his limitations and shortcomings. When his eyes are opened, the crowds don’t recognize him anymore. People in the village ask each other, “Doesn’t he remind you of the blind man who used to sit here and beg?” When they can no longer see him for his limits, they don’t see him at all.

I mean, my goodness! Instead of rejoicing with a man who had been handed back his life, everyone around him reacts with fear, suspicion, and judgement. They are so preoccupied with seeing sin and limitation that they are blind to the beautiful, amazing, limitless work of God in Christ.

And then I turn on my radio and listen to news stories about political scandals, and I think about our media obsession with negative celebrity gossip. I think about how society’s knee-jerk reaction is to blame people for their troubles. I think about our own tendency to jump to the worst conclusions about each other, especially in the midst of situations that challenge us, scare us, or disagree with things that we hold dear. I think about the ease with which each of us can pick out our own faults, failings and shortcomings, how we don’t know how to receive compliments well because we are by nature self-conscious of the ways that we don’t live up to our own expectations.

We aren’t that different than the crowds and disciples and Pharisees, are we? We, too, are in the sin-seeing business. It is far easier for us to see limits than it is to see and rejoice over the good work that God in Christ is accomplishing in our world.

There are two people in today’s gospel, however, who see clearly, who see possibility rather than limit.

The first is Jesus. Jesus looks at the blind man standing before him and doesn’t focus on his limitations, his sinfulness, or his worthiness. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees in him a man who can be healed. Jesus looks at the man born blind and sees a medium through which the glory of God can be revealed.

Jesus looks at us the same way. He says at the end of today’s reading that his judgment is not for those who know their own sins and limitations, but for those who don’t see their brokenness. Friends, how many of us know too well the places in our lives where we don’t measure up, where we are broken and in need of forgiveness!

And so Jesus looks at us with eyes of compassion. He doesn’t define us by who we are not, by what we can’t do, by what we’re ashamed of, by what limits us. Jesus sees in us, just like in the man he healed, the immense possibility that the glory of God might be revealed in and through us.

And the second person who sees rightly in today’s gospel is the man who once was blind, who now can see. Healed by the man who saw in him the image of God, the once-blind man sees Jesus for who he really is: the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior. And having seen Jesus, he wants others to see Jesus, too. He shares his testimony, and he sees the Pharisees and villages with eyes of patience and compassion. Even as they continue to pester him and challenge him, he yet responds with words of praise for the God who has been revealed in the regaining of his sight.

Knowing that Jesus sees us and loves us for who we are and for who we may yet become, Jesus empowers us to look out at our world with his eyes of forgiveness and love.

You might now the adage, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

This isn’t what Jesus calls us to do. We are not called to see others for their sin and then love them anyway. Jesus simply calls us to see his possibility where the world seems limitation. We are not called to judge, but to show mercy. We are called to rejoice with the triumphs of our brothers and sisters instead of worrying about whether they are deserving. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are empowered by our own encounter with Christ to look for ways that God’s glory shines in one another and in our world.

It has been nearly two weeks since the death of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a small congregation infamous for holding anti-gay protests at military funerals, celebrity funerals, and other public, media-heavy events. While some, even (or especially) in Christian circles saw his passing as a relief, a “good riddance” to a man full of spite and hatred, others chose to see him with different eyes.

Many Christians, of all stripes, prayed for his peace and comfort in his last days of life, and prayed for his family and his congregation.

Even more striking was an episode that took place two days after his death.

Westboro Baptist set up a protest outside of a concert in Kansas City, Missouri. They stood on one side of the road with signs telling people that God hates them, that they are sinners, that they are doomed to God’s wrath.

Across the street, a surprising counter-protest emerged. Concert-goers had organized themselves to counter negative messages with positive ones. They held up signs and banners expressing messages of love and compassion, including a big banner that said, "Sorry for your loss.”

Where it would have been so easy to see sin in those who carried on a legacy of seeing and judging the perceived sins of others, this small group across the street chose to see their Westboro brothers and sisters with the eyes of compassion, grace, and love.

My prayer for you and for me today is that we might see our world through the eyes of Christ. That we might look at ourselves with grace and that we might look upon our neighbors with mercy. That we might look for God’s possibility instead of human limitation. That we might seek out loveliness in our world and in one another.

Madeleine L’Engle wrote a poem about the man who received sight, the song that she imagined was on his hear and lips. It praises God for all of the beauty and possibility that he sees around him:

Song of Blind Bartimaeus After His Healing
All praise to thee, my God, this night
for all I see, both night and day.
All praise for loveliness of things!

During the shadows of un-sight
you kept the raging fears at by.
All praise to thee, my God, this night

for all the blessings of the light,
for sand and sun and eagles’ wings,
all praise for loveliness of things!

Praise for sandals, garments white,
for children’s faces, eyes alight,
all praise to thee, my God, this night.

All praise for butterflies in flight,
for work-worn hands, for golden hay,
the purple shadows evening brings,

for brass and copper polished bright,
for lifting light that shows the way,
all praise to thee, my God, this night,
all praise for loveliness of things!
(from The Ordering of Love)

May God empower you, this day and always, to see the loveliness of things, of all that he has made, and may your eyes be blessed by the sight. Amen.

Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the LORD says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
"O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the LORD."
"With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Matthew 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
---

We have a familiar gospel reading today: the Beatitudes. This list of who is blessed and what they receive from God’s hand. The Beatitudes are one of those Bible passages that has made its way into popular culture.

In elementary school, I was in a musical all about the Beatitudes and how they were guidelines for how to live a good life.

In the Monty Python irreverent comedy, Life of Brian, people listening to a version of the Beatitudes from the far edge of the crowd mishear what is going on, prompting one woman to ask her husband, “Did he say blessed are the cheese makers?”

And in the musical Little Shop of Horrors, there’s a song entitled “The Meek Shall Inherit,” whose chorus goes, "They say the meek shall inherit. You know the book doesn't lie. It's not a question of merit. It's not demand and supply. They say the meek gonna get it. "And you're a meek little guy." You know the meek are gonna get what's comin' to 'em, by and by."

The problem with popular Bible passages like the Beatitudes is that sometimes their message gets diluted or twisted when taken out of context. And so while we think we know what the Beatitudes are all about, I want to start by clearing up two common misunderstandings.

1. These are not a prescription for happy living. It is true that the word we translate as "blessing" also means "happy." Jesus isn’t saying that poverty, hunger, suffering, or weakness are a path to happiness. Sometimes the Beatitudes get sold to us as a promise that if we take on these qualities, they will guarantee our happiness. But the truth is that peacemaking, showing mercy, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness are things that are pretty likely to make our lives more difficult, even if these things are worth doing.

2. These are not conditions for receiving God's love. Sometimes we’ve been told that if we are meek and if we are pure hearted and if we pursue peace and justice, then - and only then - will we have God’s favor. But the Beatitudes aren’t a list of how to make God like us better. They aren’t a set of guidelines for how to earn God’s favor.

The Beatitudes, instead, are Jesus’ way of laying out his mission, and his way of talking about the peculiar nature of God’s kingdom. Where the world praises strength, God seeks out weakness.

The rest of the world might say, “Blessed are the rich, the happy, the assertive, the fulfilled, the strong, the determined, and the powerful.”

But Jesus says that in God’s kingdom, blessing comes to the poor, the grieving, the meek, the seekers, the merciful, the innocent, the peacemakers, and the oppressed. To those who the world sees as weak or unimportant, God gives gifts of comfort, fulfillment, mercy, intimacy with God himself.

Similarly, Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, tells us that to those whose present condition is weakness, foolishness, lowliness, rejection, and emptiness, God has promised life, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; God chooses those who cannot boast of themselves in order that they reveal Christ by boasting only in the Lord.

This is good news for us when we are facing seasons of weakness in our life; when we can’t quite make some of our ends meet.

But it is challenging news for us when we realize that we are in a season of strength, when we have plenty, when our spirits are full, when life is going well and it doesn’t seem like we need a lot of divine assistance or intervention.

In my office, I have a poster print of a short prayer that says, “To those who have hunger, give bread; And to those who have bread, give the hunger for justice.”

This is my reminder that there are two sides to God’s kingdom. There are those who hunger - who need to receive the hope of the kingdom. And there are those who have bread - who are called to seek justice and to bring the kingdom to those who need it.

God, speaking through the prophet Micah, reminds the people of his saving acts; he has proven himself to be a God concerned with his people, who has consistently moved his people from the difficulties of their present condition into his future, who has, in so many words, given bread to the hungry. And so what is the proper response to God's ongoing gifts of salvation? Lavish acts of worship? No. The proper response to God's gift of salvation, Micah tells us, is fervent acts of justice, mercy, and humility.

Environmentalist and author Paul Hawken says, ”When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

This is the twofold beauty of God’s kingdom. Weakness and power are both bound together and redeemed in Christ on the cross, who turned weakness to power, and brought to nothing the powers of sin and death.

By the cross, we have the assurance that God's favor doesn't depend on our success or failure or life status. God's concern lies with transforming our present condition, whether that be a condition of hunger or plenty, of weakness or strength. The cross gives us the hope and assurance that our present condition in Christ trumps our present condition in the world; that our future condition is bound up in redemption and not despair.

This message is a great equalizer. The easy-to-stomach good news is that our weakness and shortcomings have no bearing on how much God loves and cares for us. The harder-to-swallow good news is that our successes and strengths have no bearing on how much God loves us and cares for us.

The good news of the kingdom of God is this: for those whose present condition is unfortunate, the kingdom of God comes to them; for those whose present condition is fortunate, the kingdom of God is theirs to bring about.

"What I love about the ministry of Jesus is that he identified the poor as blessed and the rich as needy...and then he went and ministered to them both. This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice. Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality that we desperately need one another." - Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood

So if you are in a season of weakness, take heart. The kingdom of God belongs to you. You are blessed and beloved in God’s sight.

And if you are in a season of strength, take heart. The kingdom of God is yours to bring about. You are blessed to be a blessing.

I close with some further words of blessing - a fourfold Franciscan benediction that both blesses us and challenges us to be blessings in our world:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen.

"Sprout is now growing up" by BONGURI, on Flickr

Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

"Wildflowers" by rao.anirudh, on Flickr

Wildpeace
by Yehuda Amichai

Not the peace of a cease-fire,
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill,
that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds—
who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)

Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.

Yehuda Amichai, “Wildpeace” from Selected Poetry. Copyright © 1996 by Yehuda Amichai. University of California Press.

"Peace" by CaliforniaNat, on Flickr

Isaiah 2:1–5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk
in the light of 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, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 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; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 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, 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, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 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, 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. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Luke 6:20-31
Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said:"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 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.

"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 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. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 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. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

---
It happened during worship on a Sunday morning in October, just one year ago. Our gospel reading that morning was of Jesus blessing the children, so we had framed our whole worship service around this idea of blessing. During the children's sermon, we talked about places that we bless people, very much like we did in today's children's sermon. We preached blessing from the pulpit, gathered around the font for our prayers of intercession so as to bless one another, and then, during communion, offered stations for healing and blessing and anointing, very much like we do here each month.

Adele took communion and then came to my kneeler. Ninety-six year old Adele. I knew that she hadn't been feeling well recently, and that she had been to the emergency room too many times over the last weeks. But when I asked her what I might pray for, she simply smiled at me and asked that I might bless her.

And so I did. I prayed for God's blessing, and I prayed for healing, and I prayed for peace. I prayed for comfort and strength, and I thanked God for the beauty shining through her. And then, I dipped my finger into the oil, traced the sign of the cross on her forehead, and said to her, "Adele, you are a beloved child of God, and you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

Words of blessing pulled straight from her baptism, words of blessing that reminded her of her place among all of us who are God's beloved children, all of us who walk this earth as saints.

In the moment, I thought that I was praying for her healing.

I did not know then that I was actually blessing and anointing her and commending her to her maker.

See, Adele passed away that very night.

I think about the things she asked for during that last day - asking me to bless her, asking her family to take her on an afternoon drive through her favorite park to see the fall colors on the trees, and then, later that evening, when she felt her body failing, asking her family not to call for an ambulance, but rather to let her remain in her house to die in peace.

It shakes me, even now, to think that somehow, in blessing her, I was unknowingly preparing her heart and soul for a peaceful passing.

And it is still a beautiful mystery to me that, on that last morning of her life, when she could have asked for prayers for anything, Adele simply asked to be blessed.

* * *

Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, revile you, defame you on account of the Son of Man; rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven."

We each want to be blessed, I think. We each want to know that our lives are beautiful and holy. We look to all the saints who have gone before us, and want to know, deep in our hearts, that our lives have as much meaning and memory as theirs do.

This is why I love Luke's version of the Beatitudes - these statements of blessing that Jesus makes. Because Jesus here doesn't say, "Blessed are they," as if blessing were reserved for other people. Jesus says, "Blessed are you," stretching out his hand over each and every one of us.

The words "blessed are you" remind us that we celebrate All Saints Day today, not merely "Beloved departed Saints Day." For it is not just those who have died who are blessed saints, but each and every one of us who know God's promises.

Those words "blessed are you" send us right back to our baptisms, where we are told: "Blessed are you, for you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

The words "blessed are you" remind us that it is God in Christ who does the act of blessing, and not we ourselves; that Jesus points to each of us and says "you are my blessed child," and when we look at the Beatitudes, it is clear that blessing is not dependent on success or failure, or having our act together, or on the amount of faithfulness we have or the amount of doubt that plagues us.

Blessed are you, Jesus says, who have any sort of need. Blessed are you who feel poor and lacking. Blessed are you who feel outcast and imperfect. Blessed are you who are failing in health or in heart. Blessed are you - right here and right now. Blessed are you who are still vulnerable, Jesus says, but woe to you who walk the earth thinking you have it all together or think that wealth and success and victory are the same as being blessed.

Which are things that we mix up all the time. We talk about our successes as blessings and our failures as curses. We watch our sports heroes attribute their team's victory to God's blessing. We credit God for blessing us when times are good and fruitful.

But the truth is that being blessed by God is way way bigger than that. It's not that we are blessed when good stuff happens and cursed when bad stuff happens. And blessing isn't reserved for the deserving or powerful or virtuous or holy, as if those who face dire situations or natural disasters or extreme poverty or abuse are somehow less deserving of blessing.

No, Jesus speaks blessing precisely to each of us in our most vulnerable states. When we are most aware of our mortality and our fragile existence, we are most receptive to hearing God's promises. I don't know if Adele knew that it was her last day on earth or not, but I know that she was in touch with her own frailty on that Sunday morning, especially ready to hear words of blessing.

She and all the saints who have gone before us knew both joy and struggle; we lift them up in our hearts not because they were giants, but because they were human. They are our everlasting symbols of a God who loves all human beings, rough edges and all, and declares us "saints" by the good grace of his mercy alone. They have set for us an example of blessedness, of living into the inheritance promised to us by God, which we read about in Ephesians.

We, with all the saints, have inherited the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We have inherited redemption in Christ. We have inherited the hope to which God has called us, the greatness of God's power for we who believe, a power revealed to us in Christ being raised from the dead.

We carry much blessing with us, brothers and sisters. To us and to all the saints, much has been given. The earth and all creation, given to us for our care and careful use. Our hopes and joys and inspirations. Our weaknesses and sorrows that tune our hearts for compassion toward others. Our passions and talents and vocations. Gifts of companionship and beauty. Riches, material and immaterial. Our whole lives.

This, really, is what blessing and sainthood are all about: recognizing our blessedness and channeling it into blessing for others.

What we aspire to as blessed saints of God is faithfulness in all - in recognizing at every moment in every day that all we have is from God, and living accordingly. Stewarding every gift we have received, from our very breath to our material blessings; openness to generosity in all, willingness to empty our hands, knowing that God will fill them up again with bread and wine, that is, our inheritance, that is, the very feast of all the saints.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, called to be saints, I pray that you may forever know that God has blessed you beyond measure. I pray that you, like Adele, might know God's hope and peace to the very end of your days, and that your hearts might be satisfied by the assurance of your own belovedness.

* * *

Blessed are you, saints of God, who have been anointed and sealed at baptism, for you have been beatified by water and by spirit.

Blessed are you, saints of God, no matter how weak or vulnerable you feel, for you have the strength and power of Christ in you.

Blessed are you, saints of God, who wait earnestly for God's promises, for in Christ is your fulfillment, hope, and salvation.

Blessed are you, saints of God, who walk with faith upon this earth, for you have turned your hearts to hope and not to despair.

Blessed are you, saints of God, who serve others and strive for peace, for you have been blessed to be a blessing.

"Generosity on the sidewalks." by Pure Charity, on Flickr

Amos 8:4-7
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, "When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat."
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Luke 16:1-13
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. 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.' 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. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 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.' 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. 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.

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. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 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."

---
Our nation's lawmakers are currently stuck in another series of heated budget debates. With an October 1 deadline looming over their heads, Congress struggles with how to make ends meet, and where to place the burden of budget cuts. Already on the chopping block are cuts to the food stamps program and threatened cuts to healthcare.

It is easy to get cynical about the state of our government and the workings of our economy when these sorts of decisions hang in the balance. Our faith calls us to pursue God’s justice and to build up a kingdom of God where special care is given to the poor, the hungry, the outcast, and the powerless, that peace and justice might always prevail. But our economic and government systems call us to seek efficiency, prosperity, and measured justice.

Which means that when Jesus, in today’s gospel, encourages us to be faithful with our wealth, whether in little or in much, we struggle to understand what that might mean for us in our world.

Today’s gospel reading doesn’t, on the surface, seem to give us a satisfactory answer to the question.

Jesus tells the story of a man who has been hired to manage his master’s wealth. This manager is dishonest and corrupt, and squanders away the wealth that he has been charged to care for. Knowing that he’s about to get fired, he decides to continue his shady dealings, that he might make a few friends on the way out who might take care of him one he’s kicked to the curb. So he goes behind his master’s back and reduces the debts of the master’s clients, once again costing his master money. But instead of getting angry, the master folds his arms, gives a chuckle, and commends the manager rather than reprimanding him.

Friends, if you are looking to this parable for an example of how to be faithful stewards of the gifts God has given us...well...I don’t think this story gives us much to go off of, at least on the surface.

I mean, it certainly describes the sort of economic climate that we find ourselves in. A gap between rich and poor that isn’t close to closing, people falling prey to cheating and corruption and shady dealings in order to get ahead, or to make ends meet, shrewd business dealings valued more highly than charity or generosity...

This is the exact sort of economic situation that the prophet Amos was addressing in our first reading today. The rich were getting richer at the expense of the poor, and God sent Amos to speak truth to power, chastising the wealthy for abusing their power, criticizing the businessmen who wanted to rush through the sabbath day and through religious festivals so that they could get back to selling stuff and, even worse, cheating the poorest of their customers.

It’s so easy for us to feel like our hands our tied when we stare down issues of economic justice. Because no matter what our best intentions, we realize very quickly that there is sin and corruption built into the very systems that pay us our wages and give us the means both to live and to give generously.

Julie Clawson is a writer who is especially concerned with issues of faith and justice. A few years back, she went on a mission. A mission to see whether she could buy fundamental, everyday items fair trade. It’s easy enough and popular to buy fair trade coffee and fair trade chocolate, and fair trade gifts. But, she wondered, what would happen if she wanted to buy something as basic as, well, fair trade underwear. It proved difficult and eye-opening. The companies who paid a just wage to their workers had purchased cotton from manufacturers who didn’t pay their field workers justly. The companies who ensured that their materials were produced in an ecologically sensitive way outsourced the assembly of their products to low-wage factories across the world. Julie was shocked to see that, despite her good intentions, it was nearly impossible to make even a fundamental, boring purchase that was just from start to finish.

So if the fingerprints of injustice and dishonesty are all over our money, all over our wealth, all over our commerce, what on earth does it mean for us to follow Jesus’ instruction to be faithful in little and in much? When we feel powerless to change unjust systems, and when our human propensity toward greed or self-interest get mixed up with our desire to do good, what do we do?

This is where today's parable helps us out. A lot.

Yes, there’s a lot of shady stuff happening. The manager takes advantage of his master, squanders his wealth, gets himself fired for doing so, and immediately worries about how to save his own skin. But despite some pretty dishonest motivations, this manager unwittingly does two very, very good things.

First, he reduces the debts of his master’s clients. This means that he eases the financial burden of those who can’t pay their bills. Despite his self-serving motivation, the manager lifts a great weight off of those who are themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Second, he reduces these debts in his master's name. This means that the manager ends up representing his master as gracious and kind, generous and compassionate. Despite his self-serving motivation, the manager reflects the best qualities of the one whom he represents.

These are two lessons that we can all run with.

We are called to do our best to lift burdens off of the shoulders of those who are weighed down. And we are called to do our best to reflect the grace, generosity, and compassion of God our master.

Because, okay. As long as we're still waiting for the full redemption of all things, we are all a jumbled-up mess of sinner and saint. Our good intentions and shady shrewdness get mixed up all the time. But maybe what Jesus is trying to tell us in this parable is that there is yet always good to be done. There are always yet opportunities to be good stewards of everything God has given us, even if some of our screwed-up motives and priorities try to get in the way.

I mean, if we wait for our economic systems to clean up, if we wait for our government to get its act together, if we wait until our financial and spiritual wealth are all purely attained before we turn our focus to those in need, then we'll never get off the ground. If we wait for welfare systems and affordable health insurance systems to run perfectly and efficiently before we are willing to be generous to those in the gaps, we'll never get around to it. If we wait until people are responsible or deserving before we help them, then we’ll never actually offer any assistance.

I was talking to two leaders of our food pantry earlier this week, and they told me that there is this one regular visitor who always, always, rips them off. They know that he’s taking advantage of them. And so they could manage the pantry differently, and impose more checks and balances on clients, and do more rigorous registrations, which would mean taking more time and turning more people away. But they choose to keep things open and free, even if they take small losses along the way, so that more people can be helped more quickly.

There is the urgency in today's gospel reading. Whether in little or much, whether purely attained or ill-gotten, Jesus calls each of us to be faithful with what we have been given. We do not have to be perfect to be faithful.

We simply need to do those two things: Ease the burden of those who are oppressed. Reflect the generosity and compassion of God our master.

This is the heart not only of charity but of stewardship. For everything we have, at the very root, comes from God the creator. Every gift that we share gives glory back to God, and reminds us of the gifts of forgiveness, grace, and life that God in Christ gives to us with each new day.

May God empower us to be generous, to lift up the oppressed, and to live each day ready to share the gifts of his bounty with all creation.

"for the love of money" by bob the builder of luv, on Flickr

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. 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.' 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. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 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.' 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. 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.

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. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 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." (Luke 16:1-13)

"Sheep-man in blue skirt" by Bergius, on Flickr

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."So he told them this parable:

Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
(Luke 15:1-10)

Sunday's gospel began with a discussion of where to sit when you attend a fancy dinner:

"When [Jesus] noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 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; 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. 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. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 14:7-11)

This idea of where you choose to sit reminded me of a funny diagram I encountered not too long ago, all about how to pick the best seat at the table depending on its shape and size (click the picture for a bigger view):

Alex Cornell's "Choosing the Right Seat"

To read the full blog post behind the picture, check out Alex Cornell's "Musical Chairs (Choosing the Right Seat)" [apologies for a few instances of colorful language].

I first encountered this post as a humorous recommendation to introverts, to figure out how to partake in communal meals when you don't have a personality much inclined to make conversation or small talk easily. But really, the post is all about how to choose a powerful place at the table. It's about how to guarantee that you don't get stuck talking to somebody boring, or get left out of the important and interesting conversations. I chuckled at the last scenario, with the two tables, when he makes the observation that no matter what you do, the other table will always crystallize into "the superior group," because I've thought that at a few points in my own life. That no matter what I do, the other table ends up being the cool table, or at least the dynamic table.

And so it's not just the Pharisees that Jesus is talking to in this gospel reading. He's talking to us. He's talking to the parts of our brains that scan the room when we walk in, that make calculated decisions about who we want to be seen with and who we want to avoid. And he's telling us that maybe, instead of worrying about how people see us, we should be seeing - and seeking out! - those who aren't usually seen. Sitting at the table which is slower to fill up. Chatting up the people longing to be pulled in.

Because when we all gather at the table on Sundays to share in the Lord's Supper, there are no set-apart places of honor, no jostling for position, no better or worse dinner company. We are all equals, all beloved, all honored and deserving of honor. Because we are part of the communion of all the saints, and we are made one in the body of Christ, and every seat at the table is blessed.

"Feasting" by aneye4apicture, on Flickr

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. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 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; 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. 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. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

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. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14:1, 7-14)

"Listen, I am Shabby" by Camilla Engman, on Flickr

Hosea 11:1-4
"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them."

Colossians 3:1-3
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Luke 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus], "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

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A friend of mine in high school, feeling all wise after taking a semester of psychology, told his mom that she wasn't crazy if she talked out loud to the dog...she was only crazy if she expected a response! (There’s high school hubris for you...)

I wonder, then, what this friend would have said about talking, out loud, to yourself. Do the same rules apply? Is it better to talk in your own head or to talk out loud to yourself? And does it make a difference if you expect a response? I mean...just how much of a conversation can you have with yourself before you ought to go find somebody else to talk to instead?

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable of a rich guy who amongst other problems, has a bad habit of talking to himself.

Did you notice that when this rich man was faced with a conundrum of abundance, his first recourse was to start talking to himself? First, he talks to himself about barns. And then - then! - he starts talking to himself about a future conversation that he plans to have with himself once these barns are completed. He says, “I will (later) say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”

While there are plenty of lessons to be learned from today’s parable about wealth and greed and generosity, maybe one of the more important ones for us is a lesson about the danger of staying stuck in your own head.

It turns out that we humans can convince ourselves all sorts of crazy and misguided things when we only talk to ourselves. From the very start of creation, God intended us to be in relationship with other human beings and with God himself. Because it wasn’t good for us to be alone. We need companionship and we really really need God and others to help us see reality. And so things get a little messed up when we ignore those relationships and listen only to the voices in our heads instead.

Because without a reality check from the outside, the voices in our heads can turn dark. At our worst, they can convince us that we are something other than we actually are: beautiful, beloved children of God. It’s the voices in our heads that tell us that we’re weak or undeserving, or too fat or too thin, or unforgivable or unloveable. The voices in our heads are really good at convincing us that it’s okay to take that one more drink, or that it’s okay to treat someone who has hurt us with resentment instead of forgiveness.

And the more we listen to the voices in our heads more than we listen to God and others, we start to believe two big, crazy lies that the rich man in today’s parable came to believe.

First, we start to believe that we don’t actually need anybody else. We start to think that we are totally self-sufficient, and that we can control our own destinies, and that our happiness depends on nothing else but our own efforts. This rich guy had plenty of wealth, plenty of crops, plenty of security for his future. And so his grand plan is to settle down, eat, drink, be merry, and believe that he, of his own accord, had secured a blissful future for himself.

And when we believe that we can do it on our own, we do the same thing. We keep buying stuff that we don’t need, because it makes us happy for a while, and then we buy more stuff when that first round of happiness wears off. We constantly chase wealth and success, and we store up extra toothpaste and canned vegetables and clothes that don’t fit, not because we are so worried about scarcity, but because the more stuff we collect around us, the more we can keep up the illusion that we don’t need anybody or anything outside of our own selves.

If we keep listening to those voices in our heads, unchecked, we start to believe a second big, crazy lie. We start to believe that nobody else needs us. The rich guy had way way way more than he needed to keep himself alive and well. But he never got around to thinking or caring that somebody else out there might need him to share his abundance.

We’re really good at convincing ourselves that nobody needs us. In our worst moments, we convince ourselves of this in despair. When we aren’t feeling so confident or appreciated or valued, we can talk ourselves into a really dark “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms” sort of place.

But those voices in our head can also try to convince us that nobody needs us as a defense mechanism against the brokenness around us that is simply too much for us to handle. If we let ourselves believe that nobody needs us, then we don’t need to turn on the news at night and hear about war and scandal. If we believe that nobody needs us, then we can postpone that visit to the neighbor who might just unload all of her loneliness and pain on us. If we are convinced that nobody needs us, then we don’t need to bring food or money to the pantry and risk running into the face of poverty in our midst.

To sum up: Believing the voices that tell us we don’t need anybody puts us in the position of having lots of stuff, with nothing left to need. Believing the voices that tell us nobody needs us puts us in the position of having lots of stuff, with nothing to give.

And these two lies are at the heart of the rich man’s problem. Because thinking of ourselves as an island is a really quick path to greed.

This is where God steps in with a couple of harsh reminders. He nudges us into recognizing our foolishness, and reminds us that we are mortal, and that wealth is fleeing, and that there are plenty of people who have need for our extra stuff and our love and our forgiveness.

God steps in with the voice of Hosea to remind us that we are bound to him and to one another with cords of human kindness and bands of love, and that even if we listen to voices that try to separate us from God and others, God has this compassionate and relentless heart that won’t ever let us go.

God steps in with the voice of Jesus to tell us that our lives do not consist in the abundance of possessions. He shatters the illusion that abundant life is something that we can make for ourselves, or something that we can find within us. He gives us Jesus, the living bread from heaven, who says “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” who says, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” Jesus reminds us that abundant life comes from God, the source, the giver, the merciful, and not from inside our own heads.

God steps in with the voice of Paul to remind us that we have been liberated from ourselves through Christ, and that our old worries and lies and misgivings were trampled by the cross, and that we aren’t captive to the voices in our heads anymore. Paul tells us that we have been raised up, and that our true lives and futures have been revealed in Christ, and that we are children of light and glory and generosity. And so we are no longer bound by voices of greed or anger or abuse or dishonesty.

The good news, friends, is that God has a really big voice. And so no matter how often we fall prey to the conversations we have inside our own heads, God’s voice is always bigger. And he is bent on getting our attention, whether by priests or prophets or judges or disciples or apostles or the words of Jesus, or the loud sound of hammer to cross, or the sound of a rock sliding away from an empty tomb, or the rush of the Spirit across our ears.

And the voice of God is always a voice of freedom. It tells you that you are free to love others and let them love you. It tells you that you are free to give yourself away because God will always come back to you with an abundance of love, mercy, and compassion. The voice of God tells you that you are loved and beloved, that you are not alone, that you are very much needed and valued, and that you have good to offer this broken world.

So come to this table today, and hear the voice of Christ that says, “This is my body and my blood, given for you.” Hear these words and feast on the bread of life. There is plenty for all. At this table, we eat, and we drink, and we can be joyful, because we know that our lives belong to God, and not to ourselves. There is no need to worry. There is no need to fear. Life is here, waiting for you. It is abundant. It is free. It is enduring. It is the sweet taste of grace. It is the sweet voice of love.