Paying Attention to Life's Treasures

I first began to attend an Episcopal church in my hometown shortly after I graduating from college.  Recognizing my immense potential, in quick order they offered me a position as a youth minister for the princely sum of $500 a month.  I was assigned to report to Jim, the third priest on the staff who was… let’s just say… an interesting – read quirky – fellow.  His multiple idiosyncrasies never failed to amaze and entertain. 

On day I found him in his office reading the financial pages of the local newspaper.  A broker friend had encouraged him to invest in the stock market and recommended CVS pharmacies as a can’t miss opportunity.  Every day thereafter I was treated to an update on how it’s stock was preforming: up ¼ today, down a ½ tomorrow.  Jim’s daily mood trended in synchronized harmony with the fortunes of his investment.

We went to lunch once or twice a week.  “Where would you like to eat?” I asked him one day.  His answer was sharp and clear, “Wendy’s”, which was curious because we had never eaten at a Wendy’s before.  As I was placing my order he enthusiastically encouraged me to upsize my selection: “You should get a frosty to go with that!”  And then a minute later he chastised me for taking too many packets of ketchup and salt.  You have probably figured it out by now – Jim had bought stock in Wendy’s.  He actually believed our eating there was going to inflate his investment.  Conversely, he feared a copious helping of condiments would negatively impact his portfolio.  Now, some of Jim’s passion and pestering was in jest, but not all.  Once he put some money in the market he developed a passionate interest in its performance.

That was the first time I understood something Jesus knew and taught: Where your money is, there your heart will be also.  It is a fact of life.  It is human nature.  If you are old enough to remember the movie Caddyshack perhaps you recall the scene where Chevy Chase’s love interest discovers dozens of his uncashed six-figure checks laying around his cluttered home and he feigns no interest in them whatsoever.  Well, that movie is a work of fiction.  We care about money and all tangible manifestations of wealth.  There is a spiritual connection between it and us.  This is neither a positive or negative reality.  It is just reality.  What you do with it, how you harness it, and how you are driven by it is what matters.  When people ask me how much they should give to the church, I think back to Jim and lunch at Wendy’s and I respond, “Give until it gets your attention.”  How much treasure do you need to invest in something before you care about it?

I want to thank each of you who brought donations for the Food Pantry in the month of July.  The drive was a tremendous success.  I learned something by participating in it.  I was excited the first week as I walked up and down the aisles of the grocery store scouting for something I felt good about offering.  It had to be a food item I would want to eat.  And I had to think through how I was going to get it to church – would I be able to carry it down the street on Sunday morning, or was it so bulky I would I need to bring it my car?  And all of this got me to thinking about church on Saturday.  It worked in a small way to prepare me for Sunday services. 

This got me thinking about so many of you who put time and effort into some facet of our experience here this morning.  The choir comes prepared to offer a musical selection.  Our Coffee Hour hostesses come armed with food, decorations, and hospitality.  When you donate the flowers you come expecting to add to the beauty of our worship space while sensing a close connection to those you love but see no longer.  Teachers come with lessons.  Ushers come expecting to greet, to welcome, and to be helpful.  The Altar Guild comes trusting the polished brass conveys something of God’s glory.  Our Junior Warden comes in the spring excited to see the colors created by the bulbs he planted last fall.  All of these offerings and more require some mixture of time, talent, and treasure – the basic ingredients of Christian stewardship – and they serve to remind us how our hearts are directed toward the places where we invest them.

I was disappointed in myself on the second Sunday of the month because I forgot to pick up something for the Food Pantry, an oversight I corrected later in the day and did not repeat it in the weeks to follow.  I found myself excited not only to offer the food on Sunday, but also to see it distributed on Monday evening.  I anticipated our clients being excited to select an item I provided, much as I suspect choir members look for to singing a piece of music they know will be meaningful to us who listen.  Creating joy for even one person is deeply rewarding.

This, in turn, helped me to understand more fully what Jesus means when he says, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  It has nothing to do with ‘earning’ your way to a greater reward and everything to do with the fact some things in this life matter greatly, but cannot be tracked like a stock’s performance.  If money influences the direction of our hearts then we have a tremendous opportunity to channel ourselves toward non-monetary treasures.  If money is all that matters to you then you can use it to lead your heart right back to more material wealth.  Or you can use your money (and your time and your talent) to draw your attention toward other things for which you hold a passionate, Christian devotion. 

You won’t receive a penny for ringing in our handbell choir, but moving people to a deeper sense of worship is its own reward.  At most you will get a thank you for taking an elderly lady to the store and helping her carry the groceries inside to her kitchen.  Read a story to a child and your reward will be a look of wonder and a question or two born of newfound curiosity.  Plant some flowers and you will be responsible for bringing an element of beauty into this world.  Share a cup of coffee with someone you do not know well and you just might find the presence of Christ in an entirely new way.  Block off even five minutes in your schedule for quiet reflection and you might detect the holy in the midst of the hectic.  Prepare a meal and deliver it to someone who is overwhelmed by life and your compensation will be the knowledge you helped to ease a burden and served as a conduit for God’s grace.  Bake some chocolate chip cookies for the rector and you will hear me say, “You have made my day!”

Perhaps this week you can be more attentive to all the things that hold value but are not measurable on a monetary scale; those things that are heavenly treasures and gifts from God making this life rich and meaningful, both for others and for you.  Perhaps you can spend some time pondering how you might store up more experiences like these, blessing others while at the same time making your life feel a little more heavenly.

Information, Wisdom, and Waiting

I remember the first time I was a part of a conversation when, as a group, we did not know the answer to a question and one person pulled out a smart phone and through a web search discovered the answer.  I thought I had witnessed a combination of magic and witchcraft.  Today such occurrences are commonplace.  Classroom students do not take notes as much as surf the web to learn more about a particular point of interest in a professor’s lecture.  Preachers are advised to remember sermons are being fact-checked in real time.  And yes, everyone searches on-line for information and answers.

As a part of my copious sermon research I googled a completely random question: Who invented the Ping-Pong ball?  Here is what I learned in a matter of seconds:

· Table Tennis was invented in the 1860s by a group of aristocrats seeking after dinner entertainment on a rainy English night.  Books set on end divided a table in half and cigar box lids served as paddles to bat a champagne bottle cork back and forth.

· The name “Ping-Pong” was coined by an English firm in the late 1890s and later trademarked by Parker Brothers.  Before this the game was informally known by several different names, including “whiff-whaff”. 

· While on a trip to the United States in 1901, the Englishman James Goode purchased a celluloid ball he thought would be ideal for the game.  Up until then golf balls, rubber balls, and balls of tightly wound string were being used.

I learned all of this and more in matter of seconds.  On an unrelated note, my computer screen is now littered with pop-up ads for ping-pong tables! 

We have come to expect instant access to information.  The answer to any question, no matter how trivial, literally is at our fingertips.  There is a reason we call this time the Information Age.  But information, while important, is not the same thing as knowledge and it most certainly is not wisdom.  Knowledge takes time.  It involves knowing information and context and how each relates to the other.  Wisdom is something altogether different.  In part, it recognizes the limitations of both information and knowledge and finds a way to be at peace with not having all the answers, especially answers to life’s deepest questions.  Wisdom involves living with ambiguity, nuance, and shades of subtlety.  I define wisdom as “learning how to live gracefully and humbly without having all the answers.”

Today’s readings from the Old Testament and Gospel are grounded squarely in wisdom, as I define it.  The writer of Ecclesiastes (a word that means preacher or teacher or literally the assembler, as in the one who assembles wisdom) says he has given his life first to pleasure, then to productivity, and finally to despair.  After it all he concludes everything he pursued is nothing but vanity – literally vapor dissipating into the air.  Jesus, in refusing to settle a financial dispute between two brothers, tells a parable of a man who sets out to build barns big enough to accommodate all the grain he is able to grow.  Jesus calls the man a “fool” (one of the harshest words in the bible) because unbeknownst to him he will die that very night.

Both lessons do a great job of calling into question some basic assumptions we make about life.  Neither lesson resolves the conflict it creates by supplying us with an answer.  We are left hanging.  If we approach what the assembler and Jesus says here as if we are googling for information what we get back is a blank screen.  Today’s readings don’t supply answers.  All they do is raise questions.

I suspect many preachers today are standing in the pulpits of many churches wrestling with these same readings because so many of us use the same common lectionary.  And I guarantee every one of us is facing the same temptation to manufacture an answer to the questions raised in these passages.  Somehow there has got to be a way to wrap all of this up in a neat, tidy, tenable package.  Isn’t this what preachers are supposed to do?  After all, don’t we point to the bible and say all of life’s answers are in here?  Well, here is my answer:  sometimes it is important to live for a while with the questions. 

The most famous passage from Ecclesiastes says,

There is a time is for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

  a time to be silent and a time to speak.

What we read this morning falls under the category of a time to uproot, a time to tear down, and a time to be silent. 

We are so used to having answers come quickly, perhaps dating back to math drills in early elementary school (“1+1=2” and “2+2=4”).  The faster the answers come to us the greater our reward.  Never are we taught some questions do not have answers or for some questions the answers come only after a long period of silence and unknowing.

I have told you before about the counseling relationship I entered after my marriage ended in 2002.  Most sessions left me with a question to ponder. I resolved some on the way home while others took a day or two to think through.  I will never forget the question my counselor posed at the end the very first session.  He listened patiently to my litany of woes – everything from the end of my marriage to the frustration I felt when my girls wouldn’t keep their rooms clean.  On and on and on I went until he said, “Why do you think it is that things don’t work out the way they are supposed to?” 

I lived with this deceptively simple question for the better part of two years, unable to come up with an answer.  And then one day it came me: Why don’t things work out the way they are supposed to?  Because they don’t!  I don’t get to control everything.  And this realization has changed my life.  Maybe the counselor knew the answer on day one.  Maybe his answer was not what my answer turned out to be.  Had he told me the answer on that first day I would not have been able to receive it.

What I needed was not information about how life works or knowledge about how to operate better in my harsh new reality.  What I needed was wisdom.  I learned wisdom is not as much an intellectual pursuit as it is an emotional one.  What the head may know the heart may not be ready to embrace.  Sometimes, what the head says to accept the heart will reject.  Sometimes the only thing that will bring the head and the heart together is time…

…and courage.  It takes a tremendous amount of courage not to run for the cover of certainty and easy answers.  I think about the many times I have sat with a person who was in the midst of a difficult experience, facing challenges raising deep questions about life and meaning and God and faith.  More often than not, all I could say in response was this: “You are asking all the right questions and I admire how you are doing it.  It takes a lot of courage to hold your loss, your pain, your fear, and your anger and wait.” 

And yet, in life there are times when this is exactly what we must do.  The assembler of wisdom knew it and Jesus knew it.  Through their teaching today they tear down and leave little or nothing in its place.  Life is like that sometimes.  And knowing that the Holy Scripture contains sections of pointed questioning where no answers are supplied tells us when we are in a place like this we are in a place that must be named as faith, not doubt.  It is faith when we ground these moments in a trust God will not lose hold of us.  It is faith when we hope one day to understand or to accept or to be strong again.  It is faith when we do not run away from uncertainty.  Doubt manifests itself when we accept as safe harbor cheap answers and false certainty.  The truly wise turn away from such things and wait.  The wise wait with a peace passing all understanding. 

Brain McLaren, in his book A Generous Orthodoxy, observes there are four stages of faith development:

· Simplicity – a time early on in life when we are comfortable seeing everything as black and white.

· Complexity – a time when we realize everything is not as neat and tidy as it appears.

· Perplexity – a time of deep questioning when we know not how to make sense of it all.

· Humility – a time when we let go of it all and find our rest in God. 

Today’s readings are grounded squarely in perplexity.  The degree to which you open up yourself to life’s big questions and the degree to which they are thrust upon you, is the degree to which you are on the cusp of making the most important pilgrimage of the spiritual life: letting go of what you absolutely know to be true and letting go of what you absolutely cannot figure out in order to let God be God… a God who loves you beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond beliefs, but not beyond knowing.  Such an experience births wisdom beyond what I can describe, but I can assure you it is real and it will come to you… in time.

Being Shaped by the Lord's Prayer

Congratulations!  You all have been enrolled in my Bible 101 class.  Relax, you do not need to take notes and there will be no test.  The best case scenario… you will be able to answer a question or two on Jeopardy. 

Each of the four Gospels originally existed as independent works and copies of each circulated throughout the early church.  The Gospel of Mark was written first.  Scholars have long recognized Matthew and Luke get much of their material from Mark, although they often employ it with subtle changes.  There are instances when Matthew has material Luke does not and vice versa.  Such accounts are said to be original to the author.  There are also times when Matthew and Luke share material not found in Mark, leading scholars to hypothesis the existence of a now-lost gospel dubbed Q, the first letter in a German word meaning ‘source’.  John’s Gospel was the last to be written and is wholly unlike the others.  While the evangelist most certainly is aware of the other three works (or four) he does not draw on them in the way Matthew and Luke draw from Mark and Q.

The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in Matthew and Luke, but is not found in Mark or John.  This leads scholars to conclude it was originally included in the Q work.  Matthew places the Lord’s Prayer in a bundling of Jesus’ teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount, found in chapters 5, 6, and 7.  One section of this sermon compiles some of Jesus’ teachings on piety and prayer.  In it he instructs his followers to keep charitable acts private – “When you give do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”  He advises not to make a public display when you fast.  And he counsels his followers to pray privately, unlike the religious leaders of the day who make long prayers in front of others to impress them.  It is in this context in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus teaches his followers how to pray, using the words we now refer to as the Lord’s Prayer.

Luke’s presentation differs slightly from this.  He does not include it as a part of his version of the Sermon on the Mount, which is much briefer than Matthew’s.  And rather than include it as part of a more expanded teaching on prayer, Luke has it as a response to a specific question:

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

This introduction raises more questions than it answers. 

First, where was this certain place Jesus was praying?  The previous chapter places Jesus at the home of Mary and Martha and while it is possible he is still there, the text appears to suggest he is somewhere else.  It also does not record the subject or the content of Jesus’ prayer.  And while Luke mentions John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray, he does not tell us anything about its content.  Finally, Luke chooses not to identify the disciple who makes the request, “Jesus, teach us to pray…”  Perhaps the disciple is one of those minor figures in the Gospel who never seems to merit a mention.  It is equally possible this disciple is a woman because, as a whole, the Gospels tend to downplay their involvement in Jesus’ ministry whenever possible.  Regardless, we are deeply indebted to this person because without his or her request it is possible we would not have the words for what is arguably the most significant, meaningful prayer in human existence. 

Let’s shift gears from Bible 101 to Liturgy 101.  We Episcopalians are big on liturgy and there is a very good reason for it.  It is called lex orandi, lex credendi, a Latin phrase which roughly translated means “praying shapes believing.”  If, as we do in our worship, you pray the same words over and over again, week after week, eventually it has an impact on who you are and what you believe.  The words sink in.  You become them and they become you.

In our home when I was growing up we said a grace before dinner every night.  The act of saying grace said something important about life – before we eat we need to thank God – and the prayer itself formed in us a core theology:

God is great, God is good,

Let us thank him for our food.  Amen.

Lex orandi, lex credendi suggests the habit of offering this prayer helped to lay the foundation of what I believe about God and life.  So let’s take a few moments to consider how our faith is shaped by the daily act of saying the Lord’s Prayer.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

The first thing to notice is the prayer begins with several words we no longer use in daily conversation – art, hallowed, and thy.  This, in an and of itself, is bad liturgy because ever since the introduction of the first prayer book, the service has always be written in the language of the people.  Yes, there is a contemporary form of the Lord’s Prayer in the prayer book, but lex orandi, lex credendi – we have be shaped by a version dating back to the Elizabethan era and no modern adaption has yet to supplant it.

The beginning of the prayer shapes our belief in several ways.  Referring to God as Father tells us God is personable – someone we can know and someone who knows us.  And while some struggle with translating to God their own experience of a less-than-desirable human father, most of us associate God as Father with qualities such as compassion, care, wisdom, and strength.  Abba is the Greek word in the text translated as Father and it indicates an extremely close and loving relationship.  It could well be translated as ‘Daddy’ or ‘Papa’, and while we don’t normally use such intimate language to address God, due to the influence of the Lord’s Prayer, this I suspect is how most people experience God’s nature.  Countering this cozy familiarity is the petition “hallowed be thy name”.  It reminds us there is something great and sacred about God – something completely beyond us.  “Art in heaven”.  This suggests God lives or dwells in a place different from us.  Heaven is not earth.  It is something other and something different. 

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This place where God dwells operates differently than how things go here on earth.  There is a different way of behaving there.  Kingdom is another one of those words from the past that does not correspond to anything we experience today.  I don’t think speaking about God’s government quite gets at it.  Maybe it is best to think of kingdom as being God’s society.  As such, the way things operate in heaven’s society serves as a template for how things should operate in ours.  God’s society is oriented toward living out God’s will.  The prayer states ours can be oriented this way too.  Pray it enough and you will come to believe it.  You will be dissatisfied with anything on earth not reflective of what it is like in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

While our society is built on a foundation of self-sufficiency, the Lord’s Prayer states we are in a position of dependency.  We depend on God for sun and rain and recognize all of creation is a gift not of our making.  But even more, in this day and age we depend on one another in ways we seldom recognize.  I went a grocery store two days after Hurricane Irene made landfall in Virginia and was stunned to find mostly empty shelves due to the disruption in our distribution and delivery networks.  It reminded me, as the prayer book says, “our common life depends on each other’s toil.”  Very few of us could make it on our own.  The Lord’s Prayer reminds us we are dependent on God and dependent on one another.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This prayer affirms we do things that hurt one another, that offend God, that damage God’s creation, and that mare the image of God within each of us.  Henri Nouwen said, “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly.  The hard truth is all people love poorly.”  Learning to love and learning to forgive are intricately related.  Learning to be loved and learning to be forgiven go hand-in-hand.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

This final petition has been in the news of late because Pope Francis has approved a new version that says, “Do not let us fall into temptation”.  He argues God does not direct us toward detrimental enticement.  No matter what you think about this change, the thrust of the petition Jesus teaches focuses on God’s guidance in our lives.  We rely God to lead us to those places that are good for us and away from those that harm. 

The more you say the Lord’s Prayer the more you will come to believe it.  And the more you believe it the more you will be shaped by it.  You will recognize God’s closeness while acknowledging God’s sacred holiness.  You will determine not just to wait for the life to come, but work to make it present here and now.  You will affirm our need for God’s goodness and for each person’s contribution to the common good.  You may struggle to forgive, but you will always recognize it as the goal.  You will put your life in God’s hands and trust in the Holy One to guide you to green pastures and still waters.  Lex orendi, lex credendi – this is how the Lord’s Prayer shapes us.

The 11th Commandment

I did something out of character when I turned 55.  I threw a birthday party for myself.  Some of you even attended and a few of you, sensing I was in way over my head, pitched in and helped.  John Rector grilled burgers and I remember Wanda Rector and Cindy Cowan at the kitchen sink cleaning dishes.  Much of the rest of the 3-hour gala was and remains a blur.  It went by so fast and it felt like all I did all evening was say hello to a guest and then move on to another and then another and then another and then it was over. 

After the dust settled and after I recovered from the trauma of it all – which took several days and not a little bit of therapy – I asked different people if they had similar experiences when they hosted a party.  Did they feel run ragged greeting people and making sure everything was going smoothly?  To a person the answer was yes.  And how about you?  How many of you find hosting a party to be a lot of work?  I find the author Richelle Goodrich’s insight to be spot on: “Announcing [you intend to throw a party] is kind of like issuing a hurricane warning!”  I turn 60 in just a few months, but don’t worry about saving the date!  I don’t sense another party is in the offing.

Today’s lessons invite us to ponder the Christian virtue of hospitality – in these readings, at least, ones arising more spontaneously than my planned effort at 55.  Paul writes to the church in Colossae, a small, close-knit group of family and friends who welcomed the Apostle into their homes during his missionary journeys.  The Gospel reading finds Jesus a guest in the Bethany home of Mary and Martha, which is an easy day’s walk from Jerusalem.  Along with their brother Lazarus, the sisters appear to be some of Jesus’ closest friends and most ardent supporters, although the biblical record tells us very little about how they met and bonded.  Still, several times when Jesus is at the Holy City he visits and/or stays with them.  In our first reading, set centuries before this, Abraham is establishing a new home in Mamre, thirty-some miles west of the Dead Sea, when three mysterious figures appear in front of his tent.  Abraham and his wife Sarah go to great lengths to welcome the trio and extend every kindness to them.

Hospitality is one of the most important virtues and values in the bible.  It is so vital that if there was an 11^th Commandment it most likely would address treatment of a stranger.  Here is just a small survey of teachings from our sacred texts:

 

• Among the initial commands given to Moses is this: “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 22:21).  It harkens back to what I said in last Sunday’s sermon about the ability to empathize being at the core of all morality and ethics.

• The Old Testament book of Leviticus develops this theme with specific examples: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (19:34).  “You shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.  You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God” (19:10).  This commandment takes me back to the sermon when I told you about the people who were arrested in Arizona for leaving food and water in the desert for migrants.  As their defense they cited the right to free expression of their religious beliefs.

• The prophet Isaiah speaks for God: “Is not [the fast I desire] to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house?”  (58:7)

• Among the things Job lists to defend his righteousness is this:  “HospitaliThe alien has not lodged outside, for I have opened my doors to the traveler.”  (31:32)

• Jesus teaches we are to invite the poor, the hungry, and the needy into our homes – those who do not have the ability to repay us – because in so doing we will find ourselves blessed and in addition will be recipients of the same in heaven (Luke 14:14).  For Jesus, the more down and the more out a person is, the more you are to extend every welcome.

• The author of the Letter of Hebrews, building on a tradition established in today’s lesson from the Old Testament, writes, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  (13:2)

• The story of Abraham’s visitors does not end with today’s reading.  They leave his home and go to the village of Sodom where they meet Abraham’s nephew Lot.  Like his uncle, Lot extends the hospitality of his home to them.  But the men of the village gather at night outside the door and demand the visitors be given to them so that they can have “relations” with them.  This evil kindles God’s wrath and the town is destroyed.  The story has been cited as evidence the bible condemns all forms of same-gender relationships.  But Scripture itself interprets the violent, aggressive actions of the Sodomites differently.  The prophet Ezekiel writes this: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”  (16:49).  In short, the sin of Sodom was the absence of hospitality

These few verses constitute the briefest of surveys of the bible’s teaching related to hospitality.  And while I do not recommend inviting complete strangers to stay in your home, each of us is called to ponder what it means to be open to the person who is “other”.  What does it mean for our church to be open and hospitable?  For our neighborhoods?  Our community?  Our nation?  What does it mean to have a heart open and hospitable toward the stranger and the alien?  It goes without saying, these are not just theoretical questions.  They are at the very heart and soul of the most current and pressing events in our national life. 

When the Episcopal Church is at its best, one of the hallmarks of our ethos is we do not tell our membership how to vote or which stance is the “Christian” one in political debates.  At our best, we lift up the biblical witness and encourage each person to come to an informed and faithful position.  It is up to you to determine how biblical mandates are to be interpreted in our day and it is up to you to determine how much weight you will give to them. 

I didn’t choose today’s readings any more than I chose the tweets making headlines this week.  Still, one speaks to the other.  I’ll let you decide how and determine what you will do with it.  I’ll close with a bit of good news: as you ponder the biblical witness of hospitality you will find nothing in it to suggest you are required to come to my house and wash the dishes!

Empathy, Ethics & "Inheriting" Eternal Life

St. Jerome, writing in the 4^th Century, referred to the twenty-mile passage from Jericho in the Jordon Valley to Jerusalem as the Red Way or the Bloody Road; such was its notorious and dangerous reputation.  Beginning well below sea level and rising to the heights of the Holy City, a traveler climbed almost a mile in elevation during a day-long journey.  When Tom Coxe and I were there last September our bus strained at times with the grade even though we were on well-paved roads. 

There isn’t a single path from Jericho to Jerusalem, but many.  We walked a portion of a downhill trail following a ridgeline.  It was an easy decent, but we did not go as far as the end where there is an impossibly steep descent into the Jordon Valley.  The land itself is little more than a series of unimaginably barren, deep, deep ravines.  There is no way to image the dry, rocky landscape until you see it.

The path we walked most likely is not the route Jesus would have taken.  He, like most people of his day, walked up and down the Wadi Qelt, a dry streambed winding its way through the bottom of a ravine.  We could see for miles and miles in all directions from our vantage point at the top of the ridge, but down in the wadi, with its twists and turns, a traveler would have no idea what waited beyond the next boulder or bend. 

At the beginning of our walk our group was ambushed by a small band of locals hawking various wears.  In Jesus’ day the Bloody Road earned its name because of the countless number of ambush points it afforded for those who meant harm.  Those who sought to sell us a kufiya headdress or leather belt were a far cry from the bandits who preyed on people passing by on their way to or from Jericho.

In today’s Gospel reading a person approaches Jesus with a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  The text indicates his motive in asking is not entirely spiritual.  He wants to “test” Jesus.  Jesus, in turn, asks the person what he reads about this in the law.  “You must love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and you must love your neighbor as yourself.”  “Correct,” says Jesus.  “Do this and you will live.”

The questioner could have followed up by asking Jesus to elaborate on what it means to love God completely, but instead chooses to inquire about the other stipulation: “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus responds by telling what is perhaps his best-known parable.  Even if you do not know the story or the source, the phrase “Good Samaritan” still stands in our day for a person who reaches out to help another in need.

Jesus sets his story in the Wadi Qelt.  Those listening know instantly this is a place of potential danger.  The robbers who fall upon the traveler may be the bay guys in the story, but they are not the villains.  Like the wadi, they are there to set the stage for the action that follows. 

The parable has four main characters – the victim, the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan.  Although it is a small detail, it is important to note each is going “down”, meaning each person has left Jerusalem and is headed to Jericho.  They were moving from the sacred and holy to the secular and ordinary.  Today we might tell this part of the story by saying, “A certain person was on his way home from church when he was attacked and others who were on their way home from church passed him by.”

Far from being uniformed, morally bankrupt, or under-resourced, as a demographic priests and Levites are solid, educated, middle-class professionals who either work in the church or attend it on a regular basis.  They are upstanding people and solid citizens.  In a very real sense, they are not much different from you and me.   

They may have had legitimate reasons for passing by the victim.  Perhaps they had important business to attend and could not afford to be delayed.  Some note interacting with the injured person ran the risk of making them ritually unclean, thus rendering them unable to fulfill religious obligations until undertaking an elaborate process to address their defilement.  It is possible they are afraid of being attacked themselves and scurry pass to avoid trouble. 

A perceived threat has a powerful way of shaping a person’s ethical perspective and response to a situation.  It activates in us an ancient response for self-preservation at the expense of all else.  It diminishes our ability to recognize humanity and nullifies our ability to be compassionate. As fear saturates our spiritual being we become more and more self-concerned.  And as this happens we want our religious environment and teachings to validate our actions. 

Religion, at its worst, is a tool in the hands of those motivated mostly by self-interest.  How can I justify the things I do?  Where can I find happiness and peace?  What must I do to inherit eternal life?  From Jesus’ parable we learn he believes deeply devout people can and do use their religion to shield and shelter them from what matters most.  The tale-tell sign of such a person is his or her indifference to the suffering of other people.  When this kind of indifference becomes widespread it works is way into our political debates and even becomes a part of our social fabric. 

I sense in me a numbness to human suffering because I am incapacitated by its magnitude.  The priest and the Levite invite our scorn because they sidestep a person in need.  Our modern world makes us aware of so much more than the human suffering at our side.  We see need in our neighborhood.  We hear about it in our region.  We know about it throughout our nation.  We are aware of it around the globe in a way the people of Jesus’ day never were.  It is easy to understand why we want to build around us a wall of reasons and rationales to keep us from being overrun by the suffering of the world.

When Jesus tells a parable he invites us to see the world through the eyes of each character in it.  In the priest and in the Levite we recognize who and what we are not to be, and yet in them we see much of ourselves.  There are times when we engage the world as the Samaritan and through selflessness and self-giving become a conduit of amazing grace. 

How do we act and react more like the latter than the former?

Jesus invites us to see the world from the perspective of the victim.  He invites us to ask a simple question: If I was in his position how would I want to be treated?  Some may say by traveling alone he was asking for trouble and he got exactly what he deserved.  This may or may not be accurate, but as he lied there injured and bleeding I doubt he was hoping someone would come along to tell him why he was to blame for all his miseries.  Plain and simple, if any one of us was the victim in this story we would want someone – anyone! – to stop and help us. 

The ability to empathize – to put oneself in the position of another in order to see the world from his or her perspective – is at the heart and core of all morality and ethics.  And, according to what Jesus teaches in today’s lesson, it represents one half of what is required to “inherit” eternal life.  We fulfill the law as our thinking and actions shift from how a person’s situation impacts us and our life to imaging what the other person needs, wondering how we might be a part of the answer, and then acting upon it.

God's Advance Team

Shortly after graduating from college Josh King was on a tour of the White House when he asked the guide to tell him a little bit more about his job.  “Well,” the guide said, “I travel everywhere the first lady travels and make sure everything is perfect.”  It turns out the person giving the tour was the Director of Advance for the President’s wife and in that moment King knew what he wanted to do with his life.  Since then he has worked on the advance team of numerous politicians, doing something like roadies do at concerts and set directors do for movies.  He makes sure everything at a politician’s appearance is just right to entertain, impress, and inform while coming off without a hitch.   

Well, that at least is the goal.  While it wasn’t his call, King was on the advance team for Michael Dukakis when the presidential candidate took a ride in an Abrams tank wearing a helmet way too large for his head.  Designed to make Dukakis look capable of leading the military, it came off looking goofy and did more to sink Dukakis’ campaign than any other single event or factor. 

Most often the work of an advance team does not go as badly.  On July 4, 1993 I found myself on a connecting flight making a brief landing to pick up passengers in Moline, IL prior to heading on to Chicago.  It was late afternoon and I was puzzled because the fences around the runway were jammed with cars and people.  The airport – no bigger than a bus terminal – teemed with activity.  All the hubbub was more than puzzling until the pilot announced Air Force One was scheduled to land at the field in twenty minutes.  Then-President Clinton, on his way to an Asian summit, did a fly-over to inspect Mississippi River flooding and was scheduled to land and meet briefly with people affected.

It was a classic piece of advance work undertaken on short notice.  The team contacted local media outlets, rounded up flood victims and farmers for the president to meet, converted an airport hanger into a cozy Middle America setting complete with hay bales and tractors as a backdrop, and made sure everything related to the optics, the lighting, and the sound came off without a hitch, which it did.  By the grace of God, my flight picked up our three passengers and received permission to get out of Moline just after the massive 747 press plane landed and only minutes before Air Force One touched down and I was able to watch the story on 11:00 o’clock news from my home.

I noted last Sunday our Gospel readings from Luke have entered a portion of the text known as the “Travel Narrative”, covering the time from when Jesus determines to head toward Jerusalem for the Passover to the day he enters the Holy City riding on a donkey.  Although this unfolds over just a matter of several weeks, Luke devotes fully one third of his writing to the events that happen during this time.

The reason this period becomes so fertile and significant can be traced in part to a decision Jesus makes at the outset.  He commissions seventy of his followers to go out in teams of two to visit all the villages and hamlets he will pass through on his way to Jerusalem.  His advance teams (if you will) have important work to do.  Much of it is related to reconnaissance.  They are to figure out who in a village will welcome Jesus and who will not.  Jesus instructs them to move on if no one in a particular place is receptive.  Time is too short for him to waste even a precious second on those who are not interested. 

The advance teams work to create excitement for Jesus’ visit in places they are welcomed.  This surely accounts for the numerous times so many people turn out as Jesus is passing through a particular village.  The advance notification afforded locals plenty of time to prepare.  Those in need of healing have time to ponder if they will present themselves to Jesus.  Those who have sinned must contemplate whether or not they will approach Jesus – thereby risking condemnation and humiliation either from Jesus or (more likely) from the local population.  Religious authorities must mull over their particular response based on if they perceive Jesus to be a holy person or a threat to their power.  Because of the work of the advance teams a lot has been simmering by the time Jesus enters a particular village.  One way or another, his visit will be memorable. 

There is one more thing to note about these advance teams.  While they are not Jesus, they carry with them something of his authority.  They pray with people and bring about healing.  They confront the works of evil and bind things causing torment in people’s lives.  They don’t just prepare for the work of Jesus, they participate in it. 

Considering the mission of these seventy followers helps us to understand certain aspects of our role as Jesus’ disciples.  Perhaps nothing is more important than remembering the distinction between our calling and God’s work.  Just as the sower in Jesus’ parable is responsible for the lone act of scattering seeds while God is the one who is responsible for the soil, the rain, the sunshine, and all the conditions required for growth, we too are called to set the stage for God’s work in a person’s life, but we are not called to do the work only God can do. 

Perhaps you know someone who is lonely or hurting or afraid or discouraged.  Most of us think “if only there was something I could do,” but ultimately it is only God who can make things right and whole in a person’s life.  Still, you can invite a person to attend church with you.  You can bring someone to a parish event.  You can encourage a grandchild to sign up for a session at camp.  In short, you can do a lot of advance work. 

You can welcome people who come here on a Sunday morning.  You can commit to do something necessary for us to have a good and Godly worship service by singing in the choir, serving as an usher, reading a lesson, preparing the altar, teaching a class, or any of a host of other things.  One of our best “advance team” ministries involves collecting children during the final hymn so they can gather in the tower entrance to ring the bell after the service.  It allows our children to do their own advance work by announcing to downtown Suffolk St. Paul’s is alive and well and gathering in God’s Name, while letting the Baptist, Methodist, and Christian churches nearby know our service is over well before theirs!  

As God’s advance team, we are charged with making St. Paul’s a comfortable place to gather in God’s presence.  It is our responsibility to present quality worship on a consistent basis so that every person who comes here knows the One they have heard about and desire to meet is present in this place at this moment.

As we do the advance work of preparing the way for God to act we find (just as the initial disciples did) we participate in the work God is doing.  That we are helpful and effective is often mysterious to us, and yet time and again those who prepare the way for God to work are thanked for making a difference in a person’s life.  Has anyone ever said to you, “I don’t know how I could have ________ without you”?  If so, then be assured you are a part of God’s advance team.

We who are called by God to this work and ministry view it as our dream job.  To be of service to God by brining and welcoming others into God’s presence… well, could anything in life be better than this?

 

Sauntering to Jerusalem

Well, it finally feels like summer has settled in here in Suffolk.  Hot weather, combined with school being out, gets one to thinking about… a vacation!  And vacationing means hitting the road, which makes today’s Gospel reading perfectly timed.  It launches us into a new section of Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry.  Biblical scholars refer to chapters 9-19 as the “Travel Narrative” of the book.  Fully one third of what Luke writes about Jesus covers the time from when he sets out for Jerusalem to the day of Palm Sunday when he enters the holy city riding a donkey.

Luke describes the beginning of this journey in a telling way: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  The days drew near refers to Luke’s sense that Jesus had to go to Jerusalem because it was his destiny, his mission, his time.  Perhaps to be taken up refers in part to the elevation change of going to Jerusalem, which is located on one of the highest points in Israel.  It certainly refers to being lifted up on a cross to be crucified.  It may also refer to his eventual Ascension into glory at the right hand of the Father, an event Luke describes in the Book of Acts (the second part his writing project).

The most telling part of the verse is Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.  It harkens back to a passage from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: 

I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;

I did not hide my face

from mocking and spitting.

Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,

I will not be disgraced.

Therefore I have set my face like flint,

and I know I will not be put to shame.       (50:6-7)

Luke gives us an image of Jesus setting out toward Jerusalem with a kind of grim determination – a resolve which will not yield to any distraction.  Like a father driving the family car who refuses to stop for a bathroom break, at the outset Jesus approaches his journey more like a march than a pilgrimage.  He allows no time to say goodbye to family, no time to attend to burial arrangements, and no time to call down wrath on those who are rude to him.  To one person who wants to join him Jesus warns there will be no comfy provisions and no cushy accommodations (think again of the parent who warns, “We are not going to stop for anything until we get to where we are going!”).  One scholar notes to set your face life flint “implies that you’re expecting some opposition” and it means you “regard these difficulties as worthwhile when you consider what they will lead you to.” 

The American mountaineer Jon Krakauer writes this about scaling the world’s highest peak:

Let’s not mince words: Everest doesn’t attract a whole lot of well-balanced folks.  The self-selection process tends to weed out the cautious and the sensible in favor of those who are single-minded and incredibly driven.

Without a maniacal focus reaching the summit would not be possible.  Some journeys simply require a person to forsake all else in order to reach the desired goal.

All of this got me to thinking about so many people on our parish prayer list who are mounting an assault on one type of challenging crisis or another.  What they face makes climbing a mountain seem as easy as strolling down a shaded country lane.  Like Jesus setting out for Jerusalem, the path these folk are on is not one they choose.  It is put on them and if they are going to get to a place of health again they will have to set their faces like flint for the journey. 

Given how Jesus begins his travels anything transpiring along the way is both unexpected and notable.  During the time he has set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem, many things in fact do happen.  Jesus…

…trains others how to minister as he does.

…instructs those who ask questions about such things as moral responsibility, wealth, relationships, humility, forgiveness, care for the poor, perseverance, self-righteousness, and eternal life.

…gathers in the homes of friends.

…teaches his followers how to pray.

…heals people suffering from chronic, debilitating, and often stigmatizing illnesses.

…is joined by scores of new followers who accompany him on the way.

…and responds to challenges posed by religious authorities.

In short, Jesus learns how to transform his march into a pilgrimage.  In a march, all that matters is to get to where you are going as soon as possible.  A pilgrimage, on the other hand, is a journey to a holy destination, but it is what happens along the way that changes you. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.  Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind – these are all a drive towards serving the God who rings our hearts like a bell.  It is as if God was waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives.

This is a discovery we find not only during our difficult trials.  It is a something we can experience every day if we approach all of life as if it is filled with holy possibilities. 

Perhaps the answer lies in learning how to saunter.  Now, in our day we think of sauntering as a leisurely, aimless stroll, but this is not accurate to its origins.  In the Middles Ages, when people on pilgrimage to Jerusalem passed through a village on the way and were asked where they were going, they answered “a la sainte terre”, “to the Holy Land.”  Thus they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers.

Jesus may have set out for Jerusalem with his face set.  He was determined, yes, but also grim and maniacal.  But along the way – as we will see in our readings throughout this season of Pentecost – he learned to saunter.  He opened himself to those around him as well as to every possibility and opportunity that presented itself.  Jesus learned to find holiness on the way to the Holy City. 

This is my prayer for you: that you learn to saunter even and especially when your face is set to that place you must go; even and especially when you have nowhere you have to go, or if you have nowhere at all to go.  May you always be open to the holy moment in which you live and move and have your being.