Contentment

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 21 – Year C

September 29, 2013

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

It’s the end of the month, when for many people and businesses budgets tend to get a little tight.  We begin to watch our buying habits much more closely.  At the beginning of the month we tend to be a little more loose; when we want to spend a little bit more at a restaurant, or spend the extra few dollars for a splurge we think a little less about it.  Yet, when it comes to the end of the month, suddenly a dollar here and there seems to add up a lot faster.  We end up watching our bank accounts carefully, hoping and praying that nothing unexpected pops up that we can’t afford.

A few weeks ago, we once again saw the Powerball lottery reach crazy amounts of money.  In some places, lines to purchase tickets went around the block.  It seemed many people had a good idea of what they would do if they were to win the 400 million dollar prize.  Even though the chances of winning were smaller than being hit by lightning more than once in your life, people still shelled out their dollars for their dream.

It’s interesting to note though, how many people who win the lottery end up penniless and miserable just a few years later.  They looked at winning the lottery as a blessing from God that was going to transform their lives, yet it ended up being far from a blessing.  They saw their families torn apart, their marriages shatter, their friends walk away.  There are former lottery winners who now depend on soup kitchens and homeless shelters to survive.  We have all heard the stories, we have all heard the warnings about how life is much harder if you win the lottery, yet we often joke about being willing to give it a try.

For some reason, when it comes to life and happiness, many people have this idea that money will somehow make life better.  The reality is that for many of the things we worry about, a little bit more money could very well reduce our worries.  If we worry about being able to afford our children’s college education – a little more money will definitely help.  When we worry about being able to afford to retire – a little more money will make things far more comfortable.  When we worry about paying our bills – a little more money would help.  When we worry about fixing our car – a little more money will lessen the sting of the repair bill.  In a lot of cases, a little more money will make us worry less – or at least we think it will make us worry less.  With a little bit more money, we think we can finally have ‘the good life.’

The good life.  Living the life.  Living the dream.  Phrases that bring all sorts of things to mind.  When you hear someone say that, “Joe is living the dream!”  what do you think of?  What makes it the stuff of fulfilled dreams?

In our text from Timothy, we hear a bit about money; specifically the love of money and how that love can lead to many problems.  I think we all know that love of money, love of anything to the exclusion of others can lead to problems.  Money by itself is neutral, it’s what you do with it.  I bet you think I’m going to talk about money for the rest of this don’t you?  I could, but there is another word that is part of this passage, a word that we might easily skip over because it’s right at the beginning.  The word is contentment.

We read that, “there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment”.  It sounds to me that godliness (something I‘m sure we are all striving for in our own way) is improved by being lived out together with contentment.  I think we’ve got a decent idea of what godliness is – I mean, we’ve got a great model to follow in Jesus.  So what is contentment?  Merriam-Webster defines it as being, “the state of being happy and satisfied.”[1]  That’s great.  Now if we could just figure out how to be happy and satisfied. 

I’ve done some reading and thinking over the last week about contentment, about things you can do to be happier and more satisfied with life.  Numerous books have been written on the subject, so obviously I can’t share more than a few points with you.   But, I think I’ve found five basic things that can be used as a guide when we seek contentment in our lives.

First: love people, use possessions.  This seems obvious, yet so often we have it reversed.  We love our possessions, and we use people.  We look at the things we have, we take pride in them.  But, then we spend time outside cleaning our car when the kids want to play at the park.  We spend that extra hour or two at work for the overtime instead of spending those hours with a friend we haven’t seen in weeks.  We’ll spend hours and hours researching our next big purchase, yet find ourselves looking at our watch after just a few minutes of visiting someone in the hospital or nursing home.  What it comes down to is that we all too often place a greater value on possessions, and things we do to get those possessions than on the relationships around us.  When we put the emphasis on the people, we find that they are the reward.  They are the things that are priceless and can never be replaced.  Love people, not possessions.

Second: Don’t compare yourself with others.  This is another thing that way too many of us do, I know I do it.  We look at another person, and think about how awesome they are, or the many things they can do or have that we can’t or don’t.  It’s important that we are each the best we can be – no matter what it might be.  Me, I was a music major who could barely play piano.  I beat myself up for my entire time in college, looking at my other classmates who could seemingly play at will.  No matter how many hours I spent in the practice room, I never got beyond the easiest of pieces.  It was only when I accepted the fact that I was never going to be playing Chopin Etudes, that I could only be as good as I was going to be – not as good as my classmates, that I found peace in my inability to master the piano.

Third: This goes along with what I just talked about: Appreciate what you have.  Okay, maybe you aren’t friends with the most popular person, but I bet you have some really awesome people as friends.  Maybe you aren’t driving the newest car, but you have something to drive.  Maybe you aren’t living in the house of your dreams, but you do have a place to call home.  We all tend to focus on the things we don’t have rather than the things we do have.  And that goes not only for possessions, but also for traits and abilities we have.  Don’t let the fact you’ll never win American Idol for your singing ability stop you from raising a joyful noise to God.

Fourth: Choose friends wisely.  When it comes to friends the saying of quality over quantity really rings true.  Surround yourself with people who are positive, people who inspire you, people who bring out the best in you, people that are positive additions to your life.  People whose lives are full of people that bring a smile to their face tend to be happier.  While, if we surround ourselves with negative people, with people that cause us to be unhappy, with people that don’t laugh or smile often; then we will feel unfulfilled, we will feel our life is missing something.

Fifth: Feed your spiritual life.  For many of us this might be among the hardest things to do.  Taking care of and nurturing your spiritual life is not just about coming to church, reading the bible and praying; although all those are important.  Feeding your spiritual life means taking the time to engage in the things and ways in which you feel most strongly connected with God and others.  Perhaps that’s going for a walk, maybe that’s visiting with friends, maybe that’s serving as a volunteer at a hospital, maybe that’s serving food in a shelter.  If you feel closer to God in those moments, it’s an aspect of your spiritual life.  However, it’s also important to spend time together in worship, it’s important to spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word, and it’s terribly important to spend time in conversation with God in prayer – and when we do pray, to spend more time listening than talking.

Mother Theresa was once asked about her prayer life.  The interviewer asked, “When you pray, what do you say to God?”  Mother Teresa replied, “I don’t talk, I simply listen.”  Believing he understood what she had just said, the interviewer next asked, “Ah, then what is it that God says to you when you pray?”  Mother Teresa replied, “He also doesn’t talk. He also simply listens.”

Listening to God is another central thing to contentment.  Not listening to the world, not listening to the hundreds and thousands of clamoring voices each trying to convince us of something.  Not listening to the voice within us that questions if we are good enough, if we have done enough.  Listen to God, turn your eyes toward our Lord and Savior.  Make that your focus and your guide.  If you work toward doing that, and it is work; it’s something that we need to practice doing each and every day.  It’s something that if we don’t think about it, we can easily be distracted from.  Yet, if we do so, we will find contentment, we will seek godliness, we will discover what it is our letter to Timothy is talking about when it says we will take hold of the life that really is life.  May God strengthen us as we seek to walk in those ways.   Amen.

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[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contentment

The Greatest

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 19 – Year C

September 15, 2013

1 Timothy 1:12-17           

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I think that all of us tend to be attracted to people with larger than life personalities.  We tend to watch, or at the very least be fascinated with people whose brightness seems to be brighter than other people.  There are people who just seem to somehow always come out smelling like a rose, no matter how bad the situation is.  Things just seem to not matter quite the same.  These are the same people who when they walk into a room, all eyes are drawn to them.  Sure, sometimes it’s because of their physical attributes – they may just be prettier or more handsome than others.  But, sometimes it’s something else:  The person who draws all attention to themselves effortlessly every time they speak.  The person who doesn’t even say a word, yet their very presence seems like a magnet and other people come to them.

Athletes and celebrities tend to be like that.  They walk into a room, and everything stops.  They open their mouths, and the world listens with bated breath for their words (even if it’s just to order a coffee.)  One of the things I’ve noticed is how often athletes especially speak and carry themselves with a greatness that is above others.  Without question it can be annoying, and can all too often lead to disappointments.  In just the last few years we watched as Lance Armstrong went from the greatest bicycle racer of all time to someone who used drugs and blood doping to achieve his success (denying he was doing it the entire time.)  He may be at the bottom of many people’s lists of those they admire, but there was a time when he was lifted up as a hero, as someone who had taken on cancer and beaten it.  He was a hero, he was the greatest.

Then there is the athlete who claimed the title as greatest, Mohammad Ali, and in the prime of his charismatic career, many agreed. The sports world is filled with showmen and great athletes, but perhaps never were they better combined than in the young man who began life as Cassius Clay and became a worldwide phenomenon as Muhammad Ali. The man who bragged about his ability to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" went from being a curious oddity in the early 1960s to a national villain (because of his refusal to accept induction into the armed forces on religious grounds, which cost him millions and his heavyweight title) and finally to an international hero. And now, his body limited by Parkinson's disease, he reigns as one of the most beloved men on the planet.[1]   I will probably remember my entire life how we was selected to light the flame during the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

No, we are without question drawn to larger-than-life individuals, and the church has its own in the Apostle Paul, and people have been drawn to his writings and thoughts for millennia.  His influence on the church is without question.  What we understand as Christianity depends a great deal on the writings of Paul and on his understanding of God and Jesus.  “The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity, namely that Christ is God "born in the flesh," that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul -- not to Jesus. Indeed, the spiritual union with Christ through baptism, as well as the "communion" with his body and blood through the sacred meal of bread and wine, also trace back to Paul. “[2]  We as Christians owe a huge amount of what we think and believe to a man who started his career by persecuting a new sect of Judaism, even holding the coats of those who stoned Stephen, the first of the martyrs.

Paul was a grandiose guy.  From his claims of his having every right to boast in the flesh because of his being “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews;”.  How in regard to the law he was righteous in his devoted adherence to its stipulations.[3]  In the passage we have this morning from his letter to Timothy Paul makes his claim of being the foremost of sinners.  We can definitely see that Paul was not a guy who wanted to disappear in the crowd.  I’m sure when he came into a room, all eyes turned to him.

Paul may have been a bit over the top, but he did it for a reason.  He described himself in extreme ways so that he could in turn so the extreme grace and love of God.  If he had just been a regular guy, would his conversion have been as faith-inspiring?  If he had just been a regular Jew, instead of a devout Pharisee, would his new-found faith be as powerful a testimony?  If he had never acted in opposition to the disciples, would his new role as an apostle have been as shocking?  Yet, it is his very grandiose, over-the-top descriptions of himself that drive home the point that God is greater than anything else we may have done, anything else we might be able to hold up as proof of how good, of how worthy of God’s love we might be.  And it serves to further the gospel.

If Paul, who was so great in his opposition to the early church, in his personal adherence to the pharisaic law so perfect, if he was able to be claimed and changed by God, then how much more so can God use and change us – we who are far from being the greatest or the foremost?

One of the aspects of being human that often gets in the way of faith is our difficulty to truly forgive.  We may say the words, “I forgive you”, but following through is difficult to truly do.  It’s hard.  We remember what has happened.  We remember the things that were said about us in passing.  We remember the ways in which we were treated, how we were teased and excluded by people we thought we friends.  We remember how we were forced out of, or forgotten and ignored at a family event.  We remember how our loved ones were treated by someone.  We remember the pain we felt when our trust was betrayed.  We remember all too clearly the pain that was inflicted upon us by another.  It can be difficult to forgive.  To move on, to treat the one who wronged you in a way that speaks to the forgiveness we may have uttered.

One of the basics of our Christian faith is forgiveness.  We declare that in Christ we have been forgiven.  Yet, how often do we struggle with that?  How often do we wonder if we have done enough to warrant that forgiveness?  How often do we like Martin Luther spend time worrying?  “In the monastery, Luther spent up to six hours a day confessing his sins to a priest. But later, he would always remember sins he had forgotten to confess. Questions nagged at him. If only confessed sins were forgiven, what would happen if he forgot one? What about all the sins he might have committed in ignorance? Luther began to see that his sinful actions were like smallpox pustules — nasty, external manifestations of the internal, systemic disease of sin.

He fasted for days and refused blankets at night, believing that he earned merit with God through self-imposed suffering. One day he would proudly say, “I have done nothing wrong today.” But on reflection, he wondered if he had indeed fasted enough, prayed enough, suffered enough and served enough.”[4]  It wasn’t until Luther discovered the core of Paul’s letters that he found his comfort, and he was no longer worried if he had done enough.  He would never do enough, but it wasn’t about him.  In faith, and in faith alone, he could look to Jesus’ actions on the cross.  Jesus had done enough, enough for him and enough for all people.

In Paul, the foremost, the greatest (according to him) of sinners we see God’s graciousness and forgiveness lived out.  In Paul’s life and words we find the promise of God; that no matter our failings, no matter how often or how badly we may have acted or behaved, still act and behave, nothing can separate us from God’s love shown to us in Jesus the Christ.  It is that love, that grace that brings to life the faith that God has planted in each of us.  It is in faith that we look to the promises of God.  To whom be honor and glory forever.  Amen.

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[1] http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00014063.html

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-d-tabor/christianity-before-paul_b_2200409.html

[3] Philippians 3:5,6

[4] http://www.ccwtoday.org/article/by-faith-alone-the-conversion-of-martin-luther/

In Christ

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 18 – Year C

September 8, 2013

Philemon

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother.

For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

It’s not very often in the lectionary that we have the opportunity to look at an entire book of the Bible.  We have that chance today; luckily it’s a short book.  The story of Philemon is interesting, the story of a runaway slave, a new found friendship, an existing relationship and a slave-owner.  It’s a story of grace and forgiveness, and the new relationships and expectations that are often the result of being part of the family of God.

In the past when I’ve looked at the letter to Philemon I’ve focused on the words of Paul, of how he uses all sorts of persuasive arguments (even the power of guilt) to try and convince Philemon to receive his servant Onesimus with mercy – and hopefully send him back to Paul so he can continue to be of assistance to Paul in his imprisonment.  That’s about all we know.  We don’t know what Onesimus did to be imprisoned (it might have just been that he was a runaway slave), we don’t know why it was that he left Philemon – if he ran away, if he stole something.  We don’t know.  And we don’t know with certainty what happened after Philemon received Paul’s letter.

We may not know a great deal, but we do know that the people that compiled the contents of the Bible felt that the letter to Philemon was of great enough importance to include it.  Some people have postulated that it was included to help us see how to reconcile our Christian faith and standards with a world or culture that sees things in a different way.  Slavery at the time Paul wrote was commonplace.  Slavery was accepted, and the roles of slave and slave owner were widely known.  Paul in writing to Philemon does not pass judgment on the validity or acceptableness of the institution of slavery, yet he does call on Philemon to look to Onesimus in a different context because they have become brothers in Christ due to Onesimus’s conversion.

The reality that Paul never condemned the practice of slavery – in fact the Bible almost unanimously upholds it has often been used in the past to argue for its continued practice.  We here in the United States went through our own time of challenge.   150 years ago, the people of North America and their faith communities were struggling with the issue of slavery.  How were they to treat something that the Bible supported in many instances?  A biblically literal perspective required that slavery continue, yet the rights of another human being for freedom and equality demanded that it come to an end.  As historical theologian E Brooks Holyfield writes, “The debate over slavery would introduce American readers to critical questions about history, doctrinal development, and hermeneutics.  It compelled some theologians to recognize that they had to choose between biblical literalism and a form of interpretation that took into account historical criticism, the social and cultural context of the biblical writings, diversity and development within the canon, and the force of presuppositions in biblical scholarship.”[1]  Today, I think that there would be very few people who would argue that slavery should be a part of our society regardless of what our scriptures say.

Paul is calling on Philemon to look into his heart and see a more central truth – more central than the cultural understandings, more central than the way scriptures may have spoken on the topic of slavery, more central than the way society was treating the issue of slavery.  Paul is calling on Philemon to look into his heart and see that in Christ things have been changed; through Christ he and Onesimus have been changed.  They have each been given a new identity, and with that new identity comes new ways of living individually and living with each other; even if society didn’t recognize that change.

In the waters of baptism we are reborn, we are created anew.  In the waters of baptism we are claimed by God as God’s own, as children of the Most High, as sisters and brothers of all those throughout time who have also been washed clean.  In Christ the things that kept us separated, are no longer reason to say we are not siblings in faith.  It’s not that those differences that had been suddenly cease to be; it’s that they no longer have the same power they once had.

When Paul wrote in Galatians (3:28) that “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” it’s clear that in Christ there is still differences in the sexes, there are still differences between people of different faith backgrounds, there are still differences between the ‘have’s’ and the ‘have not’s’.  It’s just that in Christ Jesus, we cannot use those differences as the basis for how we interact with one another; there is a new reality to that relationship.

To Philemon, Onesimus is a slave, his slave.  And he would be legally within his right to do almost anything to him he wanted.  Paul see’s things differently.  Philemon’s previously useless slave has become as dear to Paul as his own heart.  Paul goes so far as to request that any and all debts and wrongs that Onesimus may have or may have done be given to Paul.  Through Paul’s words he identifies himself with Onesimus, in fact charges Philemon to welcome his slave as if he were Paul himself.  In Philemon’s eyes he will likely always see Paul when looking at Onesimus, and think of Onesimus when he thinks of Paul.

However, this conversation is not limited to only Philemon’s ears.  What of Apphia and Archippus, and the rest of the church that met in Philemon’s home?  No doubt they will be watching with interest to see what Philemon will do.  Will he follow the suggestions of Paul?  Will he release him from his service?  Will he send him back to Paul?  And I’m sure Onesimus who carried the letter from Paul is the one who is most curious concerning what Philemon will do.  What he will do in Christ.

           

It is "in Christ" that Paul commands Philemon to do that which will refresh Paul’s heart.  When Paul speaks of ‘in Christ’, he does so reminding Philemon of the new reality of the relationship they have as kindred brothers in faith.  It is as his brother that Paul can command, challenge, provoke and remind his brother Philemon.  As his brother, Paul can praise Philemon for his faith, for the many ways he provides for those in his community.   It is as a person of faith that Paul urges Philemon to live out his faith even further, to do that which still needs to be done for his new brother in Christ.

Within this short letter from Paul to Philemon we find the challenge of our call to discern in Christ what is the right thing to do.  It would be a wonderful thing, it would be an easy thing, if determining what is right, if doing what is right was as easy as cleaning our room, or holding the door for someone in need.  But, doing the right this often means having to challenge what our world, our society holds to be true.  Doing the right thing in Christ means learning to see people in ways that are different than what our upbringing and world has trained us.  It means being willing to let go of what we have felt were our rights and privileges.  It means embracing the reality that in Christ those we may have formerly viewed as outsiders, as strangers, have been bound to us as sisters and brothers.  Fellow travelers on the way that we are called and challenged to be of service to.  Amen.

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[1] E. Brooks Holfield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 494-95

Dinner Parties

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 17 – Year C

September 1, 2013

Luke 14:1, 7-14

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."

One of the joys of my life is being able to walk with my daughters to and from school.  It’s something that I never thought I would enjoy.  I treasure those 15 minutes each day.  It’s fascinating some of the conversations we have: questions about friends, about lunch, about dinner.  New revelations shared with me that have been learned that day – lessons about the world, about science.  News shared excitedly about a test, or a new book.  I treasure those conversations.  I also find the time at the school, in the playground, before and after school to be a time of enjoyment.  I like to meet some of the other parents, meet the moms or dads of my daughter’s classmates.  Some of those previously unknown families have become good friends.

Playgrounds are fascinating.  I’ve been watching the playground, and everything that seems to happen there for the last few years.  I’ve come to understand that the playground is a smaller model of our society itself, the technical term I suppose is microcosm.  Even in first grade you can see differences and divisions in the kids on the playground.  You can identify the leaders from the followers.  You can easily see the kids who thrive in contact with others, and those that prefer to be by themselves or in smaller groups.  You can see the ones who like to be noticed, and those that prefer to disappear.  You can see the popular kids and the ones who are excluded for any number of reasons.

It’s a sad statement on our world and culture that children so young are able to copy our adult world so well.  And it just gets worse.  By the time high school comes around the divisions are set in place.  People from this neighborhood are “better’ than people from that one.  If you are seen with that group of people, you’re going to pay the price in your popularity.  You are judged based on where you live, what clothes you wear, who your friends are, what music you listen to, the car you drive, even what your parents do for a living.  And you better hope that you are doing all the right things if you want to be able to walk through the halls with a smile on your face and your head held high.

Do you remember what it was like at school?  Do you remember how important it was that you sat at the right table with the right people in the lunch room?  Do you remember the feelings you had when you were invited to a birthday party or a sleepover, or the feelings you had when you heard about the event that you hadn’t been invited to?  Do you remember the divisions between the band geeks, the theater nerds, and the jocks?  Remember how there were seats of honor on the school buses, places that were fought for and sometimes had to be given up?  It’s not that school is so much worse than the world – it’s actually pretty close to how the world tends to operate – it’s just that it’s so much easier to see in the school.  It’s easier to see in other settings too, like when you have a dinner party.

In our text from Luke we find Jesus at a dinner party hosted by a leader of the Pharisees, and I’m sure there were all sorts of people there who were part of the elite crowd.  Jesus had already gotten all the folk present more than a little on edge with his talking about the Sabbath, and his healing on the Sabbath, and his hanging out with a group of people who were uneducated and came from, well let’s be honest, the wrong parts of town.  Maybe here, when he is in a different setting when he is surrounded by the “right people’ he will mind his manners, and keep from being too disruptive.  Yeah, good luck with that.

He gets off to a pretty good start, though.  In his first comments he sounds a lot like parts of Proverbs, offering sage advice on how to be a good person - don’t think too highly of yourself. Be modest. It’s better to start from a lower position and be invited higher than place yourself ahead of others and then be asked to vacate your place so another can have it.  And then, Jesus has to keep going, keep talking.  Hold on to your seats folks, here comes the crazy talk!

"The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor.  Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks.”[1]  If we think that there are all sorts of rules about how to act and interact on the playground and in school, the rules for first-century dinner parties were at a whole other level.  There were rules about who would be invited, who should sit where, what could be served, how it should be prepared, who should serve it; and those were just the easy ones.  Meals were often a reflection of the power and status of those who were invited, and Jesus is saying to invite those who have no power?  That’s crazy talk.  What do you mean it’s not all about me, what I want, who I want to be with, how I want people to see or think of me?

“Jesus talks about a new kind of order, a new kind of kingdom where the tables are turned, the hierarchies are upended, and every person, slave or free, Jew or Roman, peasant or king, woman or man, everyone is welcome, especially the ones at the edges.”[2]  The way things are going to operate in this new kingdom is different than the way things operate now; it’s not about power and privilege, it’s about justice and compassion.  It was political.

One of the phrases we often hear is that religion and politics don’t mix.  But, I’m not sure that’s true.  The root word for politics is polis, it’s a Greek word meaning city or a group of people, citizens.  Are we, or are we not citizens of God’s Kingdom, future residents of the city of God?   If that is the case, is not religion by its very nature political?  Jesus’ political message, his message about life in the Kingdom was that the least likely, the poor, the marginalized, the ones who don’t count, the ones who struggle to keep body and soul together, the ones we look past and look over, the ones we don’t invite or seek the attention of, these ones are the first ones to be welcomed at the doors of the kingdom.  In the honor driven society of the first-century Palestine this was a radical statement, a revolutionary statement.  It still is, even today.

Unfortunately, the church in the last 1500 years or so hasn’t done a whole lot to make this revolution a reality; rather, we have done a pretty good job of ignoring it.  More often than not we have interpreted Jesus’ parables and revolutionary statements about life in the Kingdom as being about some wonderful, beautiful, holy future day; a day that would come in some great apocalyptic end of time battle between good and evil.  Rather than our faith guiding us in our public lives, faith became a private thing.  It was focused on the relationship you had with God, and not so much on the relationship you had with others.  Benevolence for the poor and down-trodden was embraced as a thing of good work and Christian service, and the church has served countless billions of hungry and destitute people through the ages.  Yet, it was rare for the church to question the “why’s” of poverty and oppression; and even rarer to work to change that reality.    As the Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camera once said “When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint; when I asked why there were so many poor, they called me a communist.”

The idea and concept of a separation between our faith lives and our public lives is something we do not see in the life and teaching of Jesus, in the writings and teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament.  “Our tradition, so clearly illustrated in the stories of the bible, tells us that we are to care about the fabric of our common life, not just the comfort of our private lives. We are not about the creation of a utopia, but we are about participation in the common good.”[3]

The model for us in seeking to change the ways of this world is found in the one who made the world in the first place.  The way that God desires and wants us to live with and treat one another is the way that God treats us.  God has created us, providing us with all that we need for life itself; God cares for us, forgives us, and has redeemed us – not because of something we can do for God in return.  There is nothing we can give to God that God needs from us other than sharing what God has given us with others.  This is what life looks like in the kingdom.

Fifty years ago this Sunday hundreds of thousands of people were returning to their homes and congregations after hearing the powerful words of Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I have a dream’ speech.  Reverend King’s words and actions are among the finest examples we have of what can happen when you dare to speak out against the wrongs of the world, when you dare to work to change this place, when you seek to bring the ways of the kingdom into our live and places.  And he paid for it with his life, he and many others.  Life in the kingdom isn’t about doing what is easy, it isn’t about doing what is popular; it isn’t about doing what will bring you fame, fortune and notoriety.  It’s about doing God’s will.

God doesn’t say it’s going to be easy.  But, how easy was it to die on a cross between two thieves?  Amen.

               

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[1] Luke 14, The Message

[2] http://www.beatitudessociety.org/blog/135-preaching_revolution

[3] http://www.beatitudessociety.org/blog/135-preaching_revolution