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

The Now and Future Kingdom

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 16 - C

August 25, 2013

Luke 13:10-17

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

I had the misfortune to have a really bad bicycle accident about 10 years ago, I found myself in tremendous pain, unable to tie my own shoes, unable to move any faster than a slow walk – and I was like that for 9 months.  I couldn’t bend forward beyond a few inches, I had a bulging disc that compressed my sciatic nerve.  I went for months walking around gingerly, being concerned about the easiest of movements.  There were days when I could barely move myself to get out of bed.  Then I found healing at the hands of a Physical Therapist.  I know the wonder and relief I felt when I could once again touch my toes.  I know the wonder I felt when I could take a few tentative running steps without almost passing out from the pain.  I know what it was like to be trapped by a body that wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, and then be back to normal.

I can only imagine the frustration and life that the woman in our text must have felt after being crippled by her body for eighteen years.  During the short time that I was hurt, I found there were numerous things I couldn’t do.  When I was in a hurry, I couldn’t speed up.  I had to be careful about almost any movement; fast motions were out of the question.  Sneezing was one of the most painful things that could happen.  I found I looked at the world differently.  Rather than looking at something on the floor, and saying to myself that I needed to pick it up and clean; I looked at the item thinking instead of how I would be able to pick it up with the least amount of pain.  When I was out with friends, rather than being able to enjoy myself I was always thinking ahead, worrying about what we were going to do; if I was going to be able to join in.  My life was different, and my perspective changed.

Perspectives are important.  I remember in my fourth grade art class with Mr. Pugh how he spent a long time talking about perspective.  I remember drawing lines that extended into the horizon.  I remember how he showed us two pictures of the same thing, one drawn with perspective and one without.  One of the cool things about perspective is how talented artists can use the way we perceive perspective to create amazing optical illusions.  One of my favorite artists is MC Escher.  He was a Dutch artist who used perspective and the way the eyes sees and interprets things to create amazing visual pieces.  I’m sure you’ve seen some of his pieces: like the drawing of a hand drawing a hand which is in turn drawing the hand that is drawing it.  Or, probably his most famous drawings of impossible staircases that extend in different directions, in impossible ways, yet when looked at seem to follow rules.  Optical illusions created by using perspective.  Magicians and artists depend on perspective in their work; and it can be amazing what we are sometimes unable to see, or convinced we are seeing because of our perspective.

I recently attended my niece’s wedding.  It was held in a Catholic church, which meant that when the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) was celebrated, a whole bunch of us that were present had to just sit there while the Catholics present took part.  We were excluded by nature of the fact that we were not Catholic, and had a different understanding of the Sacrament.  At a wedding when extended families come together to celebrate the union of their children: would that not be the best place to celebrate the union of the diverse families of God in a common meal around the Lord’s Table?  Yet, our differing rules of religion kept half of those present from being fully included.  (Even though we were expected to be at the wedding, bring cards and gifts, dress up and smile even as we were excluded.)  I’m sure from the perspective of the Catholics it was a holy moment, but from the perspective of others it was a moment of exclusion and separation in the midst of joy and celebration.

The woman was bent over, and unable to see what was around her clearly.  The leader of the synagogue was also unable to see certain things.  They were both limited by their perspectives.  How often are we also blind?  We see our own path much more easily than others – and when we do see them we see only the dust of their feet, rarely the fullness of their life.  We are often comfortable this way (like the woman who seems to have accepted her condition – she didn’t ask to be healed).  Yet, in Jesus we are healed and called to look up and see life in all its facets – both good and bad.  If we keep our eyes down we will never see the reality of the lives of those around us.

I’ve mentioned before how when I was younger I would often escape into books filled with stories of fantasy and science fiction.  I would immerse myself in created worlds of magic, of dragons, of beautiful women and manly men.  Creating worlds that are different than the world we live in is natural.  All of us have things about the place where we live that we wish were somehow different.  That desire for a better place is one of the reasons why the Christian faith is so attractive to many, because we have the promise from God of the Kingdom to come.  We have the promise of God of a place in heaven that has been prepared for all of us.  We look for the coming of the Kingdom, of the Reign of God, with hopeful expectation.

But is the Kingdom of God something that is still far off?  Or is it something that is coming about now?  This weekend marks the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.  This march was a dream put forward by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others to speak about a dream they had of a new reality, a new kingdom of racial equality in the United States.  Dr. King and many others believed that the dream of racial equality was something not just to look forward to happening some day in the future, but something to be worked for each and every day.  Dr. King, as a minister knew well the promises of God for the coming Kingdom with all its blessing and promise; but he also took seriously the idea that the Kingdom of God was something that was also here and now, and something we were called to play a part in putting into action.

In our text, the crowd exclaims in wonder about the things Jesus was doing, the statements Jesus was making.  It’s important to note that the word we translate as ‘doing’ in most texts, is not the same word in Greek that we normally translate as doing.  The word in this text has without question the idea of doing, but it goes much deeper.  It is the word used in the Greek Old Testament in reference to the ‘doing’ God did in creation.  This isn’t just doing, this is creating a new reality; this is making something new; this is bringing about the Kingdom of God right then and there.

On that Sabbath day long ago, Jesus cured a woman who was bent over, whose life had been marked by pain and discomfort for eighteen long years.  He reached out and touched her, transforming her life.  In so doing he opened the eyes of many of those present.  He showed the power of God to transform the life of those in bondage.  Bondage is something that all of us can relate to.  We may use different words for it, we may not even thing about it as being in bondage, but we are all in bondage in one way or another.

We may be in bondage because of physical limitations.  Perhaps our body is not working quite as well as it did when we were younger.  Maybe we are fighting against a disease that will never leave our body.  Maybe we are burdened by the trauma a disease or a treatment has left on our body.  Maybe we feel trapped and in bondage by our situation in life, feel that we are unable to find a way to move forward, find the career we want or need.  Maybe we are in bondage to family obligations that keep us from being able to move forward.  Maybe we are in bondage to expectations other people have for us, that keep us from being what we might otherwise want to be.  Maybe we are in bondage to an addiction or a need that we focus so much time on that we lose our appreciation for other things in life.  Maybe we are in bondage to feelings of fear or anxiety, doubt and depression. 

On that Sabbath day long ago, Jesus set the woman free from the bondage of being bent over.  He reached out his hand (against the advice and desire of the religious people of that day) and created a new reality in the life of that woman, and she praised God.  We have all been given a glimpse of the kingdom to come, we have all been given an idea of what the reign of God looks like – the freeing from bondage that weighs us down, bends us over and keeps us from being able to stand straight.  We know what that world looks like.  But is it just a fantasy world, something better left to some point in the future.  As the leader of the synagogue said, “come back some other time for healing- now isn’t a good time.”

So, when is a good time?  Is there a better time to be set free from bondage?  Which world would you rather live in: the world of the leader of the synagogue who says we need to wait until the time is right, until we are ready, or Jesus’ world where the pain and bondage of those we encounter is addressed, a world where through the touch of God people are set free?

We may not have the miraculous ability to heal that Jesus had, but we can still work to do our part.  We can still reach out to those who are hurting or in pain.  We can still speak out against those who use their positions of power for their own gain and to keep others in positions of scarcity and weakness.  We can still say the church is a place where all people may find a welcome: rich and poor, black and white, married and single, old and young, liberal and conservative, republican and democrat, gay and straight, able and disabled.  We can still say that in the welcoming arms of God we find our place and our peace.  We can work to bring about the Kingdom of God here and now.

Which world would you rather live in, which church would you rather be a part of: one where bondage and oppression are seen but pushed aside to be dealt with on another day, or one where we do all we can to correct that which is burdening people, keeping them from standing up straight and giving praise to God?  May God guide us as we seek to make the Kingdom a reality here and now.  Amen.

Fire in the Kingdom

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 15 – Year C

August 18, 2013

Luke 12:49-56

[Jesus said:] "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
   father against son
     and son against father,
   mother against daughter
     and daughter against mother,
   mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
     and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

One of the central elements of our faith, of our very worship service is peace.  We declare Jesus as the Prince of Peace.  When Jesus appeared to his disciples, his first words were peace.  If we look to the first few verses of almost every single letter from Paul we see peace being extended to his readers.  Every Sunday we take the time to share the peace of Christ with one another.  We talk about the peace of God that passes all understanding.  We take comfort in the peace that comes from having a personal connection with our God and our Savior.  Peace is part of our identity; and just when we think we have a pretty good idea about the importance of peace in our lives, we run into this passage from Luke where Jesus himself tells his disciples that he didn’t come to bring peace.

There have been many different ways in which people have sought to understand this passage.  Probably the most popular is that the expectations that God places on you when you come to faith in him put a strain on the existing relationships between the believer and the non-believer.  This interpretation that a barrier of some kind is erected between Christians and non-Christians is common.  I’ve heard it referred to many times: from casual friendships, to close connections, from work colleagues to our spouses.  Yet, so often it seems like the divisions that are created by our Christian faith are between different persons of faith, different traditions, different denominations than between the believer and the non-believer.

When I think back, when I look at my life I see more times when my strongly held perspective on faith and theology put a greater strain on my relationship with other people of faith than my relationship with those who didn’t express faith of any kind.  Think about it, how many super strong arguments have you gotten into with an atheist?  How many heated discussions have you gotten into with another Christian?  I think you’ll agree with me that the number of divisive situations is far greater on the believers side of the page.

Divisions in families within Christianity are probably more common than you think.  Think about your own families.  Are you able to talk about your church and your faith around the Thanksgiving dinner table without things getting really uncomfortable?   I don’t know about you, but my holiday dinners are sometimes rather tense.  My family is divided by denominational and social issues.  My parents and my brother are Lutheran to their core.  My parents are conservative Lutherans.  I sometimes joke that my father is more Lutheran than Luther himself.  My leaving of the Lutheran Church will probably always be a very sore subject for my parents.   We disagree on many things, some of them seem petty at times, and others seem much more serious. 

We all know that from one generation to another there are differences.  I don’t do things the same way my parents did, and I’m sure my children will do things differently than me.  We don’t think about things in the same way, we approach problems and issues in different ways.  We have different ideas about how the world works, or should work.  And that’s okay.  There is nothing wrong with differences.  If it wasn’t for differences of opinion, for differences of understanding we would have never moved forward as a society.  I’m sure that the first person who decided to jump on a horse was considered an idiot (especially since the horse probably threw him right off), yet that person’s difference of opinion regarding horses was the beginning of a change in the way we traveled as humans.  The generation that preceded him thought about horses in a different way, and I’m sure there were some rather heated discussion around the campfire.  And speaking of campfires, think about the first person to look at fire and think about harnessing it.  Without fire where would we be?

And it is fire that Jesus brings to the earth.  I wish Jesus had explained a bit more about the fire he was bringing because fire by itself is multifunctional – but perhaps Jesus’ fire is also to be used in different ways.  Fire by itself is neutral, neither something to be feared or something to be praised.  Yet, in context, when it is given purpose it also takes on positive or negative connotations.  If you were camping, having a small campfire outside your tent would be desired for its warmth, for how you could use it to warm yourself.  Yet, if you were camping, and the woods around you were on fire that would not be a desired thing.  Fire can be destructive, its power to destroy is virtually unmatched.  The hotter the fire, the more complete the destruction.

Fire can also bring new life with its passing.  Civilizations around the world have used controlled burning to clear fields, to renew the ground that new growth would occur.  From time to time the land would be burned, and in so doing nutrients and chemicals would enter the soil, the earth would be cleansed, and new life would emerge.  The phoenix rises from its ashes reborn.

Before the days of alcohol and sanitizing aids, people would clean their surgical instruments in flame.  I still remember how my mother would sterilize the needle in the flame of a candle before working the splinter out of my finger.  The flame killed the bacteria that could have otherwise lead to infection.  People have cauterized wounds for centuries because of how the heat of fire aided the body in healing.

When I worked in the jewelry industry we used fire and flame constantly.  Fire is used to refine.  Its heat melts the gold, freeing the contaminants from it, burning off the chaff so to speak, and leaving behind that which is more pure, and more valuable.  Fire is needed to melt the gold so that it might be formed and reformed into its desired shape and form.

In the Bible, we also see fire serving in many ways.  It was used to represent “the presence of God -- think pillar fire in Exodus (13:17-22) and the tongues of flame at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). It can also represent eschatological judgment -- in Revelation, Satan and his army are consumed by fire (20:7-10). Fire also represents purification -- Zachariah (13:9) and Malachi (3:2-3) each refer to God's intention to purify Israel like a refiner purifies silver by fire.”[1]

               

In the New Testament, there is another activity that is described as bringing with it both purification and judgment: baptism.  Baptism is connected to fire in the New Testament, and in our lives.  We speak of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the coming of the Holy Spirit coming like a fire.  The coming of the Spirit, and the waters of baptism, both point to an event when God is seen to be powerfully active in the life of a person.  The fire of faith comes and consumes and gives us the power to do things that we didn’t think we could ever do.  It also forces us to look at our lives, and the lives of those around us – and it might very well cause divisions.

The divisions that Jesus speaks of are the result of the purifying fire of God.  Jesus comes and declares that he is not here to bring peace, but division.  Yet, his message was not one of division, it was announcing the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God, the Reign of God, the new reality, the desires of God that Jesus announced was based on forgiveness of others and not on the power of one over another, it was based in courage and not in fear,  it was based on humility and not on personal power.  It was a new reality.  Yet, those who were comfortable I the old reality, those that were in ruling positions, those who were fans of wealth, of power, they saw the risk of the coming Kingdom and fought against it – because its coming spells an end to the life they love.  Jesus did indeed announce peace, but as we all know, there is no profit in peace for those in power.  And profit (or the lack of it) creates division even in the most basic of human relationships: that of the family.

The calling of the new life in the Kingdom is both its promise and its challenge.  It can be bring both peace and unease, unity and division.  It can be frightening to step out in faith against the ways of the world, against the powers that be that desire the world to continue as it is.  But our fear, our discomfort can made less when we look to Jesus and we see that he who come to announce the Kingdom was its first victim.  He experienced harm, that in his pain we might know healing.  He experienced judgment, that in his trials we might know pardon.  He suffered death on the cross, that in his dying we might know life.  The call of the Kingdom is not easy, yet looking to Jesus we can discover the courage, the fire, to live in the Kingdom – even with the division it brings.  In so doing we join ourselves with the church, and with people of faith throughout time, and rise from the ashes of the world that is into the glory of the Kingdom to come.  Amen.

           

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[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=733

Keeping Your Focus

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 11-Year C

June 21, 2013

Luke 10:38-42

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

One of the important aspects to many different things in life is finding a center, or centering yourself.  We employ all sorts of words and phrases in order to express finding that center.  In martial arts, especially in Aikido you need to find and focus on your center, and use that central force in your moves.  Many eastern religions and philosophies use meditation and chants to assist a person in finding their central point or being.  Often, regardless of what the activity may be, we will often pause and calm ourselves, find our center before beginning.  You see it in athletes of all kinds as they pause moments before they begin in still silence focusing, concentrating, finding their center.  I think about high divers who pause for a moment before launching themselves into the air.  I think about the basketball player at the free-throw line that pauses before sending the ball through the hoop.  I think about the archer who breaths deeply and quiets their body before shooting their arrow at the bullseye.

Finding your center, your calm place, your happy place, is important in athletics.  Without pausing  to quiet the mind and body, the arrow would not fly straight, the basketball would clang off the hoop and the diver could very easily belly flop.  But it’s not just athletics.  I remember when I was in college and had a big music performance, I would pause in quiet silence, soaking it all in and striving to find a place of calm in order to allow myself to perform best.  There are many times when the time I spend at the altar at the beginning of the service in prayer is also a time of centering myself, calming myself, clearing my mind of unnecessary thoughts,  so I can be fully present in worship.

Life itself often needs to be centered.  In the next week I need to find the time to take my car in to have the wheels balanced.  They may be round, but their weight is not centered.  At certain speeds I get a rather uncomfortable shake that passes through the steering wheel into my hands.  The shake doesn’t always happen at exactly the same speed, and it seems to come up without warning.  At lower speeds, I can’t feel it; at speeds higher than the shake, it also seems to disappear.  Yet, it’s still there, hidden by how fast the wheels are turning.  My tire’s need to be balanced, they need to be centered; if I don’t I will eventually cause damage to my car.

Life is a lot like that too.  There are times when we go along without a care in the world – everything seems fine, hunky-dory.  Then suddenly, out of the blue we find ourselves out of balance, shaking as we go.  Go a little slower and the shaking disappears, go a little faster and the business of life hides how out of balance we are.  We all need to find our center in those moments, or risk coming apart from being out of balance.  We find ourselves in those moments being pulled in different directions, seeking to find that place where we can be centered between all the forces pushing and pulling, dragging and shoving us here and there.

In our text about Mary and Martha we see someone being pushed and pulled off center in different directions.  That’s what the Greek (periespato) really means when we read that Martha was ‘distracted’.  Martha was out of balance, she had lost her focus she was spinning off kilter and out of control.  Jesus’ words to her about Mary choosing the better part in contrast to Martha’s distraction can easily be understood to be words advising her to refocus herself, to concentrate on what is of importance.

Now, there are many ways to think of what is of importance.  This text has sometimes been used to elevate study of the word and meditation above that of service.  This text has sometimes been used as a critique on the role of women in the church.  But, this text (as with most texts) is about relationship; our relationship with God and God’s with us.

Rather than dwelling on the specific acts of Martha and Mary, let’s look at their motivation, their focus, the reason they are doing whatever they are doing.  At the beginning of the situation, Martha invites Jesus to her home; probably because she wants to be of service.  He’s passing through, he could use a place to stay, a good meal to eat, a cool glass of water.  She invited him into her home, and she heads to the kitchen to work – probably whistling, and in joy and happiness that she can serve Jesus in this way.  Mary too is happy.  Thrilled to have the opportunity to spend time at Jesus’ feet listening to his teachings.

But then something happens, Martha is no longer happy.  So what happened?  Let’s look at her words.  Martha complains that she has to do all the work herself.  Her focus has shifted.  She is no longer focused on serving Jesus, she’s focused on how hard she is working in that service.  Her focus is no longer Jesus, it’s herself; she’s become distracted.  If you think about it, she’s trying to turn the focus away from Jesus to herself, how hard she’s working, all that she’s doing.  “Lord, do you see how hard I’m working?, and all by myself.  Isn’t that wonderful?  Don’t you think I’m worth praising and thanking?”

Martha is a wonderful example for us of what can happen when we lose our focus.  It’s not that the work she was doing was any less important than the time of reflection that Mary was involved in.  It’s not that work is somehow bad, or that reflection is somehow better.  There wasn’t a problem until Martha got distracted, pulled in different directions – pulled between focusing on Jesus and focusing on the work she was doing.

This passage comes directly after the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I think Luke put them together for a reason.  In the parable we are shown the importance of service and good works.  Jesus lifts up the selfless service of the Samaritan as an example to be followed.  Then in these verses, we read of Martha and her service and Jesus points out a truth.  The work we do in service to our neighbors, even to the Lord himself, must be done with a focus, must be done in faith, if they are to lead to life in Christ.  Mary’s better part was her continued focus on Jesus.

As people of God, we know the importance of service and good works.  In the second chapter of James we read how faith without works is dead.  It’s a verse that is lifted up often as calling us to live out our faith in service to others.  Here, in this passage, we see the contrary is also true, that works with faith is also dead.  Without faith, all that we do, no matter how good it might be is not going to win God’s blessings. 

Faith and works are both necessary parts of life in Christ.  As I talked about in the children’s time one without the other really doesn’t work very well.  But they both need a focus.  To continue with the jump rope imagery from the children’s time, I can hold both ends of the jump rope and swing them in unison, but unless the goal is to jump over the passing rope, all I’m doing is creating a breeze.  But, if the focus is on doing what the jump rope is designed for, when I swing both ends, when I focus and jump, everything works well.  But, I must maintain my focus.  When my focus lapses, when my swinging of either side of the rope lags behind, or one side is swinging faster, when I don’t jump, the rope bumps up against my body, and the rope stops.

The focus of our faith, the focus of our service, is Jesus.  We serve others in love out of thankfulness to God for the love and service that was first shown to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  We look to God in faith, in belief, because of the life, death and glorious resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus is the focus, our reason for doing what we do, for believing what we do.  It is the better part.  To have our focus on anything else, regardless of the depth of our faith, regardless of the nature of our service, is to be like a jump rope swinging around without being jumped.  It might be pretty to look at, it might be awe-inspiring, it might even be inspirational.  Only when we maintain our focus on Jesus do our faith and our service swing together in coordination.  And that is the better part.  Amen.

Fences

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 10

July 14, 2013

Luke 10: 25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Our gospel text today is probably the most well-known parable that Jesus told.  All of us know it well, all of us have heard it time and time again, all of us have studied it, and had Bible studies and devotions dedicated to it.  We hear it with ears that have been trained time and time again to see things in certain ways, to see ourselves and others in specific characters.  Sometimes when we know a story too well we stop listening to it.  There is always a battle within our minds and hearts when we encounter such a well-known passage to allow ourselves to be open, to allow God to show us something new, to allow God to work in us.

Most of the time we read this story as being a lesson that we should reach out to those who are in need, that our definition of who a neighbor is should be wide enough to include all, not just those who live in our locale, or look and think like us.  We add to the story by reminding ourselves that the aid the Samaritan gave was full and complete, he didn’t just feel sorry for him and bind his wounds, he cared for him until our traveler was well enough to go on.  Our aid, our compassion, should not be limited to reaching out at the moment of need, but being there through until the time for need is well and truly passed.  We all know those readings and interpretations; we’ve all studied this passage in the past, and may have studied it multiple times.  What more is there to learn?  Are there new perspectives that may be open to us, new ways for God to speak to us through this story?

The lawyer (more accurately translated as a teacher of the law) asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.  It’s a question that if we are honest with ourselves is also a question many of us would ask.  We too want to know what we need to do to ensure our homecoming into heaven.  Jesus responds to the lawyer by asking him what he understood he needed to do based on the law.  The lawyer’s response pleases Jesus, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."  Jesus tells him, that if he does this he will live, he will inherit eternal life.  Jesus doesn’t tell him that he also needs to go to temple a certain number of times a year, he doesn’t say he needs to go to a certain temple, he doesn’t say that he needs to be part of specific religious acts or experiences.  He is simply to live his life in love and devotion to God, and treat his neighbor as he would himself want to be treated.

But, it can’t be that easy.  There have to some restrictions on this, some guidelines to make it not so open.  For a good Jew, devout service to God was normal and expected, so the lawyer looks for his wiggle-room with the definition of neighbor.  If the identity of the neighbor was known, you could make sure you treated those people well, devote your energy to them, and not waste your time or energy on those ‘others.’    Jesus responds to him with this parable, and then stuns him with his question and statement following the parable.

This is not the only time in the Gospels that Samaritans are used as actors in Jesus’ ministry.  Samaritans were an easy example to use as they were a disliked, and excluded people.  They claimed to worship the same God as the Israelites, yet they spoke of Mt. Gerizim as the religious center, not the temple in Jerusalem.  They were Jews, yet not.  They were there for all to see, they lived out their religious differences right in front of the rest of the Jews, and took pride in their differentness.  Yet, Jesus does not use their differentness as a reason to exclude them; he uses their differentness as a lesson in how wide God’s love and mercy is.

If the Gospels were to be written today, if Jesus were to be telling this parable today, who would his Samaritan be, who would his wayward traveler be?  Illegal immigrants, people of Middle-Eastern descent or appearance (just think for a moment about this country’s reaction to these folk following 9/11), young people whose bodies are covered with tattoos or pierced with pieces of metal, single mothers, the unemployed and homeless, LGBT people?  Who would we pass by if we saw them in need?  Who are the travelers in our lives?  Do we have perspectives from our own religious understandings that may cause us to pause and react more slowly, if at all, when need is encountered in a traveler ‘like that?’

Our house is divided from our neighbor’s houses by a fence.  Now, in all reality the fence is there so that our dog can be let out at 5:30 in the morning without us having to stumble around in our robes and slippers, but it’s still a barrier.  Fences between houses separate more than yards.  They say, “This is mine, that is yours.”  “Keep out!”  I know when I was a kid and I had to jump the neighbor’s fence to get the runaway ball, I always felt like I was doing a bad thing.  We put up fences to keep things to ourselves, and to keep other things away.  Sometimes those fences are physical things, sometimes they may not be physical, but they aren’t any less real.  And whether we intend it or not, fences have an effect.

A few years ago I was visiting a friend.  They had a big beautiful house, and a big dog.  They had lived in the house with the dog for years, actually since the dog had been a puppy.  When I visited them they were in the process of doing a major landscaping job.  The fence that had surrounded their house forever had been removed the day before.  As I drove into their yard their big dog came bounding toward me, only to stop in the middle of the yard.  He stopped where the fence had been his entire life, he stopped where he had become used to stopping.  He had never gone further, he didn’t seem to realize he could go further (even though the fence was no longer there.)

So often we center ourselves on the question of, ‘who is our neighbor?’  After all, that is the question that the lawyer asked.  Then, we look at the example Jesus gave, the story of the Samaritan and the wounded traveler, and assume we have found the answer: everyone is our neighbor.  That is true, but there is more to it than that.  The lawyer asked ‘who’, Jesus answered with ‘how.’  Rather than focusing on the identity of who a neighbor is, Jesus turned the tables and said let’s see how a neighbor acts.  Let’s get rid of the labels, the identifiers, and instead focus on how we are or are not in relationship with one another as neighbors.

Jesus doesn’t say that the Samaritan is correct in his religious perspective regarding where God was to be worshipped, but he does use his giving of aid regardless of difference as a lesson on neighbors, and thus on eternal life.  It’s interesting to note that Jesus doesn’t ask the lawyer who did right by the law, but who showed mercy.  Mercy trumps law.  Jesus doesn’t say that the scribe or the Levite were wrong in their actions, he doesn’t pass judgment on them (other than to declare them less merciful than the Samaritan), their actions were within the law.

As Christians, we live our lives doing our best to follow and live by the model of Jesus.  We live our lives with understandings (sometimes personal and sometimes communal) of what is right or wrong.  Every day, we must make decisions about how we are going to live out our faith, where do we follow the letter of ‘the law’, and where do we follow something else.  What is it that guides us when we move away from the letter of the law?  Is it mercy, or something else?  Are there fences around our lives?  Who put them there?  Us, our families, our beliefs, our insecurities?  What would happen if we took down the fence?  What would happen if we opened a gate?  Who would come in?  What might leave?  Can neighbors have fences?    Can we follow the example of the Samaritan and go and do likewise?  Amen.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 9 – Year C

July 7, 2013

2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, "Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel."

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy." When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me."

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, "Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel." So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean." But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, "Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

A few days ago it was the Fourth of July, the celebration of our declaration of independence from Great Britain.  I’m sure ours was not the only family that grilled out for the Fourth.  To not grill out seems somehow not right.  When you think of the Fourth, most people think of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs.  And, if you’re like me, whenever you grill out, you get an echo of the Fourth of July regardless of what time of year.  Grilling and the Fourth of July go perfect together. But, which came first in the relationship?

One of the questions that armchair philosophers like to bat around is: which came first? the chicken or the egg?  Was the chicken first, and from that first chicken was the first egg laid?  Or did the egg come first, and from that egg the first chicken hatched?  But if the chicken came first, where did it hatch from?  And if the egg came first, who laid it?  Now obviously, this is a question that has no real answer (except to say that God made whichever came first).  Of course, that answer isn’t sufficient for armchair philosophers so the arguments go back and forth, with people staking their positions on either side of the issue.  On one side you have the egg people, and on the other the chicken folk.  And from those positions they set forth their arguments.

Some arguments go on and one without either side really coming out ahead in victory.  It’s like an argument between two children about which teacher is their favorite.  Or, which is better Coke or Pepsi?  Or, how do you pronounce potato – Po-tay-to or Po-tah-to?  There are some arguments that are as much about personal preference as about what is the correct answer, because there is no answer.  Or at least not an answer we know or can find.

In Christian circles, one of the questions that probably falls into that category is: do you have faith because you were saved?  Or, are you saved because you have faith?  Does the fact that you have been saved, that God has claimed you as a child of God awaken within you the faith to recognize God as the source of that salvation?  Does the awakening of faith within your soul bring you to recognize that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the door to paradise, salvation itself, has been opened to you?  Which brings us to our text from 2 Kings about Naaman.

Naaman was the commander of the army of Aram.  He was in charge of thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers.  He had proven himself again and again in battle – he probably had multiple wounds to show for his efforts.  Yet, it wasn’t the sight of his wounds that caused people to look upon him with fear or disgust.  He had a skin disease.  Most translations call it leprosy.  He was marked by the disease.  No matter where he went, it was clear there was something wrong with him.

The thing about a disease in difference to a war injury is contagiousness.  A horrible disfiguring scar across the face may make you very uncomfortable to look at, but you would never be worried about catching such a scar from him.  Yet, if you saw someone whose face was covered in boils, or whose nose seemed to be rotting off their face you would not only look upon them with great discomfort, you would be worried about catching it from them.  Naaman may have been at the top of the pile as far as his career went, but every where he went people avoided him.  Little boys in Aram dreamed of growing up to be like Naaman, but not like him.

           

Naaman, because of his position was far from poor and had most likely already been to every healer and physician in Aram, so when he heard about some prophet in Samaria who would be able to heal him, I’m sure even though his ears perked up they didn’t perk up that high.  So he goes to his king, his boss, and asks for a letter of introduction.  And of course, a little something to grease the wheels; well, more than a little.  Naaman brought with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten full sets of sumptuous garments. It can be difficult to understand in modern terms just how much all this would be, but suffice it to say that the silver alone weighs some 750 pounds; not to mention the gold or the fancy clothing.  If it was possible to buy healing, Naaman certainly brought enough with him.

Of course, in the end Elisha doesn’t want money – he actually refuses it.  And when Naaman gets to Elisha’s door, the prophet doesn’t even come out – he sends his messenger instead.  Naaman was a powerful man, he wanted a powerful healing, something to match his prestige.  Naaman wanted a miraculous, and powerful healing – Elisha to wave his hands over the diseased area and it would be healed.  He wanted the prophet himself.  This close to the Fourth, we can say he wanted to see fireworks.  Instead, he’s told to take a bath.  And not just a bath, he’s told to take 7 dips into a muddy river.  He came all this way to be told that?  It’s an insult of the highest degree.

When he is finally convinced to enter the water, he doesn’t do so expecting anything to happen.  In fact, I’m sure he did it just to shut his servants up.  Yet, even though he doesn’t expect it, even though he thought that Elisha was a joke, he entered the water and found his healing.  Only after he had been healed did he make a declaration of faith – in the verses following our reading.  Naaman’s healing came before his faith- it was his healing that caused his faith to bloom.  In religious terms, healing is often synonymous with salvation.  So, in this story, Naaman was saved first, and because he was saved, he came to believe in the God of Israel.

The question about faith and salvation though, is a lot like the question about the chicken and the egg.  There may not be an answer – at least not one we can see.  At times, it seems as if salvation comes first – or at least an awareness of God reaching out to you, and after that comes faith.  At other times it seems as if faith develops and grows until salvation becomes apparent.

One of the ways we in the church speak about faith coming about is with the means of grace – a fancy label for the word of God, baptism and communion.  We claim that in these three things, in the reading, speaking and hearing of Scripture, in the waters of baptism, in the sharing of the bread and the cup, the Holy Spirit comes to us and ignites and sustains, within us our faith.  Yet, even here, we see the chicken and the egg.  Does our faith cause us to listen with hungry ears to the scripture, or does the scripture cause us to hunger for something more?  Do the waters of baptism serve as a confirmation of our faith, or as the beginning of a lifelong journey?  When we gather around the table of our Lord, do we come to the table in faith, or do we come to faith at the table?

These are questions that we may never answer.  Today we will gather around God’s table, and share in the cup and the broken bread.  We will come to the table in faith, yet also praying and trusting that in this meal our faith will grow.  We will be sustained in our journey; we will be recharged and refueled to continue.  All of us have come to this place from different places, even though we may have family connections they are no guarantee that we agree in all aspects.  We all probably come to the table with differing thoughts regarding the sacraments, how we think about them, how we understand them, how we see God active in them.

Some of you I’m sure have noticed that my 2 young girls take the bread when the plate is passed.  Do they have a deep, theological understanding of communion?  Can they speak about the differences between transubstantiation and consubstantiation?  No, yet they do know that in communion, when they eat the bread, they take a bit of Jesus into their hearts – and in that is faith.  As the years pass they will grow in their understanding and in their faith.  Who am I to withhold from them one of the declared ways in which the church understands that faith grows?

Please, understand, I am not saying that you need to follow our example.  I’m not saying that my way is the right way – it’s probably another of those chicken or the egg things.  I’m just asking you to think about it.  Naaman came to faith only after experiencing God.  How often in Jesus’ ministry did he bring healing and salvation before faith?  Did not God send Jesus to bring salvation to the world before the world believed?

Come eat and drink, taste and see the goodness of God.  And in that moment may our faith grow, may we find our salvation and may we experience our unity with the entirety of the Christian faith; those who have been, those who are, and those yet to come.  Amen.

Trusting Faith

Second Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 4 – Year C

June 2, 2013

Luke 7:1-10

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us." And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it." When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. 

Have you ever been surprised by someone’s faith?  What I mean is have you ever heard someone making a declaration about God or faith, or some other religious type of comment when it was the last thing you would have expected?  I’m not talking about some off-hand comment, or phrase that has become part of our common language or a default comment to misfortune; I’m speaking about a genuine declaration of faith or belief.  From time to time this happens.  I’m always caught unaware.  I’m not really sure what to do, how to respond.

In our text from Luke we are surprised, and we are not the only ones; Jesus is also surprised.  He is surprised by the intense declaration of faith that came from a completely unexpected source.  We are often too quick to put all the Romans and Pharisees in the same group, as being irritants and sources of problems for Jesus.  This is an example, and a lesson, that a person’s title or position, or group allegiance does not tell the entire story of who that person is.

At its heart this passage is about faith, and that faith is not limited to the people in which we expect faith to be present.  The centurion was a middle-ranking officer in the Roman Army, he most likely received his orders from a commander located in Caeserea (about fifty miles away.)  The centurion would have been in direct command of the forces in Capernaum.  He understood the nature of command, he knew intimately how the orders of those above you were to be followed, and those below you were to follow yours – the risks for not following orders were not light.  Insubordination was often punished in a most severe way.

The centurion had a beloved slave.  To us, this may sound a bit strange.  How can you love a slave?  But in a culture where slavery was a part of everyday life, it was not uncommon to have slaves be some of your closest friends and confidants.  It’s likely that this individual had been a part of the centurion’s life for years, and had traveled with him wherever he went.  Yes, he was a slave, but he may have also been a best friend.  How would you react to the severe illness of your best friend?

The centurion had most likely heard stories about Jesus.  He may have heard that this man was performing miracles, and was a man of deep compassion.  Regardless of the specific reasons for his decision, he sends messengers to request that Jesus come to his slave’s aid.  As most of us probably would also react, Jesus seems to have been initially taken aback by the request.  We can surmise this because the messengers (fellow Jews), speak up and tell Jesus that the centurion is a different kind of man, he is a ‘good’ Roman.  He has gone so far as to fund the building of a synagogue.  So Jesus goes.

However, on the way to the man’s home, another group of messengers comes to them on the road.  The centurion has come to the decision that he is not worthy of Jesus entering his home, but he still believes that Jesus can help his slave.  We all know from our text what happens, we know that the centurion’s slave is healed.  We hear Jesus’ statement about the faith of the centurion.

When it comes to faith, there are lots of different words, lots of different ways to talk about our belief in God, our dependence on God.  Two of the most common ones are hope and trust.  “Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” say the words of the hymn.  “How blest are they that trust in Christ,” says another.  Trust and hope spin around one another at the center of faith, at the center of our relationship with the God who saves us.  As I’ve been reflecting on this text this week, as I’ve been reflecting on the nature of faith, I’ve been drawn to one of these words far more than another.  I think one of these words is a far better expression of faith than the other.

When I think about the word hope, lots of different things come to mind.  When I’m making a recipe for the first time, I hope that it comes out right.  When I send my daughter off to school in the morning, I hope that she has a good day.  When I hear about a car accident, I hope that everyone is okay.  With all the water that we have right now, with all the flooding and people with water in their basements, I hope that the rain will soon stop.

As I thought about hope, I realized that hope is always put up in opposition to another possibility.  I hope that the recipe comes out well, rather than failing miserably.  I hope the day at school goes well, rather than requiring a note from her teacher.  I hope those in the car accident are okay, rather than being seriously hurt.  I hope the flood water recedes, rather than rising higher.  I hope because I know there is another option, something I don’t want to happen.  My hope is there expressing the deep knowledge that there is nothing I can do about the situation, it’s out of my hands.  In many ways, in many situations, all I have is hope.

Trust though is different.  I think most of us have either seen or participated in something called a trust fall.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, a trust fall is an activity of trusting others.  What you do is place your trust fully in another person (or a group of people), turn your back toward them, close your eyes and fall backwards into their waiting arms.  You have to trust they will catch you.  You have to let yourself fall fully, or you will have to do it again and again until you finally just let go and fall.  Until you trust that there is no option of falling, that there is no other option than being caught.  You can’t hope to be caught; you have to trust that you will not be dropped.

When the centurion came to Jesus seeking to have his slave healed he didn’t do so hoping that Jesus would heal him, he came trusting that Jesus would heal him.  In the words of the centurion, we see that trust explained.  In a military setting the centurion was used to, it was necessary to trust that your orders will be followed.  If you are leading a charge, you have to trust your soldiers are there behind you.   When it comes to giving orders, it is necessary to give the order and trust that it will be followed.  If you hope it will happen, you will feel this need to always check and make sure, to ensure that your orders are being followed.  As a commander, you will never be able to focus on the things you are supposed to be doing, because you will be spending all your time making sure those under you are doing their jobs.

When Jesus comments on the centurion’s faith, I think it was a comment on how much he trusted.  The centurion didn’t doubt for a second.  The centurion didn’t look to Jesus as being a final option, or one option among many.  Jesus was the one and only option.  The centurion expressed his faith as trust, not hope.

One of the things I’ve come to see in the last week about trust and hope is that when we focus on hope, we leave space for ourselves.  Hope leaves openings for other stuff to filter in.  “I hope it doesn’t rain, but if it does, I’ll….”  Hope leaves space for us to feel like we are doing something.  We grab ahold of the rope swing, and hope that it holds – meaning, we prepare ourselves in case it breaks mid-swing.  When people refer to faith in terms of hope, what they are really saying is they hope they are right, because the alternative is too terrible to comprehend.  What they are really saying is they are still in control, because they haven’t let go.  They haven’t put their trust in God; they are hoping that God was the right choice to make, rather than trusting that God has chosen them.

One of the most beloved Christian writers of the last century was Henri Nouwen.  His deep and profound words about spirituality have been transformative and freeing for many people.  In his last book, written shortly before he died, he wrote, "Somewhere along the way, in the life of the maturing Christian, faith combined with hope…grows into trust."  Faith may begin as hope, yet as we walk the paths of faith, as we journey through this life, we find that our hope is transformed into a holy trust.  No longer do we hope that God loves us, we trust it.  No longer do we fret and worry about our salvation, hoping that in the end we will be welcomed; we trust in God’s promises.

Our hope may be based on Jesus’ love and righteousness, but it must be transformed into a trust that allows that love and righteousness to transform us, to free us, to heal us.  To set us free from worry, to set us free from hoping we have been forgiven, to trusting in that forgiveness.  Faith grows from hoping that God has received us as his own, to trusting we are his beloved.

May the example of the centurion, who trusted in Jesus rather than hoped, be an example for us.  May we fall in trust into the hands of God that we may be caught and carried by the arms of love.  May we stop hoping and begin trusting.  Amen.