[Pentecost+23] exalted, humbled, prayerful -- and connected?

Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:

"Two people went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing alone, was praying thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.'

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating their breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'

I tell you, the tax collector went home justified rather than the Pharisee; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV, alt.)

It's difficult for me to hear these familiar stories as if I'd never heard them before. We who have heard these stories over and over know that the Pharisee (or any other religious authority or scholar, or anyone with wealth or power) is the "bad guy" and the tax collector (or anyone else labeled as a sinner or an outcast or on the margins in some way or in any way looked down upon by the mainstream) is the "good guy."

But Andrew Prior (in his 2010 commentary on this text) quotes Craddock:

If the Pharisee is pictured as a villain and the tax collector as a hero, then each gets what he deserves, there is no surprise of grace and the parable is robbed. In Jesus' story, what both receive is "in spite of," not "because of."

Prior says, "The story is not about us. It is about God,and God's scandalous love and forgiveness for us all."

To help us better understand God's scandalous love and forgiveness, I want to dig a bit more into who these two characters are.

Everything the Pharisee says about herself is true -- she goes above and beyond what her religion requires of her. We might liken her to the church member who gives ten percent of her gross income (not just her net) to the church AND pledges to the Capital Campaign -- and buys everything fair-trade/organic from pro-union local businesses...

The tax collector was an agent of the occupying Roman Empire -- she collected money from impoverished people, to fund the occupying forces; and she might well have garnished her own wages by collecting more from these oppressed people than they actually owed. Imagine she works for ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement). Her job involves tearing apart families -- sending undocumented immigrants back to their countries of origin, while their children who have been born in this country are shunted into an overburdened foster care system.

Now you have in your mind a church member we probably all feel like we "should" strive to be like, and a loathsome government agent. Now hear the story again.

Imagine the church member prays, "God, I give thanks that I'm not like those other people -- those people who make millions by exploiting tax loopholes and exploiting the poor, those people who sexually harass people they're in positions of authority over, those people like that ICE agent over there."

And the ICE agent merely says, "God, have mercy on me a sinner."

And Jesus says, "That ICE agent? She went home right with God. Not that church member. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."

There's no indication that either of them knows how God responded to their prayer -- the church member likely still thinks she's right with God. She hasn't repented of her self-righteousnes. And the ICE agent hasn't necessarily repented either.

Prior quotes John Petty:

... what about next week? Let's say that the same two guys show up in the temple. The cleanly-attired and clean-minded pharisee reminds God (again) of how devout he is, while, this week, the tax collector shows up (again) with his whisky-breath and a blonde on each arm, and intones the same "I'm a jerk/let me off the hook anyway" prayer.

Guess what? The pharisee would (again) not be justified, and the tax collector (again) would. Week after that, same thing. Week after that, same thing. How heartwarming is this story now?

You were thinking that this story is fine as a start, but, in the future, we expect some amendment of behavior on the part of the tax collector. In other words, while the pharisee is clearly going overboard, we want the tax collector to start acting like one anyway.

Some commentators wonder exactly where the tax collector repented. Fact is, he didn't, and it wouldn't have mattered a bit even if he did. The story is not about our righteousness after all, not about our piddly attempts at self-improvement, not about our crying our eyes out or feeling suitably bad about ourselves.

Quite the contrary. Our situation is always hopeless.

I want to be very careful here, because I think the "we're all sinners who are only redeemed by the grace of God" can often be really Bad News. But I do think it's important to note that we can never, under our own power, be perfect. We are limited, fallible human beings; and we are deeply embedded in broken systems. Even the apostle Paul (who was arguably given to self-righteousness at times) confessed, "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15 and elsewhere).

Commenting on the passage this year, Prior gives an example of a prominent politician who vaunts his Christian faith but who seems very un-Christ-like in many of his policies and attitudes. It's easy to condemn that politician, to accuse him of hypocrisy. But Prior says:

I am writing to you on a computer, wearing cheap jeans, enjoying the luxury of a country built upon exploitation. [...]

We are all compromised. We do not have a prayer. Each week we— I— come back to church with whiskey breath and a laptop in my arms. This is before I fail my parishioners, or am short with my family, or parsimonious with my offering.

In that same commentary, Prior reminds us:

Teresa Lockhart Stricklen says, "Self justification has no need of God." In fact, it sets itself as God! When we disparage others whom God loves; we say we have no need of God. The "piety which despises other human beings," becomes idolatry. We "exalt ourselves." (Luke 18:14)

Bruce Maples talks about "passive contempt" -- perhaps we wouldn't be as vocal as the Pharisee in this story, but how often do we treat other people as only means to our own ends or ignore them altogether? Maples quotes Elie Wiesel -- "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." -- and asserts that Jesus wasn't indifferent to anyone but really and truly recognized every single person, and treated them as special and beloved of God. And we, of course, are called to do the same.

As I mentioned in my email, one of the things that really interests me about this story is the different models of prayer.

One of the things this story tells me is that prayer is a positive model of prayer is offering one's truth up before God. I wonder if being able to be more honest about who we are (flaws and all) better enables to encounter the totality of each other. And accepting God's love and forgiveness of us can help us extend that same grace to others.

***

What about you, Beloved?

What did this text bring up for you?

In keeping with Molly's Year of Radical Curiosity, Jeff wondered about the ways in which the Pharisee and the tax collector were both standing alone/apart (despite the crowds filling the Temple) and about whether they could bridge the gap between them by reaching out and getting to know each other.

Do any of these ways in to the story help it feel more real and relevant to you?

Are there things that still trouble you about this story?

(As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)

[Pentecost+22] "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed..."

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--God's good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2 (NRSV)

[I've gotta say, I prefer the alternate translation, "what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" -- it just flows better.]

One of the people at Tuesday night Bible study commented that there are so many ways to conform to the world -- but what does being transformed mean?

In the next few verses (3-5), Paul elaborates:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

My paraphrase of that is that we are called to use the gifts we are given, not to build ourselves up but to do the work that we're called to do -- and that we're called to do this work together.

I think community is really big for Paul, and William Loader agrees with me, saying:

Paul never saw being a Christian as a life membership on a roll somewhere. It was always entry into a relationship and growth in that relationship. Paul is always thinking about what shapes people's lives. It is another way of speaking of one's god. In his day - and certainly in ours - there are many people who count themselves as Christian, but are shaped by the prevailing values of those around them in a way that undoes anything that Christ might have wanted in their lives.

What is it that shapes your life, Beloved?

Are there ways you yearn to fall deeper into this community of love and service, to be shaped by relationships and values at work in this community?

At Bible study this week we had a couple newbies -- people who'd seen on the website that we had Bible study but had never worshiped at our church before. And I confess that I made assumptions about how conservative they might be, and further, that because of those assumptions I was hesitant to talk about Drag Gospel. The hesitation didn't seem to occur to anyone, and they spoke naturally about Sunday's service, which for me is a model of authenticity, of living out the reality of that which we profess.

On Sunday, Molly said:

God asks us in the letter to the Romans, to be transformed. God pleads with us not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Now the word Paul uses for "renewing" is not neo, like neologism or neoconservative, the putting on of a new label or face. Paul says we are to be metamorphousthei, metamorphosed into kainos, something whose character has been utterly changed.

I looked up that "transformation" ("metamorphosis") word in my Interlinear Bible, and interestingly it only shows up only a few times in Scripture.

It shows up in the Transfiguration story (Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2, specifically), which gives me an entirely new way of imaging that story -- I'm used to thinking of Jesus as just made kinda glowy, but this idea of Jesus as really transformed is intriguing to me.

The one other time it shows up is also from Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:18 -- "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of God as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from God, the Spirit." (This perhaps helps with thinking about what it means that Jesus was "transfigured.")

Someone brought up the idea that using the gerund form of "renewing" in Sunday's text implies that it's not something that happens just one time but is a continuous process. John Wesley talks about journeying on toward Christian perfection, and certainly we know from our own experience that there is never a time when we have "arrived," when we can rest on our laurels knowing we don't have any more internal work or growth we need to do.

Are there ways this community can support you (perhaps spur you) on this journey?

Are there ways that you feel God's call on your heart, calling you to be transformed in some way, calling you out of the places the world is pressing on your soul and into more fulness of life?

I invite you to continue the conversation in the comments on this post (as always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer), or in conversation with others perhaps during Coffee Hour, or in the silence of your heart (or a little bit of each, or some way else altogether).

As a final meditation, I leave you with further words from Paul, as he continues on this theme:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve God. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says God." No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(Romans 12:9-22)

[Pentecost+21] "Were none of them found to return and give thanks except this foreigner?"

On the journey to Jerusalem, Jesus passed along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. Upon entering a village, Jesus was approached by ten people with leprosy. Keeping their distance, they raised their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Seeing them, Jesus responded, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."

As they were going, they were cleansed. One of them, perceiving the healing, returned, praising God in a loud voice, then fell down at Jesus' feet and gave thanks to Jesus. The individual was a Samaritan.

Jesus replied, "Weren't all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Were none of them found to return and give thanks except this foreigner?" Then Jesus said to the Samaritan, "Stand up and go your way; your faith has saved you."

Luke 17:11-19 (The Inclusive Bible, alt.)

The tenth individual was already cleansed of leprosy along with the other nine, so what "faith" "saved" this individual?

The word "faith" is just the standard Greek pistis.

"Saved" is the Greek sozo, which my Interlinear Bible says means, "to save, i.e. deliver or protect (literally or figuratively)" and in the KJV is variously translated "heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole."

Elsewhere in Luke's Gospel, Jesus says this same thing ("your faith has saved you") to:

• the "sinful" woman who anointed Jesus at the house of a Pharisee (7:50 in 7:36-50)
• the woman who had suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years who touched the hem of Jesus' garment (8:48 in 8:42b-48)
• the blind beggar near Jericho who called out to Jesus despite being shushed (18:42 in 18:35-43)

In those three instances, there's a common thread of an active boldness, so one might suggest that that is what is what is being called out and praised.

The individual in this story, though, isn't any bolder than the other nine -- except in returning to Jesus.

The word "thanks" is euchariste -- as in, Eucharist. The commemoration of the "Last Supper" wasn't necessarily known by that name at the time that this story was written down, but those telling the story would hear that word every time they did so, every time they recalled that Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and shared it with those gathered.

At Bible study on Tuesday, someone suggested that the use of that word for "gave thanks" here suggested an outpouring (like the outpouring of the Cup and all that that symbolizes). In this context, perhaps, an idea of being so overcome by emotion, so in the moment, that you don't censor yourself -- that you're able to be fully present, fully experiencing and expressing, in the moment. I think "euchariste" is a fairly standard word for "thanks," but I'm intrigued by this interpretation.

Pastors Robb McCoy and Eric Fistler, in their worship notes for this Sunday, say:

More than just saying “thank you,” this is an outpouring of worship that shows us the Samaritan is the only one that gets the full benefit of Jesus’ healing. The others are healed, yes. This is the one that is redeemed.

“The passage confronts us with more than a push for common courtesy of saying our thank-yous. It gives us an outsider whose unrestrained and spontaneous appreciation dramatizes the essence of faith and who disrupts an otherwise easy perception that we know who the real insiders are.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year C)

This idea of disrupting expected ideas of who is "inside," who is preferred, who is specially blessed, is something we'll return to.

First, I want to be clear that this thanksgiving, this gratitude, is not a condition of this salvation.

Brian P. Stoffregen's Exegetical Notes on this passage remind us:

In contrast to a common understanding that "If you just had enough faith, God would heal you," we have this story where faith is not mentioned before the healings, but comes afterwards. Did the other nine, who are not told, "Your faith has saved/healed you," suddenly have their leprosy return?

[...]

Green (The Gospel of Luke) writes about the declaration, "Your faith has saved you":

Here, something more than healing must be intended, since (1) the efficacy of faith is mentioned and (2) all ten lepers experienced cleansing. The Samaritan was not only cleansed, but on account of faith gained something more -- namely, insight into Jesus' role in the inbreaking kingdom. He is enabled to see and is thus enlightened, itself a metaphor for redemption. [p. 627]

[...]

I think that our text relates the typical pattern of God's activities throughout scriptures -- namely, God acts first. Then our proper response to God's actions is praise and thanksgiving -- to see God's hand in what has happened.

God did not tell the Israelites in Egypt, "If you only had enough faith, I would lead you to the promised land." God led them out of slavery to Canaan.

God did not tell us, "If you only had enough faith, I would send Jesus to suffer and die for your sins." It was because we had no faith that he sent us Jesus. As Paul writes in Romans 5:8: "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us."

God doesn't wait for us to have enough faith. God acts first. God's actions are to lead to a faithful response.

Stoffregen notes that the literal meaning of "orthodoxy" is "correct praise" (the "doxology" in a worship service is a hymn of praise), and I wonder about the idea of directing our praise correctly. Not that we need to thank God instead of the medical professionals for healing, but I know I for one have a tendency to overstate the degree to which I'm responsible for my own good fortune.

Certainly those of us in positions of privilege often fail to acknowledge the many ways in which we've been handed good fortune through no effort or "merit" of our own.

Stoffregen says:

A friend of mine, after returning from a trip to Africa, said that he had become much more thankful for many things we often take for granted in America: flush toilets, running water, drinkable water, gasoline stations, paved roads. Should we thank God that we have such good things in our lives?

The rest of the world may be like the nine lepers. They have been graced by God in many ways, but they don't recognize the source of such blessings. They don't offer the proper thanks and praise through Jesus.

My family did two month-long camping trips when I was an adolescent, and I still remember how emphatically grateful I was for running water, a bed with a mattress, a bedroom door of my own to shut, etc., when we got home.

What most brought home for me how gratitude can be a blessing on top of an already positive situation was David Lose on Working Preacher saying:

Have you ever noticed just how powerful it is not only to receive blessing but also to name it and give thanks for it? Maybe you’re at dinner with family or friends, and it’s one of those meals, prepared with love and served and eaten deliberately, where time just stops for a little while and you’re all caught up and bound together by this nearly unfathomable sense of community and joy. And then you lean over to another, or maybe raise your glass in a toast, and say, “This is great. This time, this meal, you all. Thank you.” And in seeing and giving thanks, the original blessing is somehow multiplied. You’ve been blessed a second time.

Meda Stamper on Working Preacher writes:

The Samaritan’s thanksgiving and prostration at Jesus’ feet; his recognition that God is at work when Jesus notices and heals hurts and brokenness that are not noticed by others; his understanding that to thank Jesus is to glorify God: this is the manifestation of faith that makes well, as the NRSV puts it here. And this seems to come easiest to the people who have received most from Jesus, the ones who are otherwise ignored, scorned, untouched. As Jesus observes in the case of the anointing woman (7:47), the one who has been given much also loves greatly. Love that springs from gratitude is the essence of faith.

[...]

There is no doubt something to be understood here about the people who live on the margins of our communities, who are treated as invisible or unlovely because of how they look or who they are or where they come from. Jesus clearly notices and loves them and calls us to do the same.

But we might also consider the parts of us that are hidden in the borderlands of ourselves where we may least want to be seen and most need to be touched. Jesus, who is not afraid of borderlands, does not mind meeting us in those places, and it may be that by recognizing him there, we will find in our deepest selves a new outpouring of the grateful love that makes well.

I want to call out that last bit: the parts of us that are hidden in the borderlands of ourselves where we may least want to be seen and most need to be touched.

We talk a lot in this congregation about extending our ministry outside the walls of this church -- partnering with other organizations. But what about ministry within this community? On Sunday, Molly talked about turning church-friends into friend-friends. Are there ways that we can make ourselves vulnerable, to cry out to those around us, "Have mercy!"? Are there ways we can make this space feel like a safe one for people to reveal those leper piece of themselves? (Not that we don't do that already, but are there ways we can continue that work?)

Mark Davis (whose blog I really appreciate for digging into language/translation) says, "Showing oneself to the priest was an essential step in being welcomed/permitted back into the community by being declared no longer unclean. Perhaps within the language of this pericope, the priestly declaration is where the 'cure' (ἰάομαι) takes place."

While commentaries concur about the role of the priest, I'm uncomfortable with the implication that they all showed themselves to the priests and got their "clean of leprosy" certification -- because I think the point brought up by many commentaries that the Samaritan would not necessarily have been received by the Temple authorities is an important one.

Stoffregen also notes:

Another addition to this image is the fact that Jesus calls the Samaritan a foreigner (allogenes) in v. 18. Although this is the only occurrence in the NT of this Greek word, it was used in an inscription in the temple in Jerusalem: "no foreigner is to enter." The same word was used in the Septuagint in laws that forbade outsiders from coming near the tabernacle -- with a penalty of death for those who did (Numbers 1:51; 3:10, 38; 16:40; 18:4, 7; Ezekiel 44:7, 9). However, Isaiah welcomes foreigners (53:3, 6). This man who would not have been allowed in the inner areas of the Jerusalem Temple, is welcomed to worship at Jesus' feet.

I am really uncomfortable with basically any commentary that criticizes the institutional Judaism of Jesus' time because it's so easy to slide from there to asserting that Jesus (and the institution that grew up around Jesus) is better than all Judaism -- but it's true that there were deep divides between Jews and Samaritans, and Jesus works to bring about Isaiah's vision of welcoming the Gentiles into the kindom of God.

Luke tells us that Jesus saw the lepers. Unlike in some of the healing stories, Jesus doesn't physically touch them at all to heal them. This is healing at a distance -- both physically and temporally; the people aren't healed until they're on their way to the priests.

I wonder if they went to the priests because they had faith that something good would happen, or if they were just sort of going through the motions, thinking, "Well that Jesus sure wasn't all he was cracked up to be -- maybe we'll find somewhere else to beg along the way."

I'm hard-pressed to come up with a contemporary equivalent to leprosy -- yes, it still exists, but in our First World lives it's rather distant.

And then I read something Barbara Sholis wrote in The Christian Century almost a decade ago:

When chemotherapy causes your hair to fall out, robs you of your energy and fills your mouth with canker sores, you begin to develop empathy with the ten lepers. There is no hiding the fact that you are diseased. Your cancer walks into the room before you do and people who know better still flinch -- as they did before lepers, who were made to live outside the community, who had to beg for survival.

Many of us remember when Molly was going through chemotherapy treatment for her cancer. Often, we couldn't touch her lest we risk her health.

A friend of mine has chronic pain, and when I worshiped with her, I (and the rest of the small community) learned to hug her very gently during the Passing of the Peace. There are those who due to past trauma or other reasons do not want a full-contact Passing of the Peace and may not want physical touch (even a gentle handshake) at all.

I wonder if there's a way in which Jesus not touching the lepers was a gift to them.

This certainly seems a kinder reading than one comment I read while prepping for Bible study -- "Perhaps, he just doesn’t have time for this kind of distraction. Jesus is on a purposeful journey – Luke’s story. His ability to heal is no longer a question in most people’s minds. His objective, Jerusalem and the cross, are very close."

I'm sure that my theology of the import or purpose of the Cross differs greatly from that of this commentor, but I don't think I'm unorthodox in insisting that Jesus cared about individuals, had a particular mission to those on the margins. Earlier in Luke, Jesus asserted that God knows the very hairs on our head (Luke 12:7; also Matthew 10:30). And even earlier in Luke (4:18), Jesus proclaims that Isaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus:

The Spirit of our God is upon me,
    because God has anointed me
      to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
      to let the oppressed go free

GoodPreacher.com posted an excerpt of a piece by Prince Raney Rivers (or possibly David Howell -- I'm a little confused) that says:

The Gospel is for those who are crying out.

[...]

Jesus sees the lepers and tells them, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they go, they are cleansed. Whenever Jesus sees someone, everything changes. When Jesus sees a person, they move to the center stage of God’s redemptive drama. When Jesus sees a person, she or he becomes the primary beneficiary of the Father’s love. We are never so isolated that God cannot see us. We are never so hopeless that God does not want to see us. You may want to remind people of this good news.

We are never so isolated that God cannot see us. We are never so hopeless that God does not want to see us.

Picking up on the movement of those cleansed to the priests for certification (so they can begin their reintegration into society), Nancy Rockwell says:

But joy will always elude them, for they only believe their healing when others believe it, they seek its confirmation from others, and so they will be forever subject to the joy-snatching comments Anne Lamott calls ‘drive-by shootings of the mouth’: Hey, aren’t you the guy who had leprosy?

They’ll be held at arms’ length by some, maybe even by some in the family. Recovering alcoholics, clean addicts, ex-cons, the disabled, all know about this kind of life. You can go home, but belonging at home is something else, when in someone else’s opinion you are still unclean, still unacceptable. And that seems to be where Jesus brought wellness in. Giving thanks is the beginning, because thanks is an act of accepting yourself as the be-gifted, the be-loved.

[...]

The one healed leper who could never belong in Israel because of being foreign, knew this. He understood that his home was now with the man who understood his misery in grace, who heard his prayer. The unkindness of the world cannot touch him, for he is not seeking a return to life before leprosy. He is walking forward into the unknown world of wellness, where what is foreign is no longer of importance, nor is what has been unclean, nor are there distinctions between the spirits of the living and the dead.

Are there ways that we have found healing from God?

What new life is God calling you into?

One piece of the story I really hadn't noticed until some of the commentaries noted it was that Jesus doesn't just say, "your faith has saved you," but also says, "Stand up, and go your way."

Alyce M. McKenzie on Patheos comments that:

[Jesus] is not interested in having people hang around and thank him. Often, when he heals people, he doesn't say "Stick around and thank me." He says, "Go your way, your faith has made you well." I am reminded of the college president faced with a large graduating class. As each person came across the stage, he handed them their diploma, while shaking their hand and said, "Congratulations ...and keep moving." It was a stage direction to keep the ceremony moving, but it was also good life advice. Jesus says to those he heals, "Congratulations and keep moving. Don't stick around thanking me."

Robert Cornwall says:

One of the ten, a Samaritan, upon recognizing that he is now clean, doesn’t continue on his way to the priests. He returns to Jesus, prostrates himself before Jesus and praises God with a loud voice. Jesus points to this act of faith and commends the man, for alone among the ten he had recognized the source of his healing. But, I wonder if there’s not another reason. This Samaritan could have gone to the priests, but would they have received him – for he was a stranger. Perhaps the Samaritan recognized in Jesus a person who would welcome him though he was a Samaritan. This isn’t to condemn the Jewish people or its priests, but simply to point out that being the stranger can be difficult. Recognizing the source of his healing to be found in Jesus, he returned to that source, and offered words of praise.

Jesus commends the man, and points out that it is a foreigner who recognizes the work of God in Jesus. Luke tells this story in part to draw contrasts between those who should have been at the forefront of recognizing presence in Jesus, and those who actually did. Whether they recognized it or not all had been liberated from the borders that had kept them separated – whether by disease of ethnicity – from the whole people of God. De La Torre writes that the Samaritan is the one who truly recognized his liberation – liberation from marginalization.

He was no longer forced to live in the borderlands. In this passage we discover a Jesus who saves all living on the borders between what is defined as clean and unclean, between native and foreign. [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, p. 424].

As I read this passage I hear in it not just the story of healing a body. I hear in it an invitation to allow Jesus to transcend our borders, to liberate us from our cells, so that we can enjoy the fullness of God’s realm. For many of us, it’s difficult to imagine this border situation, but in what way does Jesus liberate all of us from living beyond the borders of separation? How might we participate in God’s work of healing rifts within the world community? What does Jesus have to say to us about this matter?

These seem as good questions as any with which to close:

• in what way does Jesus liberate all of us from living beyond the borders of separation?
• How might we participate in God’s work of healing rifts within the world community?

On Sunday, Molly inaugurated A Year of Radical Curiosity (and Gratitude), largely in response to the fact that First Church Somerville is growing and it can be difficult to retain some of what we really valued about being a small(er) more intimate community in that growth. When there were fewer people, everyone did all the work and everyone knew each other -- because we didn't have a choice. Perhaps not unlike the ten lepers, who banded together because they had no choice. And perhaps those lepers sometimes felt lonely even in that constant group of people. Can we find ways to grow more deeply in relationship with each other, to lay open our vulnerabilities and make space for healing, to ask for aid from those around us, to become radically curious about the particular situations of those around us?

(As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)

[Pentecost+20] "worthless slaves"?

Jesus said: "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to the slave, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

-Luke 17:7-10 (NRSV, alt.)

On Sunday, Jeff suggested that "anyone who owns slaves will make a slave of themselves" -- that when we treat people who serve us so poorly, we will expect God to treat us likewise.

We stayed on this theme at Tuesday night's Bible study -- reflecting on the fact that if everyone mistreats those who are "below" them, that way lies disaster because each of us is "below" someone else.

And not just people who are, e.g., subordinates to you at work -- but what about when you're driving and someone cuts you off and you yell at them and then you cut someone else off and yell at them for going too slowly? Do we grant ourselves exceptions we are unwilling to grant others?

Jeff said that while translations often identify Jesus as a "carpenter," the Greek tekton means a builder, a laborer -- in our parlance perhaps a construction worker. Does this change our perception of Jesus? The skilled labor of a carpenter seems to me to fit nicely with a wisdom teacher, specifically the kind of clean, almost ethereal wisdom teacher we often see depicted in artwork. Does Jesus as a construction worker, oppressed by Roman occupation and debt slavery, make Jesus more approachable to those of us like Kyle (a Burger King worker who shared testimony on Sunday morning) who are working hard, in labor that isn't always valued and certainly isn't always fairly compensated?

Liz D. told a story in her confessional liturgy of eating out at a McDonald's with her family and buying dinner for someone who had been begging. She recounted that someone else in line had disparagingly informed her that this beggar was there every night with the same request.

If someone is at a McDonald's every night asking for money for food, perhaps the problem isn't with that person but with the system.

The revised Common Lectionary begins this passage 2 verses earlier -- with the apostles asking for more faith and Jesus saying that faith even the size of a mustard seed is sufficient -- so a lot of the commentaries for the day connected those two portions.

Drawing on passages from preceding chapters in Luke, John Petty sets the background of this passage as Jesus' concern for "the destitute poor, the hopelessly lost, and sinners generally." Petty, writes of this conversation between the apostles and Jesus:

You can see their problem. Jesus has just told them that, in the reign of God, the whole program of the world is up-ended. Forgiveness is the order of every day. The moral categories which are so important to us are completely set aside. Our whole agenda of worthiness and striving is radically subverted. It is, rather, precisely in the weak, the fragile, the "little ones," that the reality of grace is manifest.

"Increase our faith," say the apostles. They are troubled by the upside-down way of God. They cry out for more faith in order to handle their unease, a request which indicates that they still don't get it. The reign of God is not about us increasing anything.

We don't need "more." In fact, if anything, we need "less." We need less striving to get "better," and less addiction to the moral categories of this world. [...]

The gospel itself is a skandalon. Through the death and resurrection of the Lord, all human striving is cancelled out. We experience this as a "scandal." We believe in striving, after all. We believe in trying to become bigger, better, and stronger. We do not understand power made manifest in the weakness of the cross, and we don't particularly like it either.

This is why Jesus does not increase their faith. In fact, faith counts for less than the apostles think. Only a smidgen of it--less than they have now, most likely--and the extraordinary would seem commonplace.

The "answer" is not an "increase" in anything--not even faith. As Robert Capon puts it, "When it comes to faith, they don't have to be winners." The gospel is not at all connected with moral or spiritual success.

Returning to our reading from Sunday, Petty says:

Jesus again strikes at the idea of reward. We don't get rewarded for good behavior--not even spiritual good behavior. The whole idea of "reward" is, itself, a skandalon. We don't get paid back for being swell boys and girls. Our virtue does not obligate God.

You apostles are just doing your job--no more, no less--and even if you screw that up, which you undoubtedly will, I'll keep on accepting you and accepting you and accepting you--totally and completely, every single day--just as I accept all the "little ones," and all the lost.

***

What speaks to you, Beloved, in this passage and these reflections?

Is it the exhortation to treat others as you would hope God would treat you?

Or the reminder that you aren't entitled to any special gifts from God?

Or something else entirely?

You're invited to continue the conversation in the comments, commenting anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.

[Pentecost+19] "between you and us a great chasm has been fixed"

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.

The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.

The rich man also died and was buried. In Sheol, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.

He called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.'

But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'

He said, 'Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.'

Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.'

He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'

Abraham said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV, alt,)

Beloved, what spoke to you in this passage?

Molly preached largely about the issue of control. The rich man, in agony after death, is asking that Lazarus (who is resting in the bosom of Abraham) be sent to serve him.

Molly said:

I've noticed something about myself, and maybe you've noticed the same thing about yourself. The more control I have, the more privilege I have, the more things go my way—the more outraged I am about the things that don't go my way. There is a kind of madness that seizes me when the bus is late, when the kid gets sick, when my plans are ruined. I think "that's not the way things are supposed to go!" as if I am the boss of the universe.

This is certainly something I can relate to much more easily than a rich man who hosts banquets every day.

It's an interesting question who is in control in this parable. Both the reward and punishment are in the passive voice. Do we believe that God has sent Lazarus to eternal rest and the rich man to eternal agony? When Abraham says, "between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us," do we think that means the post-death verdict is final and God will never change God's mind?

Molly cited theologian G. Penny Nixon: "the moral of the story expressed in this parable is that if you do not cross the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor in this life, you surely will not be able to do it in the next."

What really spoke to me in Molly's sermon was the indictment of how we ignore those in need who are just outside our gates -- or in our urban context, on the edges of the sidewalks we traverse.

Liturgist Carolyn G. reassured us that we don't necessarily have to give money to panhandlers, that even a moment of human connection can be a blessing. I asked in my invitation email if this feels comforting or like it lets us off the hook too easily, perhaps giving away my own cynical take.

David Lose on Working Preacher writes:

In this light, perhaps the issue isn't simply that the man is rich or that he demonstrates no compassion toward Lazarus (though both of these things are true and important), but rather that his wealth prevents him from seeing or relating to Lazarus as a fellow child of God. As Greg Carey points out in his very helpful commentary, notice how the rich man assumes Lazarus will do his bidding even in the hereafter. Compassion has surfaced as an important value at several points in Luke's gospel, variously ascribed to Jesus (7:13), to the good Samaritan (10:33), and most recently to the prodigal's waiting Father (15:20). Could it be that not having compassion is one sure sign of being lost? Even more, might Jesus be warning that riches can stunt our compassion by insulating us from the need of others?

Maybe this is the tie back to Jesus' pronouncement that one cannot love both God and wealth a few verses earlier. For to love God is to love neighbor, the one in need (see, again, 10:25-37). Perhaps the chasm that separates the rich man and Lazarus in death only echoes the one that separated them in life. And while Lazarus' comfort in the bosom of Abraham is the reversal of fortune promised at the outset of Luke's Gospel (1:46-55), maybe the rich man's torment is the isolation from human compassion he has lived with all of his life made now painfully manifest. [...]

It seems to me that part of what is at stake in Jesus' parable is the link between our wellbeing and that of others. If we cannot feel compassion for others we have lost something that is deeply and genuinely human. In time, the wealth that has numbed us to the need of our neighbor deludes us into imagining that we ourselves have no need, are sufficient unto ourselves, and can easily substitute hard work and a little luck for grace and mercy. At that point, we are, indeed, lost.

But I think the reverse is also true -- that as we become more responsive to the hurts, hopes, and needs of others we become more acutely aware of our own humanity, of our own longings and insufficiency and thereby can appreciate God's offer of manifest grace in Christ, the one who took on our need, our humanity, our lot and our life, all in order to show us God's profound love for each and all of us.

We talk a lot in this community about sharing our stories, about being vulnerable with each other. We talk about how the opportunity to offer care to another can be a gift to us the giver. Does our turning away from those in need on our streets contribute to a sort of soul death in ourselves? Does it keep us from full relationship with God in keeping us from full relationship with God's beloved children?

I sometimes worry about the heart-tugging stories -- that they fill us with compassion, but our distress is so great that we don't actually do anything about it.

In Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary [Season After Pentecost 2 (Propers 17 - Reign of Christ) - Year C], Scott Bader-Saye suggests that:

the more we become voyeurs upon the faraway sufferings of others, the more impotent we feel to do anything about pain and injustice. Despair and cynicism tempt us to close our eyes to suffering and shut down our overloaded sympathies.

In his Confessions, Augustine [...] asks, "How real is the mercy evoked by fictional dramas? The listener is not moved to offer help, but merely invited to feel sorrow."¹ [...]

As well as anyone, Johann Baptist Metz has called our attention to invisible suffering. For Metz, such attentiveness lies at the heart of Christian spirituality. He invites us into "a God-mysticism with an increased readiness to perceive, a mysticism of open eyes that sees more and not less. It is a mysticism that especially makes visible all invisible and inconvenient suffering, and -- convenient or not -- pays attention to it and takes responsibility for it, for the sake of a God who is a friend of human beings."² This parable challenges us not simply to share wealth but to become attentive to the poor and suffering persons who are before us, who dwell at our doorstep or, more likely, in another part of town where we do not see hem if we do not want to. Where is the invisible suffering in our world: the suffering of women and children in sweatshops, who are invisible behind the labels we buy; the suffering of animals in factory farms, who are invisible behind our fast food; the suffering of the suspect who is tortured behind locked doors to calm our cancerous fears? We live within political and economic systems that feed upon the sufferings of others, all the while keeping those sufferings invisible. The call of Christ is to refuse to live any longer by those convenient fabrications.

1. Augustine, The Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 38.
2. Johann Baptist Metz, A Passion for God: The Mystical-Political Dimension of Christianity, trans, J. Matthew Ashley (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1998), 163.

(page 118)

I wonder if perhaps part of the solution is not just to acknowledge those in need around us, but to acknowledge how not that different they are from us.

Mark Scandrette on The Hardest Question writes:

A friend of mine recently told me about an experience he had. After the gathering of his faith community he walked outside to find a man begging for spare change. "What do you need the money for?" he asked. The man replied, "I'd like to buy a beer." "Sorry," my friend said, "I can't give you money for that." Then my friend went on to a pub down the street with his church friends and bought a round of beers for everyone. Reflecting on this incident he said, "I guess I felt justified judging the begging man, assuming that he was an alcoholic, even though I would never do that with my friends."

I take my friends and family out for meals. When people come to my house I always offer them a cup of coffee or something else to drink and invite them to stay for dinner. I naturally and unconsciously give to people I consider to be my friends. So why do I face hesitation and resistance when the person is poor or unknown or smells bad. Maybe the honest truth is that I don't consider these people to be my friends or even potential friends the way I do people who look more like me or appear to be less needy. I don't think my friends are taking advantage of me when they stay at my house and eat my food or ask to borrow my car.

G. Penny Nixon suggests of our text from Luke, "Perhaps Jesus had been a guest at one of his listener's homes and had witnessed a scene similar to the one with which he begins his parable. This surely would have heightened the discomfort created by his words" (Feasting on the Word, p. 119).

Does Mark Scandrette's story indict us?

We worry about how best to use our money in God's service -- if we give money to someone on the street, will they use it in ways that will further diminish their well-being? Are we doing more good dollar-per-dollar if we give to an organization? Which organizations are making the most effective use of donations? Are we sure that these organization aren't acting in ways that violate our values (like the Salvation Army)?

Discussing the rich man's request that Lazarus return from the dead to warn his brothers, Scott Bader-Saye says:

The quest for certitude often becomes an excuse for not acting. This parable suggests that God will not, perhaps cannot, speak to us with a sign that escapes the need to be interpreted and believed. We are left with the call to act based not on an absolute certainty in the divine command, but on the visibility of the suffering face that becomes, for us, the face of Christ himself, shrouded in all the ambiguity of our finitude and fallenness.

(Feasting on the Word, page 120)

In the invitation to the offering, Carolyn G. said that God's standards are low.

Can we respond to the need we encounter, guided by the pull of God on our hearts, knowing that if we act imperfectly, it is likely better than if we had failed to act at all?

Does this story inspire us to make more of an effort to recognize all those around us as beloved children of God?

(As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)

[Pentecost+18] (un)dressing God

Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

So God created humankind in God's image,
in the image of God I AM created them;
male and female I AM created them.

-Genesis 1:26-27 (NRSV, alt.)

***

The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus."

-Luke 1:30-31 (NRSV)

***

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

-Luke 13:34 (NRSV)

Molly closed her sermon with imagining undressing God sufficient that we could touch God skin-to-skin.

This felt deeply erotic to me and got me thinking about bodily intimacy, about how the particularities of our lover's body are deeply important and at the same time that doesn't mean those particularities need never change (you still love this person, and their body, even as their body changes).

We've been talking at Bible study in recent weeks about recognizing the face of Jesus and about names for Jesus. This Sunday's sermon about undressing God -- about using gendered markers as signposts along the way deeper into the mystery that is God but discarding the ones that function as barriers for us -- continues that conversation.

I am deeply, deeply committed to the conviction that we are each created in the image and likeness of God. But I don't love the gender binary of the Genesis passage. There are people who identify as neither male nor female (or for whom those labels do not name the fulness of their gender identity), and I fiercely believe that they, too, are created in the image and likeness of God. (And please don't tell me that the text refers to the biological "fact" of "male" and "female" -- among other reasons, because that erases intersex people.)

When we talked about the parable of the Good Samaritan in Bible study in July, people wondered things like, "When the robbed and beaten person woke up and found out what had happened, how did they feel about having been rescued by a Samaritan? Did this change their perspective on Samaritans as a whole?" And they raised these questions as if they were questions that had answers. That's the power of a good story.

The Creation narratives are good stories.

What the authors of this passage were saying was that all people are created in God's image -- that it is not just men, not just Jews, not just the able-bodied, not just the prosperous, but everyone.

Molly's sermon was titled "Undressing God," but in the Incarnation, God dresses Godself in flesh.

Our first text from Luke names the particularity of the Incarnation.

A woman named Mary will give birth to a child, a child she will experience as a son, and she will name that child Jesus.

This is the dress God chooses in this moment -- a first-century Galilean Jew, one who is circumcised on the eighth day, one who is named Jesus (or Joshua, or Yeshua).

Our second text from Luke reminds us that this is not the whole of the story.

Jesus likens Jesuself to a mother hen, longing to gather Jerusalem under her wing.

Jesus is not always what we would expect. Jesus is forever subverting the expectations of everyone else by not being overthrowing the Roman Empire with force and establishing a divine monarchy, but that's not the only subversion of expectations Jesus enacts.

Jesus was born into a particular time and a particular place. We are reminded of this every time our Bibles have glosses explaining an unfamiliar idiom or an unfamiliar reference. But the Jesus story is also one which was captured the hearts and imaginations of people for two millennia. We tell and retell the stories, making them new again each time.

Molly said:

God is lots of things that we are not. It's important that God be some things we are not, for God to be God. And it's important that God not only be things we are not, so we can draw close to God, and God can draw close to us.

Maybe the reason God gave Godself so many names is because we are created in the image of God, which is to say we won't be put in boxes any more than God will, and we're so different, all of us, but we're the same in that we all need God, but maybe have different ways of getting back to the red sequin sparkly heart of God, getting close to God.

For some of you Higher Power or Great Mystery is right, but for others of us those names are too slippery and cold. We want to know God as personal and a person, and so we tuck ourselves under our Mother's wing as Her little chicks, or stand behind the strength and immensity of our Father.

Words are just the things we use to grab hold of God, and maybe once we find a word that works for us, we can let go of the word and just hold tight to God instead.

What names for God help you draw close to God? Are there names for God you wish you could reclaim?

As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.

[Pentecost+17] "Who do you say that I am?"

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

-Revelation 22:13 (NRSV)

Molly preached about names for Jesus, particularly the "I am" statements Jesus used (as opposed to the names/titles other people gave to Jesus) -- and about the importance of names, of being known by others ... and about being in community, being known by your community, and being remade as we grow into ourselves.

In the sermon nugget that got posted to the First Church facebook, Molly said:

Where the friendly names put him on pedestal, all by himself, and where the unfriendly names tried to put him down with the low-down and no-good, every single title that Jesus gave himself was about connecting to others, about being or doing something for others. Shine a light on a path for the person in the dark. Call the lost one home. Bring us back from death, or things that feel like death. Yoke us, like clusters of grapes, to one another and to the earth.

Jesus seems to be saying: "The titles that matter are not the ones that lift us up or put us down. I am not going to let other people do either one of those things to me. I am going to define the hell out of myself."

Molly's list of "I am" titles that Jesus used is:

Light of the world
Bread of Life
Living Water
The Door
The Good Shepherd
The Resurrection and the Life
The Way
The Truth
The Life
The True Vine
The Son of Man
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end

These are very poetic titles, but deeply embedded in metaphorical context. Does that embedded context make these titles feel resonant and meaningful for you? Perhaps you have grown up in the church and these titles are like your grandmother's quilts -- beautiful and comforting ... familiar ancient language you can wrap yourself up in. Or perhaps you haven't grown up in the church and they feel strange, like visiting someone's house, unsure where how to make sense of anything.

Following up Molly's theme of relationship, I wonder if the stories of some of those who were in relationship with the historical Jesus, the one walking the earth with skin on, can help us find our own way into the Jesus story.

Joseph, the father of Jesus

In Matthew's account, Joseph plans to divorce Mary quietly when he learns of her pregnancy, but an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him (among other things) that the child "will save his people from their sins" (1:21). Later, after the baby is born and the Magi leave, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream again and says, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him" (2:13) -- where they remain until the death of Herod.

The text is silent about whether Mary and Joseph knew that Herod "sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under" (2:16), but surely they would have heard about when they returned from Egypt if nothing else -- that kind of event isn't the kind of thing that disappears from people's memories.

Does Jesus feel like someone who entered your life uninvited, disrupted it, put you at risk? Does the call on your heart feel like one you'd rather turn away from?

Mary, the mother of Jesus

She was told many things about her young child -- in Luke's account, the angel Gabriel tells her that the power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will have a son who will be holy, who will be called the Son of God, who will be great, who will be called the Son of the Most High, to whom God will give the throne of David and who will reign over the house of Jacob forever (1:26-38, particularly 32-35).

When the shepherds arrive at the manger, they share what they had been told about this child -- that the angel proclaimed good news of great joy for all people, that a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, was born, but for all those exalted titles would be found swaddled in a manger (2:8-20, particularly 10-12).

Mary "treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (2:19), but when Jesus was eight days old, they went to the Temple and Mary was given even more words to ponder. Simeon picked up the baby Jesus and praised God saying, "my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (2:30-32) but also told Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too" (2:34-35).

What must it have been like to be given charge of someone destined for such greatness? Does the Lord language we use for Jesus serve to distance Jesus, making him feel like someone with so much power and authority as to be unapproachable?

Do the narrative memories of Jesus as a baby, of Jesus born into humble circumstances, of Jesus slipping away from his parents to dispute with the religious teachers (1:41-52), feel like a more accessible Jesus, a Jesus you could imagine befriending and following along the roads?

What about Simeon's prediction that "a sword will pierce your own soul too"? Have you fallen so in love with Jesus that Good Friday breaks your heart every year?

Simeon

We are told in Luke's gospel that Simeon was a righteous and devout man, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and that the Holy Spirit rested on him and had revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah (4:25-26).

Perhaps you have come to Christianity late in life. Perhaps you knew that somewhere you would find consolation and hope, and you have found it in Jesus.

Simeon -- whom the text gives us no indication knew Mary and Joseph at all -- picks up the baby Jesus and starts praising God.

Are you so on fire for Jesus that the usual rules of polite society don't mean anything?

Simon Peter

Jesus asks, "who do you say that I am?" and Simon Peter answers, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus says, "you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:13-20, particularly 14-18).

The gates of Hades may not prevail against the church, but Peter himself seems less rock-solid. In the very next story, Jesus foretells his suffering, death, and resurrection, and Peter takes him aside and "rebukes" him, insisting that this must never happen. Jesus responds, "Get behind me, Satan!"

Peter may have known the correct answer to "who is Jesus?" but he doesn't seem to understand what kind of Messiah Jesus has come to be. Not only does he protest against Jesus' prophecies, but he also protests Jesus washing his feet -- and then pendulum-swings in the opposite direction (John 13:2-11, particularly 6-9) and, when Jesus is arrested, responds with the sword (John 18:10). And then, of course, after his emphatic protestations at the Last Supper that he would never betray Jesus, he (as Jesus had predicted) denies Jesus three times that very night.

While Jesus isn't always patient in his correction of Peter, he never rejects Peter altogether -- nor does he even revoke Peter's position as rock of his church. The resurrected Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" and after each Yes says, "Feed [or take care of] my sheep [or my lambs]" (John 21:15-17).

We may not always understand who Jesus is, but we can care for each other.

That this fallible human being was the rock on whom Jesus built the Church ... does that comfort us? Does that alleviate some of our anxiety that we can't possibly do what Jesus is asking of us, that we can't possibly be good enough for Jesus?

Judas

Infamous for betraying Jesus, selling Jesus out to the Temple authorities who would have him killed for thirty pieces of silver (enough money to buy a field, perhaps as much as a half a year's wages -- how much money would it take for you to sell out someone you loved?).

The text doesn't tell us much about why Judas does this. Two of the Gospel accounts assert that Satan entered into him (Luke 22:3–6 and John 13:27). The musical Jesus Christ Superstar offers one interpretation. Does Judas know he's sending Jesus to death? Matthew's account states that Judas, seeing that Jesus was condemned, repents and gives back the money (27:3-4).

Do we think Jesus forgave Judas? Jesus clearly knew what was coming and made no effort to stop Judas -- in John's account, Jesus says, "What you are about to do, do quickly" (John 13:27).

Perhaps Judas is the one we feel the most kinship with -- one who betrayed Jesus and didn't have the chance to make it right. Perhaps we feel alienated, like we don't know how to find our way home. Perhaps we thought we had found salvation and hope in Jesus (in the Church? in Christianity?) and then it turned out to not be what we expected.

***

Do you find yourself in these stories? Or perhaps in other stories that you find yourself, like Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead (or perhaps you are one of Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, and it is someone you thought you had lost whom Jesus restored to life), or others who were freed from illness or death, who were given a new identity, a new place in the world, through interaction with Jesus.

Are there perhaps other places you find ways to connect to Jesus, like hymns? "In The Garden" tells the story of Mary Magdalene with the risen Christ, but many people have found its narrative imagery resonant for their own walk with Jesus.

As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.

[Pentecost+16] the cost of discipleship

Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and Jesus turned and said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother and parent, wife and husband and spouse and children, brothers and sisters and siblings, yes, and even life itself, is not able to be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me is not able to be my disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, when you have laid a foundation and are not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and was not able to finish.'

Or what sovereign, going out to wage war against another sovereign, will not sit down first and consider whether they are able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against them with twenty thousand? If they cannot, then, while the other is still far away, they send a delegation and ask for the terms of peace.

So therefore, none of you is able to become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

Luke 14:25-33 (NRSV, alt.)

Beloved, what spoke to you in this passage?

As I read commentaries in prep for Tuesday night's Bible study, the overwhelming impression I got was that Jeff let us off too easy on Sunday with his framing that Jesus is only calling us to be willing to risk everything.

This does not mean that I necessarily think this passage is intended as harshly as it might be read. The commentaries I've read assert that "hate" in this context doesn't have the emotional ladenness that we read into it today, rather it means more of a turning away from. Some translations say, "If you do not love me more than these..." (see also, Matthew 10:37-38) which is more accurate in some ways, though it arguably also feels less challenging that way. In Jesus' time, the family was a foundational location of a person's identity -- even more so than it often is today, to reject one's family would be a really serious thing. Many of us know how tense it can be when we tell family members, "I think I'd rather just celebrate Thanksgiving here with my friends, instead of traveling out-of-state for the big family get-together," or, "We're not going to do that Christmas tradition you love so much with our children," or, "I don't want to go to Grandma and Grandpa's 50th anniversary party." How much more serious would it be to say, "I'm leaving the family business and the homestead to go follow an itinerant preacher"?

Jesus asks us to go all in. We are commanded to love our family, because we are commanded to love everyone, but our families need to not hold the position of privilege they might otherwise.

In a blog post called "Holy Hating," D. Mark Davis says, "this call to discipleship is radical, implying that those who follow Jesus are not going to be making decisions based on 'what's best for me,' or even 'what's best for our marriage/family/children.' "

One commentary I read asserted that "all your possessions" in the last line of this passage means more like "one's whole existence." Another commentary I read talked about living fully into God's Will in all aspects of our lives, rather than segregating it into the "religious" parts of our lives.

What would that feel like, to give God priority over everything else in our lives? Would that feel like "hating" everything else in a way? Thinking about the idea that "hate" here means a turning away from or a detachment from, it certainly seems accurate to me to think that it would mean a willingness to lose all other things -- to hold them loosely.

Many translations say "cannot be my disciple," but various commentaries suggest that "is not able to" would be a more accurate translation -- that it is not that Jesus is imposing a barrier but that it is simply impossible.

This story takes place while Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, knowing that the cross is waiting. Jesus has already left home and family and career -- and is going to leave life (whatever we believe about what happens after Jesus' death, Jesus never returns to this exact same kind of life).

Some commentaries raise the point that Jesus' "sensible" advice in the middle of this passage advises us to count the cost before embarking on an endeavor, so that we do not undertake something we are unable to complete, but of course it's impossible for us to bring this work of discipleship to completion, at least on our own.

At Bible Study on Tuesday, we recalled a liturgist from a couple weeks ago commenting about all the "good work" she does -- and all the good work she doesn't do. The good work she does is attached to a paycheck, and that makes it easier. If it were always easy to do this work, there would be no poverty -- we would have gotten rid of it, fed and clothed and housed all the people, reformed all the systems. But of course we haven't.

So this all sounds hard and difficult and not very much like Good News, right?

David Lose on Working Preacher points out that "more and more psychological research indicates that we actually value more highly those things for which we sacrifice," but that's not a sufficient argument for me. I don't disbelieve the research findings, but I don't want to value something just because I sacrificed for it -- that's a cognitive bias; I want to value it because it has value. I want to value it because it's Good News. Last week, the lectionary was about a dinner party, and a dinner party sounds like a possible site for Good News, right?

The lectionary skips the seguing passage (Luke 14:15-24) between last week and this week, a passage in which Jesus tells another dinner party story -- in which the invited guests all send their regrets because of other commitments and so the host invites "the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame" and then when there is still room, insists on compelling those from the highways and byways outside of the city limits, "For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner." Which certainly sounds like Good News to those who are usually ignored but who were invited to this feast.

In "How Not to Respond to an Evite," Alyce M. McKenzie asks:

So if Jesus is warning us against accepting invitations we don't have the goods to see through to the end, is he giving those who didn't come to the banquet a pass? Is he giving them a back-handed compliment for their honesty? Are we to get from this that it is a viable option for us to say, "I don't want to come to the banquet because I have other priorities"? Is it okay to admit, "I don't want any part of carrying the cross? I don't have what it takes to answer the invitation to follow Jesus? I don't have a strong enough spirit of service, and I lack the depths of compassion for others to be a disciple?"

Which makes a lot of sense, but it ignores the part where Jesus said, "For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner."

McKenzie goes on to suggest how the next part of our story goes if we say No:

The part where we end up in a dark and isolated place, where, like lost sheep, we risk spiritual death unless we are found and rescued.

Does that sound too grim? Too melodramatic? I don't think so. I think it's a realistic counting of the cost. The cost of not following Jesus, not coming to the banquet, not carrying the cross. What a pity it would be for us to respond to God's evite in this way: "Great idea to have party. I won't be there." The only way to find joy, peace, and a repaired relationship with God and others is by living for others out of our love for God. That is a bedrock conviction of the entire gospel of Luke. Discipleship comes at a cost. But staying home and not answering the invitation comes at an even higher cost.

We do not have what it takes, out of our own human resources, to see this sacrificial way of living through to the end. The good news is that God, working through Jesus, the Good Shepherd, helps us to persevere in the life of discipleship when our energy flags and our patience reaches its expiration date.

When the host sends servants around to let us know the banquet is ready, the best response might be: "Great idea to have a party. I'm on my way!"

What do you think, Beloved?

Where is the pull of God on your heart in this challenging passage -- or is this a passage where you don't feel God speaking to you at all, which you'd rather write off as hyperbole?

Does the promise of a heavenly banquet, of a party where all are celebrating and feasting together, feel like a compelling motivation to tikkun olam -- the repair of the world? Do you believe the assertion that it is only through committing to the radical discipleship that Jesus calls us to that we can experience this fullness of life?

(As always, you're invited to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)