Bible | Michael Valliant

Live Now What Matters Forever

Background: My August preaching weekend at Christ Church Easton gave me Luke 12:13-21, where Jesus tells the Parable of the Rich Fool, who wants to build bigger barns to store all his stuff. Following is the text of my sermon.

“Live Now What Matters Forever”

There is a lot going on in today’s Gospel reading that gets my mind and my heart churning.

Someone in the crowd says to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

And Jesus’s answer may seem for our day and time like one of the most un-Jesus responses we can imagine:

“Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

Some followers of Jesus today like to lift absolutely everything up for Jesus to help us to make our decisions, to settle our disputes.

But Jesus may say to us sometimes, “That sounds like ‘your problem.’ That sounds like something you guys are going to have to figure out for yourselves.”

Certainly, this nameless person from the crowd has his own self-interest in mind and wants to get the teacher he looks up to, to weigh in on his side, to tell his brother to give him some money and some land.

It may astonish us that in dealing with family matters, Jesus’s answer to us might be, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

Not the answer we were hoping for.

One of the reasons Jesus doesn’t have an interest in answering this question or settling this dispute is that he sees it is leading the person, his brother, and the crowd in a bad direction. If this is the kind of question you really want to spend your time with Jesus going through, you’ve got a bigger problem.

Greed and hoarding possessions are not going to help you. And then Jesus does one of the most Jesus things he does when asked questions.

He says, “Let me tell you a story…”

I love that Jesus’s answer to some of the most vexing questions and profound problems when the crowds press him for answers is… “Let me tell you a story.”

Franciscan and author Richard Rohr says:

“The way Jesus usually answers questions is by telling a story. There is creative and healing power in a story. It doesn’t avoid the question, it goes to the root of the question… That’s the way the great masters of religion always taught—by simply telling stories and giving the soul room to grow and understand.”

If Jesus gives them an answer, they are done thinking about the matter. It doesn’t help them grow; it doesn’t help them understand the deeper currents that are underneath the question.

Jesus’s parables work on us. They stick with us. And their meanings move around for us.

Teacher of preachers Tom Long wrote a book on Jesus’s parables and the word he uses for parable is “riddle.” Long says:

“One of the best definitions of parable is: riddle. A parable is a riddle, there is some puzzle to be solved, some enigma to be plumbed. And the thing about Jesus’s parables, just when you think you’ve got it… a trap door opens and you fall down into a deeper level of mystery. By the way, I think insufficient attention is given to the fact that we serve a Jesus whose favorite method of teaching was not rule, law, spiritual truth, principle, but riddle… All this is to say, that parables, and particularly Jesus’s parables aren’t clear, cut and dry, and don’t lend themselves to a quick and easy interpretation, or they wouldn’t be doing their job.”

Jesus told them this story, this riddle:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ Then he said, `I’ve got an idea: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have plenty of goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

If our most pressing question of Jesus is to solve our inheritance problems, to solve our financial problems, Jesus says, I’ve got a warning for you—you might be focusing on the wrong things. It’s not that money isn’t important, but it can cause us to lose focus on the biggest things in life… which includes the fact that we don’t know how much time we have in this life.

I absolutely love how Richard Rohr brings this parable and this reading to a point. He says:

“‘Live now what matters in eternity’ is Jesus’s message. Live on earth what’s happening in heaven… That’s the kingdom: live now what matters forever.”

LIVE NOW WHAT MATTERS FOREVER. There’s your bumper sticker or your t-shirt from today’s Gospel. There is something to tape to your mirror or above your coffeemaker, or somewhere you’ll see it every morning when you wake up.

There is a poet named Maggie Smith whose work I am a big fan of. She always seems to bring big issues and questions into the here-and-now in ways that stick with me. When she posts on social media, she’ll often use the heading “Life lately” and include a bunch of pictures and captions of what’s been going on with her.

“Life lately” for me has been Clinical and Pastoral Education—Rev. Kelsey and I have three weeks left out of our 16-week programthat is our last requirement to be ordained as priests. In my experience, seminary helps train your brain, CPE helps mold your heart.

Sitting with and opening myself up to strangers, and sometimes friends, who are in the hospital, softens my heart in ways that I couldn’t have predicted.

Last week at the Easton Hospital, I checked in on an older gentleman who was eating his lunch. I introduced myself as the chaplain for the day, and he said, “What denomination are you?” I said, “Episcopal.” He said, “Good, that’s the only good one!”

Over the next hour he told me his entire life story: father died when he was nine, military school, jobs he had, marriages, divorces, kids dying, mistakes he made, luck he has had, good times, bad times, and when he was wrapping things up he said, “Now you’ve heard my confession.”

Sometimes visits go that way. I get a sense of someone who is in the hospital, in some cases they are lonely, they are stuck in bed in a place they would rather not be and their main interaction is with medical staff who are responsible for a whole lot of people and don’t have time to address things like loneliness, anxiety, fear; they don’t have time to hear someone’s story; to come alongside them and be present with them for a few minutes, for an hour.

The time we spend together matters. A personsitting in the hospital can feel seen and heard and human, even if just for a little while.

LIVE NOW WHAT MATTERS FOREVER.

During the announcements, my friend Jack Anthony is going to tell you a story about Stephen Ministry. Stephen Ministry is a program that became a part of Christ Church in 2005 and that trains people to walk beside someone going through a difficult time in their lives. There are more than 100 people in our congregation over these last 20 years who have responded to a call in their hearts to learn to be more loving, more empathetic, more compassionate; to be better listeners, and to make themselves available for people who are hurting. Last year, my wife Holly went through the training and became a Stephen Minister. And the whole experience has blessed her in amazing ways. They are offering the next training this fall. Maybe it is something that speaks to you.

What I am learning in CPE and what you learn through becoming a Stephen Minister is very similar. How to listen. How to be present. What love looks like when the conditions aren’t perfect.

These are not skills or experience that apply only to visiting a hospital or spending time with a care receiver.

“Life lately.” I helped with a celebration of life on Friday for a man and family I have known since I was in elementary school. The man’s name was Ed Bishop, one of the kindest human beings I have ever met. People got up and told stories. A neighbor pointed out that even after almost 60 years married, Ed and his wife Wendy wouldn’t feed the birds without each other because they loved doing it together. The number of people there Friday who were in their late 50’s and showed up with their families who said that they learned what unconditional love and kindness were from being friends with the Bishops’ two sons and seeing these qualitieson full display from their parents. Ed Bishop lived now what matters forever and showed people what that looks like.

At the service, I got to catch up with a number of long-time friends who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. My daughters are 23 and 20 years old. Some of my friends have younger kids and I’ve heard a few times lately, “it must be nice to have your kids out from under, working, not needing you all the time.”

I look back at the years when the girls were under foot, and it takes a lot of time and energy to get through all of that. But I found that most of the problems that they had then, I could fix. I could do something about. Tie a shoe. Clean a cut and put a Band-Aid on it. Drive them to school. Decide who got to pick the movie they would watch.

The problems the girls have now, I can’t fix. I can’t solve for them. Heartbreak, relationships,loneliness, anxiety. Epilepsy. Seizures. These things above my pay grade.

You know what I have found that I can offer? Time. Presence. Love. I can be there. I can listen. I can come alongside them. We can do life together.

We can live now what matters forever.

Each of us has that chance every day. If Jesus had continued his parable, his story, and given us an alternative to building bigger barns, I’d bet it would be a story of showing love and care to people who need it. That’s the kingdom Jesus wants to help us build.

Living the Gospel: vulnerable, dependent, together

Background: Last weekend was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The Gospel reading for the lectionary was Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, where Jesus sends 70 followers out ahead of him to towns and place he will go, with specific instructions as to how they are to interact with people. Following is the transcript of my sermon.

“Living the Gospel: vulnerable, dependent, together”

In last week’s reading, we saw Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and send people ahead to get things ready for him. The disciples were not well received when they got to a village of Samaritans. This made John and James furious and they wanted to send fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans. Not a very neighborly thing to do.

Jesus rebuked them; he told James and John, this is not how we do things and he gave a series of teachings about how the disciples needed to set their priorities if they were going to follow him.

Last week’s reading was a bit of precursor to this reading, as now Jesus gets 70 people together, he’s not just talking to the 12. And now he’s giving specific instructions to this larger group as he sends them out ahead of him to the towns and places he is going.

No more of this raining down fire from heaven, here’s what I want you all to do:

First of all, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” So we need laborers. What a great place to start. It’s out there, there is abundance—this work you are doing is needed. Given the reception in the last village, that might not be a foregone conclusion to some of Jesus’s disciples, but he sees abundance where others might see scarcity.

“Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”

Whenever I hear “sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves,” I am waiting for that qualifying line, “so be as wise as serpents, but as innocent as doves.” But that’s from Matthew’s Gospel, we don’t get that spelled out in Luke. The disciples just go out like lambs.

Jesus is sending these 70 followers out into a hostile world that may not receive them well, and instead of arming them for battle, he points out their vulnerability. Not only will we not call down fire from heaven, you all are going out like lambs. No purse, or bag, or sandals.

Sending them out as lambs, he is sending them intentionally vulnerable, vulnerable by design. Why would he do that?

If you Google vulnerability today, it’s a guarantee that you will find a slew of quotes from social worker and storyteller Brene Brown. And here is a quote of hers from a book study we did that speaks to what Jesus may have had in mind:

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.” (Brene Brown, “Daring Greatly”)

Alright, Jesus. We’re getting vulnerable. Now what?

Go to their homes. Offer them peace. If they share in the peace you offer, it will rest on that person, if not it comes back to you. You are going to depend on the people in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you.

Whenever you enter a town and they welcome you, eat what they give you, cure the sick and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you.

If a town doesn’t welcome you, it’s the same message, the kingdom of God has come near.

One of the things that strikes me about this reading, Jesus isn’t teaching them theology, he isn’t giving them Scripture 101, he is instructing them in how to interact with people. How to go about their work, dependent on those in the towns and places the disciples are sent to.

In thinking about this, Franciscan Richard Rohr writes:

“All of Jesus’ rules of ministry here, his ‘tips for the road,’ are very interpersonal. They are based on putting people in touch with people. Person-to-person is the way the gospel was originally communicated. Person-in-love-with-person, person-respecting-person, person-forgiving-person, person-touching-person, person-crying-with-person, person-hugging-person: that’s where the Spirit is so beautifully present.” (Richard Rohr, “The Good News According to Luke”)

In fact, Rohr goes so far as to say, “The gospel happens between two or more people.”

Now, this is something to kick around a bit. Say I am sitting at home in the morning, having my coffee and prayer time, reading my Bible or doing a devotional, and I have a Holy Spirit moment. I feel touched by God; my heart is on fire; I see the interconnectedness of all people; I see how God’s love flows back and forth between us all; I am sure in my heart that I am a child of God.

Then I cut the grass. And I go to the grocery store. And I go about my business. And that realization I had in the morning has no apparent impact on my life. It doesn’t translate into how I love, how I treat other people, how I live.

Have I been true to the realization? If all I do is go to church services and read my Bible, and listen to sermons and music: has love, has grace transformed my life?

Here is one of Rohr’s most impactful thoughts for me. He says:

“The most a preacher does is entice you, attract you, and call you out of yourself to live a new kind of life. But the gospel cannot happen in your head alone. You never think yourself into a new way of living. You invariably “live” yourself into a new way of thinking.”

You don’t THINK yourself into a new way of LIVING. You LIVE yourself into a new way of THINKING.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus has in mind sending his disciples out: that you are going to learn and experience things on the road that I can’t simply teach you here, no matter how brilliant and deep the parable is.

You’ve got to get out there and take this peace, this good news, to others. That’s where the gospel is, that’s where love is, in our interactions with people. That’s where Jesus, that’s where Scripture, and that’s where the Holy Spirit sends us. Out.

When we open ourselves to this interpersonal gospel, this gospel that happens between two or more people, that’s where lasting transformation can happen. I know we are in an era of self-love, and self-love is hugely important—we get ourselves into trouble if we try to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we loathe ourselves, rather than love ourselves. Love yourself for sure.

But love ultimately calls us outside ourselves. Love is bigger than us. And if love is the most powerful force in the world… if God is love and we belong to God… it’s living out this love and experiencing what happens when it is shared and multiplied, that then changes our lives, and the world, in meaningful ways.

Jesus gives his 70 disciples his “tips for the road” and sends them out. And they come back filled with joy saying, Jesus! You were right! In your name even the demons submit to us!”

And Jesus says, “Right??” I’ve seen all this happen and I’ve given you this authority and it will keep you safe.

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

How do we make sense of that? David Lose, writing in “Feasting on the Word” says:

“Jesus declares there is something even more significant than the triumph of the 70… what matters more than the earthly and spiritual successes of Jesus’ followers is the eternal relationship with God they enjoy through him. This relationship is theirs by grace, for they are simultaneously recipients of, and heralds to, the grace and mercy of God embodied in Jesus.”

Jesus knew they were going to have success in the towns and places he sent them. He wanted them to experience that and that was exactly what they needed. And it’s exactly what we need from time to time.

But not all days are going to be like that and not all our encounters with people are going to be infused with love and leave us feeling love. What’s more important than the success of our ministries or our evangelism, is our relationship with God, which we experience through Jesus.

This relationship is theirs, and ours, by grace. And I love this: we are simultaneously RECIPIENTS OF, and HERALDS TO the grace and mercy of God embodied in Jesus.

Let’s go back to our morning coffee revelation, the one we experience by ourselves. There we have the realization: we are the recipients of God’s grace and love. Let’s think of it as light in a frequently dark world.

If we keep that light to ourselves, it doesn’t do much to spread the light that the world needs to get out of the darkness. So we take that light and we become heralds TO it, this grace and love that we are shown in Jesus.

Jesus sends the 70 disciples, and us, out with this light. He sends us out to others, in humility and vulnerability, asking us to be dependent on him and on those who we encounter.

But don’t lose focus. There will be great days. There will be crappy days. There will be in-between days. And sometimes all three in one day.

We can’t control those things. What we can do is rejoice and be grateful for our relationship with God. That we get to do this work, that we get to experience and share this light, this grace; that God is with us, and that this good news, this gospel of love that we share, is exactly what the world needs right now.

The 2025 Christ Church Easton/Diocese of Easton Mission Team in Wilmington, NC.

Let’s pray: Lord, you give us stories in Scripture for our learning, so that we can find you and find ourselves in them. Help us hear what your story is saying to each of our hearts. Let us locate where you are calling us, and how to amend our lives by your love and grace, so we can get there. And help us receive, experience, and share your gospel, your good news, in the world, with each other.

Amen.

How God Speaks to Us

Background: February 1-2 was a preaching weekend for me and the lectionary was “The Presentation of the Lord,” a feast day, which used Luke 2:22-40 with baby Jesus being presented at the Temple and Simeon knowing who Jesus was through a gift of the Holy Spirit. This resonated with discussions we’d been having in small groups during the previous week.

“How God Speaks to Us”

When we preach, we try to bear witness to Scripture, bringing our own witness to it—where we are, how we engage with the text, and where the Spirit takes us. The next time a reading comes back in the lectionary cycle, three years from now, what speaks to us in a passage will likely be different.

We’ve been having some great conversations this week about Scripture and faith. And what stands out to me in today’s readings are the Bible, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit: different ways of knowing God.

We start out with Malachai, our Old Testament reading. Malachai may or may not be a proper name here as the name Malachi translates as “my messenger.” And here the writer is facing toward the future, talking about “my messenger” who will prepare the way for “the Lord who will suddenly come to his Temple” (we can see why these readings are paired together). As Christians, we look back on a passage like this and we say, Malachai is pointing us to John the Baptizer and to Jesus.

And when we use Jesus as our lens, we can look back on different prophets and different passages in the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, and say, look at the prophetic writings and how and where they point to Jesus. It’s an incredible exercise to do, and we start to make connections and draw threads throughout Scripture.

In our Gospel reading, Luke shows us Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus at the Temple, as was the custom: eight days after being born, a Jewish male child would be circumcised, and 33 days after giving birth, the mother was expected to participate in the rite of purification, a symbolic restoration of purity.

When they get there they encounter a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, who was righteous and devout. It had been revealed to Simeon that before he died, he would see the Lord’s Messiah. This is a revelation that came not from Scripture, but from God.

Simeon comes to the Temple, “guided by the Holy Spirit,” and he is able to recognize Jesus, to know who Jesus is by trusting God.

And look at his reaction, Simeon takes Jesus into his arms and says:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;

for 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.”

Image from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

He is overwhelmed with joy at this knowledge. He can die with peace. Another prophet, an old woman named Anna has a similar reaction, praising God and speaking about the child who would redeem Israel.

Their way of knowing who Jesus is, comes to them by God’s Spirit.

Let’s think back to our readings from a couple weeks ago: the Baptism of Jesus, which happens as he is about to begin his ministry, as an adult. After Jesus is baptized and he is praying, “the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’”

That’s confirmation for Jesus as to who he is. The Spirit is testifying both in Jesus and in others as to Jesus’s identity as the Messiah.

But a funny thing begins to happen in Jesus’s ministry. We saw it last week, as Kelsey (Rev. Kelsey Spiker) read and preached: Jesus unrolled the Isaiah scroll, and read, and told his listeners about being sent to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free,” what great news! And then Jesus gives them the biggest news of all, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing!”

I picture Jesus in front of the crowd, “up here, gang—it’s me. I’m the Word made flesh. You’re not going to believe the things we are going to do.” But as he keeps talking, what started as excitement turns to anger and the gathered crowd chases Jesus out of the town, and they want to throw him off a cliff.

What’s going on here. Haven’t they read their New Testament, their Gospels? Oh wait, none of that has been written yet. It’s not in their Bible.

Jesus IS the Word made flesh. He is standing in front of them. He is writing the rest of Scripture. Wait, actually he is not. To our knowledge, from the stories we have in the Gospels, Jesus had a two or three-year ministry and he never wrote down anything he said or did or taught. He was too busy doing the work—loving and serving—to bother to write any of it down himself.

Isn’t it interesting: our Scripture, our Bible is written by regular people, inspired by God. But still regular people, who don’t always get everything right; who come at things from their own perspectives—that’s why we have two creation stories in Genesis and some differences in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s Gospel accounts—they give us our Scripture, from a human perspective, written in a particular time and place.

And when the one guy who can get everything right; who can and does speak for God; who heals, teaches, and forgives sins, with God’s authority; when the one person who can make everything crystal clear is here in the flesh—Jesus doesn’t write anything down. And when he teaches, he teaches in parables—in riddles, which we have to work on and work out, they don’t come to us ready-made.

Jesus’s life and ministry as it happened required people to use Scripture as the road map to get them to Jesus, and then they had to look up from Scripture to witness, follow, and continue what Jesus was doing in the moment. When we read Jesus’s parables and about his life, it also takes our involvement in the here and now. Scripture points to Jesus, points us to God, is inspired by God, but is not God.

The scribes and pharisees who focused too closely on Scripture, missed Jesus in their midst.

And then as Jesus goes about his ministry an even stranger thing happens. The folks who know their Hebrew Bible, their Old Testament, the Law, the Torah the best, they are Jesus’s biggest detractors, his biggest critics. And Jesus will get in trouble with them for actually doing things their Scripture says not to do: healing on the Sabbath, working on the Sabbath, hanging out with people who the law says are unclean.

Jesus is going to show them at every turn, that where love and the law are at odds with each other, go with love. Every. Time.

Look up from your Bibles. I am the Word made flesh. I am right in front of you. Follow me. Watch me. Learn from me. We will do this together. Together, we will write the next part of the story.

The disciples are going to walk through Scripture in real-time, face-to-face with Jesus. To do that, they’ve got to believe in him. They’ve got to trust him.

So we’ve got Scripture, leading to Jesus. Then Jesus holds the baton saying, “Word made flesh here, watch me, follow me, love one another as I love you.” And then, after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we’ve got more Scripture written (the New Testament), so that we don’t miss out on who Jesus was and what he did. Scripture is the main way we learn about Jesus. But he also gives us something else to help.

Sticking to Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus’s resurrection and explaining everything to the disciples, he says wait for the Holy Spirit, which will give you power. The gift of the Holy Spirit is another way for us to know, understand, and participate in God and Jesus.

This is the same Spirit that revealed to Simeon who Jesus was. It’s the same Spirit that spoke to the prophets of the Old Testament, and it’s the same Spirit that convicts us in the work of God’s love.

Simeon was a devout Scripture reader, who also made space for God to speak to him through the Spirit.

There is not one singular way for us to understand God, and God’s will and ways. We need to stay on our toes and be open to how God might speak to us.

We need Scripture to point the way, to be our road map.

We need Jesus to show us, to be for us the way and truth and the life.

We need the Holy Spirit to fill us, convict us, and guide us.

We need each other to love and serve and to be God’s love, to build the community that Jesus began, and to be his hands and feet in the world.

God’s Word came alive, became flesh, in Jesus.

Through the Holy Spirit, God’s Word is alive and alive in us.

Luke’s Witness

Background: October 18 is set aside on the lectionary calendar as the Feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist. At Christ Church Easton‘s weekly Wednesday Healing Service, I gave an appreciation homily for Luke. This is the text of the homily.

Luke’s Witness

Matthew’s Gospel begins with “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah…”

Mark gives us, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

John goes deep: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Brace yourselves. In each case, we’re diving right in.

Here is how Luke starts his Gospel:

“Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I, too, decided, as one having a grasp of everything from the start, to write a well-ordered account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may have a firm grasp of the words in which you have been instructed.”

The author of Luke is also credited with being the author of the Book of Acts, which begins: “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven.”

The name Theophilus can be translated to mean, lover of God, friend of God, or loved by God. “God lover” may be a more fun way to say it, and our sister-in-Christ, Rev. Barbara Coleman used to like to call all her church friends “Theophilus.” “How’s it going, Theophilus?”

As an aside, if you ever find yourself wondering who was the most prolific New Testament writer… you might jump to John, hey he wrote the Gospel and possibly the letters, so probably him, right? Wait, we have all those letters, the epistles, attributed to Paul, it’s gotta be Paul. Good guess. If you take Luke as the author of both the gospel and Acts, he’s got more words and pages than anyone else in the New Testament. The scales tilt to Luke.

Luke is our only transparent Gospel writer: he’s intentional, he tells us what he’s trying to do. Lots of folks have tried to put this story together. I think I have a good grasp on these things, so I want to give you a well-ordered account so that you can understand what happened here. Not that there is anything wrong with the others, but check this out…

What do we get from Luke’s witness? What’s different from the other Gospels?

15th century depiction of St. Luke, the Evangelist

It’s Luke who gives us Mary’s perspective, her encounter with the angel and news of her pregnancy, along with Elizabeth and the cousin connection to John the Baptist.

It’s Luke who gives us the shepherds coming to see Jesus at his birth and thereby Linus’s speech from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

It’s Luke who gives us the only glimpse of Jesus’s childhood with the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple

Whereas Matthew gives us Jesus’s family tree back to Abraham, Luke goes all the way back to Adam (interestingly, the family trees don’t perfectly match, but that’s another story).

It’s Luke that gives us the parables of the Good Samaritan, the neighbor asking for bread for an unexpected visitor, Lazarus and the rich man, and the prodigal son. They aren’t in the other Gospels.

And the Resurrection story of Jesus and the men on the Road to Emmaus is a story only in Luke.

In Luke we see the elevation of women in ministries, a huge push on lifting up the poor and on social justice. When Jesus gives us his Beatitudes, he is not giving the Sermon on the Mount that we see in Matthew, he comes down to a level place to talk with people.

In talking about how Luke put together his Gospel, Franciscan author Richard Rohr says:

“Luke is creating his gospel using Scripture and tradition, and he’s doing it within a believing community. In putting together his gospel, he’s not only drawing on past Scriptures, such as the Hebrew Bible and Mark’s Gospel, but he’s also weaving in contemporary spirituality, knowledge of the theological schools of Judaism, experience of the times, insights of the believing community (the living body of Christ), and putting it all together.”

Luke looked around, talked to everyone he could, incorporated his own perspective and knowledge, and synthesized this kind of composite account that gives us a deeper understanding of who Jesus was than if Luke had just figured the other accounts were enough.

And there is nothing else in the New Testament like Acts, the days of the early church—Peter finally putting it altogether and becoming “the Rock” of the movement that Jesus predicted he would be; the opening of the ranks to include Gentiles; earthquakes and road trips and shipwrecks, and the conversion of Saul the persecutor of Jesus followers to Paul, the Apostle.

In about a month and a half, when the new church year begins with Advent, we’ll be in a Luke lectionary year, and we’ll see more closely what Luke’s witness is.

Here is a question I have for you. We can see what Luke felt it was important to include in the Gospel that no one else had. We can see what questions Luke asked and wanted answers for. Now take out your reporter’s notebook and pen or pencil: if you were to write your own account of the Gospel, what are the things that aren’t there, the questions that aren’t answered in the other accounts, that you would ask and want to find answers to? What details or eyewitness accounts would you put in your Gospel account?

I want to bring us back to today’s Gospel reading. Luke shows Jesus coming to Nazareth, going to the synagogue, taking and reading the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus reads:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And with everyone staring at him, Jesus then says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus just read his mission statement: bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke’s witness to who Jesus is and what his messiahship looks like is Scripture-based, radical, relevant, and social justice-minded.

Talking about Luke’s witness, preacher and author Frederick Buechner says:

“To put it in a nutshell, by playing all these things up Luke shows he was a man who believed that you shouldn’t let the fact that a person is jailbait keep you from treating that person like a human being, and that if you pray hard enough, there’s no telling what may happen, and that if you think you’ve got heaven made but don’t let it worry you that there are children across the tracks who are half starving to death, then you’re kidding yourself.”

The people in Nazareth who heard Jesus read the scroll and go on to call them out got angry, drove Jesus out of town, and up to the top of a hill hoping to throw him off of it.

How do we react to the Jesus Luke shows us?

Let’s shoot for the disciples on the road to Emmaus, for whom Jesus blessed and broke bread and gave it to them, “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him… and they said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’” And they go to Jerusalem and tell everyone, “The Lord has risen indeed.”

Let’s Get Back to Love

Background: October 5-6 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The Gospel reading for the lectionary was Mark 10:2-16, where Jesus is questioned about divorce and he goes on to say, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” This is the text of the sermon I gave.

“Let’s Get Back to Love”

In the not quite three years I have been preaching, this is the second time I’ve landed on one of Jesus’s divorce readings. As someone who has been through a divorce, last time out I bounced off personal experience to talk about how devastating divorce can be and how it is to be avoided if at all possible.

This time I want to take a step back and look at why Jesus always seems to make our lives harder by making the laws and rules even more strict than what the Pharisees and scribes bring to him.

Something to keep in mind: Jesus fully engaged and answered everyone who came to him with an honest question or concern. We’ll see that next week in the case of the rich, young ruler. But Jesus is wary when the Pharisees try to test him or trick him into saying something that will get him in trouble. He is wise to what they are up to.

The Pharisees ask: is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Jesus asks: what did Moses command you? They said: Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.

And now Jesus gets to the crux of the matter: “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.”

The law gives us the least we have to do to in order to play by the rules and to get what we want. The Pharisees who repeatedly question Jesus are concerned with the law for the sake of the law. They aren’t concerned with the why behind the law, the intent of the law.

First of all, if you are approaching marriage with the attitude and question, is it legal to get divorced? You probably shouldn’t be thinking about marriage.

People then, and now, want to know what rules or code do I have to follow to be considered righteous, to be a good person, and to go to heaven, right? We’d all like to know that, and to know if we are on the right path, or if we need to make some adjustments.

That’s putting the cart before the horse. Jesus, then and now, is concerned about our hearts, about our relationships, with God and with each other. About us living life and living life abundantly. If we are going to do that, our abundance can’t be at someone else’s loss, pain, or cost.

Jesus was aware of what happened back then to a woman who had been divorced. It would be hard for her to find protection, provision of any kind, dignity, or to have much of a future. That does not give her much of a chance to live life abundantly, to be in right relationship with God and her neighbors.

The laws are the lowest standard. Let’s look just quickly at the commandments that are concerned just with how we treat each other:

Honor your mother and your father
Don’t commit murder
Don’t commit adultery
Don’t steal
Don’t give false testimony against your neighbor
Don’t covet anything that belongs to your neighbor

If we live and follow those laws, does that sound like a happy life? Does that sound like abundant life? That sounds like the bare minimum you can do to stay out of trouble.

All of these laws address the hard-heartedness of people; what they had become, what we are still, and where we fall short in needing clear-cut rules to keep us straight and spell out how to treat each other.

That’s why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “murder? That’s a pretty low bar. You’ve got to deal with and address that feeling when it’s still anger, long before it gets anywhere close to murder.” It’s not about the law, it’s about the heart. We need soft hearts to love.

Here is what we’ve lost: LOVE IS OUR DEFAULT SETTING. Jesus gets that.

In Mark Chapter 12, one of the scribes asks Jesus, which commandment is first (or greatest) of all? And Jesus gives the response we’ve come to know: “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love. Be passionate. Care for each other. Live life to the fullest. There is no, “thou shalt not…”; there is no, “is it legal if…”

Jesus is trying to help us get back to our default settings. But we’ve put so much in the way of that, even as the church, which is the issue Jesus kept having with the Temple leadership who cite laws left and right, but keep out the people—the poor, the sick, the marginalized; the sinners and the tax collectors, who Jesus was at the table with and caring for.

In last week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus say, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”

These little ones, who are learning to believe, learning to love, don’t go quoting Scripture, quoting laws at them, don’t belittle them or cause them to stumble. Help them. Encourage them.

But how? How are we supposed to do all that? People are so weird and hard to deal with. They’re too people’y.

On the road with his disciples, Jesus has been trying to get it through to them. You’ve got to put down, you’ve got to give up, these lives that society is trying to hand to you. You’ve got to put down the things that divide us and put barriers between us. You’ve got to give up the lives you’ve been living, pick up your cross, and follow me.

If we put down the crap that we’re being fed, if we give up the lives that are full of judgment, hatred, power, and status, we are free to pick up and be filled with Jesus’s love. We give up our small, ego selves so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit.

When we let go of the doubt, the fear, the skepticism and pessimism we are being handed, we become like children: free to love.

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

As a little child. Open, innocent—not jaded, tainted, asking which laws are the ones that really count.

Love is our default setting. Jesus and gift of the Holy Spirit are the reset button. God’s grace is our fresh start.

Well, sure, that’s easy for Jesus to say; He’s Jesus. What about us, who are flawed and human and who mess up? What does it look like for us to let go and start again?

Let me introduce you to Francis. Saint. Francis. Of Assisi. October 4 was the Feast of Saint Francis, who is often held up as the human being who most fully lived a life of Christ-like love. He saw the divine in everything and everyone and lived his life in a simple way. He didn’t start out that way, he found it as a new way of being.

Francis let his love of Christ guide him, rather than rules or laws. Franciscan Friar and author Richard Rohr describes Francis like this:

“Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human hands—was Francis’ primary cathedral. His love for creation drove him back into the needs of the city, a pattern very similar to Jesus’ own movement between desert solitude (contemplation) and small-town healing ministry (action). The Gospel transforms us by putting us in touch with that which is much more constant and satisfying, literally the “ground of our being,” which has much more “reality” to it, rather than theological concepts or ritualization of reality. Daily cosmic events in the sky and on the earth are the Reality above our heads and beneath our feet every minute of our lives: a continuous sacrament, signs of God’s universal presence in all things.”

Wow. Not a bad way to live and look at the world.

Imagine being so filled with God’s love that when we go out the doors of the church, we carry it with us and give it to everyone and everything we encounter. Imagine someone’s impression of us being, “wow, they were full of love and light”—where did they get that? How can I get some too?

The Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus questions to try to trip him up and to get him in trouble. They were the law-abiding citizens. They wanted to know if it is legal for a man to divorce his wife.

That’s one end of the continuum: following the rules for the rules’ sake. Righteousness is following the law. Now listen to the words that St. Francis is most known for, the prayer that is attributed to him:

“Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

That’s not about the law, it’s about love; the self-sacrificing love that Jesus modeled for us with his life and through his death—the love that overcame death. The love that opens the door for us.

Which do you want your life to be about? Let’s go with Jesus and Francis. Let’s get back to love.

Amen.

Choose Wisely

Background: August 3-4 was a preaching weekend for me. The lectionary readings included 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a–the fallout from King David’s underhanded actions with Bathsheba and Uriah, and John 6:24-35, where Jesus talks about the sign of feeding the 5,000 and proclaims, “I am the bread of life.” Following is the text of the sermon I gave at Christ Church Easton, connecting the two readings.

I want to take us back a couple months ago, to one of our readings at the beginning of summer, just after Pentecost. It’s from 1 Samuel.

The people of Israel tell Samuel they want a king. Samuel passes the message along to God, who says, “You shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

Samuel relays God’s warnings of all the nefarious things a king will do. And then we hear:

“But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Now, God wasn’t warning them that they were going to get a bad egg as a king. He was warning them against placing trust in worldly power; he was warning them against what being king does to people, how they can get caught up in all that goes with the position.

In the case of this particular king, God loved David. He wasn’t against him. And when all this went down with Bathsheba and Uriah, God didn’t give up on him. But David sure messed things up.

Not every story in the Bible has a fairytale, happy ending. We get the good, the bad, and the ugly—and some of the stories leave us in a bad spot. They are supposed to. The story of David and Bathsheba leaves us in a lurch.

I have to say, I like Nathan and the approach God came up with for him. The story about the one little ewe lamb and watching David get fired up about it—revealing that he still has some sense of justice and compassion in him, outwardly looking anyway.

God blasts David for what he’s done; He speaks to David in David’s own language, based on his actions and the things that are important to him. God didn’t say to Israel—“See? Didn’t I tell you bad things would happen if you went with a king?” Instead God still loves David, tries to work through what has happened, avoid anything like that happening again, and come to a better understanding and a better relationship on the other side.

And though God doesn’t say I told you so, the king issue is still a problem. In this case, a problem that may have a proposed solution, right in our readings over the last two weeks.

In last week’s reading, after Jesus had fed the 5,000 people with just a few loaves and some fish, they had a notion that Jesus was the prophet to come into the world.

“When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”

Jesus wants no part of the worldly power that the crowds want to give to him. God warned Israel that they didn’t want a king. Israel said, “oh yes we do, we want to be like everyone else in the world, the king can fight our battles, and we’ll be on the news just like the cool countries.”

The people witness the signs Jesus is doing and they think, well finally, here’s the guy, this is the king we’ve been waiting for. Jesus says thanks, but no thanks.

Jesus’s mission is much bigger, more profound, more earth-shattering, more kingdom-bringing than becoming the next king on a throne.

Remember, these aren’t bad people who want to make Jesus king. These are people who witnessed him healing and curing the sick. They followed him and Jesus loved them and had compassion enough that he performed another miracle and fed them.

In writing his Gospel account, John doesn’t call these things that Jesus is doing miracles: he calls them signs. Because they point to something bigger than the sign itself. And in this week’s reading, Jesus explains something about this sign. He says:

“Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

People eating their fill of loaves is what they do in the world of kings. Food that endures for eternal life is what they do in the kingdom of God. Jesus uses this feeding sign to point to the thing behind it: to point to God.

This is tough stuff for the people to get their head around. They’re not getting it. They ask:

“What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?”

Maybe now we can understand why Jesus walks away from the crowds sometimes. “What work are you performing?” Hey guys, Jesus is going to do another magic trick! Let’s set up a tent and some seats and take in the show!

The Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is full of stories of the relationship between God and His people, where the people get confused, lose sight of God’s love and their covenant; they get tempted and give into temptation, and God keeps giving them course corrections. Reminders. “Remember, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… I’ve done all these things for you.”

What we see in Jesus and what we see in the Gospels is what it looks like to make the right decisions, to repent from the wanting of kings and the low-hanging fruit of worldly desires, power grabs, and putting ourselves first. Where Israel wanders lost in the dessert for 40 years, Jesus doesn’t give into temptation during his 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus is the course correction, he shows us how to live in this life, what to focus on, who to care about, who to take care of, how to love, so that we move beyond our small, selfish selves, by giving up our lives and our want for kings and focusing on heavenly things and eternal life.

Every day we make choices. In some cases, those choices can move us away from God and towards the world who wants to be ruled by kings. Some of our choices can move us closer to God, closer to Jesus, who is trying to show us how to make the right decisions.

In her book, “An Altar in the World,” Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor is invited to go speak at a church in Alabama. She asks what they want her to talk about. The priest says, “Come tell us what is saving your life now.”

Brown Taylor says:

“All I had to do was figure out what my life depended on. All I had to do was figure out how I stayed as close to that reality as I could, and then find some way to talk about it that helped my listeners figure out the same things for themselves.”

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

How do we come to Jesus? How do we believe? What are things we can do to draw closer to God, to make the right decisions?

Tell us about what is saving you now. Here are some of things that have helped me lately:

Rest – I am less likely to rush into a bad decision when I rest, when I pause. We’ve spent the last couple Sunday evenings on the screened in porch and in the yard to watch the sunset and the sky. Taking an afternoon walk down the tree-lined, gravel lane to Claiborne Beach. Hit the reset button. If people’s energy is intense and they are spun up about something, as we see so often right now, if I have caught my breath and come to a situation rested, my chances of making good decisions are better.

Prayer – when I am in conversation with God, when I am listening, I am more likely to be looking at life from a bigger perspective than just my own. We stay close to people we spend time with. Prayer is a great way to spend time with God. At our healing service this week, someone talked about, when she feels distant from God, she starts her prayers with, “Lord, have mercy on me.” That puts us in a place of humility. Being humble can be its own category.

Gratitude – if I find something to be grateful for each day, my heart and my mind are aligned. If David had looked around and said, “Wow, look at the kingdom I have, the life I am living, and been grateful to God for it all, maybe he doesn’t put himself in the situation that gets him in so much trouble.

Heartbreak – this is about perspective. Over the past few weeks, I gave a homily at a friend’s funeral and watched his 16-year-old daughter give a eulogy for her father; another friend lost his wife about this time last year and now his brother is in home hospice. Another friend last week was in the church praying on her late husband’s birthday and we got to catch up, and what a gift to see that their love continues even now. So many people around us, our friends, our family, members of our congregation, are going through so much. If we allow our hearts to break with theirs; to know we can’t fully understand what someone else is going through, but we can try to be there with them; that’s what Jesus asked us to do. Heartbreak reminds us what things are most important and what decisions to make.

Study – I have so much more to learn about the Bible. God’s inspired Word; a library of readings for our learning, sometimes as night and day different as someone sleeping with a neighbor’s wife and then plotting to have that same neighbor killed; to feeding 5,000 hungry people who are looking for something more than food. When I spend time reading and reflecting, learning from Scripture, I am being fed with more than food.

Jesus is talking about feeding people spiritually, going beyond just our human hungers and thirsts. Not discounting them but using them to point to something bigger. To point to the one who was sent to give us these signs; the one who was sent to show us how to love and how to live; and when the crowds asked what they had to do, Jesus said believe in me. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Believing, when it comes to Jesus, isn’t about just agreeing with him, it’s not some mental exercise. It’s about how we live our lives, how we love, and what we do with our time. I still make a lot of bad decisions. But prayer, gratitude, rest, heartbreak, and study are some of the things that help me make the decisions God hopes I’ll make. As you go about your week, think about what things are helping you. What is saving you, bring you closer to Jesus, helping you believe, right now?

You are witnesses of these things

Background: At the healing service on Wednesday, April 10 and for the Zoom prayer service and discussion on Sunday, this is the text/basis for a homily and discussion we had on Luke 24:36b-48, where Jesus appears to the disciples for the first time after his Resurrection, per Luke’s account. (artwork: “Jesus’ Appearance While the Apostles are at Table,” by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319))

“You are witnesses of these things.”

Today’s reading gives us Luke’s version of a story similar to what we heard from John’s Gospel last week. The disciples are gathered in a room and Jesus appears to them. In the course of their encounter, they go from being terrified and afraid, thinking they are seeing a ghost, to being witnesses, inspired and charged up to share their testimony.

How does this change happen?

Does Jesus make some rousing speech? Does he scientifically explain what happened to him?

He gives them his body. He says “look at my hands and feet. Touch me and see. That’s a line I want to let sink in for a bit.

Over the different Gospels we have heard Jesus say, “Follow me” and “Come and see,” now this is the most personal, most intimate invitation he could give, “Touch me and see.”

They are starting to come around, still not sure about all this—they know he died, there is no way this can be… Jesus looks around and says, “Got anything to eat?” And then eats fish to show them he’s legit.

I love the encounters with the risen Jesus in Luke—this story and the Road to Emmaus—there is a light-heartedness about Jesus, there is humor even in the serious work that he is there to do.

In light of the Resurrection, everything takes on new meaning. In the Road to Emmaus story, it’s just two disciples walking and Jesus comes upon them, and they walk and talk and he teaches them and then breaks bread with them, and their lives and hearts are changed. In a way that didn’t happen before. Things are different.

In today’s reading, for the disciples it is conversation, it is Jesus’s bodily presence, it is teaching, all things they have experienced before, but this is different. This changes everything.

I want to ask a question here and see what you think. Why does Jesus come back to his disciples? What’s his purpose in appearing to them and spending time with them?

To fulfill his mission; to do what he said he was going to do. To show them he is who he said he was; to show them that love conquers death.

It’s also this: to give them living and credible proof. To help them take the next step in their learning.

He is going to ascend and it is going to be up to them. His life, his love, his teaching, he is placing it in their hands to pass on to others.

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,” … he goes back over what he told them before he was killed, but it all has a new significance; it means something different now.

Then he opens their mind to understand the Scriptures. Wow, that would be a lovely gift, wouldn’t it? Hey, Jesus, what does this mean? How do I make sense out of this? Like a phone-a-friend lifeline to Jesus.

In coming back, in appearing to the disciples, in teaching them, and being with them, in them touching him, Jesus says:

“You are witnesses of these things.”

If the disciples aren’t credible witnesses, it will never work. If they don’t believe, if they aren’t convinced and convicted, how will anyone else come to believe?

But not just credible witnesses, they have to be fired up, they have to be motivated, they have to want nothing more than to share their testimony, to share the good news. It has to be part of their core purpose.

Imagine if after Jesus leaves, the disciples are sitting on this amazing, life-giving story that can change the world, and they decide, “Okay, well, we’ve got this church here, a house church, and if anyone new comes in, we’ll tell them. That’s what it means to be a disciple, right—that we proclaim the word within the walls of our specific church, we celebrate Communion, we pray for others, and Jesus is happy, right?”

Jesus knows his work, his purpose, his life, his love for us hangs on the disciples becoming apostles—being sent out to spread the good news. So he supercharges them, gives them everything they need to succeed, including the Holy Spirit (that comes in Luke, Part II, Acts).

Let’s look at how Jesus gives them what they need in this story. He doesn’t come in and say, “Great to see you guys, would you please pick up your Bibles and turn to page 42 for today’s lesson.”

He shows them his scars, he says, “touch me and see,” he eats with them. He is vulnerable, intimate, and authentic. Explaining Scripture doesn’t come until later.

I love this quote from Debie Thomas in the book we studied last year, “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.” She says:

“Maybe when the world looks at us to see if OUR faith is authentic and trustworthy, it needs to see our scars and hungers, too. Our vulnerability, not our immunity. Our honesty, not our pretenses to perfection. What would it look like for us to offer our stories of scars and graces, hungers, and feasts, in testimony to this world? How might our embodied lives become a way of love? Naming our hungers, widening our tables, sharing our scars and our feasts—what if THIS is practicing resurrection? Maybe more is at stake in a piece of fish, or a glass of water, or a loaf of bread, than we have imagined.”

Another question I want to ask you, and if it is something you feel like you have an answer for or want to talk about, wonderful, if not, ponder it over the week:

What is YOUR witness?

What is it from your life, your scars, your hunger, your passions, your relationships that might speak to others?

We are all different witnesses. The good news is the good news, but we connect to it in different ways, and we connect to other people in different ways. My witness, my testimony, is different than yours.

Part of this whole line of thinking came to me yesterday while I was skateboarding. I had been sitting at my desk for the afternoon, I needed to go to the grocery store, and there is a paved trail down next to Easton Point that goes across Papermill Pond, right on the way to Harris Teeter or Target. I wanted to stretch my legs.

And I got to thinking that the joy that I get from cruising on a skateboard, a joy I found when I was 13 and almost 40 years later is still there, is part of my witness. Writing is part of my witness. Discussing the Bible, laughing, asking questions, building friendships while wondering about Scripture, is part of my witness. Sitting outside in nature and feeling like a part of Creation is a part of my witness.

What things are a part of yours?

I want to mention one more aspect to this Resurrection story. Jesus is changed. The disciples are changed. Something has happened, they have received something from Jesus that has made them witnesses.

What is it and how can it help our witness? This is how Debie Thomas puts it:

“The resurrection is not a platitude or a line in a creed. The resurrection is fire in our bones, steel in our blood, impetus for our feet, a song of lamentation, protest, and ferocious hope for our souls. The resurrection is God’s insistence that we speak, stand, and work for life in a world desperate for fewer crosses, fewer graves, fewer landscapes littered with the desolate and the dead.”

This is the season of the Resurrection. This is the Easter season of new life. That power and love and energy is for us, it is supposed to be a part of our witness. Is it a part of yours?

Time to Follow

Background: This is a homily given in response to a reading from Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 1:14-20, where John the Baptist is arrested, Jesus begins his ministry proclaiming the word, and calls his first disciples to follow him.

How many people have a favorite character—movies, books, TV? Anyone want to name them? And how many of you can tell me his/her first lines, the first thing they say in the story?

My favorite character of all time in any media is Chris Stevens, the radio DJ from the 1990s TV show “Northern Exposure.” His first words, he is on air, and he relates a coming-of-age story of breaking into a house and while he is stealing a gold-leaf pen and a silver humidor, he finds a copy of the Complete Works of Walt Whitman and it changes his life. If you watched the show, that’s a solid indication of his whole character.

In Mark’s Gospel, these are the first words Jesus says in the story, “The time has come (or the time is fulfilled), and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Hard to have first words that are more indicative of who someone is. There is the key, there is the game plan, spelled out in front of us.

It sounds very similar to what John the Baptist was saying, right? Jesus is continuing where John left off, after John was arrested. Jesus’s ministry begins as John’s ends. But there is a nuanced difference in their messages. John was saying, “repent, and wait for the one who is to come.” Jesus says, “the time has come, repent,” and then “follow me.”

We’ve got just six verses here, but there is a lot going on. Let’s dig in a bit. First, let’s look at TIME.

The word Mark uses for “time” as Jesus talks is the Greek word, “kairos,” which means something special is going on, not the word “chronos,” which describes sequential time, the way we tend to think about it.

This is how rabbi, New Testament scholar, and author Amy-Jill Levine puts it in her book “The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner’s Guide to the Good News”—

“Kairos time is on God’s watch; it’s not a minute-by-minute concern but a recognition something special is happening. When I look at my watch, I can do more than determine how much time I have to finish a project. I can think about God’s time: what should I have done that I failed to do? What can I do to make every moment more meaningful?”

Fr. Bill Ortt (our recently retired rector and mentor) talks about chronos as minutes and kairos as moments. I’ve always appreciated that as a kind of short-hand way to remember the difference. And I love that kairos is among Jesus’s first words here. JESUS is moving us from MINUTES into MOMENTS. He’s clueing us in that something special is taking place, that this is something we want to pay attention to. And as he begins to call his first disciples, it’s something that they want to sign on for.

Let’s remember that we are in Epiphany, a season all about the manifestation of Christ to the people of the world. If you look up definitions of the word epiphany with a lower case “e,” Merriam Webster gives you: 1) “a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something,” or 2) “an intuitive grasp of reality through something simple or striking.”

Epiphany.

I’ve come across a book that has me thinking more about how this whole opening chapter of Mark works. We know that Mark is:

the shortest of the Gospels,
the earliest of the four Gospels,
that Mark doesn’t add superfluous details, he tells the story straight,
and that if he had a copy editor in today’s world, they’d have the red pen all over the word “immediately” or “straightway” for how many times he uses it.

For the record, Mark uses “immediately” more than 40 times, more often than the rest of the New Testament combined. He is stressing the the urgency of what is happening.

Mark’s Gospel is also referred to by many scholars as “a passion narrative with an extended introduction.” Mark goes through Jesus’s teaching and healing, his ministry, and gets us to the point: his arrest, crucifixion, suffering, death, and empty tomb. We’re told that’s the meat of the story for Mark.

Saying that, in a book called “Mark As Story,” by David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie, they turn that idea around. They look at the opening of Mark’s Gospel and say what is happening here is the arrival of God’s rule.

“The arrival of God’s rule—the heavens opening, the defeat of Satan in the desert, and the announcement by Jesus—is the key watershed event in the narrative (storytelling) world. Mark, then, may be described as “the arrival of the rule of God with an extended denouement (fancy literary word meaning the final outcome, when everything comes together and is made clear)—that is, all events in the story are manifestations and consequences of God’s activity in establishing God’s reign.”

Mark’s whole Gospel is a series of epiphanies, or an ephipany working itself out, clarifying itself over the story. Jesus’s incarnation is the Epiphany. And Mark is rushing us headlong into this realization.

The world Jesus has come into, has come to change, has come to save, is moving in the wrong direction. The priorities are wrong, morality is wrong, the actions of those in power are wrong, even the sense of time needs help, and he’s got to set things in proper order. There is work to be done… immediately.

So right away, Jesus spells out what has to happen: “The time has come and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”

For our way of thinking today, one of the most problematic, confusing words and phrases in the Gospels is “the kingdom of God.” When you hear the word “kingdom,” what do you picture? A place. Somewhere to go. Kingdom of God? Sweet, let’s go! How do we get there? Who’s driving?

The way it was meant is better said as the reign of God. The king-ship of God. My other favorite Fr. Bill-ism is, “the kingdom of God is RELATIONAL, not locational.” It’s a way of being, a way of relating, not a place to go.

Let’s think about Jesus’s words that way, “The reign of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.” What that reign looks like, Jesus is going to show them. How compelling is it? Compelling enough to get fishermen to walk away from their livelihood, their families, and everything they know when Jesus walks by and says, “Follow me.”

“Follow me” is the a-ha moment, the sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of who Jesus is for his first followers. Jesus’s presence and his invitation or command are all the epiphany they need. And the rest of the story will break it wide open.

If we move our attention to the beginning of the narrative instead of racing our way to the passion, what does that do for the story? Here’s what our friends in “Mark As Story” say:

“This shift in focus to the beginning of the narrative does not diminish the power and climactic force of the execution of Jesus—an event that reveals more fully the nature of God’s reign and seals a covenant with all who would embrace God’s rule… the shift does place the entire narrative firmly in the broader framework of God’s activity in establishing God’s rule over all of life.”

Here’s Jesus at the beginning: It’s time. God’s reign, not the world’s, not Caesar’s. It’s here. Stop what you are doing, you are going the wrong way. Turn around. Believe in this good news. Want to see for yourself? Want to be a part of it? Follow me.

“Stars and Sea at Night,” by Bill Jacklin RA (monoprint), Royal Academy of Arts exhibition

Everything that happens in the story from there shows us manifestations and consequences of what it looks like, of what happens, in establishing God’s reign.

Mark’s story itself is an epiphany for those who first heard it and for us. He means for it, in itself, the telling of it and the hearing of it, to be a transformational experience, showing us, calling us to be a part of establishing God’s reign, in our own lives, and those of others.

Jesus’s call to “follow me” wasn’t just for the first disciples. It’s for us.

Will we?

Sounds like a good way to spend our time. Kairos time. God’s time.

The time has come.

Amen.

Rethinking Fairness

Background: On Sunday mornings at Christ Church Easton we have morning prayer and a discussion of the week’s lectionary Gospel reading on Zoom (in addition to three in-person services with Communion). Each Zoom discussion is different, depending on the reading and who is participating–in that way each discussion is organic and in places unscripted. So when I put together notes for a homily, some of it gets used, other parts don’t, and the key is to find the questions that are engaging people. This past Sunday, the Gospel reading was Matthew 20:1-16, in which Jesus tells the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, where the landowner sends workers into his vineyard in waves from early morning right up until one hour to go in the evening. He then pays all of them the same usual daily wage. And the workers who had been there all day say it isn’t fair.

This is the homily I put together, though the discussion itself moved in different ways and there were parts that weren’t used and great questions and comments that aren’t written down.

(The image above is “Red Vineyards at Arles” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888)

“Rethinking Fairness”

How many people are bothered by this parable? And what is it that rubs you the wrong way about it?

Our sense of fairness is disturbed. Even though those who worked from the early morning got exactly what they were promised, what they agreed to, which was a good wage for their work. And it was the landowner who offered them work in the first place.

The context of this reading, what we haven’t heard just before it, was Jesus and the rich young man, who kept all the commandments and was doing everything right, and he asked Jesus what else he had to do. And Jesus tells him to “sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” And the young man goes away grieving, because he had many possessions.

Jesus tells his disciples that it’s really hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This goes against all the thinking of the day, where the rich were looked at is being in God’s good graces. That makes the disciples ask who can be saved? And Jesus tells them, “For mortals it’s impossible, but for God, all things are possible.”

And here is the line we are waiting for. Peter gets worked up and says, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

Jesus reassures them that when the time comes, they will be taken care of. But he can tell they are missing the point of everything. So we get the parable of the laborers in the vineyard.

Let’s look at the story. What can we say about the landowner? What do we notice about him and how he does things?

He is the one out finding the workers. It would have been more likely to see a manager or one of his employees, but it’s the landowner himself out there.

Michael Green in his book “The Message of Matthew” puts it like this—

“…he goes out himself. Indeed, he goes out repeatedly to seek them. They are hungry, unemployed, and as the day wears on, increasingly hopeless. He cares about that. He wants to give them a job to work and a reward.”

Then we get the payment. Everyone who works gets the same thing, a day’s wages. The order in which people are paid is a zinger, paying the last first, so that the early arrivers see what they are given.

“The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard,” by Rembrandt, oil on panel, 1637.

I love this perspective from Debie Thomas in her book, “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.” She looks through a contemporary lens:

“The landowner in Jesus’s story doesn’t judge his workers by their hours. He doesn’t obsess over why some workers are able to start at dawn and others are not. Perhaps the late starters aren’t as literate, educated, or skilled as their competitors. Perhaps they have learning challenges, or a tough home life, or children to care for at home. Perhaps they’re refugees, or don’t own cars, or don’t speak the language, or can’t get green cards. Perhaps they struggle with chronic depression or anxiety. Perhaps they’ve hit a glass ceiling after years of effort, and they’re stuck. Perhaps employers refuse to hire them because they’re gay or trans or disabled or black or female.”

That’s the thing with Jesus’s parables—he gives us a story with just enough information to get our brain turning, but he doesn’t fill in all the details—that is for us to do. And often his parables disturb us and our sense of how things are.

Back to the parts of our story: we’ve got the landowner sending everyone into the vineyard, we’ve got payment being made, and then we have the reaction.

The last into the field are the first to get paid, and they get a day’s wages. As the first, the earlier workers approach, they are expecting more. And then they get upset.

“These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

And the landowner says, didn’t I give you what I promised you, what we agreed to? Am I not allowed to give what belongs to me how I choose? Are you envious because I am generous?

What a question. I wonder, is it his generosity that offends or disturbs us here?

Here’s the thing. Part of why our sense of fairness is put off here is that we instantly identify with the laborers who went out at dawn, who have been out in the vineyard the longest.

Let’s move the parable into what it’s really addressing here: salvation. I have to tell you, when it comes to my life, to my faith—I am not one of the early arrivers. Like most things in life, I got there late.

What do the Gospels and Paul’s letters tell us over and over again: we are not saved by works, we are saved by grace, which is a gift from God. We can’t earn grace and it’s not a competition.

Here is Michael Green again:

“Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fisherman and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God.”

If we fast forward to after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension, into the Book of Acts, what happens at and after Pentecost—Peter and the disciples bring more and more into the fold, baptizing and teaching thousands. They didn’t have the attitude of, “Hey—where were these guys while Jesus was here—these new disciples have it so much easier.” Instead, Peter and company are thrilled to have more workers in the vineyard.

I wonder if the problem here is us and our small sense of fairness. Maybe God’s sense of fairness is bigger and more expansive than ours is, and that is a good thing.

Grace, like forgiveness which we’ve been talking about for the past couple weeks, depends on our receiving it and paying it forward. God’s plan is to include everyone.

Back to Thomas to bring it home:

“Could it be any more obvious that we are wholly dependent on each other for our survival and well-being? That the future of creation itself depends on human beings recognizing our fundamental interconnectedness and acting in concert for the good of all? That ‘what’s fair’ for me isn’t good enough if it leaves you in the wilderness to die? That my sense of ‘justice’ is not just if it mocks the tender heart of God? That the vineyards of this world thrive only when everyone has a place of dignity and purpose within them? That the time for all selfish and stingy notions of fairness is over?”

A question/thought that came up in our Zoom discussion today was, “How can people learn to be generous if they don’t experience it?” That’s so true. Those that were invited into the vineyard last experienced that kind of generosity. Let’s step into that.

Put yourself in the life of those that arrived at 5:00pm, for whatever reason. Imagine the joy you feel, imagine the gratitude, imagine going home and what you would say to your family. Imagine how you might be inclined to treat other people you encounter?

Maybe this is how we should think of fairness, the same way we think of grace and mercy and love.

What will we do with new life?

Lead in: I just finished my second year of seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are going to school. July 15 and 16 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for July 16 was Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, “The Parable of the Sower,” where Jesus tells a parable to large crowds gathered by the sea to listen to him, then explains it in private to his disciples.

The image used at the top of the page is “The Sower” by Vincent Van Gogh.

What Will We Do with New Life?

How many people have heard the “Parable of the Sower” before? And how many people have then sat and tried to figure out, “Hhhmmm, which kind of soil am I?”

That’s a fair question to ask. We want to figure out how we relate to the story. At the same time it takes the Gospel message and makes it all about us, the readers or listeners.

I wonder though, if we might hear the Parable of the Sower and wonder what it tells us about the character of God? What can we learn about His kingdom?

Let’s start with the soil. By itself, soil is just soil. And it will go on being soil. But when the Sower adds a seed, that’s when transformation happens; the soil becomes a part of the process of new life springing forth.

Michael Green, in his book, “The Message of Matthew,” tells us:

“It’s not just ‘a farmer’ who went out to sow his field. It is (literally) ‘the farmer’ and he comes bringing the precious seed which can transform the soil. The kingdom comes when the soil and the seed get together. It is a marriage of seed and soil. The seed is the word of God proclaimed by the Sower of God. And the kingdom begins to come to life when the ‘soil’ receives the seed of the word for itself. Then it begins to germinate and shoot.”

In Matthew’s telling of the parable, Jesus is the Sower, and God’s Word, spread generously into the soil, adds what wasn’t there, what we can’t add on our own, what we need God to do. And that changes everything. He changes everything.

Through his sowing of the Word, Jesus is creating his kingdom in and among us. And listen to how He sows: some seeds fell on the path, other seeds fell on rocky ground, other seeds fell among thorns, other seeds fell on good soil. God is not stingy with his seeds, he spreads them everywhere. And that’s good news for us, for sure.

Why is that good news? First, we can’t create this transformation, this new life, on our own. We can’t plant the seed, it’s not our seed. We need God to take the initiative. Forgive me a cheesy pun, but in my head I hear a version of Tom Cruise’s voice from the movie Top Gun saying, “We feel the need for SEEDS!” And I apologize if that is the only line you remember from this sermon.

There are more reasons why it is good news that God is not stingy when he sows his seeds. As mentioned, we have a tendency to hear this parable and try to figure out which kind of soil we are.

Am I the path, where the birds come and eat the seed up? Am I the rocky ground, without much soil, no depth and the sun scorches and dries up? Am I full of thorns, choking the seeds? Or am I good soil, bringing forth grain?

I wonder if this is one of those multiple-choice questions where the answer is: “E: All of the above.” What if on any given day, we might be one way and on a different day another?

Catch me on a Monday and I am distracted, maybe I’ve just been in an argument, or I’ve just gotten some bad news, or the washing machine has overflowed just before I have to leave for work. In those moments, I am not fertile soil. Don’t look for grain coming from me then.

But I don’t have to stay that way. Jesus is going to sow the seeds of God’s Word and I might miss it the first time, but I can have better days and better moments, and be more open and be more fertile. And I might not always stay that way either, as much as I want to.

God’s willing to work with us. No matter what soil we are, he’s going to sow the seeds. But he wants us to get it. He wants us to be fruitful.

Matthew’s Gospel is known as the discipleship Gospel. The author wants us to understand what it means to follow Jesus, what the costs are, and what’s expected of us.

At the beginning of today’s reading, Jesus goes and sits beside the sea. That sounds nice, like something we can relate to living on the Eastern Shore. Then such big crowds gather around him that gets into a boat. The thing about being in a boat on the water, sound carries. He’s created his own amplification system.

And he tells the big crowds about the sower and the seed. And as he finishes his teaching he says, “let anyone with ears listen!” Knowing not everyone will understand.

The way today’s reading is put together, we jump from verse 9 to verse 18, where Jesus explains the parable. But the part we jumped over, is the disciples coming up to Jesus after he has been preaching to the crowds and they ask him why he speaks in parables.

So the second part of today’s reading is Jesus speaking directly to his disciples. No big crowds. And now he focuses on the soil. He asks the disciples to look in the mirror. He asks us to look in the mirror.

If through God’s Word, if through sowing these seeds, Jesus is bringing forth new life, if that’s his example to us, if that is what he is showing as the character of God, what does that ask of us?

He’s asking us to be open, to be receptive, to be good soil. And Jesus spells it out for us clearly. This means, “to hear the word and understand it, to bear fruit and yield, whether a hundredfold, sixty, or thirty.”

What does it mean to bear fruit here?

I want to go back to a couple weeks ago, to something Fr. Bill Ortt said: he said that wherever a believer is, wherever a disciple is, there is the kingdom of God.

As believers, as disciples, we bring the kingdom with us. Well, jeez, what does that mean? Here is another from Fr. Bill—and this is so helpful. Fr. Bill told us to think of it as KINGSHIP rather than kingdom. That we are closer to understanding when we think of it as a RELATIONSHIP, not a place.

To bear fruit, to carry that seed, that new life from God, sprouting in us, would be to have a different, deeper, relationship with God. To put God’s love at the center of who we are, how we live, what we do. To live differently than what we see going on in the world today.

This is not a matter of reducing the moral of the story to, we should all be better people. In fact, we might not want to try to reduce Jesus’s parables to simple morals anyway—they have a tendency to expand and confound our thinking and increase our wonder more than they do to clarify things.

Jesus is giving us a story about the Sower, (he calls it the parable of the sower, not the parable of the soil), about the word of God (the seed) creating new life where there was only soil. And maybe we don’t take enough notice in real life, watching seeds crack open, start to sprout, blossom, BLOOM. Have you ever watched that happen over the course of days, weeks, months in your own garden? I am always late getting vegetables in and right now my tomatoes are green and just taking shape on the vines. And I get excited every time I go water them. Do you get giddy and overjoyed at the very simplest things?

What about thinking about yourself that way, and your relationship with God. What if our hearts were full of gratitude for this new life that has been given to us, that has nothing to do with anything we’ve done?

How do we respond? Maybe we want to do our best to cultivate the soil of our hearts, of our lives, so that God’s Word can take root, can crack open, can bloom, and bear fruit? Maybe our thanks to God IS to bear fruit—to carry that seed, that new life, into who and how we are in the world.

No matter what kind of terrain I am at the moment, Jesus is sowing the seeds that offer me new life. What an incredible gift. What am I going to do with it? What are we going to do with it?

I want to leave you with the words of Debie Thomas, from her book “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories,” and what she wishes for the church, and what we might take from the Parable of the Sower—

“How I wish we were known for our absurd generosity. How I wish we were famous for being like the Sower, going out in joy, scattering seed before and behind us in the widest arcs our arms can make. How I wish the world could laugh at our lavishness instead of recoiling from our stinginess. How I wish the people in our lives could see a quiet, gentle confidence in us when we tend to the hard, rocky, thorny places in our communities, instead of finding us abrasive, judgmental, exacting, and insular. How I wish seeds of love, mercy, justice, humility, honor, and truthfulness would fall through our fingers in such appalling quantities that even the birds, the rocks, the thorns, and the shallow, sun-scorched corners of the world would burst forth into colorful, riotous life.”

Jesus has sown new life, God’s love, into the soil of our lives. What are we going to do with it?