God gives abundantly together: 11th after pentecost

The first reading is Ecclesiastes 1:2,12-24, 2:18-23.

The second reading is Colossians 3:1-11. 

The holy gospel according to Luke 12:13-21

¹³Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,

       “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

¹⁴But Jesus replied,

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

¹⁵And Jesus said to them,

       “Take care!

       Be on your guard against all kinds of greed;

              for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶Then he told them a parable:

       “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.

       ¹⁷And he thought to himself,

              ‘What should I do,

                     for I have no place to store my crops?’

       ¹⁸Then he said,

              ‘I will do this:

                     I will pull down my barns and build larger ones,

                            and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

                     ¹⁹And I will say to my soul,

                            ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years;

                                   relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

       ²⁰But 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?’

       ²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves

              but are not rich toward God.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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Jesus’ parables—his short stories and riddles—are fantastic!  While we often use them nowadays to think about God, Jesus mostly uses them to demonstrate flaws in how the world works.  And so we hear today’s parable in our own context.  We hear the rich man wonder what to do with his over-abundance.  We hear him question himself about his stuff.  In fact, in a matter of 5 verses, the rich man uses I or my 11 times!  The only other pronoun he uses is you, which he uses once when he is talking to his own soul!!

This rich man’s sole concern is himself!  Not once do we hear a we, an us, or a them.  It is no wonder his possessions are demanding his life!  He is so wrapped up in himself and his possessions that he doesn’t even realize the ways that they are taking over his life.  Until God comes and points out that his life is being demanded of him, that is.  Within the story, the only possibility for who or what is demanding his life is actually his possessions.

This seems a bit extreme, right?  We can’t possibly live in a world where possessions lay claim to our lives like that, can we?  The buildings we use or inhabit, the collections of books, movies, or quilts we have.  They don’t ever consume our lives, right?

And yet, how many of us resonate with our reading from Ecclesiastes “all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest.”  Work can be exhausting and sleepless nights are, perhaps, not as foreign as we’d like them to be. 

The most common response to “How are you?” tends to be “busy!” Frustrations with jobs, houses, property upkeep, the state of the world, can all keep us up at night, claiming our lives. 

Even computer games, Facebook, and TV lay claims on our lives.  They suck us in and mesmerize us so that before we know it minutes and hours have disappeared.  When we finally do try to get some sleep, our brains either won’t turn off to sleep or turn back on at 2 or 3 in the morning.

Jobs, work, and barns are important, but also cannot be understood apart from community.  This rich man doesn’t spare a passing thought for anyone but himself.  He is already rich, before the land produces abundantly, and yet he doesn’t consider who could benefit from the over-abundance of the land; only how he can store and keep more.

It would be easy to simplify this into riches are bad and we should all just give everything to God and the church, but it’s more complicated than that.  It’s not just about God or the church or the “stuff” we call our own.

It’s about community—the whole body of Christ.  The person in the crowd at the start of today’s gospel reading is just as focused inwardly as the rich man.  But none of us are lone wolves.  None of us live in complete isolation.  This.  Right here.   What we do every Sunday.  Is evidence of that.  We come together as a community of faith. 

Faith is supposed to be a community thing—a group endeavor.  Even our jobs depend on others and we in turn are depended on by others.  We are social beings and live in community.  Yet our possessions, the things we claim for our own have the power to pull us away from and out of community, to make us think we did it all on our own; to make us forget that God is the creator of the whole cosmos—of all that is and was and is to come.

That is the struggle for the rich man and for us.  How do we keep our own lives in balance?  How do we keep possessions from demanding our whole selves?  How do we live lives, as Jesus says, “rich toward God”?  And in the midst of that we still need to make sure we eat, our kids can go to school, and a medical emergency won’t bankrupt us.

It is in our interconnectedness that possessions lose their grip.  It is in relinquishing our illusions of control, that we recognize God’s sovereignty and the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us into community and relationship, where we recognize our interdependence.   

We acknowledge together that we depend on God and each other—for sun and rain in due season, for harvesting crops, for building the machines that help us harvest, for those who make the dishes we use at each meal, for people who do business with us, for people who pray with and for us.  After all, we don’t earn our money in isolation, so why should we think about what to do with it in isolation?

As a community of faith, part of how we recognize our interdependence with each other and our dependence on God is through our tithes and our offerings.  When we give each week, or month, or year, we give up some of our false illusions that we are in control.  We put our trust in God and in other people.  We risk not being in control and we are rewarded with a greater dependence on God and a greater connection to each other.  We depend more fully on each other for shared gifts of creation, shared prayers, and shared support for our mission together.

And through all of this, our Creator walks with us, nurturing us and all of creation.  As we heard in Colossians, the new self with which we are clothed “is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”  God is always recreating us and carrying us.  Forgoing bigger barns, we are able to use the things we call our own to give thanks and praise in recognition for the gifts of abundance that God gives all of creation.  And in this, the Holy Spirit deepens the connections between us all as our bigger barns become a small comparison to God’s bigger love in community.

Thanks be to God.

how much more? - 10th after pentecost

The second reading for this sermon is Colossians2:6-19.

The gospel reading for this sermon is Luke 11:1-13.

A reading from Genesis (18:20-32).

²⁰Then the Lord said,

       “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah

              and how very grave their sin!

       ²¹I must go down and see whether they have done altogether

              according to the outcry that has come to me;

              and if not, I will know.”

       ²²So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom,

              while Abraham remained standing before the Lord.

²³Then Abraham came near and said,

       “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

              ²⁴Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city;

                     will you then sweep away the place

                            and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?

                     ²⁵Far be it from you to do such a thing,

                            to slay the righteous with the wicked,

                                   so that the righteous fare as the wicked!

                     Far be that from you!

                            Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

²⁶And the Lord said,

       “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city,

              I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

²⁷Abraham answered,

       “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord,

              I who am but dust and ashes.

              ²⁸Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking?

                     Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”

And the Lord said,

       “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

²⁹Again he spoke to the Lord,

       “Suppose forty are found there.”

The Lord answered,

       “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”

³⁰Then Abraham said,

       “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak.

              Suppose thirty are found there.”

The Lord answered,

       “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”

³¹He said,

       “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord.

              Suppose twenty are found there.”

The Lord answered,

       “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.”

³²Then Abraham said,

       “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more.

              Suppose ten are found there.”

The Lord answered,

       “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

 Word of God, Word of Life.

-----

My mantra of late has been “How much more?”

In an article I read this week, Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis draws the connection between the many connotations of that particular question and this week in the lectionary and in our country and even in the community.

I have spent these weeks and months asking “How much more?”  How much more violence against already vulnerable communities?  How much more violence against people of color, against transgender and queer people, against civilians in Syria, France, Germany, and Afghanistan? 

How much more violence and the need to decry it?  Is it not obvious enough that I believe violence is wrong both when it is directed at civilians and also when directed at police—that it is wrong in any circumstance?  How much more work do I need to do to address my own power and privilege as a white person when racism is increasingly obvious all around me?

How much more news of the struggles and deaths migrants face crossing rivers and deserts in the hope of hope and opportunity?  How much more will be revealed about Texas’ mass graves, further dehumanizing those who have risked and lost their lives for the desperate and dangerous opportunity of life in this country?

How much more violent and demeaning rhetoric chanted and shouted against beloved children of God and sexist and racist comments and backlash used in place of compassionate engagement in our political discourse?

How much more despair will come before it is truly too much?  How much more will I name the violence and despair?  How much more news of new and unexpected deaths and illnesses in our community?  How much more heat and humidity can I handle before I melt?  And then how much more rain before we get washed away?

I must admit, I feel a bit like Abraham, having discovered the strangers for whom he’s providing hospitality are really angels and God has come to check up on Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham’s nephew Lot lives in Sodom and Abraham must have heard the rumors of, as Rev. Dr. Samuel Gere points out, their utter lack of hospitality—one of the worst offenses in this desert culture— “Greed. Theft. Deception. Disregard of the poor and the orphan. … [and] mercilessness.”

Abraham is not unaware of the wickedness, and perhaps a part of him, like a part of me, wishes God would just wipe us all out and start over.  Try again with humanity, just like the flood.  But after the flood God promised no more.  God promised never to wipe out all of humanity like that again.  

And so there is the other part of me that wonders with Abraham how much more the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah will also destroy the righteous—especially his nephew?  How much more could the presence of the righteous save the wicked—the rest of us?

God has already covenanted to be in relationship with Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and their descendants, so Abraham, relying on that covenantal relationship with God, tests its boundaries.

“How much is enough?” he asks God.  “Are 50 righteous people enough to save them all?”  “Sure,” God responds.  And as God consents, Abraham keeps pushing, “What about 45?  40?  30?  20?”

Abraham gets God all the way down to 10.  10 righteous is enough to spare the whole place.  God, ever willing to show mercy, agrees without any pushback, begging the question: “How much more could Abraham have asked of God?”  Could he have gone down to 5 or even one?  How much more merciful is God than we, with Abraham, can even fathom?

When I am caught up in my fits of despair and lament, I am reminded of this other side of the “How much more?”s.  As M reminded us this morning, it’s not just “How much more violence, sadness, anger, and despair?”  It’s also “How much more love, compassion, justice, and mercy?”

Our God is a God of mercy and grace.  How much more love does God have for each of us than we could understand?  How much more will God’s reign come to us—is God’s reign already with us—as we join together to declare that #BlackLivesMatter, that violence is not the way of Christ, that welcome of strangers and others is where God calls us?  

How much more richness is in our lives and our churches because of our partnerships with churches and people around the world?  How much more do we experience a fuller body of Christ because our worshiping community cuts across denominational boundaries?

How much more life is possible because, as we read in Colossians, “in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”?  How much more power is in love than in hatred and violence because God died on the cross and then triumphed over death?  How much more generous is our God who gives life to us and all of creation?

How much more love is possible when we grow in our relationships with others?  How much more celebration is possible when we learn about another’s culture and life?  When we listen to their stories and play games together?  How much more joy is possible when we share food with others and enjoy a picnic with those who work locally on farms and at the dairies?

How much more rain do we need to remind us of the way God’s love pours down on us in baptism?  How much more do we experience the in-breaking of God’s reign when we live out of God’s love?  When we struggle through laughter and embarrassment to communicate with others?  When we speak out, contacting our representatives about issues of injustice and violence in our country?

Someone posted a video on Facebook the other day, which made me wonder: if we paid more attention to and learned from the children in our midst, how much more love would be possible?  When we are the friend at midnight and give in to the persistence of strangers, neighbors, and children, how much more has God already poured out love on them and us? 

How much more love is in the world because our Source of Being is Love?  How much more hope do I have for the world, buried deepest in my heart, because there are righteous in the world—because the Holy Spirit is at work?  And ultimately, as Jesus asks, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask”?

So much more.

Thanks be to God.

god feeds us: 7th after pentecost

The first reading is Isaiah 66:10-14.

The holy gospel according to Luke (10:1-11, 16-20).

After this the Lord appointed seventy others

       and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place

              where he himself intended to go.

       ²Jesus said to them,

              “The harvest is plentiful,

                     but the laborers are few;

                            therefore ask the Lord of the harvest

                                   to send out laborers for the harvesting.

              ³Go on your way.

                     See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.

                     ⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals;

                     and greet no one on the road.

                     ⁵Whatever house you enter, first say,

                            ‘Peace to this house!’

                                   ⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace,

                                          your peace will rest on that person;

                                   but if not,

                                          it will return to you.

                            ⁷Remain in the same house,

                                   eating and drinking whatever they provide,

                                          for the laborer deserves to be paid.

                                   Do not move about from house to house.

                            ⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you,

                                   eat what is set before you;

                                   ⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them,

                                          ‘The reign of God has come near to you.’

                     ¹⁰But whenever you enter a town

                            and they do not welcome you,

                                   go out into its streets and say,

                                          ¹¹‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet,

                                                 we wipe off in protest against you.

                                                 Yet know this:

                                                        the reign of God has come near.’

¹⁶“Whoever listens to you listens to me,

       and whoever rejects you rejects me,

              and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

¹⁷The seventy returned with joy, saying,

       “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

¹⁸Jesus said to them,

       “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

              ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions,

                     and over all the power of the enemy;

                            and nothing will hurt you.

                                   ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this,

                                          that the spirits submit to you,

                                   but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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This past week has been a week focused on food for me.  I have had a lot of conversations about food and nourishment and bodies.  On Thursday, NPR was doing a segment on struggles with body image and eating.  On Wednesday during our conversation about congregational care and Good Shepherd outreach, we also talked about the abundance of treats and sweets, which can be detrimental to the real nourishment our bodies need.   

I also successfully canned my first ever jams—freezer and cooked!  I ate food from my own potted plants and from the CSA box I receive.  And I made new recipes with new foods.  Food is amazing and I do love it :)

One of the summers that I worked at Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp, our theme was The Great I AM.  We talked about Jesus’ different “I AM…” statements in John each day.  My favorite day was “I AM the Bread of Life” because the kitchen would bring each bible study its own fresh baked loaf of the most delicious bread!  And we would talk about the gift of hearty, nourishing bread and food compared with the easy sugars and the many fad diets around disparaging bread and carbs.

And today, in Isaiah, God is again feeding us.  God cares for us and feeds us as only a mother nursing her child can.  God feeds us with God’s very life and being and God comes to earth, becoming us and again feeding us with his own life.  You see, we have an incarnational God—one who becomes human with us. 

Our God loves and values us so much that she takes on our very own being—human flesh and blood—to care for us.  Jesus walks among us teaching and guiding us, nurturing our spirits, and feeding us physically as well.  And Jesus gives his entire self over for our lives.  Jesus nourishes us with his own body and blood, feeding our bodies and souls.

God’s incarnation and nurture for us is part of God’s care for our whole selves.  God cares for our physical needs, feeding us with the bread and cup and the whole of creation.  God gives of her own being to nourish us.

And God cares for our spiritual needs, feeding us with the body and blood that restore our souls, bring our broken bodies together in community as Christ’s body, and give us alternative ways of being in the world.

Particularly over the last few weeks, it is easy to get caught up in pain, anger, hurt, and despair.  To look at attacks from Pulse in Orlando to Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, from flooding in West Virginia to the Dhaka attack in Bangladesh—it is so easy to sink into a despairing apathy, wondering where God could be.  How could a loving God exist in the face of all this brokenness?  Where is God in my own life?

We are broken people.  We name that together during confession and forgiveness each week.  We mess up, we sin, we hurt others, and we hurt ourselves.  That’s part of why we come here week after week.  Not because we are perfect, but precisely because we are not.  We cannot make ourselves perfect; we cannot heal all the hurts of the world on our own.  None of us can, no matter how hard we try.

We need God.  And we need to be fed by God.  We need God’s assurances of love and care for us.  We need God’s nourishment.  We need to gather as broken people to receive bread broken and life outpoured.  We need it.  And God knows it.  God comes to us and feeds us.

The nourishment we need creates space also for us to re-engage the world around us.  The way we experience news these days easily desensitizes us to the truly deep evils in the world.  Technology has made us both better at knowing about these evils and this violence, and better at perpetrating them.  And it becomes overwhelming and isolating.  We lose sight of each other, of our humanity, of hope.

But when God feeds us at the Table, we are reconnected to God and each other.  We can take deep breaths and look again with compassion on one another, ourselves, and the world.  When we are fed and nourished, God also opens up the space we need to be open and compassionate with each other and with ourselves.

God feeds us, provides for us, and provides for the whole of creation.  God gives life through the food we eat—the hearty wholeness of fresh baked bread, the warm joy and celebration of wine and juice. 

God feeds us fully.  And God sends our nourished broken and yet made whole bodies into the world with hearts full of compassion and ready to share our food with the world.  God sends us out open to those we encounter so that we can engage with others, bringing peace to their house.  God sends us out fed and nourished to respond to others’ hospitality with hospitality ourselves, as the 70 did when Jesus sent them out. 

God gives us birth and carries us in life.  God gathers us in together, feeds us, and sends us toddling off into the world she so lovingly creates and recreates.

Thanks be to God.