choose life! - 16th after pentecost

The first reading is Deuteronomy 30:15-20.

The second reading is Philemon 1-21.

The holy gospel according to Luke (14:25-33)

²⁵Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus;

       and he turned and said to them,

              ²⁶“Whoever comes to me

              and does not hate parents, spouse and children, siblings,

                     yes, and even life itself,

                            cannot be my disciple.

              ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross

                     and follow me

                            cannot be my disciple.

              ²⁸For which of you, intending to build a tower,

                     does not first sit down and estimate the cost,

                            to see whether there is enough to complete it?

                     ²⁹Otherwise, when a foundation has been laid

                            and the builder is not able to finish the building,

                                   all who see it will begin to ridicule the builder,

                                          ³⁰saying, ‘This person began to build

                                                 and was not able to finish.’

              ³¹Or what monarch,

                     going out to wage war against another ruler,

                            will not sit down first

                            and consider whether with ten thousand

                                   to oppose the one who comes with twenty thousand?

                            ³²If it is not possible,

                                   then, while the other is still far away,

                                          the monarch sends a delegation

                                          and asks for the terms of peace.

              ³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple

                     if you do not give up all your possessions.

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

These texts are tough.  There is nothing easy or exciting about Jesus’ words to the crowds following him—unless you’re an adrenaline junky who gets a high from risking or losing your life, I suppose.

These words are a hard truth for those of us who live in a world that is not black and white—a world made not only of various shades, but of an entire rainbow spectrum of colors, shades, and hues; of jewel tones and ring tones; of family and friends whom we love; of houses, buildings, books, and toys that we cherish; of questions, ambiguities, and endless options.

While there is some nuance to how we translate hate and how we interpret Jesus’ words in particular, the message comes through loud and clear.  There’s no mincing words.

That’s part of what is so tough.  Both in Deuteronomy and in Luke, the words and the call are simple—they’re understandable—“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”  All you have to do is “obey the commandments of the Lord your God … by loving the Lord your God, walking in the Lord’s ways, and by observing God’s commandments, decrees, and ordinances.” 

Or as Jesus puts it, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate parents, spouse and children, siblings, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” “³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Simple, right?

But simple does not always mean easy.  I give people great, simple advice in competitions all the time.  In fact, if they would just follow my simple advice, they would always win.  You see, to the runners I say, “Run faster than everyone else.”  To those playing sports, my advice is “Score more than the others,” “block all their shots.”

Simple, right?

Easy?  Not so much.

The same goes for today’s texts.  And so together we hunker down to figure out what this choosing life business is all about, especially when Jesus’ call is to take up the cross, an instrument of torture and death that Jesus himself will soon take up.

We will soon find help in figuring this out from Paul in his letter to Philemon, but first in Deuteronomy, Moses challenges the Hebrews, now that God has established another covenant with them and their descendants, to choose where their allegiance, their loyalties lie.  Will they choose life, “²⁰loving the Lord your God, obeying the Lord, and holding fast to your God”?  Or will they choose death, turning away so they “do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them”?

Will they pledge their allegiance to God?  Or to another people, other gods, a nation, or even to themselves?  God, having entered into covenant with them, laying a claim on their lives, waits to see what they choose.

This claim that God lays on all of our lives is a claim of love that we understand through our baptism.  The love that God willingly pours out on us, more abundant even than the water that fills oceans and floods rivers.  This love brings us in our baptism through death with Christ on the cross and into new life and a new way of being. 

This new way of being—this new life—is what Paul calls Philemon to in our second reading.  Paul knows the choices and sets them before Philemon.  This is the real, simple yet not easy, dilemma of choosing life to free Onesimus or choosing death to keep him bound as a slave.

While we may read Paul’s letter as a bit passive aggressive today, in that time, Paul’s rhetoric is understood as a sincere reminder of Philemon’s own call in Christ to this new way of life, this new allegiance.

It would’ve made life way easier, especially when arguing against slavery earlier in our country’s history, if Paul had simply commanded Philemon to free Onesimus, as he is fully capable of doing.  But that’s not how God has ever worked and Paul knows it.  God is always about giving us options and whispering the hope of life to us as we discern.  No matter what, God loves us.  We could do anything and God still loves us.

God enters into a covenantal relationship with us and gives us the choice of how we respond.  As Moses says, “¹⁵See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity” “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Paul sets this before Philemon as well.  Affirming the love of God from which Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon all live, Paul is clear as to his hope for Philemon and he is equally clear that it must be a choice.  Paul is not trying to coerce Philemon into anything, but instead, appealing to the love of God already at work in Philemon’s heart and life. 

Paul encourages Philemon to choose life, saying “¹⁷So if you consider me your partner, welcome Onesimus as you would welcome me. ¹⁸If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. ¹⁹I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. ²⁰Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. ²¹Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.”

These readings today are not just about whether we cover our heart during the national anthem and pledge allegiance to a flag, the symbol of this country, or refuse and pledge our hearts to God, though those are small ways we choose our allegiances.

Our readings call us to the choice each day in each decision of our lives. 

Do we choose “between what is right and what is easy”?[1]

Do we choose love of neighbor or fear of the “others” who don’t look like us? 

Do we choose to pledge our allegiance to the way of the cross—solidarity and advocacy with the oppressed and marginalized—or to the way of glory—storing up for ourselves wealth and power at the expense of others?

Set before us each day in little ways and in big ways are “life and prosperity, death and adversity.” “life and death, blessings and curses.”

“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Choose life so that your neighbor around the world will know peace.

Choose life so that workers will know fair living wages.

Choose life so that the oppressed will know justice.

Choose life so that the outcast will know belonging.

Choose life so that the foreigner will receive sanctuary.

Choose life so that all may freely live.

Choose life as Christ already lives in you.

Amen.

---

[1] Professor Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Ch. 37 “The Beginning.”

Jesus journeys with us in the wildernesses: Lent 1

The first reading is Deuteronomy 26:1-11

The second reading is Romans 10:8b-13

The holy gospel according to Luke (4:1-13)

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit,

       returned from the Jordan

       and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,

              ²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

                     He ate nothing at all during those days,

                     and when they were over,

                            he was famished.

       ³The devil said to him,

              “If you are the Son of God,

                     command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

       ⁴Jesus answered him,

              “It is written,

                     ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

       ⁵Then the devil led him up

              and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

              ⁶And the devil said to him,

                     “To you I will give their glory and all this authority;

                            for it has been given over to me,

                                   and I give it to anyone I please.

                            ⁷If you, then, will worship me,

                                   it will all be yours.”

       ⁸Jesus answered him,

              “It is written,

                     ‘Worship the Lord your God,

                            the Lord alone shall you serve.’”

       ⁹Then the devil took him to Jerusalem,

              and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,

                     saying to him,

                            “If you are the Son of God,

                                   throw yourself down from here,

                                          ¹⁰for it is written,

                                                 ‘God will command the angels concerning you,

                                                        to protect you,’

                                                 ¹¹and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,

                                                        so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

       ¹²Jesus answered him,

              “It is said,

                     ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

       ¹³When the devil had finished every test,

              he departed from him until an opportune time.

The gospel of the lord.

-----

Lent is a time for self-examination and confession.  Our midweek services are focused on prayer, creating space to intentionally nurture and reflect on our spiritual life, our relationship with God.  On Sundays, our confessions for this season have changed so that we all confess aloud together, even as we also take time to confess silently.  In that vein, I have a confession. 

I struggle with Paul’s words in our reading today from Romans.

I can’t do this whole faith thing on my own. 

I do not always believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. 

The one day of the year that I am 100% certain that God raised Jesus from the dead is Easter Sunday morning.  Most of the rest of the time I will cast my lot, as they say, with Jesus, but I am not always so certain.  I doubt and sometimes I just plain struggle with disbelief.

I have always appreciated the imagery of Lent in the wilderness.  It is sparse and wide open.  There are no requirements of faith in the wilderness—no test I have to pass or creed I need to confess.  There is an open sky, dirt and rocks.  It is creation in purified form.  It is there for my questions.  The wilderness holds my doubts for me—in hills, in pockets of snow and trees, in the infinite stars that stretch out in the night sky.  In the wilderness there is space for it all—faith, doubt, questions, even utter disbelief.

And the wilderness is where we all come from.  Our ancestors in the faith and our biological ancestors were wilderness wanderers.  We hear the proclamation today in Deuteronomy and join in with the claim that “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien”

Migration is the story of our faith from Eve and Adam leaving the garden to Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham wandering to the new place God had in store for them.  Joseph, his father, and his siblings journeyed to Egypt during the famine.  Ruth and Naomi traveled back from Moab.  Mary, Joseph, and eventually Jesus traveled to Bethlehem for a census and then fled to Egypt as refugees.  And throughout Jesus’ public ministry he travels, always crossing over to the other sides, walking to new towns, up mountains, getting in boats, and eventually he journeys up a hill with a cross and down to the depths of suffering and death.

Our faith is the faith of immigrants and we are aliens in this land.  Even as we reside here—whether for a short time or for generations—we belong to the one who calls us into being, who calls our questions and our doubts from us in the wilderness.  We all travel in our faith and somewhere along our own ancestry we have ancestors—or maybe we are the ones—who began journeys away from all they knew to live as aliens; immigrants, as we say today.  Holding onto a promise of new life, hope for the future, they entered into the wilderness journey that we too find ourselves on from time to time, especially in Lent.

But I find that the wilderness, while familiar and open for my questioning, isn’t quite enough for me.  I need that space, openness, and aloneness, to journey and question but then I need to come back.  And even while I’m in the wilderness, I need a community of faith.  I need a community that can keep the faith for me, that can keep the faith when I struggle.  That is why we come together each week—to hold each other’s questions, doubt, and disbelief and to carry the faith along our wilderness journeys when it is too much for another to bear.

In this way when I struggle, you can shoulder the burden and when you struggle, I can shoulder it and together that burden is lighter for us all.  So I can “confess with [my] lips that Jesus is Lord.” And trust in the community of faith to help my heart believe that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Within this community of faith—here as Trinity and First—we join Jesus in the wilderness of this Lenten journey.  We rest in the openness of creation to all our doubts, questions, and disbeliefs. 

As Jesus encounters temptations and challenges in the wilderness, and because together God makes us into the body of Christ, we respond with Jesus.  Even as we rejoice to receive communion and to have enough to eat, we also know that others go without and that as an early passage in Deuteronomy states and Jesus echoes in today’s gospel, “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut 8:3b) 

As we look at creation and the ways we use and abuse it, Jesus also empowers us to “Worship the Lord your God, the Lord alone shall you serve.”  Even temptations to power and prestige cannot claim us because it is God who is the power and source of all life.  And in this community of faith instead of testing God or making deals with God for healing, well-being, safety, or certainty, God creates the space for us to sit together with our questions, learning to rest in God, to trust God’s promise of life, made known to us in Jesus.

And so we can “confess with [our] lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in [our] heart that God raised him from the dead.” God creates the wilderness space for our journeys and God travels those journeys with us, all the way to the cross and back.  May this Lenten wilderness provide you with the space you need to journey, doubt, and rest.

Amen.

God comes to us

The first reading is Deuteronomy 6:1-9.

The holy gospel according to Luke (2:8-14).

⁸In that region there were shepherds living in the fields,

       keeping watch over their flock by night.

       ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them,

              and the glory of the Lord shone around them,

                     and they were terrified.

       ¹⁰But the angel said to them,

              “Do not be afraid;

                     for see—

                            I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:

                                   ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,

                                          who is the Messiah,

                                          the Lord.

                     ¹²This will be a sign for you:

                            you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth

                                   and lying in a manger.”

       ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,

              praising God and saying,

                     ¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

                            and on earth peace among those whom God favors!”

The gospel of the lord.

-----

What a day for these readings.  Over the last couple of months, I have enjoyed hearing about your favorite passages and verses from the Bible.  I have also been pleasantly surprised by the ways different passages work together.  The “shema,” the Hebrew word for hear, from verse 4 in Deuteronomy fits so well with today as we will spend today and the coming weeks continuing to make meaning out of our time together at Christ the King. 

Will we recite stories to our children from our time together—the bingo and silent auction fundraiser that raised money, yes, but more than that, it brought our community and friends of our congregation together to enjoy each other’s company and to support our youth.

When we are at home, will we talk about the homes comforted by Project Linus blankets, by children’s books donated to Family Promise, or beautiful images now covering abandoned buildings in Detroit? 

When we are away, will we tell people of the community of faith that gathered each week to worship the God of love and grace, to receive holy communion and be drowned in the waters of baptism?

How will we wear our faith, bound as a sign on our hands?  How will we do God’s work with those same hands? 

How will the sign of the cross, fixed as an emblem on our foreheads at our baptisms, shine for all to see?  Will our doorposts and gates be filled with words of welcome and hospitality learned and practiced so deeply here?

Will we “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone”?

What will we do as we go from here?  More importantly, though, the question I ask myself is what will God do?  Where will God be as we leave here?  How will God be present to me and to us?

And I think of the shepherds, perhaps wondering where God was in the loneliness of a night filled with sheep, or wondering at God in the stars scattered across the sky.  Because when God comes to us, and to the shepherds, in Jesus, God does the same thing that God has been doing throughout our whole human history.  God chooses once again to come to us in a new way.  God chooses to become us—to take on all of our human-ness and be with us in this new way—in Jesus the Christ.

God did it in the beginning, too.  God began with wind and spirit—Ruah, she was called.  Then God walked with Adam and Eve, the first humans, and when they left the garden, God was still with them.  God encountered Sarah and Abraham as strangers and angels, receiving hospitality.

As the Hebrews cried out in Egypt, God heard them, and came to Moses in a burning bush.  God brought the Hebrews out from captivity.  God led them in pillars of cloud by day and fire by night.

Throughout all of history, God has come to humans, to be with us and love us, to bring us to our best selves, to guide us in community, in service, and in justice.  To crowd us around a manger, a Table, a cross, and an empty tomb.

In all of these times that God comes to us, God comes with signs.  From pillars of cloud and fire to staffs that turn into serpents.  The prophets always have a sign that supports their claims against injustice.  What are our signs these days?  For the shepherds, the sign was a baby wrapped in scraps of cloth, lying in a feeding trough.  What are your signs of God’s presence with us?

As we go from here, God is coming to us again.  Not in cloud and fire, necessarily, but in love, in memories, and in new opportunities for community. 

Many of you have talked about finding a new faith community that is a small community, like Christ the King.  While I can fairly easily assure you that none will be quite as small as Christ the King, will your sign in a new community be as simple as a friendly face, a warm welcome?  Will that be enough?

Or will your sign of God’s presence come as you read the Bible, reading for whose voice is left out, reading for the questions that arise?  Will God’s presence come in continued gatherings—for fellowship or Project Linus?

How will you encounter God?  How will God encounter you?  Will a new faith community write itself on your heart?  Will Project Linus carry you forward into the unknown?  How will God yet again encounter you in a new way?

There are signs of God’s presence all around us.  I’m not always open to seeing them, but when I pay attention, I see God in the new life of babies.  I see God in the way the Wasatch Mountains climb into the sky, majestic and powerful.  I experience God in the hugs of friends and the late night conversations, solving the world’s problems with the optimism only found late at night in our God of hope.  The man I pass each week on my way to the Pride Center, who stands by Dunkin’ Donuts with a sign asking for money.  He is a sign of God’s presence for me as we greet each other with a familiarity built up over weekly encounters throughout this year.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie August Rush, a movie about the power of music, is, “Listen. Can you hear it? The music. I can hear it everywhere. In the wind… in the air… in the light. It’s all around us. All you have to do is open yourself up. All you have to do … is listen.”  That’s how I feel about signs of God’s presence.  They are everywhere—in the wind, in the air, in the light and the dark.  All you have to do … is listen, look, open yourself.  God is all around.

Thanks be to God.