The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Jeremiah 4: 11 – 12, 22 – 28
Sunday, September 12, 2010 I Timothy 1: 12 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 15: 1 – 10
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”
Luke 15: 4
In the eyes of those who know sheep better than I do, the shepherd in the parable Jesus tells us this morning looks a little foolish. In our reading from Luke, Jesus tells us a parable about a lost sheep. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves behind ninety-nine sheep to go after one lost sheep. Leaving ninety-nine sheep wandering in the wilderness without a shepherd, according to those who shepherd sheep, is a sure way to lose a whole lot of sheep.
“My uncle hates it when preachers talk about sheep,” writes one commentator. “You see, my uncle raised sheep. He knows them up close. They are not sweet. It does not matter if they are innocent or not: they are animals. They are rude, insistent and deeply stupid animals. They would rather try to walk through a fence than go around it. They will destroy their pasture if they are not driven off it, because (unlike cattle) they do not move on when they have eaten all the grass where they are standing. They will devour the grass, down to, and including the roots, and make a wasteland of what had been a flourishing pasture.”
“If you leave ninety-nine stupid sheep alone in the wilderness and go searching for one lost sheep,” this commentator continues, “how many sheep do you have when you find the one and bring it back?” “My uncle thinks that, based on his experience, the shepherd is likely to have one sheep at the end of the story.” At the risk of losing his entire flock, the shepherd in our parable this morning, leaves his flock to go in search of one lost sheep. No shepherd in his right mind could afford to take such a risk.
Jesus shares this parable with those who take him to task for eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is breaking the Mosaic law, a law commanded by God, a law whose intent was to keep God’s people “holy, as God is holy,” set apart from all the other peoples of the world. Tax collectors and sinners were all those who had transgressed the law and were no longer welcome within the community until they made atonement for their sins. And so, the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The Pharisees and the scribes perceive Jesus to be, if you will, “soft on crime.”
In response to their grumbling, Jesus tells them a parable about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine of his sheep in order to rescue one. And the “bite” of the parable hits us, as it did for those who heard this parable the first time, in the absence of the shepherd’s concern for the sheep he leaves behind. The shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep alone in the wilderness, without securing them in a safe place or asking someone else to look after them until the shepherd returns. And the shepherd searches for his lost sheep “until he finds it,” which could be a very long time. The shepherd is wholly concerned about finding one lost sheep and appears not to care that he might lose his entire flock in the process.
Jesus tells this parable about a shepherd who takes a huge risk to save one lost sheep to people who worked hard to follow God’s law, who sought not to be like the “tax collectors and the sinners.” In the parable, the shepherd refuses to leave the lost sheep behind, comparing the lost sheep to a sinner who has wandered away from the fold. To people who sought to keep themselves righteous, Jesus directs their attention away from themselves and their righteousness and onto those who are missing from their fold, insisting that until that lost sheep is found, God’s joy will not be complete.
Searching after missing sheep, and risking all to do so, is crazy in a world that knows there are limits to what we can do. We cannot save all the lost sheep of the world and would be foolish to try. We cannot give away all of our money to the poor because we then would become poor. We cannot open our homes to all the homeless and the hungry of the world because then we might become homeless and hungry. We cannot befriend all the strangers of the world because we then would be seen as “strange.” The reckless abandon of the shepherd is simply not possible in this world, not in a world that firmly believes we can and should take care of ourselves, because if we do not nobody else will. The last thing any of us want to be is that lost sheep, wholly dependent upon some crazy shepherd’s mercy to rescue us.
Depending upon the mercy of God has never been easy for people of faith. Beginning with God’s call to Abraham, when God promised Abraham a son in his old age and Sarah laughed, God promised to be faithful even when God’s people were not. And, after the Exodus, when the Hebrews grew impatient with God, and made a golden calf, God continued to lead them through the wilderness, in spite of their lack of trust. And when Jesus broke bread with all the wrong people, God’s people were once again challenged to trust that through Jesus, God was rescuing not just Israel, but the whole world.
The church is an odd place. People come and people go. No one is asked for their resume when they come through the door, baptism is free of charge and, once baptized, you have a lifetime membership in the church. We come as we are, for better and for worse, and in baptism, become participants of a community, a community of lost sheep that God longs to redeem. As we strive to live together, we discover we do not all see things the same way, none of us is perfect and simply staying together is a challenge, sometimes more of a challenge than we can accommodate.
The church is the work of God and exists by the mercy of God. God calls us together and sustains our common life. The church lives and moves and has her being in God, the same God who with reckless abandon goes looking for lost sheep simply because we all are dearly beloved by God! That St. Asaph’s is, is a gift from God, not the result of anything you or I or anyone else did or gave. When we forget that the church, this church, exists only by and through the grace of God, we will become no more than one more pleasant voluntary and fraternal organization that is convicted we can by our own resources change the world. We cannot transform the world; only God can do that. Absent our faith that God really does love the world and all of us, the church makes no sense, not in a world that at most pities the lost sheep of the world, but would prefer not to be one of them.
We, the church, are not called out by God to be successful, but to be faithful, to bear witness to the mercy of God who has gathered us together and longs for the whole world to know God’s love. To know the mercy of God is to know ourselves as lost sheep, sinners in need of redeeming, not fundamentally different from anyone else in this world. We are here because God is gracious, not because we are “good” people who go to church on Sunday morning because that is what good people do. We are here to give thanks to God, “for the goodness and loving kindness God has shown to us and to all whom God has made,” in the words of the General Thanksgiving. What we are called to bear into this world in which we live is God’s goodness, not our own.
We are a people with a story to tell, a story we hear every Sunday as we read from the Old and the New Testaments, a story of God’s dealings with God’s people, a story in which God is always faithful and always gracious, even when God’s people are not. And we each have a personal story to tell of the ways in which God has been gracious to us.
Of course, we do not need to ascribe the “blessings of this life” to God; we could tell the story in a way that ascribes who we are and what we have, to luck or fate or hard work or good genes. But if we decide to tell the story that way, we will discover that there are no lost sheep in the world, only folks who got the short end of the stick. We might feel sorry for them, but basically there is nothing we can do because we got lucky and they did not. If, on the other hand, all that we are and all that we have, is a gift to us from God, then we need not be resigned but grateful, grateful enough to want the rest of the world to know of God’s goodness.
Sunday, September 12, 2010 I Timothy 1: 12 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 15: 1 – 10
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”
Luke 15: 4
In the eyes of those who know sheep better than I do, the shepherd in the parable Jesus tells us this morning looks a little foolish. In our reading from Luke, Jesus tells us a parable about a lost sheep. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves behind ninety-nine sheep to go after one lost sheep. Leaving ninety-nine sheep wandering in the wilderness without a shepherd, according to those who shepherd sheep, is a sure way to lose a whole lot of sheep.
“My uncle hates it when preachers talk about sheep,” writes one commentator. “You see, my uncle raised sheep. He knows them up close. They are not sweet. It does not matter if they are innocent or not: they are animals. They are rude, insistent and deeply stupid animals. They would rather try to walk through a fence than go around it. They will destroy their pasture if they are not driven off it, because (unlike cattle) they do not move on when they have eaten all the grass where they are standing. They will devour the grass, down to, and including the roots, and make a wasteland of what had been a flourishing pasture.”
“If you leave ninety-nine stupid sheep alone in the wilderness and go searching for one lost sheep,” this commentator continues, “how many sheep do you have when you find the one and bring it back?” “My uncle thinks that, based on his experience, the shepherd is likely to have one sheep at the end of the story.” At the risk of losing his entire flock, the shepherd in our parable this morning, leaves his flock to go in search of one lost sheep. No shepherd in his right mind could afford to take such a risk.
Jesus shares this parable with those who take him to task for eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is breaking the Mosaic law, a law commanded by God, a law whose intent was to keep God’s people “holy, as God is holy,” set apart from all the other peoples of the world. Tax collectors and sinners were all those who had transgressed the law and were no longer welcome within the community until they made atonement for their sins. And so, the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The Pharisees and the scribes perceive Jesus to be, if you will, “soft on crime.”
In response to their grumbling, Jesus tells them a parable about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine of his sheep in order to rescue one. And the “bite” of the parable hits us, as it did for those who heard this parable the first time, in the absence of the shepherd’s concern for the sheep he leaves behind. The shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep alone in the wilderness, without securing them in a safe place or asking someone else to look after them until the shepherd returns. And the shepherd searches for his lost sheep “until he finds it,” which could be a very long time. The shepherd is wholly concerned about finding one lost sheep and appears not to care that he might lose his entire flock in the process.
Jesus tells this parable about a shepherd who takes a huge risk to save one lost sheep to people who worked hard to follow God’s law, who sought not to be like the “tax collectors and the sinners.” In the parable, the shepherd refuses to leave the lost sheep behind, comparing the lost sheep to a sinner who has wandered away from the fold. To people who sought to keep themselves righteous, Jesus directs their attention away from themselves and their righteousness and onto those who are missing from their fold, insisting that until that lost sheep is found, God’s joy will not be complete.
Searching after missing sheep, and risking all to do so, is crazy in a world that knows there are limits to what we can do. We cannot save all the lost sheep of the world and would be foolish to try. We cannot give away all of our money to the poor because we then would become poor. We cannot open our homes to all the homeless and the hungry of the world because then we might become homeless and hungry. We cannot befriend all the strangers of the world because we then would be seen as “strange.” The reckless abandon of the shepherd is simply not possible in this world, not in a world that firmly believes we can and should take care of ourselves, because if we do not nobody else will. The last thing any of us want to be is that lost sheep, wholly dependent upon some crazy shepherd’s mercy to rescue us.
Depending upon the mercy of God has never been easy for people of faith. Beginning with God’s call to Abraham, when God promised Abraham a son in his old age and Sarah laughed, God promised to be faithful even when God’s people were not. And, after the Exodus, when the Hebrews grew impatient with God, and made a golden calf, God continued to lead them through the wilderness, in spite of their lack of trust. And when Jesus broke bread with all the wrong people, God’s people were once again challenged to trust that through Jesus, God was rescuing not just Israel, but the whole world.
The church is an odd place. People come and people go. No one is asked for their resume when they come through the door, baptism is free of charge and, once baptized, you have a lifetime membership in the church. We come as we are, for better and for worse, and in baptism, become participants of a community, a community of lost sheep that God longs to redeem. As we strive to live together, we discover we do not all see things the same way, none of us is perfect and simply staying together is a challenge, sometimes more of a challenge than we can accommodate.
The church is the work of God and exists by the mercy of God. God calls us together and sustains our common life. The church lives and moves and has her being in God, the same God who with reckless abandon goes looking for lost sheep simply because we all are dearly beloved by God! That St. Asaph’s is, is a gift from God, not the result of anything you or I or anyone else did or gave. When we forget that the church, this church, exists only by and through the grace of God, we will become no more than one more pleasant voluntary and fraternal organization that is convicted we can by our own resources change the world. We cannot transform the world; only God can do that. Absent our faith that God really does love the world and all of us, the church makes no sense, not in a world that at most pities the lost sheep of the world, but would prefer not to be one of them.
We, the church, are not called out by God to be successful, but to be faithful, to bear witness to the mercy of God who has gathered us together and longs for the whole world to know God’s love. To know the mercy of God is to know ourselves as lost sheep, sinners in need of redeeming, not fundamentally different from anyone else in this world. We are here because God is gracious, not because we are “good” people who go to church on Sunday morning because that is what good people do. We are here to give thanks to God, “for the goodness and loving kindness God has shown to us and to all whom God has made,” in the words of the General Thanksgiving. What we are called to bear into this world in which we live is God’s goodness, not our own.
We are a people with a story to tell, a story we hear every Sunday as we read from the Old and the New Testaments, a story of God’s dealings with God’s people, a story in which God is always faithful and always gracious, even when God’s people are not. And we each have a personal story to tell of the ways in which God has been gracious to us.
Of course, we do not need to ascribe the “blessings of this life” to God; we could tell the story in a way that ascribes who we are and what we have, to luck or fate or hard work or good genes. But if we decide to tell the story that way, we will discover that there are no lost sheep in the world, only folks who got the short end of the stick. We might feel sorry for them, but basically there is nothing we can do because we got lucky and they did not. If, on the other hand, all that we are and all that we have, is a gift to us from God, then we need not be resigned but grateful, grateful enough to want the rest of the world to know of God’s goodness.
The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Jeremiah 8: 18 – 9:1
Sunday, September 19, 2010 I Timothy 2: 1 – 7
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 16: 1 – 13
And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly;
Luke 16: 8a
Welcome to the strange new world of the Bible! We hear this morning the parable of the dishonest manager from the gospel of Luke and learn to our surprise that a manager who cheats his employer is commended for his behavior. After this manager learns he has been fired, he sets to work changing invoices, falsifying accounts, in order to ingratiate himself with those who owe his employer money in the hope of securing for himself a pleasant retirement. This manager has taken someone else’s money and used that money to insure a comfortable future for himself. And his employer praises him, saying he has acted with prudence. Sounds to me like the Enron executives just became saints!
From start to finish, the parable of the dishonest manager rings wrong. The manager uses what belongs to his employer to make friends for himself, cheating on his employer by reducing the debts owed to him. The debtors are grateful no doubt but his employer should be livid. But the employer is not; indeed, the employer is pleased.
With just twelve words – “And his master commended the dishonest manager for he had acted shrewdly” – we are left with a parable that confounds our sense of right and wrong. And we are not the only ones. Commentators have tried for centuries to make this parable which offends our sense of justice come out right. Some argue that the dishonest manager is only giving away his commission or perhaps the interest that his employer is charging his customers and, so, is not so “bad.”
The problem with this parable is that the dishonest manager does not get what he deserves – condemnation for changing the bills of the debtors. Rather, instead of condemnation, the dishonest manager receives praise for acting wisely. Curiously, the parable of the dishonest manager follows in the gospel of Luke on the heels of the parable of the prodigal son. And the parable of the prodigal son ends with a big party the father decides to throw for his long lost son and a very miffed older brother who refuses to join the celebration. In the parable of the prodigal son, the older brother wants his ne’re do well younger brother who spent all of his inheritance on loose living, to suffer for what he has done, not be welcomed home like a war hero. And, now in the parable of the dishonest manager, we want the dishonest manager to be chastised and punished for his fraud, not praised for his shrewdness. Is our evangelist Luke inviting us to take our place as people who know the difference between right and wrong and wish not to celebrate prodigal sons or praise dishonest managers?
The parable of the dishonest manager “unsettles what we ‘know’ about responsibility and ethics,” in the words of Christian ethicist Richard Hays. In our world, we know that when someone takes money from someone else without their permission, such an act is wrong and we call it stealing. In our world, when you do something wrong you are condemned, not patted on the back. In our world, the rich man is not supposed to praise his dishonest manager, and when he does, we find ourselves invited into a world where the rules we live by have been turned upside down.
The parable of the dishonest manager invites us to see the world differently, to look at the world in a new and maybe uncomfortable way. The parable shocks us because the parable does not end the way we think the parable should end, with the rich man angry over the misdeeds of his manager. And as Hays points out, this parable that does not end the way we think it should end is included in a larger narrative that does not end as we think it should. Luke’s gospel is the story of a messiah who is crucified. And messiah’s are not supposed to die.
The story all four gospels tell us is a strange story about the coming of the promised messiah, the savior of Israel, who dies, who is put to death on a cross. Saint Paul calls the crucifixion a “scandal,” “foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to Jews.” Christ’s death on the cross was not the way God was supposed to rescue the world. The promised messiah was expected to rule the world, rout Israel’s enemies, and establish God’s kingdom of peace and justice. The promised messiah was not expected to die a humiliating death as a criminal accused of crimes against the state.
When God came to save the world, God did not act as God was supposed to act. God revealed Godself to us not in glory but in shame, not in power but through weakness. And we who follow this crucified messiah are no more comfortable with this truth than were those first disciples who watched in horror, as the man for whom they left behind all the comforts of this world, died.
Most scholars believe the parable of the dishonest manager ends with the words: “And his master commended the dishonest manager for he had acted shrewdly;” What follows after those words are attempts to make sense of this parable which “presents people acting in unconventional ways,” in the words of one commentator. What follows after the parable, are admonitions to act decisively before the day of judgment, to be faithful in everything, to use money wisely and not turn money into a god. The early church found this parable as disturbing as we do and sought to glean from the parable “lessons for our learning.”
If we allow this parable to be offensive and disturbing, and resist attempts to “save” this parable by explaining away the difficulties, by saying, for example, that the dishonest manager was simply waving away his commission, and, thus, was not exactly stealing the rich man’s money, we may find ourselves in a world we do not understand, a world in which people do things we do not expect, a world that does not turn according to our rules. If we allow this parable to unsettle us, we may find ourselves in a world much like the world of those first disciples who watched the savior of the world die.
The cross confounded all expectations about who God is and how God acts. And no amount of theological insight will ever completely unravel the mystery of God and God’s ways. In the person of Christ, God has given Godself to us – fully and completely but not so clearly that we can ever presume to say with absolute certainty we know God and God’s will. God will always be “other” than us, inviting our questions, challenging our expectations, disturbing our presumptions.
God desires to be known, and, in the words of Saint Anselm, ours is a faith that seeks to understand. When we stop seeking, we stop finding. When we stop asking questions, when we stop wondering about who God is and how God acts, when we presume to know all we need to know, we become rigid, less tolerant of others who invite us to see things a bit differently.
God does not come to us in neat little sound bites and simple moral platitudes, but rather in disturbing parables and a strange story about a cross and an empty tomb. And God gives us one another, others with whom we can study and discuss, ask questions and raise our doubts. No one of us holds the key to the mystery we seek to understand; all of us, though, are invited to learn and to grow in the knowledge and love of God, the God who came and dwelt among us not to confirm us in our righteousness but to convict us of His.
Sunday, September 19, 2010 I Timothy 2: 1 – 7
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 16: 1 – 13
And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly;
Luke 16: 8a
Welcome to the strange new world of the Bible! We hear this morning the parable of the dishonest manager from the gospel of Luke and learn to our surprise that a manager who cheats his employer is commended for his behavior. After this manager learns he has been fired, he sets to work changing invoices, falsifying accounts, in order to ingratiate himself with those who owe his employer money in the hope of securing for himself a pleasant retirement. This manager has taken someone else’s money and used that money to insure a comfortable future for himself. And his employer praises him, saying he has acted with prudence. Sounds to me like the Enron executives just became saints!
From start to finish, the parable of the dishonest manager rings wrong. The manager uses what belongs to his employer to make friends for himself, cheating on his employer by reducing the debts owed to him. The debtors are grateful no doubt but his employer should be livid. But the employer is not; indeed, the employer is pleased.
With just twelve words – “And his master commended the dishonest manager for he had acted shrewdly” – we are left with a parable that confounds our sense of right and wrong. And we are not the only ones. Commentators have tried for centuries to make this parable which offends our sense of justice come out right. Some argue that the dishonest manager is only giving away his commission or perhaps the interest that his employer is charging his customers and, so, is not so “bad.”
The problem with this parable is that the dishonest manager does not get what he deserves – condemnation for changing the bills of the debtors. Rather, instead of condemnation, the dishonest manager receives praise for acting wisely. Curiously, the parable of the dishonest manager follows in the gospel of Luke on the heels of the parable of the prodigal son. And the parable of the prodigal son ends with a big party the father decides to throw for his long lost son and a very miffed older brother who refuses to join the celebration. In the parable of the prodigal son, the older brother wants his ne’re do well younger brother who spent all of his inheritance on loose living, to suffer for what he has done, not be welcomed home like a war hero. And, now in the parable of the dishonest manager, we want the dishonest manager to be chastised and punished for his fraud, not praised for his shrewdness. Is our evangelist Luke inviting us to take our place as people who know the difference between right and wrong and wish not to celebrate prodigal sons or praise dishonest managers?
The parable of the dishonest manager “unsettles what we ‘know’ about responsibility and ethics,” in the words of Christian ethicist Richard Hays. In our world, we know that when someone takes money from someone else without their permission, such an act is wrong and we call it stealing. In our world, when you do something wrong you are condemned, not patted on the back. In our world, the rich man is not supposed to praise his dishonest manager, and when he does, we find ourselves invited into a world where the rules we live by have been turned upside down.
The parable of the dishonest manager invites us to see the world differently, to look at the world in a new and maybe uncomfortable way. The parable shocks us because the parable does not end the way we think the parable should end, with the rich man angry over the misdeeds of his manager. And as Hays points out, this parable that does not end the way we think it should end is included in a larger narrative that does not end as we think it should. Luke’s gospel is the story of a messiah who is crucified. And messiah’s are not supposed to die.
The story all four gospels tell us is a strange story about the coming of the promised messiah, the savior of Israel, who dies, who is put to death on a cross. Saint Paul calls the crucifixion a “scandal,” “foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to Jews.” Christ’s death on the cross was not the way God was supposed to rescue the world. The promised messiah was expected to rule the world, rout Israel’s enemies, and establish God’s kingdom of peace and justice. The promised messiah was not expected to die a humiliating death as a criminal accused of crimes against the state.
When God came to save the world, God did not act as God was supposed to act. God revealed Godself to us not in glory but in shame, not in power but through weakness. And we who follow this crucified messiah are no more comfortable with this truth than were those first disciples who watched in horror, as the man for whom they left behind all the comforts of this world, died.
Most scholars believe the parable of the dishonest manager ends with the words: “And his master commended the dishonest manager for he had acted shrewdly;” What follows after those words are attempts to make sense of this parable which “presents people acting in unconventional ways,” in the words of one commentator. What follows after the parable, are admonitions to act decisively before the day of judgment, to be faithful in everything, to use money wisely and not turn money into a god. The early church found this parable as disturbing as we do and sought to glean from the parable “lessons for our learning.”
If we allow this parable to be offensive and disturbing, and resist attempts to “save” this parable by explaining away the difficulties, by saying, for example, that the dishonest manager was simply waving away his commission, and, thus, was not exactly stealing the rich man’s money, we may find ourselves in a world we do not understand, a world in which people do things we do not expect, a world that does not turn according to our rules. If we allow this parable to unsettle us, we may find ourselves in a world much like the world of those first disciples who watched the savior of the world die.
The cross confounded all expectations about who God is and how God acts. And no amount of theological insight will ever completely unravel the mystery of God and God’s ways. In the person of Christ, God has given Godself to us – fully and completely but not so clearly that we can ever presume to say with absolute certainty we know God and God’s will. God will always be “other” than us, inviting our questions, challenging our expectations, disturbing our presumptions.
God desires to be known, and, in the words of Saint Anselm, ours is a faith that seeks to understand. When we stop seeking, we stop finding. When we stop asking questions, when we stop wondering about who God is and how God acts, when we presume to know all we need to know, we become rigid, less tolerant of others who invite us to see things a bit differently.
God does not come to us in neat little sound bites and simple moral platitudes, but rather in disturbing parables and a strange story about a cross and an empty tomb. And God gives us one another, others with whom we can study and discuss, ask questions and raise our doubts. No one of us holds the key to the mystery we seek to understand; all of us, though, are invited to learn and to grow in the knowledge and love of God, the God who came and dwelt among us not to confirm us in our righteousness but to convict us of His.
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Jeremiah 32: 1 – 3a, 6 – 15
Sunday, September 26, 2010 I Timothy 6: 6 – 19
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 16: 19 – 31
“‘There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.’”
Luke 16: 19 – 21
My two year old granddaughter Naomi, to the great dismay of her parents, is having a bit of trouble sharing. Up until recently, Naomi has not had brothers and sisters and all the toys in the house belonged to her. This summer, when cousins or neighbors came to play, Naomi would be delighted to have company until the other child decided to play with one of Naomi’s toys. When that happened and it usually did not take long, Naomi would scream at the top of her voice, “Mine!” and attempt to wrest away from her playmate what was hers. Mom and Dad, wholly flustered and embarrassed by their daughter’s behavior, would sit down next to Naomi gently explaining that Naomi needed to “share.”
The presence of others in Naomi’s life is placing some new demands on Naomi. Before now, Naomi had no reason to share; now she is old enough to enjoy the company of other kids and she is going to have to learn how to share; otherwise, she will always be playing by herself.
We hear this morning the parable of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus who sits day after day at the gate of the home of the rich man. Lazarus is hungry and longs for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. The rich man and Lazarus die and in death, their fortunes are reversed – the rich man is tormented and Lazarus is comforted.
In first century Palestine, riches were considered blessings from God. Luke’s audience would, therefore, have understood that this rich man was an upstanding man in the community, esteemed by his friends. But the presence of Lazarus at his gate makes this rich man look selfish as he ignores the need of someone just outside his front door. Lazarus’ presence places a demand upon the rich man which the rich man refuses to honor. Without Lazarus in the picture, this rich man was probably a very good man who was guilty of nothing more than enjoying the good gifts of God.
Richard Swanson, a Lutheran pastor and professor of religion, notes the following in his commentary on this parable of the rich man and Lazarus:
The world has always been knit together in an intricate web of need and ability. This web makes the single most important characteristic of human being the ability to respond, or (put another way) responsibility. We respond to each other; that is what makes us, together, human. If we sever that link of responsibility, we become something less than human.
What makes this rich man look selfish is his unwillingness to see that he has the ability to respond to someone else’s need. In death, when he cannot help himself and needs Lazarus to bring him a drop of water, he begins to have a change of heart, becoming concerned for the fate of his five brothers.
As we respond to one another, we come to know that we all have needs and we all have abilities. None of us can do everything; all of us can do something. Some years ago, Trinity Church in Fredericksburg had an outreach program that offered food and hot showers to those in need. One day, after a homeless man finished eating lunch, the outreach director offered to give him some pre-packaged cookies to take with him. “Oh, I have a bunch of those already and I never eat them.” “Well,” she said, “Bring them back and share them with somebody else.” By inviting this man to share what he had with others, the outreach director honored his capacity to respond to others, according him the dignity of being human, a finite but gifted creature, a person with both needs and abilities.
Our evangelist Luke has a rather radical understanding of what he means by sharing. In Luke’s sequel to his gospel, in the book of Acts, we learn that the early church held all things in common and gave to each according to their need. And although throughout the history of the church, such communities have existed, they have not always been successful. While we might scoff at the idea of holding all things in common, we live in a culture that is forever offering to us new ways to spend our money. How much stuff do we really need? How much stuff can we justify having in a world in which some children don’t have enough to eat?
We, the church, are called to be a witness to God’s generosity in a world in which some are rich and some are poor, an intricate web, in Swanson’s words, of needs and abilities. Each of us has something to give and something to receive. Appreciating and appropriating the truth that none of us are wholly self-sufficient but really do need one another keeps us from de-humanizing the Lazarus’ of this world, turning Lazarus into an object of pity and maybe even scorn. Appreciating and appropriating the truth that we all have abilities, gifts given to us by God, to be shared freely with one another keeps us from believing that life in this world is all about me.
My granddaughter Naomi is learning what it means to live with other people. If you want friends to come and play, you have to share your toys. You can of course keep all your toys to yourself. But if you do, you will be lonely and no one will come and play with you. Naomi knows nothing at the moment about being rich and being poor. The only thing Naomi knows at the moment is that all the toys belong to her. She can choose to share her toys with others or decide to keep them all for herself.
You and I have the same choices. We are not alone in this world, as much as we might want to be at times. We share this world with billions of others, others with needs and abilities just like us. We can choose to be with them or we can choose to be without them. God seems to believe we are better off with one another than without one another. But if we choose to be with others, we will be called upon to share.
This time of year in a parish is usually the time we begin talking about stewardship and what we have to share, be it time or treasure or talent. We all have something to share, but most of us are reluctant to say exactly what and how much. We want to share what we have, but signing a pledge card makes us anxious. We want to share, we just don’t want to commit.
In our parable this morning, if the rich man reaches out to Lazarus just once, the rich man may find himself feeding Lazarus every night! Who wants to commit to that? If we say we will give the church two thousand dollars this coming year, the following year we will be expected to do at least the same and maybe even more. I’m happy to share, I just don’t want you to count on it!
Part of being the responsible creatures we are, is needing to count on one another, to trust one another to give us what we need, as we offer to others what we have to share. None of us wants to be Lazarus, at the mercy of others to help us. We all would much prefer to be the rich man. None of us are rich in all things and none of us are poor in all things. Each of us has something to give and something to receive. What we pledge to the church is ourselves, our whole selves, both our needs and our abilities, trusting God to knit us together into a communion of mutual giving and receiving, hoping that out of the web we create, God will bring forth good things for all of us, and not just good things for us, but for the whole world.
Sunday, September 26, 2010 I Timothy 6: 6 – 19
The Rev. Bambi Willis Luke 16: 19 – 31
“‘There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.’”
Luke 16: 19 – 21
My two year old granddaughter Naomi, to the great dismay of her parents, is having a bit of trouble sharing. Up until recently, Naomi has not had brothers and sisters and all the toys in the house belonged to her. This summer, when cousins or neighbors came to play, Naomi would be delighted to have company until the other child decided to play with one of Naomi’s toys. When that happened and it usually did not take long, Naomi would scream at the top of her voice, “Mine!” and attempt to wrest away from her playmate what was hers. Mom and Dad, wholly flustered and embarrassed by their daughter’s behavior, would sit down next to Naomi gently explaining that Naomi needed to “share.”
The presence of others in Naomi’s life is placing some new demands on Naomi. Before now, Naomi had no reason to share; now she is old enough to enjoy the company of other kids and she is going to have to learn how to share; otherwise, she will always be playing by herself.
We hear this morning the parable of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus who sits day after day at the gate of the home of the rich man. Lazarus is hungry and longs for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. The rich man and Lazarus die and in death, their fortunes are reversed – the rich man is tormented and Lazarus is comforted.
In first century Palestine, riches were considered blessings from God. Luke’s audience would, therefore, have understood that this rich man was an upstanding man in the community, esteemed by his friends. But the presence of Lazarus at his gate makes this rich man look selfish as he ignores the need of someone just outside his front door. Lazarus’ presence places a demand upon the rich man which the rich man refuses to honor. Without Lazarus in the picture, this rich man was probably a very good man who was guilty of nothing more than enjoying the good gifts of God.
Richard Swanson, a Lutheran pastor and professor of religion, notes the following in his commentary on this parable of the rich man and Lazarus:
The world has always been knit together in an intricate web of need and ability. This web makes the single most important characteristic of human being the ability to respond, or (put another way) responsibility. We respond to each other; that is what makes us, together, human. If we sever that link of responsibility, we become something less than human.
What makes this rich man look selfish is his unwillingness to see that he has the ability to respond to someone else’s need. In death, when he cannot help himself and needs Lazarus to bring him a drop of water, he begins to have a change of heart, becoming concerned for the fate of his five brothers.
As we respond to one another, we come to know that we all have needs and we all have abilities. None of us can do everything; all of us can do something. Some years ago, Trinity Church in Fredericksburg had an outreach program that offered food and hot showers to those in need. One day, after a homeless man finished eating lunch, the outreach director offered to give him some pre-packaged cookies to take with him. “Oh, I have a bunch of those already and I never eat them.” “Well,” she said, “Bring them back and share them with somebody else.” By inviting this man to share what he had with others, the outreach director honored his capacity to respond to others, according him the dignity of being human, a finite but gifted creature, a person with both needs and abilities.
Our evangelist Luke has a rather radical understanding of what he means by sharing. In Luke’s sequel to his gospel, in the book of Acts, we learn that the early church held all things in common and gave to each according to their need. And although throughout the history of the church, such communities have existed, they have not always been successful. While we might scoff at the idea of holding all things in common, we live in a culture that is forever offering to us new ways to spend our money. How much stuff do we really need? How much stuff can we justify having in a world in which some children don’t have enough to eat?
We, the church, are called to be a witness to God’s generosity in a world in which some are rich and some are poor, an intricate web, in Swanson’s words, of needs and abilities. Each of us has something to give and something to receive. Appreciating and appropriating the truth that none of us are wholly self-sufficient but really do need one another keeps us from de-humanizing the Lazarus’ of this world, turning Lazarus into an object of pity and maybe even scorn. Appreciating and appropriating the truth that we all have abilities, gifts given to us by God, to be shared freely with one another keeps us from believing that life in this world is all about me.
My granddaughter Naomi is learning what it means to live with other people. If you want friends to come and play, you have to share your toys. You can of course keep all your toys to yourself. But if you do, you will be lonely and no one will come and play with you. Naomi knows nothing at the moment about being rich and being poor. The only thing Naomi knows at the moment is that all the toys belong to her. She can choose to share her toys with others or decide to keep them all for herself.
You and I have the same choices. We are not alone in this world, as much as we might want to be at times. We share this world with billions of others, others with needs and abilities just like us. We can choose to be with them or we can choose to be without them. God seems to believe we are better off with one another than without one another. But if we choose to be with others, we will be called upon to share.
This time of year in a parish is usually the time we begin talking about stewardship and what we have to share, be it time or treasure or talent. We all have something to share, but most of us are reluctant to say exactly what and how much. We want to share what we have, but signing a pledge card makes us anxious. We want to share, we just don’t want to commit.
In our parable this morning, if the rich man reaches out to Lazarus just once, the rich man may find himself feeding Lazarus every night! Who wants to commit to that? If we say we will give the church two thousand dollars this coming year, the following year we will be expected to do at least the same and maybe even more. I’m happy to share, I just don’t want you to count on it!
Part of being the responsible creatures we are, is needing to count on one another, to trust one another to give us what we need, as we offer to others what we have to share. None of us wants to be Lazarus, at the mercy of others to help us. We all would much prefer to be the rich man. None of us are rich in all things and none of us are poor in all things. Each of us has something to give and something to receive. What we pledge to the church is ourselves, our whole selves, both our needs and our abilities, trusting God to knit us together into a communion of mutual giving and receiving, hoping that out of the web we create, God will bring forth good things for all of us, and not just good things for us, but for the whole world.
