Tag Archives: Year C

The Life that Really is Life

Luke, Year C, , , ,

Year C Proper 21
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

I believe in God, the Father almighty. We come here every weekend to worship. One of the great joys of our communal worship life here is how carefully, lovingly, and prayerfully composed our worship service is. In our worship, music and scripture; one of the most common ways to refer to our Creator, our one, holy and living God is Father. Our Father, who art in heaven. God as a parent is a beautiful image. A healthy relationship with a parent (or parent-figure) is grounded in love – love that supports and nourishes, that offers wisdom and affection. Love that nurtures. But as any parent or anyone who has ever been the adult-in-charge knows, healthy love has healthy boundaries, and those boundaries can includes saying words like “No.” The healthiest relationships we have aren’t the ones that pay us lip service; they’re the ones that have a deep enough love to be honest with us – and to challenge us to be the best version of ourselves. That’s an important thing to remember, when we get scripture readings as challenging as the ones we just heard today. Today, we need to trust in God’s love for us, and out of our love for God, be open to talking about some difficult stuff, and trust that at the end of the conversation, our God is still going to be the God who loves us, forgives us, and calls us to the best way to live – forever.

Let’s start with the difficult stuff. What’s the hardest part of these readings? Personally, I think the most challenging verses come from the beginning of Paul’s letter to Timothy, and I encourage you to pull out your bulletin and follow along

“But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith…”

That’s a bear….Let’s look closer at the words. The problem is not in the money or riches themselves. The temptation is in the desire for riches – not the riches themselves. The pain is in the eagerness to be rich – not the richness itself. The evil is in the love of money – not the money itself. The money itself isn’t the problem. Money is merely an object, a resource, a gift. What brings us closer to or further from God is what we desire, who we love, where we focus our attention. How we use and think about this money – this object –  is the issue! It’s easy to want to focus on the certainty of the things we see with our physical eyes, and reach out for comfort to touch with our hands. But as disciples, we are called to walk by faith, to be grounded in what we know in our hearts but cannot touch with our hands – all that is seen and unseen. How do we focus our time less on the objects of our earthly life, and more on the relationships that connect us to eternal life?

Today’s gospel passage illustrates this very point. In today’s passage from Luke, we hear the story of an unnamed rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. In his earthly life, the rich man lives comfortably. In his comfort, however, he never stops to show compassion to the poor man, Lazarus, who sits just outside of his gate. Scripture leaves room for interpretation here; perhaps, he never even sees Lazarus. It is also possible that he sees and ignores and neglects Lazarus daily. The parable doesn’t tell us about the extent of their interaction. Either way, the gate is an earthy barrier that the rich man maintained in his earthly life that represents his limited earthly focus. In death, this barrier became a chasm – an uncrossable void that divides them. All of this could have been avoided if the rich man had opened the gate All of this could have been avoided if he’d opened his eyes to see the gate and been guided by his trust in God.

There are so many things clamoring for my attention every single day, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. We’re all struggling to balance so many different things. How can we keep our focus on the right one? How can we focus our actions on the good?

Today’s readings challenge us in glaring, up-close-and-personal ways, but now that we’ve talked about those challenges, let’s go back and look at that hope. There’s more here than a caution against temptation; there’s a reminder towards all the goodness God calls us to – the goodness God promises Paul writes to Timothy, “Take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called” Once we get past the challenge in the first part of the reading from Paul’s letter to Timothy, the focus of the message completely changes. When Paul tells Timothy to take hold of eternal life, Paul says it in present tense. As in, this eternal life is already here, and if we focus our energy on richness of good works – works like gentleness, generosity, love. Then, we will have the kind of treasure that allows us to “take hold of the life that really is life.” This is the assurance that brings me back every week, and it comforts me to know that we are all striving towards this together, fighting the good fight of the faith together, for the life that really is life right now – and for the life of the world to come.

A key part of Paul’s power as a leader is his own story of redemption. When he cautions us against sinfulness – when writes these challenging passages – he does it as someone who’s experienced taking the wrong path and struggles right alongside us to see and stay focused on the right one. Paul speaks as someone who’s experienced God the Father’s grace and forgiveness the same Grace and Forgiveness we seek and find here every week, as we continue together on this journey of faith. You know, part of Paul’s letter is even worded to be like a Creed: God, who gives life to all things and Christ Jesus, who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light. Paul’s warned Timothy what not to do, now he reminds of what acts he should focus on: faith, love, endurance, gentleness, generosity, goodness. These are the qualities of our Creator, God our Father, who we come back week after week to worship and whose path we strive to follow.  This is the God we confess our faith to in the words of the Nicene Creed! Our God’s – our Father’s – path leads us to take hold of eternal life – the life that is really life – right now. That’s a God I will declare my faith in, over and over again. How about you?

 

 

Jesus is… Nuturing

Lent, Luke, , , , ,

 

Year C Lent 3
Luke 13: 1-9
Preached at Christ Church Christiana Hundred, “Jesus is…” series

“No, I tell you.” Jesus says these four words twice in today’s gospel passage. Throughout the gospels, when Jesus says he’s going to tell us something: it’s important. It’s even more urgent than his usual wisdom. What is the context for these four words today? Today’s gospel opens on a scene of a group of people sitting around, discussing something that some Galileans did and how they are now facing a terrible punishment. Suddenly, Jesus says, “No, I tell you.” He calls on those around him to listen to the context of what this means in God’s kingdom. The Galileans ugly death, which is so casually referenced, is not a result of some bad seeds they had sown. Our God is not a God of “just desserts” and “getting what’s coming to you.” Our God is a God of grace! Regardless of any struggles these Galileans faced, any weaknesses they had, or bad decisions they made; their misfortune is not an invitation to us to judge them. Their mistakes are not an excuse for us to elevate ourselves above them. On any given day and at any given moment, we are all equally capable of losing our way.

What is it that makes these little moments of judgement so dangerous to God’s kingdom? Jesus teaches us that when we judge each other, we not only limit the power of God’s extravagant grace in our own lives, but we deny that grace to our neighbors. Because when we judge, we are limiting our own ability to receive God’s grace. Our act of judging wastes space in our hearts where the holy spirit could be working in us! When we have less space to receive grace, then there is less grace in our hearts to pass along to our neighbors and to the world that always can use it. To illustrate this point and the importance of compassion, Jesus tells us the parable of the fig tree: a story about a vineyard owner, and a gardener as they debate the future of this struggling tree.

The first person we meet is the vineyard owner. He’s had the fig tree for about three years, and it still has no fruit on it. When we first meet him, he’s rather grumpy. On my first read, my first impression of him on my first read is that he’s definitely the villain. He’s frustrated, and he’s impatient. He’s ready to give up on this tree. Ultimately, he is terrified of failing. Come to think of it, I can relate to those things! I’ve acted out of fear of failure. I’ve grown impatient waiting for the right time for something. I’ve had things that I have wished, and hoped, and dreamed for, and then, I’ve nurtured those dreams, only to have them not go quite according to plan. Then, I’ve found myself just slamming my head into a wall. Who hasn’t? Things don’t’ always go as we plan or on the timeline we plan. Sometimes it’s as simple a frustration as running out of patience, and sometimes it’s as utterly desperate as running out of hope. There’s this whole spectrum in between the two, and with the limited information in this parable, we don’t know where the vineyard owner falls on this spectrum. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. That part is not the key to understanding what Christ is trying to teach us. What matters is that wherever the vineyard owner’s inability to nurture this fig tree is really coming from his inability to nurture himself. How can he pass on what he himself cannot receive?

Enter: the gardener. Before we talk about what the gardener does see, let’s talk about what he doesn’t see. He looks at this fig, and he doesn’t see fault. He doesn’t see failure, inferiority, or hopelessness. Instead, the gardener sees an opportunity to make a choice for hope, grace, and love. In his response to the vineyard owner, it seems that the gardener is asking himself, “Has this tree really been given its best possible chance?” When the gardener pleads the case of the fig tree to the vineyard owner, we can hear that he is grounded in God, whose grace can bring new life to any situation. Our God is a god of resurrection! The Gardner ensures the tree’s best possible chance by committing to giving his best to the tree. At the end of the parable, we never learn the fate of the tree, but Christ does this on purpose. The tree’s fate does not impact how we are called to action. The gardener’s commitment to love and nurture that tree is never worthless! Our God loves us with the same committed, relentless, grace, and this is the model that Christ is calling us to strive for! We need to remember that whatever happens to this tree, it was given it’s best possible chance by the love and grace of a faithful gardener.

In the gardener, we are reminded to strive to be loving and nurturing while showing compassion to everyone we meet. In the vineyard owner, we are reminded that we are constantly tempted by stress, impatience, fear, and hopelessness, and that when we give into these temptations, we are divided from God by our own judging. How can we as disciples be gardeners as often as possible? The answer lies in the final piece of this story we should all identify with: we are all also fig trees!

The fig tree hasn’t born fruit in three years, and depending on what your most recent season of fruitlessness was, three years can seem like a short time or a long time. Maybe this tree wants to bear fruit and doesn’t know how. Maybe all it needs is a little strength from its neighbor. Maybe the fig tree was meant to be planted somewhere else – or become something else. We all need the nurturing love of our God and of Christ made manifest in our neighbor; this is the love that supports and sustains us through our fruitless, struggling, seasons. Think about any acceptance speech for any accolade you’ve ever heard: the speaker always thanks the people who supported and nurtured them along the way – the people who helped ensure that they had their best possible chance. In my fig tree seasons, I’ve leaned heavily on those people.

In a gospel that started out with a casual chat about the latest happenings, we end up with a profound lesson on compassion and the extravagant, nurturing grace that our God gives us and calls us to give each other. There’s no place in God’s kingdom for us to judge each other.

Out in this beautiful world, we will meet people who look at us like the vineyard owner looks at that tree, and we can’t control that. We can control how we respond to those people. We can control our own choice to approach others with love, grace, understanding, and the best of whatever we can give in that moment. We’ve been praying for that for a long time and we continue to pray that every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, praying for God’s kingdom to become manifest on earth: Thy kingdom come. When we say that prayer, we are praying to help manifest a kingdom that is a place of second chances, extravagant grace, and relentless nurturing. Amen.

Love like Big, Boundless Skies

Sermons, , ,

I preached the following sermon at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Newark, DE, where I worshiped and was involved in campus ministry when I was at the University of Delaware. The propers are for the Fifth Sunday after Easter C, focusing on the gospel, John 13:31-35.You can watch it here.

“Everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

Christ calls us to love and honor all people.  It’s one of the foundational promises of our baptismal covenant and the subject of many a passage of scripture. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is patient and kind and bears and believes all things. It’s a lovely passage. But you don’t have to worry about my preaching on it today.

For me, I know all this talk about love makes it tempting to write today’s gospel off. I know to strive to hold the door for people behind me, to hold my tongue when I’m tired and grumpy, and to hold off on tailgating the car going the incorrect speed for its lane choice.  I mean, I’m trying to be good and to be kind.

Jesus said “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”

How does Jesus love his disciples that isn’t covered in 1 Corinthians?

When Jesus first called his disciples, they weren’t wandering around like baby ducks looking for a mother to imprint on and to follow. They were people like you and me, waking up and going out into the world with one or more jobs to do.

Picture it:  you’re waiting tables at a café or checking out customers in a grocery store line. In your frantic, mad rush, you turn to your next customer and there’s JESUS and he says “Hey, I know this is how you put food on the table and a roof over your head and that you’re shifts not ever for another few hours, but you should stop everything you’re doing and follow me.

“Now.”

That’s scary. That’s wild. That’s outside my comfort zone.

That’s Jesus loving his disciples by inviting them into a new way of being, – should they dare to accept such a radical love – and spread wings they might not even know they had.

And that was just the beginning!

Following Jesus around in this new way of being did not guarantee any sort of glamour or social desirability.  I think I can say with confidence that there was no “Disciple of the Month” award that came with a modest Applebee’s gift card. Jesus’ love that called the disciples into a radical new way of being also called them to love everybody. The real everybody. Not just everybody in their neighborhood or where they used to work or who they went to school with. Jesus’ love called the disciples – and still calls us – to love the people we like to pretend we don’t see or only exist in the form of being causes we give our money to.  People who are forced to sell their bodies. People who talk to themselves when they ride the train. People who we can smell when we walk by them, making it harder to pretend they’re not there.

Jesus’ big transformative love doesn’t allow for the big invisible walls our society can put up to keep us separate from people less desirable than we are.

Jesus’ love called the disciples to invite them to dinner. This love believes we should all come to the table together.

This past January, I had the incredible honor of returning to South Africa for 10 days with my ethics professor, Fr. Michael Battle. Towards the end of our trip, we had breakfast with Desmond Tutu and one of my classmates asked him what his greatest passion is. His answer: Freedom. It was at the heart of Tutu’s passionate work to end apartheid in South Africa and still visible in his support of his daughter Mpho’s plans to marry another woman, the center of much discussion in Cape Town around the time of our trip.

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”

Talk about a love that transforms! Tutu’s leadership and passion for freedom helped to transform a nation and break down the barriers established under apartheid and inviting an entire nation into a new way of being.

You never know when the Holy Spirit might come lovingly knocking at your door and inviting you into a new way of being. And while these outrageous acts of Grace are about as easy to predict as finding a door to Narnia (never the same way twice), we do have some control as to how ready we are to welcome such big love. Where might there be invisible walls that keep up from making space within our very own hearts?

A few days ago, I was going for a walk with one of my classmates. We were talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly in the great world of Job Searching in the Episcopal Church.  It’s a pretty big church out there, but in all the pressure to find a job, it can be tempting to force ourselves to fit into a good-enough one. To think the fit is close enough to right. To convince ourselves that we won’t be clipping our wings enough to even notice.

But if we’re contorting ourselves to fit into this new space, it doesn’t sound like we’ll be leaving much room for the Holy Spirit to make a Graceful entrance. I don’t mean to underestimate Her so much as to acknowledge just how distracting that kind of contortionism can be.

This conversation about the church prompted my friend to share a bit of her personal experience from earlier in her life. She told me how she had been tempted many times to make that same mistake in relationships. To force herself to fit. To clip her wings a bit to see if that might turn “good enough” into “good.”

It didn’t.

If you’re clipping the magnificent and unique set of wings God gave you to fly with in the one-of-kind way God is calling you to fly, you’re doing it wrong.

If your love for someone is shaped like a birdcage, contains any sort of latch, or requires wing-clipping; you’re definitely doing it wrong.

And that’s wehn my friend said something else to me that sounded a lot like Bishop Tutu’s passion for freedom from birdcages of inequality and injustice and abuse.

She said: “You know how I knew my husband was the one for me? I didn’t have to even think about clipping my wings. He was already shouting, ‘FLAP HARDER!’”

That’s the kind of image that lines up with Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

A love that invites you to spread your full wingspan and SOAR requires a lot of space. Those boundless skies have a lot of big, scary, stunningly beautiful room for transformation.

Jesus said “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”

 “Just as I have led you with love that transforms you, you should love one another in a way that breaks down barriers”

Flap harder. Tell your friends.