9-12-16 - Money Talk

Jesus didn’t name his parables – he just told them. Later, people who put bibles together added headings and titles – which often obscure as much as they highlight. Why name the story about the man and his two sons “The Prodigal Son,” and not, “The Merciful Father” or “The Resentful Brother?” Any name will limit our view of the parable.

Parables are multi-faceted – you look at one head on, it appears to say one thing; you turn it just slightly, or look from the perspective of another character and, “Whoa, I never noticed that before…” And then there are some that, no matter how many ways you turn, it’s hard to grasp just what Jesus was saying.

So it is with this week's parable, sometimes called “The Shrewd Manager,” and sometimes “The Dishonest Steward.” Both? Yeah. So let’s forget titles and look at the story:

A rich man finds out his caretaker is squandering his estate. He calls him in, chews him out, and demands an accounting. The manager realizes he’s about to be fired. He doesn’t want to do manual work or beg – so he cooks up a scheme. He calls in the man’s debtors and lowers each one’s bill if he’ll pay up. Now he has some income to show the boss; the debtors get a deal; and the manager buys himself some friends. Oh – and, Jesus says, the boss commends him for his savvy. What??? And why is Jesus telling a story of ledgers and balances and profit & loss statements? Isn’t accounting a little out of his wheelhouse as a religious leader?

By some measures, Jesus talked about finance and how we use and get used by our money more than any other subject, way more than he spoke about sexuality or peace or justice. Because he knew that our relationship with money speaks volumes about our level of faith and trust and openness to the grace of God. And because money and managers are great metaphors for understanding our relationship to the gifts God gives us to enjoy and nurture and invest.

How would you describe your relationship with money?
(easy / trusting / anxious / clinging / generous / organized / playful / indifferent / attached /                   )

Today, in prayer, invite Jesus into all parts of your financial life. If your relationship with money is not as easy as you’d like, pray about that. Tell God your anxieties. We’re called to be un-anxious – and sometimes we have to name our worries so we can let go of them.

Jesus told his followers they were no longer servants but friends. We can afford to look at our records as stewards without fear of being “fired” – and in the security of an awesome, eternal retirement plan.

9-9-16 - Rejoicing in the Forgiven

How do you feel when people get away with stuff? What if they say they’re sorry? This week, we’ve looked at stories of the lost being found, and at each finding Jesus says,
“So there is rejoicing over one sinner who repents.”

But do we rejoice when someone is forgiven for something awful? Not always. The media is full of stories of people who feel cheated of “justice” if a case goes against them, or if someone is publically forgiven by someone they have wronged.

Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally, especially if we're used to a system of blaming and judging. To forgive means to “give for,” to give to another what they owe us, what they already took. When we forgive, we release the debt owed to us. In a sense, we pay twice. Forgiveness is costly.

Jesus says: Look how lavish with his love God is. Though we wander off to things we believe will give us pleasure, or security, or power, or control, God greets us when we return, even before we get there. God extends us grace over and over and over again. To some, this makes God look like a chump, someone taken advantage of. But no. God gives with eyes wide open, and will give again.

I don’t know if the Pharisees got the point of Jesus’ stories. When you’re wired to earn your way, it can be hard to take in the message of overwhelming love. Some years ago, in prayer. I sensed God say to me: “I already love you the most. There is nothing you have to do, or can do, to make me love you more – I already love you the most, with the love that fills the universe and beyond.”

It’s taking me time to live into that love, and to extend it to others. Thankfully, I have a lifetime to learn to absorb it, trust it, let it make me whole. A lifetime, and eternity beyond that. You too.

God gives with a heart wide open, offering us forgiveness, love and grace, unearned and unearnable, unmeasured and immeasurable. Can we say, "Yes" today, and rejoice that others are forgiven too?

9-8-16 - Olly Olly Oxen Free

Sometimes we need to hear something more than once – so Jesus told those Pharisees another parable about losing and finding, repenting and rejoicing: 

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?”

Interpreting parables can be like interpreting dreams – you might be any or all of the characters. Who do you relate to today – the coin, or the woman? (Or the lamp, broom or house...) The way I see it at this moment, the woman is God (yep, more than once Jesus assigns God the woman’s role…) and the coins are us. Imagine: God values us so much, she will search high and low for us whenever we roll under the bed or into a dark corner. God turns on the light of truth, gets out the broom of forgiveness, sweeps the dust away from us – and keeps looking till we’re found.

Now, in both Jesus’ stories, the sheep and the coin are passive. They get lost and have to be found. As people made in God’s image, we have a little more choice. Yet, when we fall into self-oriented and self-destructive patterns, our freedom to choose can become compromised. We need to be found. Often, it is realizing we are so precious that someone bothers to seek and find us, which elicits repentance in us. Guilt doesn’t do the job nearly as well as love does.

Repentance is a choice we can make every day, saying to that heavenly Seeker, “Okay, here I am, under the dresser again…” And then we join all the others who’ve been found, rejoicing when each one comes back. “When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Okay, so now who are you: the coin, the seeker, a friend or neighbor rejoicing? All of the above?

Today we might spend some time in repentance– where are some places you’ve rolled that are out of the light? What parts of your life have become a little dusty and cluttered? Here comes the light and the broom…

Imagine being a coin that is found, picked up, turned over in the palm of the finder, smiled at, cherished – and maybe put in a pocket with a bunch of other found coins. What a great jingle-jangle we make when we’re put together, we found coins! How much more valuable we are together than apart.

Sometimes we think we can hide from God; if we’re not looking for God, God will leave us alone. Jesus says differently: Jesus says God never rests while we are away. God seeks us, finds us, invites us home. Remember that phrase kids call out in hide-n-seek, indicating it is safe to come out of hiding, “Olly, olly, oxen free.” Some say its root is: “O ye, o ye, in come free.” Do you hear God calling you?

9-7-16 - One Percent

Jesus’ parables are sneaky. They lead you one way, and then, bam!, swerve somewhere that contradicts common sense and practice. "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?” At first glance, you think, “Yeah! I’d go after that lost little sheep…” On second thought... would you really leave 99 valuable livestock unprotected and search for one?

Maybe so, Jesus suggests. Remember, he’s answering the question, “Why do you eat with sinners?” A question hiding under that one is: “Shouldn’t you hang out with the righteous folks, like us?”

Jesus says that his time in this earthly life is to be spent seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10) The “ninety-nine” can look after each other. Someone has to look for the wanderers, explorers of steeper paths, the ones who chased greener pastures only to look up and find themselves alone in the deep, dark woods. Presumably, the "right-living" sheep already make heaven pretty happy. The recovery of the lost sheep is cause for special rejoicing.

I once heard a bishop suggest that churches program for the people who aren’t there, rather than ones who are. A church-goer took issue with that – “What about us? Don’t we count?” This is the cry of the ninety-nine.

In the “both/and” realm of God, it doesn’t have to be a choice – yet Jesus does suggest where his followers are to put our energy. Do we have enough “bandwidth” to care for one another AND to follow Jesus out to the ravines and scary places where lost sheep are apt to be found, those who do not know the love of the Good Shepherd, who may even feel pretty unlovable? I think we do – especially if we enhance our capacity with the infinite power and love of the Spirit.

Here are some prompts for prayer and reflection today:
List everything you do to nurture your own church community – activities, funds, prayer. Do you hear the sound of rejoicing in heaven? You’re giving a huge gift.

Now, list the ways you reach out to the people who might be “outliers” – not so much funding and feeding, but how you personally interact with people outside your circle. Our goal might be to aim for balance, maybe even tipping a little toward the outlier sheep.

Who comes to mind when you think of “lost sheep” in your life or community? God may send you to someone in particular… give it a moment and see who comes up. If you get a name or face, stay with it. Ask God to bless that person, and to show you where and how you might come close to them.

Our goal is not to invite him to church, or to “get her help.” Our goal is to go and be with, offering a relationship that is mutual (we all have “lost” parts in ourselves…) – and invite the Shepherd himself to lead him or her back into wholeness.

If you remember a time when you were lost and someone found you, you know how it works. There was a LOT of rejoicing.

9-6-16 - The Company You Keep

Jesus was often under scrutiny by the religious leaders of his day – and the more so because they didn’t approve of many whom he welcomed into his company.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (This week's gospel passage is here.)

Why are “tax collectors” and “sinners” so often lumped together in the Gospels? Tax collectors of Jesus’ time were no mild-mannered IRS accountants. They were Jews who made a living by “collecting” taxes for the Romans from their fellow-Jews. As such, they were collaborators with a hated regime and enforcers of cruel and often capricious extortion. And the Romans didn’t pay them for this – they allowed them to tack on a “fee” or surcharge. The meaner and tougher they were, the higher the “fee” they commanded. Tax collectors were easy to loathe.

Yet Jesus invited one of these, Matthew, to be a disciple. He ate at the home of another, Zaccheus. He seemed to be a magnet for them – and he didn’t just dine with them. He invited them to repent and be renewed. Many saw their lives transformed, as did other “sinners” who spent time with Jesus. Who better to hang around with than someone who talks about forgiveness and the love of the heavenly Father? Who sees you as a human being despite the despicable way you’ve treated others?

And what about these Pharisees and scribes? They weren’t bad people. Pharisees deeply loved the Law of Moses and strove for lives of great holiness. In the process, they often became self-righteous, judgmental, and tipped into a compassionless legalism that – Jesus felt – caused them to focus on minute laws at the expense of God’s greater command to care for the poor and defenseless. The scribes were temple leaders, and regulated the apparatus of worship and sacrifice. They had limited power under Roman authority, and like many such people, excelled in making others feel even more powerless.

So we have, on the one hand, notorious sinners and low-lifes, and on the other, hypocritical and arrogant “holy” people. If all the lowlifes were in one room, and all the religious people in another, and you HAD to pick one, which room would you go in? Why?What would you say to those gathered in each room?

What kind of people do you find yourself judging, even condemning (we all do it… let’s just bring it to the surface so we can look at it…). Think of some examples of individuals or groups. Bring them to mind. Now bring Jesus into that picture. What does he do? Say? How do you feel?

What kind of people do you feel are hypocritical? How do you suppose they got that way?
Think of some examples of individuals or groups. Bring them to mind. Now bring Jesus into that picture. What does he do? Say? How do you feel?

Those who flout the rules and those who cling rigidly to them are both living outside the sweet spot of God's grace. Jesus invites us all into the center.

9-2-16 - On the Road

The first time I went on retreat, I immersed myself in prayer, scripture, worship and the writings of Bernard of Clairveaux. His passion for God was so fervent, at one point I remember praying, “Oh Lord, set my heart on fire!” Right away a response came in my mind: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire burns away everything that is not of me, everything.” I thought of all those references to God as a refiner’s fire, a consuming fire, and I felt I was being offered a choice – the “high road” of full commitment to the way of Jesus, or the lower, slower way of mixed motives and divided devotions. I chose the slower messier way. Am I alone?

The hard teachings we’ve been wrestling with this week concern this choice. Jesus tells those who would follow his way that they must walk away from the claims of this world, family and money. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” James in his epistle says even more starkly, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

Did Jesus really mean we should hate this life we’ve been given? The passage from Deuteronomy appointed for this Sunday urges us to “Choose life.”  “…today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…”

Jesus invites us to choose the life that is the most real, the most true, the most eternal; the God-life, visible to the eyes of faith, not the mere world-life apparent to our physical senses. “I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance,” he says. (John 10:10). He invites us to leave behind all that distracts us from receiving the abundance of love, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness, healing – and ministry – that God offers us.

I chose the slow road, the “middle way.” I may still be on it, but over the years, as my commitment has sharpened, I perceive that this is also a kingdom path. The God Jesus revealed meets us on any road we’re on, anytime we turn away from the emptiness allegiance to the world brings us. This Father in heaven rushes out to greet his children as we come back to ourselves and back to our true home.

Jesus’ invitation is to follow him, to start consciously walking the road with Him every day. As we do that, He will point out sights we may not have noticed before. He may introduce us to people who live closer to the edge; might nudge us to give to this organization or that ministry. We might find ourselves making friends in parts of town we never saw before.

Who have you met on the road? When have you experienced the Father’s greeting? When have you experienced the Holy Spirit guiding you, protecting you, strengthening you? Write down those stories – other people might want to hear them.

The original name for Christ followers was “The People of the Way.” If we’re on the road with Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, I believe we'll get home.

9-1-16 - Giving It All

I have heard some say that Jesus “preferred” the poor. I don’t think the Gospel record shows that. Jesus had great love for people who were poor, partly because others ignored them, but we also see him interact affectionately with many prosperous folks, even as he invites them to let go of more of their resources. He didn’t demand poverty of everyone – but it seems he did of those who wished to go beyond “friend” or “follower” to “disciple.”

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

Maybe I'm not a disciple yet. I’m on the slow road to giving it all away, as are most people I know. Do we count as wealthy? You bet. We like to compare ourselves to people with more money; looks like we’re just getting by. But even the poor in America are richer than 85% of people in the world, many of whom try to live on less than $1 a day. You do the math.

To some of the wealthy people Jesus interacted with he said, “Give it all.” To others, he didn’t. Zaccheus in the flush of conversion offers to give half his net worth to the poor; Jesus doesn’t say, “What about the other half?” When Jesus talks about how hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he may be saying it’s impossible – or simply noting the fact that people of means often put their security in their accumulated wealth rather than in God. If you can walk the fine line of having a lot of resources and not relying on them, then you might have the freedom to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

God wants us to trust in God’s provision, not in our own resources or strategies. The expression, “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible, and is contrary to the spirit of the Good News Jesus preached, a radical openness to the grace of God and radical generosity to the poor in wallet. If everyone viewed every child as a precious gift of God, there might be fewer living on garbage heaps.

So, how do we respond?
Today, maybe we begin with gratitude for the resources we have. Name a few, write them down.
If you feel a tug of remorse, offer repentance, not because of your resources, but for clinging to them. Have you felt called to share what you have, and didn’t? Name it.

The best way to get better at giving it away is to practice giving it away, a lot. I’m in a new church. I’m not going to wait till January to start tithing – I’m going to start now returning a percentage for God’s mission through my community of faith. That’s how it works, when we all give.

It starts with “Yes, Jesus. I want to follow you. This is what I can give today.” If we truly walk with Him, the “what I can give today” will grow and grow. So will we.