Do you have enough food to eat?  Do you know someone who doesn’t?  Have you ever invited them to a banquet?  

 

Wanting for food, is not even on the radar screen, at an important banquet fundraiser!  To get invited to an exclusive gala like this, you have to be a good giver to the party or organization already.  The, meal and a speech, is an occasion to ask for favors, and assess your standing within the group.  There’s competition to get close to the candidate, or leader of the organization, and increase your status, which dovetails nicely with the needs of the politician or CEO.  Money buys influence for the contributor, and competition increases the take for the candidate or asker.  There’s lots of back slapping, and the more you give and smooze, the higher up you go, and more honored you are. 

 

Yesterday we held a picnic potluck with our fellow Lutheran congregations in Edgewater.  It was a delightful afternoon, but with a different kind of smoozing.  There was no politician or CEO to please, no $1000 a plate requirement to get in the door, only the communal, bring a dish to share, expectation.  The church potluck is more like the miracle of feeding the 5,000.  You begin with a basket of bread and a covered dish or two, someone gives thanks for the food – it doesn’t have to be the pastor! – you share it with the crowds, and everyone has enough to eat, and still, there’s lots of leftovers! 

 

Jesus dined in a variety of settings, and his ‘speech’ varied according to those he ate with.  For the 5,000 that he fed, he had compassion.  For the sick and outcast, the tax collectors and sinners, he healed, forgave and celebrated.  For Mary and Martha, he affirmed their acts of service, and the priority of God’s life-giving word.  For the rich and upwardly mobile he gave them the choice of dining in the kingdom of God, or serving the Master of money.  For his disciples, who also showed a desire for honor and greatness, he modeled humility, service, and the ultimate non-violent sacrifice. 

 

There is a way in which Mediterranean society is like the elite fund-raiser of our day, in the way it taught honor and shame.  Male society was all about gaining honor, and avoiding shame.  Whether rich or poor, it was inbred that you must defend your honor, and protect it from being shamed.  Your job, your wife, your children, your possessions, all depended on your honor.  Following the rules, and making them work for you, was part of how you avoided shame.  And so for Jesus, accepting the invitation to the Shabbat dinner party at the rich leaders home, meant he was entering a highly competitive world of honor and shame.  The feast had well defined customs of reclining at a lavish table, and being served.  Afterwards, Jesus was the featured speaker.  Just like the fundraiser dinner, jockeying for position closest to the guests of honor was expected, simply taken for granted – it was the way you enhanced your honor and protected your reputation from being brought down and shamed.  Honor could buy you more influence and power, just like money in our culture, and both are perceived to be a limited resource that you need to compete for.  You were either a winner or a loser, and that compounded your honor or shame. 

 

In our part of the world, honor and shame are defined in any number of ways: By our place in the economy, the size of our “castle,” the car we drive, and at bottom, the ‘almighty green-back.’  And, of course, with unemployment at 10%, and house foreclosures at record highs, there’s been a lot of losers.  Our Great Recession is tottering on becoming a “double-dip recession.” 

 

In our present predicament, nothing typifies who’s invited to the banquet of green-backs, more clearly than the “Paulson Plan,” named after Henry Paulson, who became Treasury Secretary, as things were unraveling a couple years ago.  Paulson may be right that he saved the economy from a Depression era collapse, but not without creating distinct winners and losers.  The Paulson Plan was conceived behind closed doors one October weekend of 2008.  He called in the CEO’s of the 9 largest banks, all on the verge of eating bad loans, and Credit-Default-Swaps, of their own making, and spoon fed them all the same medicine.  And so in a sense, he humbled them by inviting the little guys to come up higher, and the more well-off banks to go down lower.  The idea was that the honor of the banks would be rescued, in our eyes, and a terrible collapse of the economy, be averted.  But the places of honor at the banquet, we found out later, remained the same.  Those with pensions and mortgages, and the poor, were not invited in.  Paulson, the former head of one of the 9 banks, invited in his friends, but not the middle-class and working poor, not those on disability and on the streets.  And so, those left out, have only, shame and anger.  The banqueting table remained reserved for the winners, in the Paulson Plan.  Just the opposite of Jesus’ vision. 

 

In the banquet of “the resurrection of the righteous,” Jesus tells us, the invitation to the feast goes out to the poor and crippled, the lame and the blind, first, before our friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbors, because they have the means to repay you, and then all you have is a lot of parties for the winners, at the expense of the shamed.  

 

Aren’t there any alternative models out there?  Any ways in which we can begin to live into the realm of God?  I heard a remarkable example the other day about how Billy Joel honors some fans at his concerts.  I was told, anyway, that he is said to always reserve a section right up front at all his concerts, and then the day of the event he invites a group from the nose-bleed section to come up to these choice seats and enjoy the concert as his honored guests. 

 

Or, the example of the church potluck.  I like the way everyone is invited equally.  Bring what you can, offer it up with thanks, share it with everyone else, and somehow it is enough, more than enough, with leftovers.  There are no reserved seats, and the featured speaker is everyone’s lively conversation, and everyone is honored – no one is shamed.

     Do you know someone that hasn’t been invited to the banquet?  Do you know someone who is hungry, or hungry for spiritual food?  How are we responsible to them?  What meals and events do we influence?  How can we be more inclusive and less shaming?  Let’s take a minute for talk-time.  I know you have lots more examples of Jesus fellowship meals.  There’s Martha Dinner and potlucks thru church.  But what about in the work place and the meetings you’re at?  How can they better honor everyone?  Take a minute to talk with a neighbor about this.  Who would you like to invite to the banquet? 

***Talk time*** 

 

In the fellowship of the table that Jesus gave us, the Lord’s Supper, Jesus invites each of us to come up to the place of honor, and receive the “bread of life” and “the cup of salvation.”  We are welcomed into the heavenly banquet, already, and sit at the table, the feast that Jesus hosts, the meal of “the resurrection of the righteous.”  Our honor is not tied to anyone who can shame us, in this world.  We are honored by the one who feeds us at this Eucharistic table, who lifts, and invites us up higher.  Come to the banquet!  Our risen Lord is the host!  The meal of salvation is served!   

Where or what is sacred space in these times, in the 21st C?  Where is our sacred space at Unity, and in our community? 

 

The sacred space of Sabbath is common to both our first reading from Isaiah and our gospel reading.  Generally, we don’t observe Sabbath in our society, not like Jesus did.  We do worship, but not on Saturday, the Sabbath day.  We worship on Sunday, of course, the first day of the week, because it’s the day of our Lord’s resurrection.  In our pluralistic society, there is no one set day of rest.  But if I had to describe ‘in a word’ our American approach to the Sabbath, what keeps coming back to me is that lyric from the hit song from the 80’s: “Everybody’s working for the weekend!”  (Don’t ya think?)  We’re working for our fun in the sun, time.  The time to do what we really want to do.  Time to enjoy, or get to that project we really want to do, the hobby that gives meaning and refreshment.   

 

God created Sabbath for our renewal, and our reflection on the gift of creation, so we might find re-creation in our lives.  So, it’s what we do with the weekends, that counts.  The prophet Isaiah said long ago, “If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath,” “and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,” instead of, “pursuing your own interests on my holy day.” “If you honor it” by “offering your food to the hungry” instead of “going your own ways, [and] pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the LORD…”  But, I preach to the choir!  Here you are, , after all, in honor of the LORD.  We gather here, because there is a sense that we need a sacred space in our lives, and from it, we can hallow the other six days of our lives.

 

Jesus, doesn’t shy away from the debate about Sabbath and sacred space.  In fact, he works God’s work on the Sabbath over and over again in the Gospels.  Though today, he sounds a rather sarcastic note about what is lawful ‘on the Sabbath,’ notice too that he is also part of the “choir,” he’s teaching in a synagogue, on the Sabbath, and gathering with, all the people of God.  But Jesus comes also from the tradition of Isaiah and Amos, of John the Baptist and all the prophets, in speaking on behalf of God’s justice and reign, and reminding us that, ‘What is good (and Godly) is not always what is legal, and what is legal is not always the good!’ 

 

Or, to put it another way, and using the President’s favorite image of driving a car:  Imagine that you just had a Learners Permit that restricted you to drive with an adult, and you were in a car crash, in say, a lonely rural part of the state, and the adult was rendered unconscious, unable to supervise you, and that adult would likely die before an ambulance came.  Wouldn’t you drive the injured person to the nearest hospital yourself to save his or her life?  It may not be the legal thing to do, but certainly, it would be the right and good thing to do. 

 

Jesus sees a life or death situation with the woman with the bent over back.  Not that, after 18 years he couldn’t have waited one more day.  But for Jesus, this is not “work” work, but re-creation, work, proclaiming that, this is exactly the kind of work God wants to do on the Sabbath, because it honors and brings creation closer to completion.  Jesus not only reaches out to heal her, but he sets her free from the evil spirit that has her bound her up, and tied her down!  For Jesus, this is not just a matter of working, but of doing something essential, on the Sabbath.  Of course, Jesus knows the Sabbath Commandment, but in his defense he quotes a law that makes, a very curious exception – taking care of your livestock!  Is it the legal thing to do?  No has ever applied this rule - to people.  But it is definitely the right and good thing to do!

 

We know that Jesus is on a journey to the cross, his face set toward Jerusalem, as Luke pointedly tells us.  And on the cross, Jesus will further ‘complete’ the work of God’s creation, on the Sabbath day.  Jesus’ death and resurrection, on the Sabbath and first day of the week, are a new creation, a new way forward, a breaking through to the other side of history, a liberation and breaking down of the barriers for us, the Gentile people, unbinding and untying us, and setting us free – all of us, who are bent over from the power of the Accuser. 

 

God’s creation is on-going, and God creates a sacred space for us, in our worship, of course, where we are healed and fed; at table and prayer station.  Here we offer the bread of life every week, and healing, by the power of the HS through the laying on of hands.  We stand up in this sacred space, and continue praising God, and living lives of rejoicing, at all the wonderful things Jesus is doing – on the Sabbath, and every day.  We are renewed in our lives, and given the power to create sacred space for others, out in the world.  Wherever we carry the presence of Jesus’ blessing, and the gifts of the HS, we become co-creators with the Lord, every day. 

 

Where have you created a sacred space in the world? for you or your family, or for those you work with, or go to school with?  

 

Our Vision Steering Team took a field trip to a kind of sacred space that is a huge blessing to the community, the Center on Halsted.  It’s not just the sacred space of one person’s doing, but was envisioned and created by a number of leaders in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual &Transgender community of Chicago, for everyon.  It’s a beautiful space with the stated purpose to serve all youth and adults in a safe, inviting and nurturing environment. It has office and meeting space for community organizations, drop-in space for youth and seniors, gallery space, cultural programming, basketball and volleyball courts, underground parking, and a rooftop memorial garden.  You might know it for the Whole Foods store, its largest leaser.  It’s easy to see their vision, and creation of a sacred and safe space, here.  It’s welcoming and inviting, “like a watered garden,” as Isaiah said of God’s people, who honored the LORD. 

 

How about here?  We have ‘a watered garden’ of our own, one of our green and sacred spaces here at Unity.  We continue to seek sacred and safe spaces, for all people, which takes creative work, the work of setting our faces toward Jerusalem with Jesus, of knowing who we are, and where we are going, and what it is that we want to complete.

 
Where, in our community, here at Unity, or in our neighborhood, could we create a sacred space to reach out to those who need to be set free? 

*** talk time

* * *

We create sacred space, whenever we, like Jesus, are willing to enter, and get into, the space of others who are seeking freedom.  When we are willing to bend down and look that person in the eye, and offer them hope and healing, in the name of Christ our Lord.  God makes sacred space through us, and renews the face of the earth, breaking down barriers, and connecting up together, more and more, sacred and safe spaces.  That God’s realm may come to a neighborhood near us all!  Everybody’s working for …the new creation.  Let it be born in us!  

The God we love at Christmas time, the “Prince of Peace” declares now today, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  The Rabbi, and teacher, who instructs his loyal disciples on how to go out 2 by 2 to share the ‘good news’, and wherever they are welcomed, to, declare “peace to this house,” tells them now, he comes to bring “division” within households, 3 against 2, and 2 against 3.  Can you tell a “false prophet” from a “true prophet,’ Jeremiah asks?  “Don’t you know how to interpret the present time,” says Jesus, in a rather sarcastic tone?  What time is it?  (This is our *discussion* question today.)

 

This reminds me of how we now look back at the turning of our world from the 1950’s to the 1960’s.  Suddenly, everything was in chaos.  What we once counted on, to be true, was seemingly overnight, all up for grabs and in question.  What time is it?

 

It’s time for Jesus to set his “face toward Jerusalem.”  Luke makes clear, Jesus is on a journey.  He, has it together.  He knows what time it is, and where he is headed.  “It is impossible for prophets to be killed outside of Jerusalem,” Jesus tells his disciples.  “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”  It is time for Jesus to be on the road to Jerusalem and the cross.

 

Our God is a consuming fire, and, a bringer of unconditional mercy and love.  Fire, of course, can be both de-structive and con-structive.  The sun, burning at infernal temperatures 93M miles away, bestows on us the good gifts of heat, and light, and life.  We couldn’t live without it, and the magnificent and awesome gift we have been given – the unfathomable complexity of how God created our solar system and cosmos, and placed us right here in it.  But get too close and you will be consumed! 

 

Camp fires and cooking fires, give warmth for enjoyment, and our needed daily sustenance.  But the fire that comes unexpectedly from a faulty wire, or lightening strike, can burn down our dwelling and leave us homeless and even take innocent lives. 

 

Some fires can do both – consume and purify.  I think of the jack-pine tree whose pine cone seed can only regenerate by the renewing, blazing hot fires that consume its forests, and replant it.  And think of the fuller’s soap, which is made from the ashes of its furnace of fire.  It is no wonder that the original image of YHWH, the one Lord God who appeared to Moses, was in the fire of the burning bush – a bush that, though it burned, was not consumed… the mystery of our incredibly intimate yet wholly omnipotent God, where Moses stood on holy ground, and received God’s name: “I am who I am; I will be who I will be.” 

 

What time is it in the realm of God?  When the heat of hate speech is turned up and aimed at our Muslim brothers and sisters by a media hungry and bigoted person of the faith, it is the time for us to speak up.  As when I heard this week the particularly disquieting news that a Pastor –and I use that word with quotation marks around it– a Pr. Wayne Sapp in Gainesville, Florida, who is calling for an ‘international burning of the Koran (Qur’an) day,’ on Sept. 11, the 9-11 anniversary!  Such incendiary hate-speech is intolerable.  And I have been in touch with Jamal Hussein of the Ismaili Center about how we can activate the Edgewater Community Religious Association to come together and speak out.  Such an image of fire is at once unspeakable and unacceptable.  But, there is also the burning passion that we have of a purifying fire, in response.  A fire in the belly to follow the ‘true prophets’ and truth-tellers of our time, who can help us to organize and put out this fire.  In doing so, we become the flame of light that illuminates, and a hope that will shine brightly. 

 

What time is it?  Jesus asks: Are we able to interpret “the present time” as well as our weather forecaster can tell the coming of a storm, or a warm summer breeze? 

 

One of my favorite new songs in the ELW is the Gathering Song we sang, “Canticle of the Turning,” which dares to tell time, and even to celebrate the new day God is bringing.  The refrain goes: “My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn. Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.”  It is at once beautiful and terrible!  This is the God of consuming fire, and, the bringer of unconditional mercy and love.  This is a God who tells time, differently.  And the Greek language of the NT is clear about this difference between ‘chronos’ time and ‘kairos’ time.  Chronos time is clock time; calendar time.  We know the seasons, how they inevitable follow one another; we know how the night follows the day.  But kairos time, is time that is expectant, as in “the day of the Lord God,” like a mother with child.  Kairos time is when God comes to “turn our world around,’ when ‘the fires of justice will burn.’ 

 

What time is it?  Jesus’ talk of the division of families doesn’t just come out of no where.  Jesus passion and fire to proclaim and bring in God’s kingdom, by the nearness of his presence, creates a new expectation, for us.  Jesus didn’t come to change things just for the fun of it, or just for the sake of change.  He didn’t come to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship.  Jesus came with the purifying fire of rebirth and new life, for a world, a cosmos, that was about to, was on the verge of, turning, on the verge of awakening, becoming, in accordance with God’s justice.  Jesus is the fire, and in his brightly burning light, a light that seemed as if it might be extinguished on the cross, he turned us instead, fulfilled time and all the ages, that precisely, through his death and resurrection, God could make something new, and that we might receive a small, but fully charged portion of the flame, so that we might burn brightly, as fully charged followers, continuing to renew the face of the earth, because Christ burns, in us, and through us, and for others. 

 

What time is it?  Is this a time of turning?  Is this a sea-change time, like from the 50’s to the 60’s?  Is our world about to turn or change?  Is our church able to weather a change?  Are we leaders, in lighting the way to God’s new day? 

   Let’s take a minute to ask this question of each other: what time is it?  (in the world, church, neighborhood, at work, school?)

 * * * [talk-time] * * *

What time is it?  Jesus announced that in him, the realm of God, an alternative to the world as we know it, was dawning.  God has come near, and we are not burned or consumed, but hearing and accepting Jesus message, we are invited on to holy ground.  Through Jesus, the cast out ones are welcomed, separating walls are brought down, and all are healed.  All nations and peoples are invited to this newly created family, a surrogate family of God.  And the sign of this family was the ‘open table fellowship,’ the meals of inclusion, forgiveness and new life Jesus proclaimed and participated in.  As Bishop Wright says: in all these meals, “Jesus was celebrating the messianic banquet, and doing so with all the wrong people.”  So turns the world! 

 

What time is it?  Just this week one of our own told me about how Unity is more of a family that this person counts on, then their own biological family.  That is the surrogate, newly created family Jesus brought us, or, more properly, the church, the people of God.  This is the light that warms my heart, and gives me a glimmer of hope, of God’s new day – in God’s time.  

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

Did you get a phone call from Bill Gates or Warren Buffett this week?  They’ve only contacted 70-80 of their friends so far – so there’s still a chance!  "We're off to a terrific start,” Buffett said.  Their plan is to have others on the list call their friends, and to hold small groups and small dinner parties across the country in the months ahead to enlist others in their campaign.  But they wanted to share the results with the rest of us, on how it’s going so far.  Seems they’ve gotten bit by the ‘Sell your possessions, and give alms’ bug!  Gates and Buffett have been asking their social peers to take this pledge: ‘to, give away at least half of their wealth to charity.’  And of the 70-80 invitations, 40 have said yes, including most notably, Michael Bloomberg, George Lucas, and Ted Turner.  Buffett himself already pledged to give away 99% of his $43B, 4 years ago, and is known for his modest lifestyle.  Jesus is reported to have blogged about the campaign, “if they’re not against us, do not hinder them!”  But anyway, if you didn’t get a call, it just might be because you’re not on their short list of the nation’s wealthiest individuals. 

 

Even though I tease, it’s obviously a good thing, maybe even a very good thing, that Bill and Warren are doing.  Personally, I’d also like to see rich corporations be made to ante up, those who spend so much energy on paying little or no taxes through legal loop holes, which seems to be the exact opposite of the Gates-Buffett pledge. 

 

Certainly, from a public relations or news cycle perspective, the “sell your possessions and give at least 50% in alms movement” is exemplary, and an important step to take.  It’s heartening to read some of the letters from the 40 philanthropists who signed on – standing up for giving away their wealth; admitting they really don’t need it; and testifying how it isn’t a personal, or social benefit, to pass on that much to their families.  They certainly can’t be accused any longer of being the “rich fool” in Jesus’ parable, we heard last week, the one who stored up his enormous good fortune and windfall profits in the brand new barns he built, holding on tightly to every last penny, all for himself.  And it points up Jesus question, not only for them, but for all of us, “are you rich toward God?” 

 

Today Jesus expands on that idea.  "… it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” he says.  “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out – and do not grow old – with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  

 

Jesus took sides, in the money debate.  He advocated a choice: Mammon or God.  Live rich, or live rich toward God!  “Make purses for yourselves that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.”  Only a few people actually were able to store up Mammon in their treasuries, like the tax collectors, and the few rich business men and government officials who in turn loaned it to subsistence businesses, like fishers and farmers, only to make them further indebted. Most people, like Jesus and the disciples, lived in the barter economy, and would rather have a loaf a bread or some fish in their hands at the end of the day, than silver coins.  So, controlling money was about controlling the people.  And this Mammon, as Jesus called it, was a false trust, which in Aramaic is where the word trust comes from!  Where do you put your trust?  What kind of a purse do you have?  What are you working for? 

 

Luke’s gospel was written to the privileged Theophilus, his patron, and to his richer, more well off, congregation.  And so it is particularly astonishing that so many of the stories about money, take the rich to the woodshed!  Why didn’t Luke have Jesus preach the ‘prosperity gospel’ to them!?  Instead Jesus tells the story about Zacchaeus, who like Michael Bloomberg, is very short, and very rich.  And when Jesus came to town, Zacchaeus climbed up into his skybox, a Sycamore tree, to see Jesus.  When Jesus spots the rich tax-collector on his way through Jericho, he stops the parade and invites himself over to his house.  The crowds are scandalized that Jesus would eat with a tax-collector.  But in Jesus’ boldness, he declares him pardoned, in front of everyone!  And Jesus’ pledge to ‘break bread’ with Zacchaeus frees him to make a pledge of his own.  Zacchaeus declares, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”  So it seems, Zacchaeus is the original pledger, ala Bill Gates and Warren Buffett!  Where do we put our trust?  What kind of a purse do we have?  Are we rich toward God? 

 

There was one ‘purse’ that Jesus and the disciples kept.  It was a common purse, held in trust by Judas.  They were to use it to pay for common expenses in their nomadic missionary life.  Having left everything, their families and livelihoods, all they had financially in this world, they kept collectively in ‘the purse’.  And even from that, their one earthly treasury, Judas stole from.  “Make purses for yourselves that do not grow old – with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” said Jesus.  "… it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Imagine that!  If we were as concerned about God’s kingdom as we are about the size of next month’s paycheck, the next harvest, or the next step up the career ladder, what changes would we make in our lives? 

 

A read a surprising review of a book about some in the Amish community who have changed from farming to manufacturing, for the first time in generations.  It’s called, “Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive.”  While the failure rate of small business start-ups on a whole is 50% in the first 5 years, the number of Amish businesses that don’t make it is only 10%.  Some have become millionaires!  But they chalk their success up to keeping their vision and values ahead of profit taking – “financial success is a means to an end,” says author Erik Wesner.  What they value is to stay small, keep a low overhead, treat employees and customers with kindness, practice frugality, help each other out, and seek strong relationships, values that Wall Street might find refreshing about now! 

     In a word, these Amish folks are trying to live out their faith, and hold to Jesus admonition: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  They don’t need to learn what Bill and Warren have just recently discovered.  They are seeking, from the beginning, to be rich toward God, to live into the ‘kingdom’ that God is trying to ‘give us,’ a gift that, it ‘pleases God,’ just to en-trust to us, a gift of salvation, each and every day!  Come on down out of that tree; make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven!    

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher! …All is vanity.  …I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.” 


And yet, I doubt if we are scandalized or put off by this – this skepticism of ‘the Teacher,’ or as Martin Luther called Ecclesiastes, “the Preacher.’  We are not fazed, for we are Chicagoans!  We are a city of the big shoulders, a hardy breed.  We are the windy city, and we laugh at the cold and snow of winter, and the heat and humidity of summer.  We have endured mobsters and gangs, and, 2 Daley administrations.  We live in condo’s by the El tracks, and we look forward to cheering on the Cubs again next year!  Our favorite disciple is Thomas. Cynicism is just part of who we are! 

 

There is no other book of the bible like Ecclesiastes, with its doubting and dour message.  And it’s no coincidence that in our entire 3 year lectionary of worship readings, this is the sole passage we’ll hear from Ecclesiastes –  unless you’ve been to a New Year’s Day service, or to a funeral lately, and heard the reading from chapter 3: “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” 

 

Throughout its twelve chapters, The Teacher-Preacher, continues to return to this theme of “vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” detailing the sense of skepticism and  meaninglessness he finds in, work, law and order, intellect, and pretty much everything else, that any of us, would expect to provide, joy and meaning, and rewards, in our lives. 

 

The word, Vanity, may not quite capture the true meaning The Teacher was after.  Vanity, or Hevel in Hebrew, really means, a “breath”, a “vapor,” or a “puff of air.”  All is transitory, we’re unable to grasp it!  The Preacher is a hard nosed realist, a pragmatic theologian – from the Windy City – and is not going to be taken in by any Pollyannaish fancies that paste over the truth.  But neither is the Teacher an Epicurean or Hedonist, like so many Romans of his day, or like the famous poet, Horace, from whom we get, “carpe diem – seize the day,” though we tend to forget what comes after that: “seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next.”    Horace, and his crowd, were cynical that there was anything more to this life; we should scale back our expectations; we should take pleasure in what we have, and face the fact that death is the end.  ‘Seize the day’ for them meant mostly to pursue those things which avoided pain, fly under the radar, be satisfied with whatever simple things you can find, don’t feel guilty for taking it, or that your neighbor goes with out, because that’s all there is to life.

 

But that’s not the conclusion the Teacher in Ecclesiastes comes to, despite his cynical nature of the vanity of all things.  The Teacher is not despairing of life itself, but in the human activity that cannot be counted on to save us.  In this, he reminds me of Martin Luther, who worked hard to please God and to justify himself, but realized that all our works are hevel, a puff of air, that can not glorify God.  And only at the end of his rope, when he let go of that pursuit, did he discover the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  And this opened a whole new door for him to find hope, and the courage to live.  So too, the Teacher, finds human striving, a vaporous, shallow, puff of air.  The toiling we do is gone before you know it.  And the gift of life from God, is all we have. 

 

After Luther’s insight and transformation, he developed a teaching that helped shape and transform the Reformation for centuries.  At a time when there was not much of a middle class to speak of, but mostly either rich or poor, he taught that God calls each of us to have more than a job, more than a toiling at meaningless work just to put food on the table, but God calls us to have a ‘vocation,’ that which we were created to do, that satisfies our talents, that we might play a part in society that edifies and builds it up. 

 

Are you stuck in a job you hate?  Do you feel you are toiling endlessly for nothing, but even more afraid of losing the paycheck?  Some would say that in this economy it is not the right time to find the “vocation” or job you love.  But I have found that for those who have already lost their jobs, in this Great Recession, it may just be the perfect opportunity to ask the question, what does God want me to do?  What is my calling?  What is my true vocation?  Some are able to, perhaps with the help of family or friends’, to pursue that new vocation or job that you’ve always thought about, or to go back to school, or to start up a new business, or to at least volunteer at the place that gives meaning, and perhaps even brings joy and satisfaction. 

 

What about you?  What gives you meaning in the workplace or home?  Let’s take a minute for ‘talk-time’ and discuss this.  Are you stuck in a job you hate – do you have that, “vanity, vanity, all is vanity” feeling, or have you found the job you love?  Are you laid off and asking what God is calling you to, what your vocation is?  Discuss for one minute each, then I’ll end us with a final thought.

 

[talk-time]

 

In Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool from the gospel, the rich fool is only concerned about his own welfare, bottling up the bounteous grace God blessed him with, for some fictitious, not so secure, future, in which his overflowing barns will be his salvation, all for himself.  And then he puts his feet up so that he can, “eat, drink, and be merry,” thinking he has the world by the tail! 

 

In Ecclesiastes, the Teacher, also advocates “eat, drink, and enjoy,” but in exactly the inverse way.  The Teacher is not advocating hedonism, but is turning everything over to God, taking a leap of faith, knowing that our striving and toiling cannot justify a life of leisure like the Rich Fool thinks he deserves.  The Teacher is advocating a coming to the eschatological banqueting table of Jesus!  A realist-sharing, here and now, an enacting of the gracious heavenly gift of salvation, and the realm of God, as we do every week at the communion table.  “I know that there is nothing better for [those who toil],” says the Teacher, “than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; [for] moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil, [everything they work at and do].  I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him,” says The Teacher.  

 

To eat and drink and take pleasure in all our toil, and work, is easier said than done.  But, it is the only way to do our work that gives meaning, our ‘vocation’ and calling that can begin to reveal a glimpse of salvation.  Here is where the Teacher, the cynic-realist, plants his faith, and plants it firmly.