Readings for Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2019
Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3
All who are dead shall arise on the day of the LORD
Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22
Bless the LORD, you angels, all you hosts of God.
Revelation 12:7-12
Michael defeats Satan in a cosmic battle
Luke 10:17-20
Jesus gives his followers authority over the enemy

Combining Forces, by Pastor Fred
I didn’t know if the story was true or not.  A friend of ours, told Kim and I, some years ago.  But turns out – it is, absolutely true!
 
It happened on March 28, 1990, when first team All American, Stacey King was a rookie with the Chicago Bulls.  King was admired as much for his basketball skills, as for his quick wit and good humor in the locker room.  If Michael Jordan was the leader of the team, Stacey King was the comic relief.  On the hugely talented Bulls team, Stacey was more of a role player, a rebounder and shot blocker.  Typically, he was the 2nd man off the bench, that year, and for the Bulls first 3 of 6 NBA championships that followed, before Stacey was traded to Minnesota.  And after his NBA career ended, he returned to Chicago in 2006 to become a voice of Bulls, and color commentator, a beloved role he occupies to this day.
 
So, of the 1990 game, on March 28, the rookie Stacey King is now famous for understated, and humorous quip: “I’ll always remember that game as the one me and Michael combined for 70 points, to win it in overtime!”  It just so happens that Michael scored a career high 69 points that night, while Stacey had 1 free throw! 
 
Today, we celebrate that 4(3) sisters and brothers in Christ will combine forces with some 70, or so, of us here at Unity, to journey with us and become members.  Whether we score 69 points, or 1 point, we’re all in it together.  It’s what we do together, and how we combine our talents and various skills, as followers of Jesus, that matters! 
 
We’re also, all in it together, with (the other) Michael and All Angels!  Angels have most recently been thought of as guardians, helpers in our personal battles, sometimes even, as someone who has died and come back as an angel to bring good karma to us in our lives, or in our grieving.  Though, when I was younger, they were often depicted as your good and bad conscience, one over each shoulder, battling it out, as a metaphor for the decision you were in turmoil of making, usually something worldly, tempting you, like sweets or alcohol. 
 
Back in the several centuries before Christ, in between the Old and New Testaments, many types of supernatural beings, especially from the near eastern religion of Zoroastrianism, had been influencing Judaism.  What developed at that time in Jewish angelology, was the idea that God had four angelic assistants, holding up the throne of God, and each had distinct jobs: one was Gabriel, who was to announce the end of the world; a second was Michael, who was the conqueror of Satan and protector of Israel; thirdly, Raphael, who healed the sick and protected travelers; and lastly Uriel, who punished evildoers.  Christian story-telling retained the first three archangels, but dropped Uriel.  By the middle ages, many artists depicted the archangel Michael as victorious over the monster Satan.  Identified with warfare, Michael was popular in Christian imagination.  Martin Luther, for one, absolutely lived and breathed it all in. (https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources/2019-9-29/2060#resources)
 
But the Bible is not quite as obsessed with angels!  In the New Testament, Michael is only cited twice, once in the book of Jude, and today, in our 2nd Reading from Revelation.  The whole book of Revelation, of course, is basically the visions of John of Patmos, visions of what is to befall the 7 churches he writes to, warning that, if they are not faithful to the end, even in the face of persecution by Rome, evil would conquer, but in Christ, we are victorious. 
 
Revelation’s vision of the end times, believed that a war would break out in heaven, and Michael and all his angels would fight the dragon, that ancient serpent from the creation story in Genesis, who is called the Devil or Satan – the power of evil.  And the defeated dragon would no longer have a place in the heavens, but by the authority of God’s Messiah, and the blood of the Lamb, he would be cast out.  “Lamb-y,” as Barbara Rossing says, or the risen Christ, is really the conqueror, by the power of cross and resurrection.
 
Being thrown out of the heavenly skies above, of course, meant the dragon would fall to earth, and would, even if for only a short time, cause woe among the believers on earth, by aligning with the 4 Beasts, which mostly represented various forms of Rome or its Emperors. 
 
In our Gospel reading, ‘Jesus sees Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.’  Luke’s account is apocalyptic, a post-resurrection vision, of the power the followers of Jesus are given, as they go out, like ‘the seventy’ did in this story, to create communities of believers.  Jesus gives us authority to stamp out evil, tread on the snakes and scorpions.  The church is given power over the enemy, the deceiver, and ultimately, ‘nothing will hurt you,’ Jesus says to us! 
 
So for us in these in-between-times, after the resurrection and before the eschaton is fully revealed, the point, says Jesus, is not to get all puffed up about knowing the heavenly battle is ultimately won in Christ, but rejoice that your names are written in the book of life!  That is, as we battle the power of the dragon right now – even when it looks gloomy, and we may not be winning most days – God has entered us in the heavenly register of life already.  Right now! 
 
Some days when we lose two strong and beloved members of our congregation, in a matter of a couple of months, God brings us twice as many new members, and we see Satan fall like lightning! 
 
Some days when our elected leaders seem to be betraying us for the umpteenth time, caving in to corporate raiders and enriching the already rich once again, God sends a brave whistleblower revealing a single, crystalizing truth, which convinces even the most timid ones to rise up and plead our case against corruption and dereliction of duty.
 
Some days when the news of terminal illness, or natural disaster strikes, God sends a message of hope, a newly discovered medicine, or a heroic story of rescue that saved those who seemed lost. 
 
Today, we inscribe 4 new names in our Unity book of life.  Four new travelers to rejoice with on our journey toward Jerusalem’s cross and resurrection.  We will take all the help we can get! – for our battles in this life are real.  We face joblessness and a lack of resources in our city, illnesses and a broken health care system, a climate crisis raining down on us, and there is that invisible power, a dragon, that continues to pit us one against another, polarizing us, and isolating us into individual silo’s.  But we are fervent pray-ers and faithful fighters, even in the face of systems that are rigged against us and seem to make us lose in this world. 
 
And Michael and All Angels are our messengers.  They bring good news of a great joy, that in Christ Jesus, a Savior has been born to us, and by the faith of Christ our names are already written in the book of life.  Together – whether we are stars, or role players, whether we score 69 points or 1, or even no points in the game of life – we are in it together, in the Church of Jesus Christ, and here at Unity – where we are one, and unbeatable! 
 
The battles we are in are ultimately spiritual battles – battles for justice and peace, and for a life that really is life, which can only be won non-violently, together.  The dragon who urges polarization, is a house divided against itself, that will ultimately collapse. 
 
Let us rejoice in the victory that is already won!  We have seen Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning!  Let us rejoice in the heavenly dwellings in the age to come, where our names are already written in the book of life. 

Readings for 15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 29, 2019

• Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9  
• 1 Timothy 2:1-7 
• Luke 16:1-13

"Forgive it Now!" Pastor Fred
The Great Recession of 2007 changed the way we live.  Literally, changed what kind of place and where we live.  People in the city and the suburbs lost their homes.  And now we see, there has been a trend away from the long-time goal of becoming a home-owner, and towards renting, becoming an apartment dweller. 
 
And, Millennials are leading the way in this!  Not that I have any experience as a Millennial, but from second-hand knowledge anyway, I’ve learned this!  The biggest boom in rentals, is in the West Loop.  “Three out of four residents of a West Loop ZIP code (60661) are millennials, the highest concentration of millennials in any urban ZIP code in the nation.” (https://www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-real-estate/chicago-zip-code-has-highest-concentration-millennials-us) Though, the largest concentration of Millennials, those born between 1983 and 2000, in Chicago, is in the neighborhood of Lakeview, with over 41,000. 
 
Millennials live in traditional Chicago apartments – and in new developments.  Some of those new developments include co-living apartments, or units that combine private space with shared space, like sharing a large well-equipped Kitchen, and other common spaces, where you might share your favorite Netflix shows on a shared Video screen, or enjoy a micro-brew around a shared fireplace.
 
 
And this makes sense, it seems to me, considering the social trends brought on by the Great Recession.  Millennials – as Melanie Curtin of Inc.com says – “are more transient, they have a lot of [student] debt, people are moving to cities and want to own less… there's a shift in values toward experience over ownership.” 
 
Some Millennials are also ‘couch hopping,’ or sleeping on friend’s couches, because they don’t have a place of their own, due to lots of things, including that high debt, also high rates of job turnover, or maybe being rejected for one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.  
 
In Jesus parable today, he begins talking about a rich man, and ends up talking about our home in the age to come.  It’s about, dirty dealing money managers and owners, and how we are to live in this hard world, by keeping our eye on the prize of the world, and age to come, Jesus revealed to us. 
 
So, this is a difficult parable to digest.  But The Message translation, a modern paraphrase translation by Pastor and scholar, Eugene Peterson, can help, I think.  Peterson entitles this parable, “The Story of the Crooked Manager,”  
Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’
  “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg…. Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do… then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’
  “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
  “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of oil.’
  “The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here – quick now – write fifty.’
  “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’
  “He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’
  “He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’
  “Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager? And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right – using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” 
 
And yet another translation, of just the last verse, I really like, is from the New Jerusalem Bible: “And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into dwellings [in the age to come].” (for “age to come,” see N.T. Wright, How God Became King, pp. 44-45)
 
Jesus’ parables were meant to shake us up, and to offer a surprise.  To lure us into a common, everyday story, that then flips the script, and leads us into a new understanding of the kingdom and realm of God Jesus was announcing, for the sake of our lives and the world. 
 
The behavior of the Manager, though crooked, is somewhat understandable – isn’t it – in that he’s trying to insure that, even if he loses his job, he’ll have somewhere to land, someone to ‘couch hop’ with.  He does it by leveraging the relationships he has as Manager with those in debt to his Master.  And specifically, by erasing, on the spot, 50% of the debt in one case, and a 20% in another!  We might expect that when the Master finds out about this crooked behavior, even if it is ‘Streetwise,’ he’ll be punished, fired for sure! 
 
And so, as The Message translation makes clear, that’s the surprise!  The Master instead ‘commends’ and ‘praises’ the crooked, unjust Manager, for his streetwise, and shrewd, action. 
 
One way we can make sense of this, is if we see the Manager’s action through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus teaches his Disciples.  Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is unique when it comes to the petition on forgiveness.  It’s the one that prays: “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  That is, as we forgive monetary debts, that were so very common in Jesus’ time, please forgive us our sins. 
 
And what else did the crooked and shrewd Manager do, if not forgive debts!?  He forgave them!  Maybe it wasn’t for altruistic reasons.  Maybe it was for personal gain, and for getting a couch to sleep on, down the line.  But this, according to Jesus, is what delights the Master!  The Master praises his shrewd ingenuity.  And Jesus concludes that that is what we have to do, “be smart in the same way – but” of course, “for what is right” and just!
 
And so, if the Master in the Parable is God, what is God telling us?  We know how in Luke’s gospel, forgiveness is major theme throughout, and finally, even on the cross, Jesus forgives the criminal who is repentant in his last dying moments, and says, ‘today you will be with me in Paradise!’ 
 
The Master in the Parable recognizes forgiveness in the action of his Manager.  It doesn’t matter why the desperate Manager forgives, only, that he forgives.  Forgiveness is a key to right living between neighbors, and the restoration of our relationship with God.  It doesn’t matter if you forgive for noble reasons, or all the wrong reasons.  Jesus says, forgive it all.  Forgive it now.  Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all.  God is the font of forgiveness, and the abundance of grace, that begins to pour out, wherever forgiveness happens. 
 
“And so I tell you this,” said Jesus in conclusion of his Crooked Manager Parable, “use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into dwellings [in the age to come].”
 
What’s your living arrangement, here in the present age, and in the age to come?  How much is it costing to you?  Are you a good steward of it? 
 
The Great Recession, with its lost wealth, changed home ownership for the Millennial generation, who shrewdly and creatively are crafting a new way of renting.  The Crooked Manager, faced with his own lost wealth, found redemption in the wild abandon of forgiving – for when we forgive others we are faithful with the riches God entrusts to us. 
 
Let us learn forgiveness, the key to entering a dwelling in the age to come!  ‘Forgive us our sins,’ O LORD, ‘as we forgive those indebted to us – and that we may be welcomed into homes now, and by God’s grace, in the new age to come!

Readings for 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept 15, 2019

• Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 and Psalm 14 
• 1 Timothy 1:12-17  
• Luke 15:1-10

Dinner with Sinners, by Pastor Fred Kinsey
"Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.] 
And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
 
Jill Levine, in her volume, The Jewish Annotated Notes of the New Testament, says simply of  ‘Jesus eating with the tax collectors and sinners,’ that “it suggests he approves of them.”  He approves of them!  Or as Eugene Peterson says, “he treats them as old friends!” 
 
No wonder they’re coming near to listen to him, and sitting down to have dinner with Jesus.  They were lost, outcast, and now they are found! 
 
Jesus is directing these two parables from our Reading today – not to the tax collectors and sinners – but he’s telling it to the righteous ones who were grumbling about Jesus’ behavior. 
 
‘I know you’d have compassion and go and look for them,’ Jesus tells the righteous ones, ‘if you were to lose even just one out of a hundred sheep.  I know that you’d go search for it diligently until you recovered it!’  Of course, they weren’t Shepherds.  Whether they would, go searching, or not, is hard to tell.  Everyone knew the terrain in Israel for sheep herders was notoriously hilly, full of crags and ravines, trees and bushes.  Lost sheep could easily disappear.  And leaving the 99 behind, might expose all the rest of them to foxes and wolves, and the prospect of losing even more. 
 
But, in this parable, the Shepherd is the allegorical stand-in for God.  And God searches diligently – searches for us, around every bush and ravine, whatever it takes, until we are found.  And ‘when he has found the lost sheep,’ says Luke, ‘the Shepherd lays it on his shoulders and rejoices,’ and gathers all his friends to join in a party of celebration too!  For Jesus, it’s all about the searching God does for us, and then the abandon, and over the top celebrating, for returning what was lost.
 
This image of, laying the sheep on his shoulders, is one of the most frequently found on the walls of the Catacombs that the early Christians drew.  The Icon we use in the Prayer Area is a re-creation of that.  Jesus the Good Shepherd!  Jesus the Shepherd who searches diligently for us until we are found!  Jesus, like the Shepherd-boy Moses, who became the Shepherd who rescued his people Israel, freeing them from slavery in Egypt, and bringing them into the promised land. 
 
God is relentless!  God never wearies of the search for us! 
 
But you know what?!  Sometimes we don’t want to be found!  Sometimes we like where we’re at!  Like the Pharisees and Scribes, who were profiting off the way the system was.  It was working for them.  They were able to define what was righteous, partly just by demonizing who was socially unacceptable and lost.  Which is why they grumbled and weren’t pleased with Jesus ‘turning the tables.’ 
 
So for them, it wasn’t good news really, that “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons” like them, “who need no repentance!”  The same was true for the older brother in the story of the Prodigal son, which is the Reading that comes right after these two parables about the lost sheep and the lost coin.  It’s sometimes called the Parable of the Lost Son, the one the ‘gracious father’ throws a party for.  But the other son, the son who stayed home and did the right thing, the older son, is like the Pharisees and the scribes, and maybe like us too – the ones who are not lost, the ones who have found a worshiping community, who have found love and acceptance.  But instead of grumbling, says Jesus of the older son in the parable, we should come into the Banquet and join the celebration for the one who was lost!
 
But of course, that’s only half the truth too!  If we’ve learned anything here, it’s that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  Or as Martin Luther liked to say, even in our baptism, we are always, saints and sinners at the same time!  We can learn to trust God’s loving grace and forgiveness, but we are not perfect, and are terribly caught up in the structures of sin, like racism and sexism and capitalism, and need to be found, need to be rescued, over and over again!  We need to return to God with all our heart, to turn around and go in a new direction, which is literally what repentance means. 
 
And I think we can even dig a little deeper into our hearts, yet!  So, I’ll speak for myself.  I know I didn’t want to be found for a long time.  I thought ‘I’ had to find myself, that it was all up to me, that I had to do this good-work, when all the while I was really just pushing God away from finding me!  Probably because I wasn’t sure I was ready for what God was calling me to do.  And for me, I wasn’t confident I had the right skills for ordained ministry.  And when my pastor told me I did, it filled me with both gratitude, but also with trepidation!  How could I be worthy?!  ‘I’m just a boy,’ as the prophet Jeremiah said.  I was filled with doubts, and didn’t know how to let myself be found, even though it’s all I could think about! 
 
But God desires to find the lost, and never wearies of the search to bring them into the fold.  No one is worthy on their own.  But in the community of faith, we experience how God makes us worthy.  We’re all sinners and saints together.  We all feel unworthy and not totally up to the job, until we’re supported and accepted in faithfulness, together.  This ambivalence, is actually a healthy feeling, as opposed to a Messiah, or dictator-like, complex! 
 
But this both/and, sinner & saint, can be even more complicated in the real world, as I’m sure you probably know.  This week for example, I glimpsed it in the story of a 16 year old from Sweden.  You may have heard of her, Greta Thunberg, who’s tenaciously pushing us to ‘do something’ about the climate crisis!  She’s been visiting the United States the last couple of weeks.  And some people clearly don’t like her and what she’s been up to.  In fact, Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party of Canada, who knows Greta has autism, never-the-less Tweeted that she’s “clearly mentally unstable, and a pawn of the climate movement.” 
 
After a major backlash on behalf of her supporters, Mr. Bernier has apologized – well, sort of!  But Greta is actually one of the most clear-thinking among us – and no one’s pawn – and her autism, as she says herself, has actually enhanced her tremendous rise to leadership in this movement. 
 
It was at age 15 that she decided to stop doing the one thing all kids are supposed to do to fulfill their righteousness: go to school. Every Friday, she skipped classes to stand outside Sweden’s Parliament with her handmade sign that said simply: “School Strike For the Climate.”
 
She left the ranks of the “righteous,” as Jesus called it, and became a target, an outcast, one of the lost sinners.  But to Thunberg, the question was, “Why should we be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future?” 
 
Who needs the repenting, the turning around more, I wonder?  Greta, who skipped school?  Or us, who even if we are afraid of climate change and how fast it’s coming, continue on with our lives – maybe even doing good, and responsible, and righteous things – but without acting on our imperiled future? 
 
Karoline Lewis says: “These [2 parables of Jesus] elicit rather interesting adjectives [for] God, perhaps ones we do not use as often as we should – [God is] relentless, stubborn, insistent, tireless. After all, some of us would rather stay hidden, even wish to be lost or left alone, if not forever, at least for the time being, at least longer than a short-term stint.  A kind of ‘lost-ness’ that is even a mode of self-protection. ‘Just leave me alone. Let me be. I’m fine.’”
 
But Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has been bringing the lost into the fold for a long time now.  God does not let us wander alone, un-counted!  God finds us and enlivens us, again and again!  God won’t let our self-doubt and ambivalence undo us! 
 
Jesus the Good Shepherd, lifts us up and carries us on his shoulders – brings us in to the banquet of celebration – where all the ‘lost and found’ are rejoicing together.  Only God can make us righteous.  Let us, once we are found, become searchers too, and bring everyone into the never-ending Banqueting Table of the Lord!

Readings for Pentecost 12C, September 1, 2019

• Jeremiah 2:4-13 and Psalm 112 
• Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16  
• Luke 14:1, 7-14

Spicy Banquet, Pastor Fred
Jesus is an itinerant wandering preacher!  A prophet with nowhere to lay his head!  And always at odds with his nation’s leaders!  So what is Jesus doing, dining at the house of Israel’s upper-class elite leadership?!  But this isn’t the first, nor the last time he sits down to dine with them.  It’s complicated!
 
The Pharisees were actually a diversified sect in Jesus’ day, including many working class folks, as well as a few well-off leaders, like the one who threw the invitation-only Banquet in our Gospel Reading.  But Jesus was a leader with a reputation too.  He may not have had the same wardrobe of fine linens, but the Leaders of the Pharisees were interested, and in dialog with, what learned people like Jesus had to say.  And the skirmishes that Jesus had with them in the Gospel of Luke, shows how they thought about many of the same things.  But it just wasn’t true that all Pharisees, espoused the principles, Jesus was criticizing.  Nicodemus comes to mind!
 
And Jesus, no doubt, had an interest in debating with them too, most obviously, so he could invite them into the kingdom and realm of God, as he envisioned it, knowing that the Spirit of God rested on him, and these debates were not just prosaic exercises, but had consequences.
 
This is now the 3rd time Jesus was invited to a banquet along the way, on this, his momentous and final road to Jerusalem, and he must have caused quite a stir!
 
How about you, have you ever been invited to a banquet of upper-class socialites? 
 
The closest I’ve come, has been, ever since my dad left some money in his Will to the Lutheran Seminary in Hyde Park, and Kim and I have been invited to the donor’s banquet. It usually takes place at the exclusive, ornate Quadrangle Club, of the Univ. of Chicago, just a few blocks away, when the Board of Directors are in town, some of whom are million dollar givers.  But most are more like us, or, somewhere in between. 
 
First there’s the cocktail hour, with fancy hor’s devours coming by on trays every few minutes, delivered by a well-dressed wait staff.  The guests, of course, are dressed in their finest dresses and suits, and theoretically, you can rub shoulders with the elite.  But Kim and I mainly talk with the professors we know, who, coincidentally, or maybe not, happen to inhabit the same financial world we do! 
 
Then comes the dinner!  There are a few tables up front reserved for the honorees, some Board members, and speakers, like the President of the seminary.  But no one, as far as I know, has ever asked them ‘to move down’ and take ‘a lower place!’ 
 
Today, we don’t live in an ‘honor/shame culture’ like Jesus and the disciples did.  To be asked to be lowered from the best, to the worst seat, was pretty much the end of your life and status in ancient Israel – you would be shamed and cast out of your upper social standing, which had major consequences. 
 
That’s not exactly how it works for us.  There are other rules we have.  Being disloyal to your family, or your boss, for example, can bring shades of retribution.  The corporate world can be especially nasty.  The bigger and richer the company, the deeper the control from the top down, that’s possible.  Government, by our democratic rules, works different, or is supposed to, at least.  Hierarchy has mostly been regulated out.  The standard for elected leaders is supposed to be measured against how they serve us, their loyalty is to the voters and to the people.  Which is why, being a successful business man in the corporate world, does not always mean you’ll be a good executive leader in elected office!
 
What’s more notable for us in our gospel, I think, is Jesus’ instructions to the leader, the top dog, who threw the banquet.  It came, just after his admonition, ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’ 
 
And ‘Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”’  Luke insisted that the lowly – like Mary the mother of Jesus, or any number of those he heals – would be lifted up, and the rich sent away empty, a strong and recurrent theme in Luke’s gospel. 
 
In religious circles, we try to put this into practice, in any number, and variety of ways.  We give to Care for Real, for example, while some churches host meals that the poor can freely attend.  We give to Lutheran World Relief and UNICEF, to those victimized by hurricane, earthquake, and flood.  We canvass, and work for better housing for people with low incomes, and assemble hygiene kits for people experiencing homelessness.  We greet refugees at the airport, or immigrants fleeing violence and poverty, and we befriend them and provide them housing, and there are probably hundreds of other ways. 
 
Perhaps it’s the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews that has been our teacher, for 2 millennia now, “Let mutual love continue,” they said.  “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it (Sarah and Abraham).  Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. ….. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” 
 
So the kind of church, country, and world we want to live in, is up to us!  We could invite just our friends to our banquets.  We could invite neighbors like us, hoping they might invite us in return – as Jesus said.  Or, we can invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, immigrants and refugees, those who cannot repay us.  For then we are honored in the kingdom of God! 
 
What kind of a country and world will we have, if we reject those immigrants at our doorstep fleeing violence, who are poor and in need of health care?  Who will we be, if we turn them away?  What kind of country and world are we making by insisting on fencing them out?  Who are we fooling, when people of color are targeted, and then out of ‘the other side of our mouth,’ the rich northern-most European countries are praised?  What kind of people will we be, if, as the Trump White House wants to do, we implement caging families without due process, for as long as we want? 
 
And then, who will they come for next? 
 
The prophet Jeremiah had words for such as these:
7I brought you into a plentiful land (O house of Jacob)
  to eat its fruits and its good things.
 But when you entered you defiled my land,
  and made my heritage an abomination…
12Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
  be shocked, be utterly desolate,
 says the LORD,
 
We too, have lived off the fruits of this rich land, sometimes living in peace and harmony with its inhabitants, sometimes using people as cheap and free labor.  Sometimes we’ve done well, welcoming the ‘tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless and tempest-tost,’ but sometimes we’ve sent boat loads of refuge seekers, back to their executioners. 
 
Who will we be?  Are we able to have an honest conversation together, rich and poor, proud and prophet? 
 
Isn’t this why Jesus accepts the invitation to the banquet of the rich leader?  So he can sit down with them, even though he knows there is yet a truth he must tell, a counter invitation he must offer to the outcast, they may not want to hear?  It’s complicated – but Jesus leads the way through all difficulties.
 
When Jesus arrived at the registration table at the house of the elite leader, on the road to his cross and resurrection, and put on his name-tag, to eat with them on the Sabbath, Luke says ‘they were watching him closely.’  And they knew, their table conversation would be spicy! 
 
The banqueting table of the Lord includes, not just the elite conversation partners of society, who can repay you, but everyone is invited to the Feast of Thanksgiving around God’s Table! 
 
Go and do likewise!  Invite the poor, ‘the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless and tempest-tost,’ and then, the kingdom and realm of God, has already begun to dawn amongst us. 
 
“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Readings for 9th Sunday after Pentecost, August 11, 2019

• Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 and Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23  
• Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16  
• Luke 12:32-40

"Tugging Urgency," Pastor Fred
[Jesus said:] “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 
 
And again, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 
 
And finally, “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
 
One of the things that tugged at me, calling me to become a pastor, was this feeling of urgency in Jesus’ message.  It captured me, and wouldn’t let me go.  A sense that it was so real, and a grasp that just wouldn’t leave me alone.  Do you ever feel that?
 
God wants ‘to give us the kingdom.’  ‘Sell your possessions and give alms… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’  Hearing and taking those kinds of passages seriously, my parents barely had to tell me to be good!  I was dressed and ready for action.  My lamp was lit!  If Jesus was coming, I wanted to be ready. 
 
Why would I want to join in throwing water balloons off the bridge at the end of my block, when I was 12 years old – at the urging of my next door neighbor – to hit the cars passing underneath!?  I felt no urge, really, to participate in that.  But, full disclosure, I did stand by and watch him do it!  And when his aim was true, I ran just as fast, when the driver slammed on his brakes and came running up the embankment after us! 
 
In those days, going to church, praying the prayers, talking with my Sunday School teachers, and hearing the sermon, kept me connected to the urgency of the Gospel.  What if it was true?  What if we still need to have our lamps lit in waiting for the Bridegroom to enter and come into the banquet?  Have you felt this feeling? 
 
I had to find out if it was true!  What did it mean that Mary, the mother of Jesus, sang the Magnificat in response to her acceptance of bearing the Son of God?  Crooning that, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.”  Did that have anything to do with what Jesus says in Luke’s gospel today, addressed to his well off congregation?  “Sell your possessions, and give alms… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?”  Did Mary feel the urgency?
 
Isn’t it also like the little parable that comes next, the same kind of reversal of rich and poor, when Jesus says, “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes” – comes back and enters the wedding banquet – “truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.”  What? The master will serve the servants?!  That’s a crazy reversal, that wouldn’t have ever happened in Jesus’ time, except that, Jesus himself did it! 
 
But what if it’s true in the kingdom and realm of God?  Is that what Jesus is saying?  What does that mean today?  I couldn’t, and still can’t let go of this urgency, this imperative. 
 
What if the real life we’re supposed to be living is not this one we drudge through every day(?) – going to jobs where people have only feigned respect for us, and who we really are – who are mostly trying to leverage more and more work out of us, so that they too(!) can keep their jobs and impress their bosses.  What if instead of that oppressive, never ending wheel of transactional, transient living, there is ‘a life that really is life,’ a meaning and joy that can fulfill us? 
 
I mean, stop me if this sounds crazy?  Does this sound crazy? 
 
I know too, that being called to be a pastor, and all the studying and seminary training, is not the same level of urgency for everyone.  But the urgency of the gospel message is not aimed at pastors, but at everyone who hears the Word of God.  We all have different gifts to bring, but the same God is urgently calling us. 
 
The disciples who gave up everything to follow Jesus, are never-the-less portrayed in the gospels as being mostly clueless.  And it’s not until Luke’s 2nd Book, The Acts of the Apostles, that the Disciples finally understand the urgency of the kingdom, beginning on the Day of Pentecost.  And Peter preaches, speaking for them all, because they finally all envision the Kingdom, as Jesus implored them.  They “get it,” that God, in raising up Jesus – who is the Anointed one, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, the sacrificial lamb, and Son of God – had indeed turned the tables, and declared that the lowly are lifted up, and the powerful need not lord it over them – and us! 
 
This is what is so urgent, and calls us all.  The Spirit is available to everyone.  And it lives in community wherever Christians gather, and live out the promise. 
 
But the church has too often been tempted to give up on its mission.  Over time, we thought that, either Jesus, or the early church, failed in bringing in the new age of the kingdom.  The urgency we read about in the gospels was thought to mean that it would all happen right away, at least within their lifetimes.  And obviously it didn’t, not fully. 
 
So, more recently, it was reinterpreted to mean, that the urgency of the moment was personal, each of us comes to our individual moment of decision, or insight.  Faith perhaps, is personal, and at the 2nd Coming each of us will be judged on our own merits.  And yet, this individualism of faith, doesn’t track at all with the kingdom and realm of God that Jesus described – which was always communal and for the life of the world. 
 
But a new generation of teachers, led notably by Bishop N. T. Wright, have been teaching a 3rd way, one that actually combines the two.  Jesus, he says, was talking about the sudden and urgent arrival of the kingdom and realm of God, which collectively was being newly born, out of his own ‘death and resurrection,’ as God’s Messiah.  And Jesus’ mission was to inaugurate a new age of peace with justice, a reversal of the ways of this world, that always settle our differences by violence and war, feeding the sin and corruption of the rich few oppressing the poor.  As Jesus told his Disciples when they reached Jerusalem in 19th chapter of Luke, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes.” 
 
The disciples weren’t ready to see and understand just yet – no one was – that the urgency of the about-to-happen “visitation from God,” the reversal of the cross by the victory of Easter morning’s empty tomb, was the true way of life and peace.  It is the ultimate metaphor and parable, grouinded in the historical structures of our created life together. 
 
But 2,000 years later, how often has this pattern repeated itself, of war and oppression, that even the people of God don’t have the eyes to see the ways of the Prince of Peace?!  How many more times before we are able to see and envision the Lord of Life, in a life of sacrifice, justice, and peace? 
 
In the 2nd and final little parable Jesus tells in our reading today, he says, “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
 
So, the final reversal, is that Jesus in the thief!  And we, all of us, are living in the owner’s house in the old kingdom, tied to a life of protecting our possessions and trying to keep the thief – Jesus! – out! 
 
But that’s alright, we also live all these years and centuries later, and the accumulated power of the Spirit continues to work on us.  “You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  The urgency is all around.  Our life of faith is the preparation.  Our life together in the Spirit, is our hope and expectation – that Jesus, the crucified and victorious Lamb of God has already conquered the Kingdom of this world, and is coming. 
 
He has already flipped the script, and turned the tables, through his ‘death and resurrection.’  We live in the kingdom and realm of God already!  Let us rejoice, “little flock,” in this comfort and relief!  For our hearts are living there, and here – in the treasure-store of heaven!  

Readings for 8th Sunday after Pentecost, August 4, 2019

• Hosea 11:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-9, 43  
• Colossians 3:1-11  
• Luke 12:13-21

Buying God, Pastor Fred sermon
How much does God cost?  Do you have enough stored up to buy God? 
 
Hopefully, that sounds preposterous to you!  Maybe even blasphemous! 
 
As good Lutherans – and, we most certainly are! – we know, that God’s Grace is a free gift.  Or as Luke says a few verses after our Reading today, “don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” 
 
God wants to give us the realm and kingdom of God, for free!  At no cost!  Is there anything else of value, that we get for free?  When so many struggle to put food on the table for their families, how is it that the life of God, ‘the life that is life,’ comes gratis, no strings attached?  When the 3 richest individuals in America have more wealth than the bottom half of all Americans, it’s important to ask how our money is connected with our lives of faith, in our everyday life?  How is it, that the most important thing – our life in Christ – is gifted to us by God, and our life in relationship with the world and our neighbors, can be so costly? 
 
Jesus told the crowds, “Take care!  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  What ‘Life’ is, is definitely key here!  Then he told them a parable about a man with many possessions, barns of stuff saved up, that he would never be able to use! 
 
“The land of a rich man produced abundantly,” begins Jesus!  This is the American Dream!  40 acres and a mule! Win the Lottery!  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!  Except, when has there ever been a boon for one person, that didn’t negatively affect another, to put it nicely?  40 acres and a mule was created from the theft of Native American land.  Just as the commercial and financial success of America was built on the labor of West Africans brought to this country against their will, to become an enslaved unpaid work force, that still affects us as neighbors, today. 
 
And today, the rich are in control more than ever.  Not because they work harder than the rest of us, but mostly by how the system of state and federal laws are crafted to protect and benefit them.  The modern myth of American neoliberalism that has invaded all sides of Washington in the past couple generations, claims that our economy works best, when taxes are slashed, and government is shrunk.  And it has worked gloriously well, for the already privileged and moneyed classes!   
 
I don’t know how many times this past decade I’ve chanted, “banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”  Whatever chant or curse word you’ve been using – this “greed,” as Jesus called it, doesn’t just benefit the rich, but it comes out of our pockets – and not just in dollars, but at a cost in lives.  Those who have, can get more, and build bigger barns.  But it’s always at the expense of those who have less, or the environment – or both.  And the toll is spiritual as well as material.  Greed knows no bounds.  It is the opposite of the ‘life’ that Jesus came to offer us.  The life that Jesus came to offer us, is a life of abundance, not in possessions, but in love and grace, peace and unity.  And for free! 
 
So, a contemporary, more familiar parable, might be about a man, who lived in the biggest city of the land, who owned property at a young age.  Not that he pulled himself up by the bootstraps, which is a myth anyway.  The money he had, was given to him by his (rich) father.  He tore down perfectly good buildings to build bigger ones.  When his deals fell through – because he kept trying to make Glittery Towers and Casino’s, that were monuments to his own name – his father bailed him out with more inheritance money.  When he created a business college, without any teachers(!), and the students demanded their money back, he sued them, until they couldn’t afford their lawyers any longer.
 
And soon, he began to feel like he could do nothing wrong.  And that if you weren’t rich like him, you deserved just what struggling poor or working class station you had.  He dined at the finest restaurants, relaxed and was merry with the most beautiful people – and laughed that he could take whatever he liked.  He listened to know one, and often talked about himself in the 3rd person.  “I said to myself, you have everything a man could want. You’ve done so well.  Take it easy and have the time of your life!
 
Which is just how the rich man in the parable spoke.  According to Jesus, he said, “I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 
 
The rich have no need of others.  They are their own best consultant’s.  Their decisions are final.  What they do cannot be criticized. 
 
Jesus calls this ‘storing up treasures for yourselves, instead of being rich toward God.’  The rich don’t need God’s treasures, or are perhaps blinded by the pleasures of this world.  They don’t need to seek God’s counsel.  They are their own best confidant.  Jesus paints a picture of their loneliness, vanity, and narcissism. 
 
If I’m sounding like I’m about to get vindictive, please, let me know, I beg your good counsel! 
 
We know what Jesus says – he says, don’t make me a judge over your money decisions.  And, ‘Take care’ to live rich toward God. 
 
And to the rich man in his parable, he says, ‘You fool!’  Because, as he was making his decision to increase his possessions, without any input from his family or friends, without sharing a whit with those in need around him, Jesus tells us, the rich man died that night.  His desire to get richer at the expense of everyone else, was ended.  So Jesus asks the crowds, and us, what about the ‘abundance of possessions’ the rich man had?  Whose will they be?
 
All his possessions did him no good with God!  Maybe he knew that he couldn’t ‘buy God.’  But for some reason, he had no idea of the priceless nature of God’s kingdom and realm either!  “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” 
 
The rich man, of course, couldn’t ever have enough stored up to buy God, even if he wanted to!  God’s grace is a free gift!
 
Our lives lived ‘towards God,’ do consist of something – not possessions, but this ‘living towards God,’ points to a relationship.  We build our relationship with God on our gifts of faith, hope and love.  And we do this with the tools of worship and prayer, by love of neighbor, and love of justice. 
 
“Whenever you give a cup of water to one of the least of these, you do it to me,” said Jesus.  Our relationships with our neighbors, is the working out, of our relationship with God.  ‘You cannot serve God and money,’ Jesus said elsewhere!  The ‘life that is life,’ the realm of God, is not compatible with a life of greed. 
 
Jesus taught us to pray that the ‘kingdom of heaven’ would come and fill this kingdom on earth where we live right now.
 
We cannot ‘buy God.’  It’s foolish to think we can even, ‘gain our own life.’  We are not our own best counselor – for that’s the job of the Holy Spirit!  Abundant life, the life of the kingdom and realm of God, is a life lived richly toward God, and a life that lifts up our neighbor’s welfare and life, just as much as our own. 
 
We pray, ‘give us this day our daily bread’ – and keep us from the ‘greed’ of building up bigger and bigger barns.  Let us live rich toward God!  

Readings for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, July 28, 2019

• Hosea 1:2-10 and Psalm 85  
• Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)  
• Luke 11:1-13

"How Do You Pray, by Pastor Fred
How do you pray?  What God, do you pray to? 
 
My mother told me more than once that she wished I could have met my grandfather, her father, because, she told me, he was such an amazing person.  He started the Boston Human Society for the Cruelty of Animals.  He also taught, and was the Superintendent of the Sunday School, at the same church in Milwaukee I later was Confirmed at.  Unfortunately, he died suddenly, when my mom was in college, years before I was born. 
 
Once when she was telling me this same story about how she wished I could have known my grandfather, she also offered up this.  Every night before bed, he got down on his knees to pray.  It was obviously an image that moved her deeply. 
 
I have read that Alexander Hamilton, and other Founding Fathers and Mothers, also got down on their knees to pray.  Perhaps it was a tradition that lasted many generations.  I don’t know of anyone who still does, but we all know it as a form of piety and faith, that shows respect to God. 
 
In the Gospels, people often fall down at Jesus’ feet, for example, when they ask to be healed, showing a posture of prayerful worship. 
 
How do you pray? 
 
It is testimony to how far we have come, I suppose, that we now allow for prayer to be, in some sense, our own faithful actions that we do out of lovingkindness, and for justice in the world.  Helping the homeless, or protesting the lack of clean water, are often considered enacted prayers, through our doing. 
 
Yet, when the Disciples see Jesus in prayer, ‘in a certain place,’ Luke doesn’t tell us what posture his prayer takes.  They wait nicely until he had finished, before they ask Jesus to teach them to pray.  After all, it dawns on them, John the Baptist taught his disciples!  So, what’s our prayer going to be?!  How and what, will their prayer be, as followers of Jesus?
 
Apparently Jesus is ready, at the drop of this hat, to instruct them.  He doesn’t say to fall down at his feet.  But he does begin by addressing who he wants his Disciples to pray to, that is, to “Abba!”  Or, in our translation, “Father.”  ‘Abba’ is the Aramaic word for father, or perhaps closer to, ‘daddy.’  The Apostle Paul uses ‘Abba’ in his letters to the Galatians, and the Roman churches, both times in the context of prayer, as well.  So it seems to have been a Jesus-tradition, that stuck! 
 
We pray to God, who is like a familiar, and good parent, to us – our motherly father.  But at the same time, we pray to the holy one, the one who is our creator God, the name above all names – “hallowed be your name.” 
 
And finally, we ask for God’s kingdom to come.  In Luke’s version of Jesus’ prayer, it is just that simple – “Abba, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.”  In this third petition, there is a gap between this kingdom we live in, and God’s kingdom, and so the prayer Jesus teaches us, sets our minds on the peace and justice we all desire, and the mission God calls us to, to enact it.
 
How do we pray?  We pray with both familiarity, and deep reverence, to our God.  Jesus didn’t tell us what posture of prayer to take.  Luke doesn’t presume to either.  When ‘Jesus was praying in a certain place,’ – Was he on his knees? Standing with arms outstretched? Or leading people in a march that God’s kingdom come!? 
 
The main thing is having, the confidence and humility, the courage and the faith, to acknowledge that God is, almighty, and at hand, and God is ruler of the realm and kingdom we pray for. 
 
In the crazy parable that follows, Jesus emphasizes the shameless way the man acts, in assuming his request for bread in the middle of the night, will be answered!  “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’ The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked, my children are all down for the night; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ But let me tell you,” says Jesus, “even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, at least because of his [shamelessness] he will get up and get you whatever you need.” 
 
It takes a courageous faith in God to be asking, like this, and it presumes that God is in a close and familiar relationship with us, the petitioners. 
 
So, if that’s how we pray, what is the God that we pray to? 
 
Can we simply ask anything and we’ll receive it?  Knock on any door we like, and it will be opened to us?  If we pray hard enough, will God make us rich?  Will our cancer magically disappear?  Will our enemies be vanquished by morning?  What about the gift of free will?
 
The 2nd half of the Lord’s Prayer turns from naming God, to naming what our needs are.  Just three things: 1) “Give us each day our daily bread.”  Again, in faith, we boldly ask each day that we have enough to eat.  “We,” not just “me,” shaping the way we value food, knowing that in this world, it is said that we have enough food to feed everyone on the planet – but because of the inequity of distribution, most of the world is malnourished or even starving.  ‘Daily bread’ is a huge, and continuing concern, both practically and spiritually, that we pray for. 
 
Secondly, “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  You can’t have one without the other, Jesus tells us.  It is not transactional, or quid pro quo, but ‘forgiving and being forgiven’ is one, unified, mystical journey we undertake every day, as we seek God’s kingdom to come.   
 
Jesus asks us, to pray for the food that sustains everyone everyday, and for a discipline of forgiveness – because that’s the kind of God, God is.  These are the things that bring the kingdom of God closer – and the spiritual practices, that give us the freedom to be God’s children, in the image of God.  Prayers for our own personal enrichment at the expense of others – sometimes known as The Prayer of Jabez – do not fit into the coming kingdom of God, but instead can only lead us into “the time of trial,” that we pray to be delivered from.
 
This weekend is the 100th Anniversary of the so-called, Chicago “Race-Riots” of 1919, when after a very hot week in July that summer, some white men brutally killed a black teenager while swimming off a Lake Michigan beach, only because he crossed some unwritten line of segregation.  Tensions were high amongst the fearful white communities, and oppressed communities of color, 100 years ago.  And when Police were called in – who didn’t arrest the killers, but instead arrested some from the, understandably outraged African American community – all hell broke loose!   I’m starting to wonder how far we’ve come, since then?!
 
No doubt many of those white folk were raised in Christian homes, and perhaps still identified that way, maybe even went to church.  But, what kind of God did they pray to?!  Was it the God who is our holy other, the God who at the same time is our Abba, our good and benevolent parent?  God does not divide us up against each other, or elevate one people over another! 
 
And so finally, let’s let the words of the great theologian, The Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, who was both a Mystic, and served as spiritual advisor to Dr. King, and others in the movement, wash over us:
 
“The human spirit has two fundamental demands that must be met relative to God,” wrote Pastor Thurman. “First, [God] must be vast, limitless, transcendent, all-comprehensive, so that there is no thing that is outside the wide reaches of His apprehension. The second demand is that [God] be personal and intimate. [We] must have a sense of being cared for, of not being alone and stranded in the universe...” he said.
 
This, is the God we pray to, in the Lord’s Prayer, which then shapes us into the children of God.  Lord, teach us to pray.  That we may hallow your name, and live our lives for your kingdom, which is coming with love and justice for all.  

Readings for 4th Sunday after Pentecost, July 7, 2019

• 2 Kings 5:1-14 and Psalm 30  
• Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16  
• Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Servants Serve, Pastor Fred sermon
I was in my late teens when I discovered Bob Dylan, who fast became one of my musical and cultural hero’s.  He’s had a wide and eclectic career, changing his styles, bands and persona numerous times.  But one of the least anticipated changes, was his late 1970’s turn to Evangelical Christianity.  He had never really said much, or explored his own Jewish heritage, so for his followers, Bob, being Born Again, was a shocker. 
 
The hit on his 1st of 3 Christian albums was, ‘Gotta Serve Somebody.’  And many of his fans just couldn’t swallow the kind of religious obedience he seemed to be singing about:
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody
 
We all serve somebody – though most Americans don’t like to admit it.  Do you know who you serve?
 
In our 1st Reading, Naaman, the Commander of the entire Syrian forces, is ‘highly esteemed,’ a heavy weight champion of the world.  His only flaw is that he has a skin blanch disease.  Not leprosy exactly, but one of the many skin diseases listed as ‘unclean’ that ostracized you from the community.  Naaman, because of his high status, was seemingly able to have retained his command.  But none-the-less, he didn’t escape feeling stigmatized. 
 
And as a Commander, God gave him victory over Israel, 1st Kings tells us, though Naaman doesn’t know it was the God of Israel who enabled it. 
 
And in that victory, as routinely happend, in war, Naaman’s forces captured many Israeli’s, and they were pressed into service as slaves.  One of the ‘young Israeli girls’ was assigned to Naaman’s house, and one day, she sort of casually remarks to Naaman’s wife that, wouldn’t it be wonderful if my Master – that is, Naaman – might make a little visit to the Prophet in Israel across the border, because I’m sure he could cure the disease of his skin blanch. 
 
Well, apparently his wife tells Naaman at dinner that very night, because the next thing you know, Naaman is off to his master, the king, to share the good news.  And the king of Syria was all for it, even writing a personal letter of recommendation, to the King of Israel, for Naaman to take with him.  And just for good measure, Naaman takes a big bundle of silver and gold as gifts, as well as 10 suits of fine tailored clothes! 
 
Okay, so far, we know – Naaman is a highly regarded Commander.  And the only one he serves is the king.  But the subversive, underlying truth is, without his servant girl, the young Jewish woman, Naaman wouldn’t have been going on this journey at all, in hopes of healing his unclean status! 
 
So, once in Israel, Naaman delivers the King of Syria’s letter to the King of Israel, which was an extra, and nearly disastrous step, in the process, that the servant girl certainly hadn’t recommended.  For the king of Syria – who serves, and is accountable to no one – has completely misread the situation.  He wrote, “When you get this letter, you’ll know that I’ve personally sent my servant Naaman to you – Heal him of his skin disease!”  But the king of Israel is not the healer!  And he interprets the letter as a trap, a military threat.  After all, there is Naaman the Commander in his chariot, at his doorstep, who had just recently conquered them! Has he come to break the truce and ravage them again?! 
 
The king of Israel is so upset he rends his garments, tears his robe in half, a sign of public grief, that would spread quickly.  And thank goodness, Elisha is among those who get the message! 
 
‘Don’t be upset, send Naaman to me,’ says the healer!  ‘I’ll show him there’s a prophet in Israel!’  And you can just imagine the servant girl back in Syria beginning to smile!
 
So Naaman takes his fancy chariot, and all his gifts, and heads up to see Elisha.  But when he arrives at his gate, Elisha isn’t there.  He had sent out one of his servants to deliver his message, to simply go and dip 7 times, in the barely running, trick-ly Jordan River.  Your skin will be healed and you’ll be as good as new,” the messenger said, on behalf of Elisha.
 
But for the highly decorated Commander, this is a slap in the face.  He expects Elisha to greet him in person, and to perform the miracle for him, by waving his hand over the place of the skin blanch.  Naaman expects to be served, and is incensed that he should be asked to bathe in the puny little Jordan, when he could just as easily had stayed home and immersed himself in the far finer, and much more mighty rivers, of Syria. 
 
Once again, it takes a servant, or two, to keep the healing of Naaman on track!  He is actually stomping off in a tantrum, and his servants have to run to catch him.  But they are able to reason with him, that if the Prophet Elisha had asked him to do something much more difficult, more impressive, he would have done it, right?!  So why not do this relatively simple thing, give it a try?  If it doesn’t work, you can keep going on your way back home.  But maybe it will, and then you’ll be healed! 
 
And miraculously, Naaman goes down to the Jordan, washes 7 times, and is made clean.  And his skin is restored, it says, like ‘the flesh of a young lad,’ which is a phrase in Hebrew that closely echo’s the description of, ‘the young servant girl,’ who got this whole mission started!  There is now a kinship between them.
 
And it’s a sign, that signals a switch that goes off in Naaman.  He changes, from prideful Commander, to a much more humble servant.  If you read the rest of the chapter, you’d find out that Naaman goes back to Elisha.  This time walking right up to his house, and stands before him now in a respectful way.  And like the 1 out of 10 Lepers who is thankful, in Jesus’ parable, Naaman expresses his heartfelt thanks, and now pledges his faith and obedience, to the one God of Israel. 
 
And it seems truly appropriate now, that he should humbly offer his gifts of silver, gold, and fine linens, in thanksgiving.  But Elisha is not transactional about his gift of healing.  He won’t, and can’t, accept gifts of value, of this world.  That’s not how the Grace of God works! 
 
God’s love and grace are a free gift.  Your life is a gift.  Your health is a gift.  Making things whole and well, is what God is all about. 
 
We can serve that.  But we can’t buy it.  We can become servants of the one God, which means loving-sacrifice will be involved, for it means we can no longer lord it over others.  We cannot be masters of others, or retain a special privilege at the expense of others, if we are servants, servants of the God of all creation. 
 
“Your gunna have to serve somebody!  You may be the heavyweight champion of the world, You may be Naaman, or a socialite with a long string of pearls, But you're gonna have to serve somebody.” 
 
And it’s the servants, in the story of Naaman, who model the life of faith –
and, well – a life of service, for us!  Who do we serve? 
 
For when we are obedient in service to our LORD, we honor and respect the kingdom and realm of God.  And that makes us equals and respectful of one another in the realm of God that begins right now.  A life of service is not a humiliation, but opens up to us, our true and full humanity, which fulfills our Godly call and mission. 
 
Let’s not pretend we don’t serve somebody, and thereby serve only our short term interests, at the expense of others.  Let’s serve the living, triune God, the creator of heaven and earth, who (in Christ Jesus) has come to save and heal the whole world.  

Readings for Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 30, 2019

• 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 and Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20  
• Galatians 5:1, 13-25  
• Luke 9:51-62

"Marching with Pride," Pastor Kinsey
"When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him.”
 
The last time I went and marched with the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches in the Pride Parade, I barely made it on time!  
 
Rushing there after worship, I set my face to go on the Red Line.  I had no messengers to go ahead of me, but I had advance knowledge, and street coordinates, as to where to join the line-up that would step off at 12noon.  So I pushed my way through the joyous crowds, excitedly anticipating the parade’s start, and just made it before they closed-up the barricades! 
 
I found the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches pick-up truck, with all the Church signs, and I grabbed our Unity Lutheran one before he closed the tailgate.  I greeted our ECT Pastors, Monte, Michael and Emily, Pastors from Broadway United Methodist, the Rabbi from Mishkan Chicago, and all the rest.  And we set our faces forward, stepping off toward our prophetic goal of showing our radical welcome and inclusion of all people.  Forward, was the way into a new future, where no one was ex-cluded.  Where all were made free to live as God had created them! 
 
This year’s ‘Honorary Pride Parade Marshall’ is newly elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot, herself a ‘visible sign’ of this inclusive movement.  Lori is the product of so much hard work over the last 50 years, since Stonewall.  From targeted community of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer, who were beaten and arrested by police in NY in 1969; through the AIDS crisis of the 80’s and 90’s, to greater acceptance and finally Marriage Equality in 2015, astounding progress has been made.  Mayor Lightfoot, who has said, that when she was in her 20’s she was afraid to ‘come out,’ partly because she wasn’t sure her own parents would accept her, is now the first openly lesbian Mayor of Chicago, married to her wife Amy, who have a daughter Vivian (which you couildn’t help but know, if you saw her campaign commercials!). 
 
!No time to look back, though, as transgender communities, and lgbtq people of color, have not yet found the same full inclusion!  The road ahead will no doubt include yet more sacrifice and setbacks, death and resurrection, before all are welcome. 
 
"When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him.”
 
This concerted push to Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel, is the midpoint of the story, and a turning point for the mission of Jesus.  Literally, the phrase means, Jesus ‘hardened his face to go to Jerusalem.’ 
 
The movement Jesus has been building in rural northern Galilee has grown to the point that he has messengers to send ahead of him.  Jesus and the disciples travel within a network of friendship and hospitality.  They often stay and rest with companions like Mary and Martha, or with welcoming relatives like Peter's mother-in-law and Zacchaeus the tax collector.  They rely on a web of relationships, creating caring communities as they march toward Jerusalem.
 
The ‘messengers’ go into lots of towns to check out the lay of the land, but Jesus can’t go to all of them.  And when he bypasses a certain village of Samaritans, the Disciples think he’s deliberately trying to send a message to their age-old cross-town rivals.  For Samaritans only worship in the hill country, at Mt Gerizim, not in Jerusalem. 
 
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they asked Jesus?  It’s not just a rhetorical question!  This is exactly what the prophet Elijah did in 2 Kings chapter 1, when the foreign king refused to recognize Israel’s God as the true God – which was Elijah’s last act before being taken up to heaven by a whirlwind.  Elijah had set his face to pass his mantle on to his protégé, Elisha, before going to God.
 
And this parallel to Elijah’s story is so strong, that some ancient Lukan texts add the phrase, “as Elijah did,” – so the whole verse would be, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them,” – “as Elijah did?” 
 
Luke creates this elaborate parallel, not only to show how Jesus is like Elijah, but also to reveal that Jesus handles Divine Retribution in a totally different way.  Jesus ‘turns toward the Disciples James and John, and rebukes them for this!’  And again, some ancient texts added another verse here, perhaps ‘the best verse Jesus never spoke’ – “you do not know, of what spirit you are, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy souls but to save them.”  (http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper_8c/)
 
So this passage is about the Disciples failure, and their hatefulness.  It can be seen as the failure of any, and all of us, whenever we try to divide the world up into ‘us and them’, ‘who’s in and who’s out.’  As bitter cross-town rivals, the Samaritans were the, “them.”  And James and John embody this failure and hate in their violent attitude. 
 
How often do we depend on the world bending to our desires of eliminating our enemies?!  Do we set our faces toward our own narrow victory, to winning at the expense of others we’ve deemed expendable?  Jesus rebukes that – and continues on toward Jerusalem, preaching love of enemies, and preparing to take on our sin – leaving us a legacy we’re still trying to live up to. 
 
In the Pride Parade line-up, once you get in, you have to keep moving forward!  Lots of people behind you are depending on it!  The Parade keeps moving forward until it reaches its goal, its ‘Jerusalem.’  And you don’t stop, not even ‘to call down fire’ on the anti-gay protestors along the way! 
 
At the conclusion of our Gospel reading, someone along the way to Jerusalem said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”  “Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” 
 
‘Jesus has hardened his face to go to Jerusalem,’ and to be a follower, required an equal commitment.  No looking back!  It sounds harsh, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” but the bookend passages of this Reading are clear.  Setting one’s face toward Jerusalem is the mission – and, don’t look back. 
 
Temptations to abandon this journey will abound.  For us, there is an endless list of things we plan and hope to do before doing the things that God has called us to.  Phone calls to return, friends and relatives to see.  Let me do this and this, and then I will get to that.  Even Jesus prays in his hour of need, ‘let this Cup pass from me.’  (cf. https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2016-06/more-intense-follow-me)
 
But the kingdom of God is ahead.  It isn’t found in sentimental journeys of self-pity and perceived past greatness.  Jesus is going on his Jerusalem journey because ‘the days drew near for him to be taken up,’ as Luke says.  ‘Taken up,’ includes his suffering, his death, his resurrection and ascension.  You can’t have one without the other.
 
We can’t afford to look back or divert our attention from the kingdom, God is calling us to.  Midway on our life journeys’, we begin to realize our time is limited too.  We’re all on journey’s – sometimes under pressure, other times in parades, some of us privileged, others, still excluded from the justice and love of the kingdom of God. 
 
But it’s never too late to follow Jesus, who has ‘hardened his face to go to Jerusalem.’  Let us be ready to join in on that journey, that parade and march, focused on moving forward, toward Christ’s life-giving goal of sacrifice, love and inclusion for all – building communities of faith, today, and always!  

Readings for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 23, 2019

• 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a and Psalm 42 and 43  
• Galatians 3:23-29  
• Luke 8:26-39

"Carrying Demons," Pastor Kinsey
By healing the one man who had demons, Jesus heals the entirety of the city and country of the Gerasenes,.
 
When Jesus arrives there, he doesn’t go to the town doctor or Surgeon General to consult about healing.  He doesn’t go to the local magistrate or to visit the Roman shrines of worship.  Jesus meets the man who has a legion of demons, and immediately ‘commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man.’  It sounds like a chance encounter, but as we listen to the detailed account of the healing, it is revealed how the people of Gerasene all play a part in this man’s condition! 
 
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 
 
If you remember the story just before this, you kind of have to laugh!  Jesus has just come from calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, so that the boat he’s in with the 12 Disciples doesn’t capsize in the wind and raging waves.  And after saving them, what’s the response of the 12?  ‘They were afraid…’ whispering to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” 
 
The Disciples, who have been with Jesus for some time, still aren’t sure who he is!  But, when the man with the demons first meets Jesus, immediately he recognizes Jesus as the Son of God! 
 
So, it is the demons who possess the man who understand how he has power over them.  “What is your name,” Jesus asks the man living in the tombs?  “Legion,” he says; for many demons were possessing him.  In fact, a Roman legion was 5-6,000 soldiers.  And they begged Jesus not to order them to go back to the abyss, where they came from, and would be powerless once again.  And they quickly – and they think cleverly – suggest that Jesus let them go into the large herd of unclean pigs on the hillside nearby, so it would at least preserve them in some material way, to continue to reside in this world.  But perhaps they should have been suspicious when Jesus so easily agrees, and gives the legion of demons permission to do so. 
 
For, what could be more satisfying to the first Jewish-Christian readers of Luke’s story than to hear that the whole herd of un-kosher swine, rushed down the steep bank, off the edge of the cliff, and into the Sea of Galilee, and were drowned!  Though to us Gentiles, that’s just a lot of wasted bacon! 
 
But what’s obvious to all, was that the problem was solved!  A legion of demons is destroyed; the man is de-possessed and healed.  And Jesus has demonstrated his powers as the Son of God.  It’s all good! 
 
But, that’s not the end of the story!  Something more is going on, something beyond, the miracle of healing.  For now there are three groups of Gerasenes, in ever increasing numbers, that come to interact with, and question Jesus.  For them, it’s not over!  These are the people who have consented, and even ordered that the man be bound with chains and shackles, and kept under guard.  And their apple cart has been upset!
 
First, the herders of the swine, who witnessed the exorcism and the stampede of their pigs into the lake – they ran off to tell it everywhere, both in the city and the country.  They are part of the outrage the people have for what Jesus did.
 
Then there was a faction of all those people who heard the news, who raced back to the cemetery, knowing full well who the man was that lived there.  And when they arrived, they saw him, but ‘he was in his right mind,’ as Luke says.  And he was clothed for the first time, since he began carrying all the demons in him. 
 
And their reaction to seeing him like this, gives the biggest clue to understanding this second part of this incredible story.  As they recognize the man now healed and sitting at the feet of Jesus, “they were afraid!”  Shouldn’t they be joyful?  Elated?  Pleased and amazed?  But no!  Feeling something like the 12 Disciples sitting in their boat on the calmed sea, they are afraid. 
 
Then, thirdly, ‘all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes’ show up, and the second group tells them the whole story of how the man who had been possessed by demons had been healed.  And the 3rd group, all the people, ask Jesus to leave them; ‘for they were seized with great fear!’ it says.   
 
For me, it helps to have at least a working knowledge of Family Systems Theory, to understand this reaction of the people.  The recognizable order of their lives had been completely over-turned.  The Gerasenes, one big happy family, was ordered and held together, by agreeing to cast all their inter-personal issues, their failings and unresolved conflicts – that is, their sins – onto the one man living in the cemetery, so that they could go on with their day to day lives.  That’s how the system worked, and kept everything in balance.  Except of course, the life of the one man who had to carry all the anxieties and demons of the Gerasenes.  His life was ruined.  He was the scapegoat that was sacrificed for the rest of the people of the town and country. 
 
So when Jesus comes and heals the one man who had the legion of demons, he released the entirety of the region of the Gerasenes from their bondage.  He had to change the system, in order to do it.  Jesus casts out the unhealthy system, and points them in the direction of the God-given system, or, a new life in Christ. 
 
But, where will the Gerasenes cast their sins now?  Will they choose a new scapegoat, as so many of us are tempted to do? 
 
When the man healed of his demons asks Jesus, to ‘be with him’ – to be one of his followers – Jesus understands why, but he has a different vision for him.  Jesus already has all the followers he needs for his mission to spread the good news.  What he needs the healed man to do is to ‘return to his home, to the Gerasenes, and declare how much God has done for him,’ as Luke says.  Jesus needs him there, in Gentile territory across the Sea of Galilee.  The Christian mission begins with healing relationships, wherever we are, in our home towns.
 
How would you feel if Jesus asked you to do that?  To take responsibility for a life of forgiveness, for yourself, and others?  Might we reply, “What have you to do with me Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  How do we feel when we are tasked with Christ’s message of healing and salvation? 
 
Even for ‘the man from whom the demons had gone,’ it seems at first glance, like a daunting task.  But isn’t this exactly the mission we are on as the baptized people of God?  We are the forgiven ones, who have died and risen with Christ.  Now we are tasked with taking responsibility for our own newly-gifted lives.  We can no longer hold on to the excuses we once harbored, or claim that we are not responsible for our failures and sins.  Though we are sinners – we are now forgiven!  And this is the beginning of the healing of the world.  The beginning of a life of non-retaliation.  The beginning of loving your neighbor as yourself. 
 
‘The man from whom the demons had gone, now in his right mind’ was clearly a new man.  Though not easy, he knew what he had to do.  At home, with the Gerasenes, he had to forgive, even if he couldn’t forget.  He needed to invite those who had demonized him, to live a new life, one that took responsibility for themselves.  He would invite them into the baptized life of Christ, and to love their neighbors – but first to love themselves, the selves that God had given them in their new life of baptism. 
 
Who do we chase our demons onto, that we need to repent of?  Not too long ago it was fashionable to heap them on to those who identified as lgbtq, and before that women and people of color were scapegoated as second class citizens.  Our President is hell-bent on demonizing immigrants and locking them up in detention centers.  Sometimes it’s just the weakest one at the office, or living on our block.  Anyone who can make all the rest of us feel better, and help us get through the day. 
 
But Jesus died that we might be cured of our sinful scapegoating, that we might accept ourselves as we are, and then rise up with him to discover the new life that is a mission of healing and loving – and never ends! 
 
Let us, return to our homes, and declare how much God has done for us. That the entire system we live in, may be healed and made whole.  Amen.