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

 

How shall we market this wonderful good news of Jesus?  What possibly could be the appeal, of following the one who demands so much of us?  Doesn’t Jesus know that you catch more flies with honey, and that good marketing sells! 

 

My nephew, that I married last year, Dylan, and his spouse Brooke, know how persuasive good marketing can be.  They took one of those vacations where you get a good deal on a condo, if you just take the free tour with the Realtor.  It’s all free, just as long as you can say, ‘thanks but no thanks,’ and walk away.  Otherwise, you end up, like they did, signing on for a bunch of time-shares.  All free today, but you’ll pay down the line, and the clock is ticking!  Dylan didn’t know how to say no.  He didn’t sit down and estimate the cost, and so, every time he has to tell a family member or friend about it, he gets that ridiculed feeling, like the fellow who couldn’t finish building his spiraling tower! 

 

In this age of marketability, the watch word is, tell the customer what they want to hear – the truth is somewhat less important!  Ads become slicker, more attractive, and more entertaining all the time.  People, as well as products, are branding themselves, in order to appeal to large crowds.  The new teen sensation, Kady Perry’s brand, is all sugary-sweet.  Manny Ramirez is the dred-locked, sure-fire, power hitter.  Apple, is the innovative leader in all things computerized and downloadable.  You can never get enough of them!  They make you feel good.  They might be swirling in controversy and scandal, but that only makes them hotter.  As a distinctive brand, they’re ready to be plucked from the shelf.  Their message is wrapped up carefully and attractively, and the last thing they want, is to appear too costly, and push you away!

 

But isn’t that exactly what Jesus does?  Finally, as he becomes so popular that “large crowds are traveling with him,” instead of smiling and waving to them, he wheels around, he turns, and says to them, “none of you can become my disciple, just because you like me, or think I’m the new feel-good sensation!  You can only be my follower if you are willing to put me above all other gods in your life.

 

The Somali born, Canadian artist, K’naan, has been struggling with his popularity recently.  Born into the poverty of Mogadishu, 32 years ago, his latest hit song, “Wavin’ Flag,” became the anthem of the World Cup games this year.  It doesn’t get much bigger than that!  Everyone loved singing the lyric, “They’ll call me freedom just like a wavin’ flag.”  But the song is really about K’naan’s personal struggle to find the courage to go on, after a shooting at one of his concerts, some years ago, that left him wounded and 3 band members dead.  So K’naan has always prided himself in being a truth-teller.  He doesn’t quite fit into the Rap brand of music, or Reggie.  He insists he is a-political, but doesn’t shy away from calling it as he sees it. 

 

Before his fame this year, K’naan made quite a splash in 2001, when he was invited to speak at the UN inGeneva for the 50th anniversary of the Commission for Refugee's.  Moments before taking the stage, and getting up before the large crowd, he turned, and said to his best friend and band member, Ray Zak, tonight is not the night to entertain, but to speak the truth.  That’s not what Ray wanted to hear, who was just there to play.  But without mincing words, K’naan went on to move the audience, with his “word piece,” a powerful poem, delivered from his personal experience.  "I basically called out the UN for its failed relief mission in Somalia," he said later.  Not the expected speech from an invited guest to the UN!

 

Jesus too, turned, and said to the large crowd, not what they wanted to hear, but the truth that can set us free.  Not the slick message that would make him desirable, but what his heavenly parent had called him to proclaim.  “If you do not give up all your possessing, none of you can become my disciple.” 

 

What does it take to be a disciple and follower of Jesus these days, in this era of marketability, the digital age of branding yourself, when everyone has a Facebook page?  There’s a fine line, of course, between selling yourself truthfully, and selling out.  The church is no exception.  There are religious workshops to groom your message and make your congregation more acceptable, more marketable, more likeable to the public.  As Christianity becomes post-modern, and as our American culture becomes more pluralistic, who we are, is changing rapidly.  And churches are encouraged to sell themselves as a brand, without calling people to become disciples.  But when does it cross the line?  Truth be told, this is not a new dynamic.  More than 50 years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his “Cost of Discipleship,” warned of selling the Christian message as “cheap-grace”. 

 

In the end, Christianity, like all religions, deals with life and death questions.  Unless you give up all your possessing – our addiction to marketing, traveling whimsically from one fleeting feel-good purchase to another, without being grounded in what truly gives us life, to sit down first to the meal that satisfies – until we follow the one, who through the cross and resurrection, brings us new life, you cannot become a disciple of the one who brings the kingdom that has no end! 

 

This is why at Unity we keep coming back to our Core Values and Vision for what God is calling us to be.  “We are an urban green space, welcoming everyone!”  It doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun at the same time!  Even Jesus, with his face set toward Jerusalem and the cross, didn’t forget to take time to celebrate with his followers, in banqueting meals of forgiveness and healing and joy, enacting with them, the peace and freedom of the new age.  And so, we are invited to “feed others, as we have already been fed,” with the grace and love of Christ Jesus. 

 

This, is the marketable good news!  Turn, and follow me, says Jesus.  The more you identify your cross and calling, the more you will find the Jesus who completes you. 

 

Usually, there comes a time when you realize you cannot do it alone, you cannot take it with you, you cannot win with ten thousand, because as soon as you mount an attack, there is an opponent with twenty thousand.  Choosing Jesus, choosing life, are the terms of peace that resolve the question of all our possessing! 

 

You can have “the free offer of a time-share condo,” or you can have the free offer of life and salvation.  Come to the table and chose life, where the bread and wine are free, and satisfy all our longings.  

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.  

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

 

How is your prayer life going?  Does it need a little reviving?  What do you ask for?

 

We had a practice at our previous parish of asking if anyone had a prayer concern to add to the Prayers that day.  The usual response we got was to ‘ask’ for a friend or relative who was sick.  ‘My brother is having heart bi-pass surgery on Tuesday,’ or ‘my mother was just diagnosed with cancer.’  Or, a request for ‘someone who was traveling,’ or ‘for the schools,’ or ‘for elections,’ or ‘for the environment,’ or, ‘in joy and thanksgiving for healing.’ 

 

Nothing could prepare us then, for the Sunday in December when Jean came to church wearing her brand new Minnesota Vikings jersey, and what she asked for, in her husky voice, that was heavy on her heart.  It was the year the Vikings were division champs, and showed signs of going all the way.  She had been a loyal, life-long Vikings fan, and this was her chance to lay it on the line!  I think it was the conference championship game that day, and somewhat reluctantly, after all the usual requests, for family and friends, Jean raised her hand.  “Well, I really want us to pray for a Viking victory today, pastor!” 

 

Now you have to understand that this was predominantly, Green Bay Packer territory.  And even if it were appropriate to pray for one teams’ victory over another in a football game, it was not going to be a particularly heart-felt petition on the part of most the congregation, who I imagined, would have only ‘green and gold’ in their minds.  So, after a particularly long pause, following Jean’s request, we responded with something like, we would gladly pray for a competitive and sportsman like game that would be entertaining for all.  A bit of a dodge perhaps, certainly not what Jean had in mind.  But, it was as close to a prayer for the Vikings as we could honestly muster! 

 

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”  It’s no wonder that we sometimes get carried away in asking for our team to win, and for whatever else is #1 on our priority list.  Please God, give me a new I-Pod for Christmas, or, please make my co-worker sick, so I can get the Cubs tickets this week.  Its not that we shouldn’t get excited about such things, and naturally want to include God in our hopes and dreams each day, for God knows everything anyway.  But when Jesus was teaching his disciples about prayer, he was instructing them not only about what to pray for, but, who God is! 

 

And the tension about how to pray is further complicated by those requests which really are about life and death.  The child that asks God not to send his father back to Iraq or Afghanistan again because he is afraid he may not return home, certainly must be a concern on the mind of God, too.  But for those soldiers who don’t come back in one piece, what about the prayers that their loved ones have prayed? 

 

And when Jesus tells the parable about the man who doesn’t want to get up in the middle of the night, which would disturb and wake his family, to answer the knock at the door by a neighbor who asks for a, frozen pizza and bottle of wine, to serve some long lost friends that dropped by on the spur of the moment, but, he gets up anyway because of the neighbors persistence, what is Jesus saying?  What about those of us who live here in the city who have been taught, or learned the hard way, that it’s just a whole lot safer never to open your door late at night?  We’re hard-wired to keep the dead-bolt clanked shut, no matter how persistent the knock?  Can we even learn to trust God’s great hospitality, God’s willingness to open up and be there for us, no matter what?

 

What I do find oddly encouraging in this story, is that after walking with, and following, Jesus for some time, the disciples are just now getting around to asking Jesus to teach them how to pray!  They are roughly half way from Jesus baptism to his death and resurrection, and they haven’t yet started a prayer life?  Maybe there is hope for me!?  But, no matter how late in the game, their desire has been piqued!  They have been noticing Jesus at prayer, on a regular basis.  And Jesus seems to be saying, there’s no time like the present!  Get out the ‘Prayer for Dummies’ manual! 

 

So Jesus teaches them the Lord’s Prayer – a prayer about who God is and what God wants us to ask for.  God alone is “holy” and God’s “kingdom is very near.”  God wants us to have, and we should ask for: “daily bread, “forgiveness,” and finally, not to find or put ourselves in situations of “temptation”.

 

Of course, even Jesus struggled to find daily bread as he traveled from city to city.  “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.” And, he comes famously to ‘temptation’ the night of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane – asking God to take away this “cup,” this responsibility, to ‘shed his blood for the salvation of the world.’  So Jesus knows us, and is with us, in our struggles.  Jesus himself prayed regularly to his heavenly parent, “our father, our daddy,” as he called him.  And Luke records that he prayed, at his baptism, at the call of the disciples, at Peter’s confession, his transfiguration on the mountain, at table with his disciples at the Last Supper, and, on the cross, among other times. 

 

Whether you have a well developed prayer life already, or not, there’s no time like the present to start, or rededicate yourself.  When people come to me to ask me how to do it, I used to put something in their hands, some kind of devotional book.  But not anymore.  There are plenty of books out there, plenty of online resources.  But nothing can take the place of desire and persistence, and perhaps best of all, a partner, or two or three.  The Lord’s Prayer, after all, is a prayer to be prayed together.  We have the Sabbath, this day, to come together for prayer.  And during the week we offer other opportunities: bible gatherings, a Prayer Breakfast, and small groups. 

 

So, what is your prayer life like?  Do you want to revive it?  Do you want a partner or small group to pray and discuss with?  Let’s take a moment to rededicate ourselves -- right now.  Find someone to talk about your prayer life with, and – if you want, if you feel it’s appropriate, if God is calling you – make a pledge to pray together or find a way to start up, every week, every day, whatever works for you, to re-start your prayer life, or to help someone else.  

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

↓Duh- ↑duh, ↓duh- ↑duh… (music to Jaws).  The fin circles around, closer to shore, and oh so near the children and adults swimming at Amity Island resort, on a crowded 4th of July holiday.  Who will warn the vacationers frolicking in the water?  Can’t they see the danger! 

Jaws!  Who doesn’t love it?  The cult classic, which, BTW, horrified its producers in 1975, by running over it’s $4m budget by more than double, wound up making them over $470m, all the while, scaring the be-jesus out of movie goers with its captivating fascination!  The scary sea monster, a great white shark, became the darling of countless movie fans.  Jaws seems to touch us, in some primitive brain-stem way.  It touches that ancient nerve deep within us, about the danger of what lies just beneath the surface of the sea, a place of wonder and fear of the unknown. 
People were maimed and killed by the jaws of the “leading character”, as director Stephen Spielberg liked to call the shark.  But the threat of the deep sea, the great unknown, combined with the attempts of the authorities to put a lid on the truth, and the resulting rumors and uncertainty that spread like wildfire, is what causes the greatest fear, on Amity Island. 

This is the same nerve that touched people throughout the ages, of which we have sung in our Psalm today:

25Yonder is the sea, great and wide, with its swarms too man- | y to number, living things both | small and great.
And then the verse about that Leviathan, the Jaws of their time:
26There go the ships | to and fro, and Leviathan, which you made for the | sport of it.

Leviathan loomed large in their imaginations, yet in Psalm 104, God is in command of all things, even of this scary sea monster.  Leviathan, the mythical beast of chaos, is not denied by the Creator, but put in its place, a mere play-thing to the almighty, just another of the many creatures God made “in the beginning,” on the 5th day. 
But the last creature made, it turns out, created on the 6th day, is the one to really fear - us.  Humans, were the only creatures made in the image of God, and so given responsibility to care for the earth, and, all of creation.  God’s loves creation and describes it as, “very good.”  We are to enjoy it and have dominion over our entire planet, which is not the same thing as, domination and unquestioned authority over it.  But we are given, to care for it, and be in partnership with it.  Yet the responsibility, being so great, opens the door to its opposite temptation, its misuse and abuse. 
After Jaws came out, there was an animal rights back-lash, of a sort, and rightly so.  The success of the movie was not questioned, but the authenticity of the great white shark’s appetite.  Though there have been occasions of sharks maiming and even killing swimmers, such anomolies seem to stem from our malfeasance to care fro the ocean and the warming of waters due to climate change, which disorients them and brings them unusually close to shore.  At any rate, they’re DNA is not programmed to attack humans.

 The greater creature to fear, is us.  Today we witness the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, the seas of our back yard, rich in seafood and delicate estuaries, and manifold creatures of sea, land and air.  Now, it is all under attack, and gasping for breath  – the water itself, and all life in and around it, from the plankton and shellfish, to dolphin and sharks, to the winged birds – all in danger, or dying, the full extent of which we don’t even yet know.  It is not the scary, unknown Leviathan, or even Jaws, which has brought fear, but the process of deep water drilling, on our behalf, given the go ahead by government regulators, gone slack, and fueled by the ego’s and greed of oil executives, unable to restrain themselves from the lure of, “More”. 

And so, let me take you on just a short side trip, into the gospel story from Luke, and the parable of the wealthy ‘fool,’ that Jesus tells.  For here is a very rich man, a billionaire executive that has it all, and then on top of it, has such a profitable year he doesn’t know what to do with the windfall.  He gathers no democratic round table to make his decision, but consults only “himself,” his conclusion being, to stockpile it, all for himself, in bigger and more costly barns.  What should I do with “my” crops, “my” barns, “my” grain, and “my” goods?  “Me, me, mine!”  As Paul said to Timothy, it’s not money, but “the love of money which is a root of all kinds of evil.” 

The thing that makes the wealthy man a “fool” in Jesus eyes, is not that he is rich, but that he is a ‘poor steward’ of what he has.  He is just the opposite of Joseph, who advises Pharaoh down in Egypt.  You know, Joseph and his Technicolor Dream Coat?!  Joseph told the wealthy Pharaoh to store up all the food he could for seven years, while the crops were producing abundantly, because the following seven years would be famine years.  But the difference is, with Joseph and Pharaoh, they didn’t just create a business plan that would make them rich, but together they planned ahead to feed and save the Egyptians, and all the surrounding country’s, including Joseph’s family in Israel.  Joseph and Pharaoh had vision!  The rich fool, just like some executives we know, just wanted to live the good life, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 

But, what if your life is demanded of you this day?  That, is our question!  What would your legacy be?  And how do you want to be known?  Do you want to be remembered as, a Joseph, with the foresight to feed and save his family and others -- not to mention that gorgeous coat!  Or, do you want to be remembered as, a rich fool! 

In the ecology of God’s creation, the greater misdeed surely must be that without a vision, without a purpose for the gifts and riches we’ve been given -- to live the high life, is to take away the gifts and resources of the creation, for one’s self, and slight the many for whom it was meant to be shared with.  God has made the earth and all it’s multitude of creatures: inter-dependent, created to be in relationship, to care for one another, and thus to share its resources.  Within that vision, there is abundance, God tells us!  In the worldview of the rich fool, it’s just a narcissistic game: ‘whoever dies with the most toys, wins.’ 

So our question to discuss this morning is: What are the earth’s resources for?  What is our responsibility for the waste and over-consumption of our nation?  Who is the great Leviathan of our time?  Is the: reuse, reduce, recycle, model, enough?  What is God calling us to do? 

   Take a minute and turn to the person next to you to discuss: What is God calling us to do to make our neighborhood and world greener?  What is our responsibility in Caring for Creation?  

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

 

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”  Remember that song?!  It is, a beautiful day in God’s neighborhood.  On this Sabbath, it’s good to be here as God’s people and sing God’s praises.  Jesus is teaching us.  Jesus is healing.  And, a half-dead man in the neighborhood is cared for, and brought back to life by a Samaritan.  And Jesus tells us, “go and do likewise.”  Go, and help to create your beautiful neighborhood! 

 

Praise to God for the commandments that teach us what to do: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  “Do this and live!” says Jesus. 

 

But, who is my neighbor?  Is she the one that lives next door?  Is he the one who I meet on the streets?  The one I work with?  The one that just moved in on my block, from across town, or, from across the ocean?  Who is my neighbor, that I may love him or her? 

 

How many remember this story of the Merciful Samaritan, or, as we used to call it, the Good Samaritan?  Traditionally, the Lutheran church has been very good at teaching this.  We’ve had good church education programs: Sunday school, for the younger kids; Confirmation classes, during middle school, and various high school programs and adult classes, studies and retreats.  Probably the most memorable is the way we’ve taught catechism.  Years ago, you had to memorize Luther’s Small Catechism and recite it back.  Be tested on it!  So, you may have had to actually go up in front of the whole congregation on your confirmation day for this.  If you were lucky, you knew in advance what the pastor was going to ask you.  Name, or shame!  Later, it became the practice to have a written test in class.  This isn’t so  much different from what the lawyer and Jesus were doing, testing each other about the catechism of the day.  “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” the lawyer asked?  Learning the basics is important.  But depending on them for salvation is not what Jesus had in mind.  Jesus came as God’s son to fulfill the law, by who he was, and how he lived with us.  He en-fleshed God’s realm and kingdom for us, here on earth. 

 

Jesus asks the lawyer what he thinks, and commends him for reciting from the Book of Moses: “Do this,” says Jesus – love God and your neighbor – and you will live!”  Jesus Sends him out to live it.  But the lawyer is stuck on debating.  Are we sometimes more like this – stuck on what we believe and debating about it?  How do we change our love of doctrine and catechism, into love of “going and doing?” 

 

Jesus tries a new tack with him.  He tells the story of the Merciful Samaritan, the story about the third person who stopped to help a man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. 

 

Something like this happened in our neighborhood recently.  A woman was walking down Catalpa in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, when a car passing by stopped, and the passenger snuck up from behind, surprising her and hitting the woman over the head!  He stole her purse, leaving her bleeding, as he jumped in the get-a-way car.  I’m not sure if others passed by on the other side without helping, but a neighbor witnessed it from inside his house and came out to her rescue, calling an ambulance and the police and getting her the help she needed.  That was not a good day in the neighborhood, except for, this neighbor who reached out and showed mercy.  Jesus’ question about who is the neighbor, is very clear here.

 

But the remarkable thing about the Merciful Samaritan in Jesus story is that he was an avowed enemy.  Not like an enemy in war, but more like an estranged cousin, one we know well, who was related and part of us, but something terrible happened to break relationship with him or her.  Or, in this case, a whole class of people, more like a split in the Lutheran church, or another denomination, and now worship separately, across the tracks, in a different neighborhood, we try to avoid. 

 

Who do you think was a neighbor to the man left for dead on the side of the road?  If we can just get this question right, we will have our prize, eternal life!  Right?  It’s not that difficult a question!  But I want to know if I have it right, that I may pass ahead to the next class, and all will be well!  I can go back to my private life and “pursuit of happiness!”  

 

When the lawyer answers Jesus, he doesn’t pick one of the three persons.  He uses a descriptive action word, “the one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”  “Go,” and “do!”  These are action words too.  Perhaps the lawyer has now caught the Vision?!  We know our neighbor by his/her actions: not by where they live or what country they come from, or what religion they are.  But we know our neighbor by what they do: a neighbor shows mercy. 

 

We pass the test – not in memorizing the words, nor in believing correct doctrine – but when we “go, and do,” like the Samaritan.  We pass the test in living out what we believe, in connecting our belief in God with our life in the world.  It’s relatively easy to share the peace here inside these walls, but it really counts in the world outside of here, Monday thru Friday, where, when our faith comes alive, we make it, “a good day in the neighborhood.” 

 

Finally, imagine yourself – not as the Merciful Samaritan – but as the beaten up one that needs help, and is dependent on the kindness of a stranger!  If you were in that position, do you think you would worry who it was that reached out to pick you up, dress your wounds, and pay for a room in the inn? 

 

When we are, acting as neighbors, our differences and doctrines don’t matter, and can’t save us.  Only our, beliefs put into practice, the way we contribute to making our neighborhood beautiful, can connect us to the realm of God.  It’s no secret: “the word of God is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to [live out, and] do.”  That’s what makes it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.      Amen. 

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

 

Edgewater has any number of ethnic dining experiences.  Swedish, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean, and African, to name a few.  I ate at the Ethiopian Diamond restaurant as the guest of some of the Oromo leadership earlier this year.  I love the spongy Ingera bread, and spicy meats and sauces.  But I had never before eaten an entire meal with my bare hands.  At least not in a restaurant!  The four of us ordered separate dishes, but it all came on one large common plate that took up the center of our table.  They taught me how to take the bread and grab the meat and soak up the sauces, all with your fingers.  And I was invited to try some of theirs – anything I wanted from the plate.  That was different, and slightly awkward for me.  It took me out of my comfort zone.  But I was reassured by my company, who obviously felt quite at home with it.  This was their tradition, and there was also a closeness, a fellowship in “sharing the meal”.  I was the guest.  And, maybe it wasn’t all that different than a 4th of July BBQ of burgers and watermelon, which, after all, we eat with our fingers!? 

 

“Jesus sends us out,” his fellowship, “to every town and place,” saying, “eat what is set before you.”  Can you imagine that today?  What about having a peanut allergy?  What if you are a vegetarian and they serve meat? 

 

There was a Law and Order episode where the DA and Assistant DA went out in their city finery to rural NY, to meet the family they were representing.  The grandpa and his son lived in the proverbial shack in the woods.  And these hosts insisted on sharing what they had, a stew they had prepared.  As the cook handed bowls to the attorneys, the grandpa said, “We call it squirrel stew, but it’s really chicken.”  You didn’t know if he’s trying to game them, or if he’s telling the truth. 

 

Is this what Jesus means when he says, “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you”?  Do we have to eat squirrel stew to be a Christian?  Or wouldn’t we say, the purpose is more in the fellowship and the cross-cultural exchange?  A missioner, it turns out, is someone who acts like a guest, not the host!  And isn’t this just the opposite of the way we have thought of “mission” in the past, where the missionary brings the message and the meal, telling the people more than engaging and inviting?  Jesus sends us out to be guests.  

 

When Jesus sends out “70 others… on ahead of him in pairs,” it was different than sending out the 12 disciples too.  In the past, we might see the 12 as a sending out the clergy, or trained missionaries.  The 70, however, are his whole band of followers, the whole congregation.  Pairs, was a common tactic, and it’s still not a bad way to go today – Lennon and McCartney, Lucy and Ethel, Penn and Teller! 

 

People have at least heard of Jesus, even here in Edgewater.  But they may not have had an encounter with a follower of Jesus, or a first hand meeting with a Christian person.  Edgewater is so religiously diverse.  In addition to practically every Christian flavor, we have Jew, Muslim, Sheik, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, those who are practicing and non-practicing, spiritual seekers and atheists.  All the more important that we learn how to be guests, wherever we go. 

 

Jesus helps us to see that, we don’t need to set the cultural agenda, in fact, we really shouldn’t.  To, “eat what is set before you,” and be a “guest,” means to receive as well as to give.  All that we have to give is, “healing and peace,” signs that “the kingdom of God has come near.”  It’s a message that is open to all.  It’s a practive that we live, and a reality that comes through us.  If that is rejected, no need to push it or force it.  The Peace of Christ will return to you, and you simply move on.  Our faith is made for cross-cultural encounters.

 

And it’s tailor made for us as Americans!  On this 4th of July, we celebrate that we have, the freedom of religion, among other things.  We cannot be persecuted for our faith, and we don’t have to beat it into anyone else either if they don’t want to receive it.  Jesus says much the same thing.  Religion is not mandatory, but the nearness of the realm of God is offered to all.  So, we can rejoice in the “separation of church and state,” for it gives us the room to be who we are, and to practice and share our faith.  And we can rest assured that no government official, no Rod Blagojevich, or anyone else, will set the agenda for teaching the faith, or telling us how to live it out. 

 

Because “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” it’s okay to ask for help.  It is all of our business!  We are commissioned by Jesus; we go out, to prepare the soil; to make room for Jesus to drop in and grow in people’s lives.  We offer healing and consolation, just as we enact Jesus healing at the healing station here every week.  We are to be peace-makers in our lives, declaring that Jesus has brought healing and peace to all, because, the kingdom and realm of God has come near. 

 

So, I want to give you a chance to process this for yourselves.  Find a partner, and 2 by 2 talk about it for a minute.  If we live lives of healing and peace, here is the question: What are the healing or peaceful traits that you have, that you like to share with others.  Don’t be bashful!  Or, maybe you can identify that in your partner – their healing and peace-making characteristics?!

*****

So why does Jesus want us to act like guests when we go out?  One answer is that we are to be in a two-way conversation about the ‘healing and peace of the realm of God,’ not just telling or preaching without listening.  Everyone is called to be the incarnation, the physical, en-fleshed, people of God, the Body of Christ.  The spirit lives in and through us, the realm of God comes near, in our lives of faith, out in the world. 

 

It all comes back to the fellowship of the meal.  Jesus welcomes us to this table, to host a meal, and we are the guests.  Delicious bread and fine wine are served, and we share a fellowship that crosses over every generation and culture, a gift that overflows with love, and forgiveness, and life. 

 

And Jesus says, “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”     Amen.