Lesson: Luke 16:1-13

This Sunday’s gospel passage, the Parable of the Unjust Steward, is one of Jesus’ most confusing parables. Commentators are all over the map in their interpretations. A rich owner discovers that his manager has been dishonest. Fearing he’s going to be fired, the manager decides to do some quick dealing. He goes to a few of the owner’s clients and settles their debts at much lower rates. The manager figures that the clients will be grateful and treat him well in the future. The owner finds out about this strategy, and this is where it gets strange.

The owner commends the manager for acting “shrewdly” (NRSV). One of the challenges of this parable is figuring out whose side we’re supposed to be on. And another challenge is that it’s followed by four sayings offered as interpretations that sound as though Luke had a handful of random and inscrutable sayings of Jesus and decided to tack them on here. “Just put them here; no one knows what this parable means anyway.”

A mini-course on the economics of Roman-occupied Galilee in the first century is a good place to begin. Rich landlords were like loan-sharks. They charged exorbitant interest rates, and when the peasants couldn’t pay up, they’d lose the family farm. In fact, that was precisely the rich landlord’s plan – to increase and consolidate his holdings. Both the rich man and his manager were exploiting desperate peasants and violating the Torah.

Jesus’ hearers would know that typical debt contracts hid these exorbitant interest rates from illiterate peasants. Today, we might compare this to predatory pay-day loans. The manager was probably extracting his own cut of the profits, as well, and on top of that, Rome would take a share. When he reduced the payments, the manager may simply have forgiven his own cut of the interest. Or he may have been doing what the law of Torah commands by forgiving all the hidden interest in the contracts. He might even have been switching sides; maybe he quit working for the wealthy landowner in order to start working with the oppressed poor – which would explain why Jesus seems to commend him. Maybe the rich man recognizes that he needs at least to appear to be following Torah, and so he commends his manager.

That’s one possible explanation for what’s going on here. Still, it doesn’t tell us whose side we’re supposed to be on or why Jesus is telling his disciples this story. Here are a couple of thoughts: One thing for certain, the rich man is not the good guy here. In Luke and elsewhere, Jesus makes it very clear: No one can serve God and wealth – other translations use the word “Mammon,” a personification of wealth that makes it more obvious that wealth really can take the place of God in people’s lives.

In the Luke’s context, if you were rich, it meant you exploited others to get that way. On the one hand, we might reasonably say that being rich isn’t bad, after all. It’s exploitation that’s bad. We can look at our own economy and see exploitation in the wide gap between what CEO’s and workers earn, or the fact that when billionaire Jeff Bezos cut health benefits for part-time workers at Whole Foods, the richest man in the world saved the equivalent of what he makes from his vast fortune in just 6 hours.

On the other hand, isn’t it incredibly easy for all of us to ignore the way our economic system exploits people? It’s easy to enjoy cheap goods and ignore the actual cost of the manufacturing process on the workers. U.S.-made goods cost more because we have minimum wage laws and laws that protect workers’ health and safety. Places like Bangladesh or Guatemala that don’t have these protections put the costs of industrial accidents or chronic work-related ailments on the worker, instead of passing it on to us, the consumers.

It’s easy to ignore the catastrophic impact of climate change on the countries that had very little to do with causing it. Pakistan’s contribution to climate change is minimal, the level of emissions of that country is relatively low, but right now more than a third of Pakistan is underwater and about 1,400 have been killed by the floods. As one commentator put it, “It is like nature has attacked the wrong targets. It should be those that are more responsible for climate change that should have to face these kinds of challenges.”

Perhaps the real difference between the rich man and his manager and us is intention. The rich man and his manager meant to cheat the debtors. I don’t know any average consumer who wants to cheat the workers in Bangladesh or the Philippines of a decent living or safe workplace, or who wants part time workers at Whole Foods to have less access to health care. We don’t intend to exploit the planet by investing in companies that make gas-guzzling cars or burn coal. But at some point, when we know the impact, we’ve crossed the line from “I didn’t know any better” to, “Now I know, but I’m going to ignore it because it’s inconvenient” or because I want to spend less for my stuff or whatever reason we tell ourselves so we don’t have to change.

Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

But here’s the thing: We may do better when we know better. We may eat less (or no) meat, drive an electric car, carry our own reusable bags, plant natives, fly less, and use solar power but it still doesn’t result in the huge change needed to turn climate disruption around. By changing consumption patterns, we just might be able to influence companies to change their production patterns to more sustainable and humane methods. But others point out that making it the duty of individuals to limit global warming is misguided. Climate change is a planetary-scale threat and requires planetary-scale reforms. The power of consumers pales in comparison to that of international corporations, and only governments have the power to keep corporations in check. A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988. A mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period. Maybe these corporations don’t intentionally want global warming, either. What they want is a quick profit, a high return on their investment. But now, we all know the consequence.

So, what would Jesus do about climate disruption? Luke’s Jesus consistently speaks up for the poor and marginalized. He invites people to change the world by disbelieving, by no longer believing in the stories that we currently allow to shape our lives, the stories that end up destroying people and the planet. Stories like “Being successful means being rich.” Stories like, “There isn’t enough to go around so I’d better get what I can.” Stories like, “If I win, someone else has to lose;” or, “Progress means economic growth;” or “People love me for my car, my house, my shoes, my stuff;” or “Corporations can’t be held accountable.” Instead, Jesus points to a new story, the story he calls the Kingdom of God. It’s a story about a loving God who, like a benevolent king, calls all people – all people – to live life in a new way, the way of love.

Author Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, died on September 1. There has never been a better time to revisit that book. Ehrenreich was asked in an interview, a while back, what she would give up to live in a more human world. She answered, “I think we shouldn’t think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain.”

Amen, and thank God for the life and witness of Barbara Ehrenreich.

Luke 13:10-17

Rules are crucial to an ordered, fair, safe existence for everyone. But in this Sunday’s passage in Luke, Jesus seems to challenge an important religious rule, one of the Ten Commandments. A woman with a debilitating spinal condition shows up on a Sabbath while Jesus is teaching. Jesus sees her, touches her, heals her. “There are six days on which work ought to be done,” fumes one of the religious leaders to the crowd. He’s referring to the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Jesus doesn’t say this rule is wrong; he intends to keep the Sabbath. Where he differs with the authorities is on how to do that. I assume the religious leader isn’t against healing; he just wants Jesus to wait until tomorrow. The woman’s condition isn’t life-threatening. What’s one more day?

In a biting response, Jesus says the Sabbath is the perfect day to set someone free from eighteen years of a crippling condition. Jesus refers to Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments, which adds (I’m paraphrasing), “Remember when you were slaves in Egypt? Remember when you had no day off at all? That’s why you get a day off. It’s about freedom.” It’s radical; you even had to give your animals the day off. One day of freedom for everyone. 

There’s a very good reason for keeping the Sabbath, and Jesus agrees with this. Following rules for the sake of following rules, however, is not “holy.”  

To be perfectly fair to the religious leader, many of us have a lot in common with him. He’s probably thinking, “Once you start making exceptions, all hell breaks loose.” Maybe keeping the Sabbath isn’t at the top of your list but most of us have rules we think are important, and we get nervous if we see people disrespecting them. Maybe it’s small-ish things like eating only organic foods, children’s bedtimes, or answering cell phones at the dinner table. Maybe it’s a much larger issue, like traditional gender roles, how to interpret the Second Amendment, or whether a former president should be held accountable for violations of the Espionage Act. Whatever it is, there are some rules we feel you just should follow. And if you don’t, who knows what will unravel next?      

Jesus doesn’t say the rules don’t matter. He’s saying that sometimes a reasonable rule or a good law that works well for some people causes suffering for others, or just plain leaves people out. Take eating organic, for example. In a class on environmental ethics, a fellow seminary student reported on how much better organic food is for the planet and people. No argument there, right? They gave us all a taste test with organic and non-organic carrots, and sure enough, the organic carrots were tastier. And then another student, a person of color, asked, “How much more do the organic carrots cost?” At the time (mid-1990’s), it was a considerable difference, which isn’t the case today for carrots; although, still, organic produce costs about 50% more on average. Then the student pointed out, with some impatience, that eating organic was a luxury not everyone could afford. That whole communities of people were left out of the health benefits of eating organic, not to mention that good feeling of knowing they were doing the right thing for the planet.

The religious leader is sticking up for the principle of law and order, and I think most of us can support that. But it’s easy for him to maintain his principles without suffering. The woman didn’t have that freedom. 

Jesus isn’t saying do away with the Sabbath. He’s pointing to a systemic barrier. The authorities demand rigid observance of the law without empathy for how it impacts others. The religious leader doesn’t see it, and that’s exactly what privilege is. It’s being able to ignore things that confront other people every day. Jesus is saying the point of the Sabbath is to serve people and draw them more deeply into the abundant life God offers – not just to some people, not just the to people who don’t have to think twice about the rules, but to all people. God is a God of love, mercy, compassion, and justice. Focusing on that keeps the Sabbath holy. But sometimes holiness means rocking the boat.  

How does this impact walking the path of faith? Where in your life do you see rules that create barriers that don’t impact you, but impact others? Especially the systemic barriers. For example, healthcare should be accessible to everyone, but it isn’t. Even more troubling is that the means to maintain a healthy lifestyle isn’t accessible to everyone. It’s tragic not to be able to afford insulin if you’re diabetic. It’s perhaps more tragic not to be able to afford highly nutritious [organic!] foods, a gym, and the time and flexibility to use it in order to avoid diabetes in the first place.

   My favorite part of this story is at the end. “The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing.” They got it. Ordinary people, living their lives, doing the best they could, working hard, caring for their families, trying to make the best of every day. And once a week being reminded of what it’s all about, that there’s a purpose to all of this, that each small life matters, that human life – all of it, the rule-abiding religious leader, the crippled woman – all of it matters, all of it is precious to a God who loves passionately and whose love simply will not be confined or restricted by any rules, but will finally find and embrace each one of us. 

Luke 12:49-53

Yikes! What’s going on with Jesus in this passage? Where’s the stained-glass window Jesus, the pretty, peaceful guy holding the lamb? A preacher might be tempted to choose one of the other lectionary texts for August 14. I checked them; they aren’t much more comforting.

Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” With all that’s going on in our world, and particularly our sorely polarized nation, the last thing we need is a gospel text that encourages more division. But hang in there. Jesus did not have an evil twin or suddenly get a personality transplant. This is the same Jesus who reminded us just a couple of chapters back that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Which is exactly Jesus’ point here. Relentlessly loving God and neighbor is risky. Think about it. In his words and actions, Jesus shows us that when he says love your neighbor, he means not just the neighbor who’s easy to love, but the neighbor who’s very hard to love. The one you’d rather not sit next to on the bus. The one you don’t want for a colleague. The one you avoid at the family reunion. The one you hope won’t go to the polls next Election Day. The one who sees the world entirely differently from you. Love that neighbor, which includes intending for him, and even working toward, his well-being, even if it seems he’s doing all he can to work against your well-being.

That kind of love is risky. It doesn’t make people popular, at least not with everybody. We all can rattle off a long list of peacemakers and justice-lovers who loved their neighbors the way Jesus did and were killed or jailed for their efforts: Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Bobby Kennedy, Oscar Romero, Anwar al Sadat, Nelson Mandela, Harvey Milk, Yitzhak Rabin, Rachel Corrie, environmentalist Tim DeChristopher; and others whose names we’ll never know who resisted the Holocaust, fought for civil rights and thought women ought to have the vote.

Jesus wasn’t saying that he wants people to turn against each other. He’s saying that if people follow him, really follow him, they can count on offending someone, even someone close, even someone they love.

When I was growing up, my mother’s family, the Canadians from Scotland, went to church, but my father’s family, the Californians, did not. My father spent his first 12 years in Columbia, California, in the Sierra foothills. His mother had been raised a Methodist and thought church was fine, for other people anyway. My grandfather’s family was unchurched long before it was the cultural norm. There was a Presbyterian church in Columbia; it’s still there and it’s called the Church of the Forty-niners, which, by the way, has nothing to do with football. When my father was six- or seven-years-old, he heard the church bells ringing every Sunday morning. He asked his mother what it was, and when she explained, he said he wanted to go there. She told him go ahead, and he did, all on his own. It’s mind-boggling to me now – a little kid taking himself to church. And he kept going. My grandfather, a man of few words, told my dad it was a waste of time.

My dad’s family moved to Stockton, so my father started going to Stockton’s First Presbyterian Church, across town from their house. He had to take the streetcar and walk a ways to get there. His father told him, again, what a foolish waste of time that was. My dad had the impression that my grandfather thought going to church was somehow weak.

Jesus isn’t talking about going to church in this passage. He’s concerned with the persecution, if you will, not of people who choose one faith over another but of people who strive to love God and neighbor. In my father’s story, it turned out that the fact that he went to church wasn’t as divisive as the ethics he developed as he grew in faith. I never saw my father behave holier-than-thou, but some members of his family treated him with a kind of, “Who do you think you are?” attitude because he was committed to kindness, fairness, and generosity; to racial equality, economic justice, and honesty. It’s complicated – families always are. But it is a strange phenomenon: Sometimes when people see someone committed to doing what’s right, they feel critiqued, even if that’s not the point at all.

What concerns Jesus is this: When anyone has the nerve to look at the way things are and say, “This isn’t right,” it divides people. “This isn’t right” challenges the status quo. Those who benefit from the status quo will fight tooth and nail to oppose anyone who tries to change things. Jesus sums up his frustration by noting that people can look at the clouds and predict the weather, but they can’t see the way things are here and now. They can’t look at what’s going on around them and “interpret the present.” Why? Because they are satisfied with the way things are right now and don’t want to change.

Jesus is inviting people to open their eyes to what’s really going on. Throughout his ministry, Jesus tells hard truths. He points to the way culture creates insiders and outsiders based on what works best for those with power and privilege. He decries the way this leaves some people marginalized or even oppressed. He shows what happens when people are possessed by their possessions or trapped by the trappings of success. He reveals how fear shuts down the human heart, so that we build barricades between us.

I promise you, if you do these things, it will create divisions. David Sellery writes, “[W]e are to build the kingdom by loving God and neighbor. We are not to coerce the kingdom into existence. We are not to con the kingdom into being by sugar coating God’s word. With humble and honest witness, through the grace of God, we are called to help love [God’s] kingdom into being. And let the chips fall where they may.”

In my last blog (https://solve-by-walking.com/2022/08/01/dont-be-afraid/), I quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. as having said, “Everybody can do something.” It sounds like something Dr. King would have said, but I couldn’t find a speech with those exact words. I did find a similar quotation in a sermon entitled “The Drum Major Instinct” that King preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta two months before he was assassinated:

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Everybody can do something. Everybody can serve. Close enough.

The reason I wanted the context for this quotation is that I can hear the follow up question: “If everybody can do something, what should I be doing? How should I serve?” The word people in the Christian tradition use to answer these questions is calling, or vocation, from the Latin word vocare, which means “to call.” Basically, your calling is the thing you are supposed to be doing based on your talents, interests, passions, abilities, opportunities, etc. Besides aptitude and desire, there must be a quality of service, of somehow making the world a better place instead of a worse one. No one has put this better than Frederick Buechner:

“By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. … Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The only argument I have with Buechner’s definition is that you might conclude that calling and occupation are always the same thing. In my tradition, God calls everybody, whether you have a job or not. Whether you like your job or not. Sometimes a job is just a job. Although whatever your job, you’re certainly called to do it in a way that increases love, peace, justice, honesty, health, well-being – what the Bible calls shalom. But there are lots of folks who don’t have a job because they’re retired, unemployed, on disability, whatever. Nevertheless, everyone – everyone – is called. As someone once said, “If you’re wondering if you’re still called, check your pulse. If you still have one, you’re still called.”

How do you figure out what you’re called to do? In the Christian tradition, the word we use is discernment. You’re probably familiar with some of the secular tools that help people make career decisions. Back in the 1980’s what I was a young lawyer, it seemed everyone I knew had an MBA. The Strong-Campbell Vocational Interest Test, Myers-Briggs, and a good career counselor reminded me I’d loathe accounting, marketing, and pretty much anything commercial. Nix on the MBA. I also know people who swear by What Color is Your Parachute?

Other tools I’ve found helpful include The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is very spiritual but not grounded in a particular faith tradition. When I was trying to decide whether to go to seminary, I sought the help of a spiritual director. A spiritual director is trained to listen in order to help people hear their own passion, as well as listening for God’s leading. My experience is that God communicates with us through other people, through doors that open or close, and through my own trial and error.

Sometimes our volunteer work is our calling. Think of President Jimmy Carter and his work with Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes what we think of as our hobby is our calling. If you are blessed with musical or artistic talent, putting art into the world may be your calling. Once in a while, someone asks me, “But how does my art or music help make the world better?” I think the answer is obvious, but what I say is, “If all the people desperate for power and wealth and all the people stuck in fear or hatred created art or music or poetry instead, wouldn’t it be a better world?” Beauty and creativity are gifts from God, gifts that enrich culture and human existence. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty convinced if people danced more, it could heal the world.

If you adore animals, maybe you’re called to rescue abandoned dogs. If you love gardening, maybe you’re called to tend the flower beds in public spaces or grow zucchini for the food bank. Some people are called to public activism. Others are called to quiet acts of kindness. Calling also has to do with stage of life. If you’re a busy young parent, maybe your calling is reading to your toddler every night. It really will improve the world.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” The refrain of a hymn by David Haas, “We Are Called,” sums up calling pretty well:

We are called to act with justice.
We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another, to walk humbly with God.

Luke 12:32-40

   There are some things that just don’t go together. Toothpaste and grapefruit juice, for example. Baseball and sushi. A “certified organic” label on a pack of cigarettes. And the phrase, “Do not be afraid,” followed shortly by “Sell all your possessions and give alms.”  

   And yet, Jesus links those two phrases in this passage in Luke’s gospel. Do not be afraid? Sell all your possessions? Your congregation might think it’s a good Sunday to count the panes in the stained-glass windows until the sermon is over. 

   A few verses before this we read Luke’s version of the familiar passage in Matthew about the lilies of the field. In those verses, Jesus says not to worry about what you’ll eat or what you’ll wear. God knows you need those things, says Jesus. So don’t worry. I think Jesus is saying a couple of things with “don’t worry” and “don’t be afraid.” He’s saying God has given the world all that we need for everyone to be clothed and fed. As Mahatma Gandhi put it, “Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.” And Jesus is saying that perhaps our anxieties and fears come from being held captive by our possessions. Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also. 

   A while back I saw a presentation made by a couple who had spent two decades in Africa doing ministry there. They were provided with a home that was simple but had most of the comforts they would expect here in the U.S. except that they had no running water. Their water was brought to them, carried for them, by their own personal water carrier, a man who made ten trips a day to a well some distance from their home. They came to think of this man as their “running” water. But otherwise, they had things and resources that the people living around them could only imagine. And so, they had a guard. Looking back on the experience, the couple noted with wisdom as well as sadness that when the rich and the poor live side by side, a guard is necessary.

    This story points to something else Jesus is saying. He’s saying what I think most of us know in our hearts: anxieties about what we’ll eat, or drink, or wear don’t belong in the life God wants for us – for any of us, for any of God’s creatures. The fears of people who genuinely don’t have enough, and the fears of people who have plenty but are afraid to lose it: none of these fears belongs in what Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.” And that’s what this passage is about – it’s about setting a course for the kingdom. It’s about getting ready for the kingdom.   

   The kingdom of God or the reign of God is the way Jesus describes what life on earth would be like if God were our only king. The word “king” sounds archaic and patriarchal to our ears; it isn’t as powerful a word to us as it was to his audience. Don’t let that get in your way of appreciating that Jesus is describing a reality that is possible, a reality in which there is no oppression, in which all are equal, and all have enough. That reality is God’s goal for us. That is what God wants for us. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Not later, but now. Dorothee Soelle writes that when Jesus spoke of the nearness of the kingdom of God he was never speaking of an event in the future, at some date on the calendar yet to be decided. 

   So, in the here and now, we are to be dressed for action, says Jesus. Not in order to be “saved” at some point in the future, but in order to participate, here and now, in the reality God desires for God’s world. Now, it might seem as though Jesus is just shifting us from one fear – the fear about whether we have enough – to another fear – the fear about whether we’re ready enough. But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.” And when you think about it, it’s often preparation that calms our fears. 

   As amazing as it seems, school will be starting within a couple of weeks. The first day of school can be frightening but it’s much easier if you’re prepared for it. That’s why there are orientation days for kids starting new schools – so you can get used to the building and find out what your schedule is going to be. Being “dressed for action” on the first day of school includes having your pencils sharpened and the right kind of binder, and it always helps to have a friend to help you get through all the new things that you’ll encounter, whether it’s a new school or just a new classroom and teacher.

   But when we think about getting ready for the first day of school this year, we’re brought right back around to fear. An article in Sunday’s New York Times, “Trained, Armed and Ready. To Teach Kindergarten,” (Sarah Mervosh, July 31, 2022), explains how elementary school teachers are so desperate in the wake of Uvalde and other school shootings that they’re planning to learn how to use firearms to bring with them to the classroom. 

   Is this the kind of preparation God has in mind for teachers and students – or for anyone? Because I’m Presbyterian and I’m familiar with what Presbyterians are doing, I’ll refer you to the opening affirmation of an overture proposed by the Presbytery of Chicago at this year’s General Assembly (2022) of the Presbyterian Church (USA):

“We remember that the disciples ask Jesus when he saw them in faithful ministry and he answered, “As you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). In our country 40,000 people are losing their lives each year to gun violence. Each one of these represents to us the crucified Christ, as do their orphans, their grieving parents and families, as do the nearly 100,000 who are injured and the countless others who are traumatized by gun violence through suicides, murders, family violence, and accidents; In faithfulness to the Prince of Peace, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) stands with, grieves with, and calls for change alongside the victims of our uniquely-American epidemic of gun violence.”

   The overture goes on to commend groups, businesses, and individuals already active in opposing gun violence, and calls “upon every congregation in the PC(USA) to prayerfully consider their role in helping to prevent gun violence. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, ‘Everyone can do something.’” The overture further points out “The sinful, historical intersection between guns and race.” The history of gun ownership is too often a means for white people to “protect” themselves and their families from perceived threats from black, brown, and native people, creating a culture of entitlement to gun ownership that is born out of racism, white supremacy, and violence. You can find the entire overture here: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000776. I suspect other denominations, other churches, are wrestling with this as well. 

   “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Do not be afraid, because God wants what is good for God’s world, for all of us, for the whole creation. What a promise! In the face of gun violence, and in the face of all our other fears, it is the promise we lean into. It is the promise that motivates us to get ready. Soelle writes, “The nearness of God cannot be measured in intervals of time, but must be measured in the strength of the hope which is spreading among people.” 

    The nearness of God must be measured in the strength of the hope which is spreading among people. The strength of that hope is evident when, as Dr. King put it, everyone is doing something. Being prepared, being ready, means doing something. Doing something won’t magically dissolve all our fears, but we can be brave and afraid at the same time, and by doing something, by leaning into our trust in God’s desires for all of us, we really do chip away at our fears. As Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable; and most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God.”

It’s never worked for me just to tell myself, “Don’t be afraid.” But I can lean into the promise that God has something much better in mind for the whole world. That helps. And I can get ready by doing something. That helps, too.

I enjoy “The Simpsons.” Besides irreverent humor, it offers abundant life lessons. Homer almost always ends up doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t look as though he’s headed that way at the beginning of the show. Some critics have argued “The Simpsons” is one of the most moral shows on television. According to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, “It’s one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue.” Back in 2001, The Christian Century suggested the Simpsons might be TV’s most religious family.

But as much as I love the Simpsons, I’m afraid they may have taught a generation or perhaps even several generations that Christians look like Ned Flanders. Ned Flanders, a devoutly evangelical Christian, is the Simpsons’ next door neighbor. Although he’s good-natured, cheerful, honest, and among the most compassionate of Springfield’s residents, Homer Simpson can’t stand him. 

Ned Flanders doesn’t swear. Instead, he says, “Ding dong diddly!” or “Hey diddly ho!” He avoids alcohol. In one episode, he complains, “I’m not thinking straight; why did I have that wine cooler last month?” As for sexual pleasure, Flanders advises, “Just tell them that God wants them to ignore everything in their bodies that God is making happen.” In other words, Ned Flanders is no fun. His faith keeps him from enjoying life’s ordinary pleasures. He says he grounds his behavior in Scripture: “I’ve done everything the Bible says – even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!” 

Okay, that line actually is funny, because the Bible is full of contradictions. But if Ned Flanders is the only Christian you encounter on a regular basis, you might think all Christians are like him. A painful Ned Flanders moment that sticks in my memory is when Ned and his family return from a trip, and Homer asks where they’ve been. Flanders replies, “We went away to Christian Camp. We were learning how to become more judgmental.” 

Ouch. Double ouch.

And perhaps worse, Ned Flanders isn’t cool. 

I’m not saying “The Simpsons” should get rid of Ned Flanders, or that conservative Christianity and maybe even Christianity in general don’t deserve a ribbing. Comedy is an effective form of social commentary, and as someone put it recently, the church isn’t being persecuted; it’s being challenged to act like Jesus. But “The Simpsons” is one of the most popular shows in television history and has aired for over 30 years. 30 plus years of Ned Flanders, the corny, goody-two-shoes caricature of an American Christian. I fear that for many, especially folks under 40, Ned Flanders is the face of Christianity. If you think being a Christian means being like Ned Flanders, why would you choose that?   

I wish there were a way to balance the Ned Flanders effect by reminding people of the many people who really deserve to be the face of Christianity, who have acted like Jesus. Of course folks have heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., but they might forget that he was a Christian pastor acting on the most basic principle of his faith: love your neighbor as yourself. 

They might not remember that William Wilburforce, the British politician and leader of the movement to abolish slavery, was an evangelical Christian.

They may never have heard of Oscar Romero, the El Salvadoran archbishop who spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the conflict that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. Romero said, “The ones who have a voice must speak for the voiceless,” so he spoke up. He was assassinated for doing so.

They also probably never heard of Dorothy Day, the Catholic journalist and activist who insisted on the preferential option for the poor and helped establish the Catholic Worker Movement. She practiced civil disobedience, which led to her repeated arrest, including in 1973 at the age of seventy-five.

They may never have heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who resisted Hitler and Naziism and was executed for it. 

They likely never heard of Dom Helder Camara, the Brazilian priest and liberation theologian who said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

Closer to home, they may not know about Glenda Hope, the Presbyterian pastor who led San Francisco Network Ministries in the City’s Tenderloin neighborhood for decades, a ministry that serves the unhoused, the drug-addicted, and the outcast. She established San Francisco SafeHouse to help women escape prostitution and continues to work closely with that organization.

And they probably haven’t heard of Janie Spahr, who describes herself as “a lesbian, feminist, Presbyterian minister committed to justice issues for the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community, pursuing connections for wholeness with other oppressed communities claiming their freedom.” I’ve known Janie and worked beside her at various junctures since the early 1990’s before I went to seminary. She has met hostility and rejection with a colossal heart and genuine love. Her bold leadership has transformed lives and communities.

Janie Spahr turns 80 this month. I thank God for her long, courageous ministry. Janie Spahr, Glenda Hope, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others, ordinary folks who walk the walk, who march in Pride Parades, help with disaster recovery after hurricanes, stand up for Black Lives Matter, fight for fair housing, welcome the stranger, heal the afflicted, offer water to the thirsty and food to the hungry: these should be the faces we associate with the Christian faith; these are followers of Jesus. 

Ned Flanders isn’t a bad guy, but he doesn’t work as Christianity’s poster child, and he’s held that position for a long, long time.

 Luke 12:13-21

   Someone asks Jesus to help settle an inheritance problem with a brother. Jesus declines. He warns about the dangers of greed, and then tells a parable about a rich farmer with so much wealth he decides to build bigger barns to hold it all. But that very night, he dies. He learns, as we all must, that you can’t take it with you. 

   Jesus doesn’t say this man is wicked or evil. He doesn’t say he cheated anyone or exploited his workers. He says this man is a fool. Exactly why isn’t obvious, especially in our culture. He’s a success, right? But listen to the man’s monologue. In the first place, you have to wonder why he’s alone. Where’s his family? Where are his friends and workers? Then, notice how many times he says me, mine, my. In three verses, he uses first person singular pronouns eleven times. My crops, my barns, my grain, my, my, my. He sees himself as completely self-sufficient, and he sees all his wealth as his alone. There’s no hint of gratitude, no acknowledgement that “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it.” (Psalm 24:1)

   At my father’s memorial service a few years ago, my brother told a story that took place during my family’s sojourn in Des Moines, Iowa. When my brother was 10, he was big enough and a good enough athlete that he made it onto the Little League team for 11- and 12-year-olds. His team ended the season at the bottom of the league. Maybe that’s why their coach decided he’d had enough and quit. The following spring, my dad stepped in as the coach. He started the team with fundamentals and moved them on to practicing more complicated plays like squeeze bunts and pickles. That year, they won the league championship. But, said my brother, that’s not what this story is about.

   My brother’s league sold popcorn to raise money for ball fields and umpires and such, the way Girl Scouts sell cookies. It was premium popcorn, and remember, this is the Tall Corn State, so standards were high. This was not your Jiffy Pop or even your Orville Redenbacher. This popcorn popped into cloud-like kernels the size of gardenias. It was 2 pounds for a dollar. My dad required the boys to wear their uniforms, including their caps, when went out to sell popcorn. My brother said they looked like a Norman Rockwell illustration. Under my dad’s encouragement, my brother’s team sold more popcorn than the other seven teams in the league combined. My dad drove my brother and three of his friends to several neighborhoods around town, and those four boys alone sold ten times as much popcorn as the rest of their team. But, said my brother, that’s not what this story is about.

   On the way home from their last popcorn sales trip, sitting in the back seat of my dad’s blue Oldsmobile, my brother and his three friends started imagining the prizes they’d win for selling this much popcorn. That was part of the incentive: If you sold a certain number of pounds of popcorn, you’d earn points worth prizes, and even more points meant even more and bigger prizes. My brother said it was like visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. And then my dad looked in the rearview mirror and said, “You know, boys, if you share your points with the rest of the team, then everybody on the team will get prizes.” My brother said their first response was, “Share!?! What are you talking about!” But the boys thought it over for about five minutes and decided my dad’s idea was a good one. They shared their points with the rest of the team, the whole team won a trip to Minneapolis to watch the Minnesota Twins play, and every boy won prizes. My brother learned that by sharing what they had, they lifted up the whole team. And that, my brother said, was our dad – and that’s what this story was about. 

   By sharing, we lift up the whole team. It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Which is exactly why the rich man was a fool. 

   Now, this might be where a preacher could throw in some statistics about how the three wealthiest Americans own as much as the entire bottom half of the population; how big corporations, CEOs, and a handful of extremely rich people have vastly more influence on public policy than the average American; how wealth and power have become one and the same, even to the extent of undermining democracy. You might even speculate about what our society would look like if the ultra-rich and corporations paid more taxes, or if the minimum wage were increased. I recommend taking a look at books or articles by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, current UC Berkeley professor and author, but there’s plenty of literature out there explaining the economic, social and cultural reality that by sharing, we lift up the whole team.

   It’s so obvious. May God grant us all wisdom. 

Luke 11:1-13

072022.Blog

   You’re in my prayers. Please pray for me. Let us pray. These words trip easily off our tongues in the church. Praying is what we do. Prayer and Scripture are the pillars of our worship and much of our life together. And yet, I’ve probably heard more questions about prayer than any other spiritual issue. Behind these questions lie our beliefs about what prayer is. Most people think of prayer as asking God for something. The Luke passage supports this. “Ask and you shall receive.” That doesn’t sound complicated.

   But when we think about prayer as asking for something, it raises loads of questions. Doesn’t God already know what we need? Doesn’t it turn God into something like the Wizard of Oz, or some kind of divine jukebox: plug in your prayer instead of a quarter, and get your wish? What about all those people praying their hearts out who don’t get the job, don’t get cured of cancer, don’t avoid foreclosure, don’t manage to keep their kids off drugs? What about all the people whose lives are scarred by terrorism, wildfire, earthquake, warfare? Did they just not pray hard enough? As a philosophy professor once put it, “If God can influence the course of events, then a God who is willing to cure colds and provide parking spaces but is not willing to prevent Auschwitz and Hiroshima is morally repugnant.”

   Prayer isn’t simplistic. Prayer plumbs the very depths and mysteries of the nature of God. But Scripture provides us with some clues. For starters, it’s important to me that Jesus himself prayed. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus prays a lot, and it was after he’d finished praying that the disciples approach him with their request, “Teach us to pray.” He responds with Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, then he follows with a parable. An annoyingly persistent neighbor pounds on the door in the middle of the night, looking for food to give an unexpected guest. The neighbor is so desperate that his sleepy friend next door relents. Jesus implies that God has at least that much generosity and compassion in hearing our anguish.     

   Jesus tells the disciples to keep asking, seeking, knocking with the same shameless desperation. But what can he mean? Most of us have prayed for many things, good things, and not just for ourselves. We’ve prayed desperately, in fact, and still not received what we were seeking: a child’s safety, a parent’s health, justice for terrorized people, peace in a land under siege.  

   There’s a book that was on the best seller list a few years back about the prayer of Jabez, a prayer found at First Chronicles. It’s embedded in a several-chapters-long genealogy, so it’s amazing anyone noticed this prayer, but someone found it and published this little book. Now, the good thing is it apparently inspired millions of people to pray. But what makes me nervous about this book is that some people understand the prayer as sort of a magical incantation. They believe that if you pray the prayer exactly the way it’s written, which makes me want to ask, “In what translation? King James? NRSV? In Hebrew?” But in any event, if you pray it just the way it was written, wonderful doors will open to you. You’ll get rich, get a new job, and get everything you ever wanted.

   The thing is, Jesus never promised that. Jesus never said, “Ask, and exactly what you prayed for will be given to you.” Jesus is saying that what you will be given is a good gift. What’s the good gift? Well, one gift we can count on is the presence of the Spirit of God. That’s what we get when we pray. We get God. And in bringing all the desires of our hearts to God, we get God as our companion, accompanying us, in all that we care about.

   Prayer is a theological puzzle, and we shouldn’t pretend we’ve solved it. John Buchanan, former editor of The Christian Century, wrote some years ago about his hip replacement surgery.  People told him they were praying for him. He wrote, “I still can’t believe that my new hip is mending more quickly because hundreds of people prayed for me, while my buddy across the hall is proceeding with more difficulty because just two people are praying for him. But I do know this, in a new and profound way: strength and courage and hope and wholeness are imparted in the knowledge that others are holding you up to God in prayer. And I do know that God’s healing love somehow uses the love and concern and prayers of others in the work of restoring, comforting, and creating wholeness. And I am ready, once again,” said Buchanan “simply to be silent in the face of the mysterious goodness of God, and to resume my own pastoral ministry of praying for those whose needs are real and urgent.” 

   So I plan to keep on praying.

The other day a clergy woman friend confessed to a group of us that she finds that she’s shy, even embarrassed these days about fessing up to being a Christian in groups of non-Christians. We all understood. If all you know about Christianity is what you’ve seen in the media in recent years, then of course you paint all Christians with the same brush: politically and socially conservative, more interested in saving souls than saving real people’s lives, more interested in trying to convert people than listening to them and learning from them. But one among us challenged us: If we don’t speak up, actual Christian clergy for crying out loud, then who will?

On my walk the next day, that challenge blossomed into this blog. “Solvitur ambulando” means “it is solved by walking,” a quotation attributed to the 5th century bishop, St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine apparently found that walking gave him time away from distractions and the rushed pace of life, and this inspired ideas and alternatives he hadn’t previously considered. The phrase has a double meaning for me in terms of this blog. Like Augustine, I do my best thinking on my walks; in fact, I just learned in a blog how-to-video that for most people, creative output increases 60% just by walking.

But in addition, my approach to my Christian faith is that what Jesus had in mind was not so much that we are to believe the right beliefs, but that by living his teachings day by day we participate with God in bringing about the world God intends for all of us. That’s why the early Christians described themselves as being on the Way. So, for me, Christianity is a path. It isn’t the only path. Many central features of Christianity aren’t unique to Christianity, and I have tremendous respect for those who choose other paths, other faiths. And if you got stuck on the word “God,” I’m okay if you substitute Higher Power, Holy Mystery, Creative Source, whatever works for you. But Christianity is my path, the path I have chosen, or, perhaps, the path which has chosen me.

As many have said in one way or another, we make the path by walking. Christians make the path by walking together, bringing along our doubts and our questions as well as our best hopes. My intention with this blog is to raise questions, confess doubts, explore faithful responses to some of the world’s challenges, and encourage conversation, all toward the end of making the path by walking.

I’ll make this blog by walking, as well. I’m new to blogging and will learn as I go. Among other things, I plan to post stories that put flesh on some Bible passages. If people can’t imagine how those old Bible stories might speak to their lives here and now, they can’t be blamed for wondering why they should bother with them. Each week I’ll look at one of the passages in the Revised Common Lectionary, a list from which many preachers choose the passage for Sunday’s sermon. But I want to be very clear that I do not claim to be a Biblical scholar, I’m a preacher, so don’t expect me to tell you what the Greek or Hebrew really means or to dive deep into the history of the passage. I’m just interested in showing how a timeless story can be true for our lives regardless of what you believe about whether it’s fact or inerrant or any of the other words people plaster on the Bible mostly to prove they are right and someone else is wrong.

So here goes. Solvitur ambulando. Welcome to the journey.