bible

Healed vs. Made Well

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Luke 17:11-19

The story begins with ten lepers living on the edge of town, separated from their families, their livelihood, and all normal activities and company.  Ten lepers who must shout a warning wherever they go that they’re unclean.[1] They may or may not have had what we know today as Hansen’s disease, but they are lepers in that they are the ultimate outcasts. 

Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem.  When the ten lepers hear that Jesus is in the neighborhood, they come as close as they dare and call out.  Jesus tells them to go to the priest, because just as it took a priest to confirm that someone had leprosy, it also took a priest to declare that someone was healed.[2]  As the lepers head off to do as Jesus tells them, they are healed of their disease.  Imagine the joy, the relief!  As soon as the priest gives the okay, they can return to their families, return to worship in the temple, return to being productive members of their community. 

The twist in the story is that at this point in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, he’s on the border between Galilee and Samaria, communities that were divided by generations of hatred and suspicion.  Jews considered all Samaritans ritually unclean and even would travel miles out of their way to avoid having any contact with them.[3]

Only one of the ex-lepers returns to say thank you.  This passage is often interpreted as dealing with the importance of gratitude, but the healing didn’t depend on gratitude.  The nine who didn’t return to say “thank you” were healed just the same.  I bet they felt profoundly grateful even if they didn’t express it. 

The one who turned back to praise God and thank Jesus was a Samaritan.  Before Jesus heals the lepers, they’re just ten lepers, no distinctions.  But once the ten all have been healed, the Samaritan, alone, remains unclean.  There’s no cure for being a Samaritan.  He may not even be welcomed by the priest.  Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t follow the others. 

It is only to the Samaritan that Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.”  Four people in the Gospel of Luke hear those powerful words from Jesus: “Your faith has made you well.”  Each is, in his or her own way, an outcast.[4]  Each healing is followed by a conversation about the Kingdom of God – what life and the world look like under God’s rule.  And in each case, the Greek word for “made you well” is the word that also means “to save.”  “Your faith has made you well” means something like “Your faith has saved you.” 

Ten were healed.  One was “made well.”  Maybe Jesus is talking about a different kind of wellness.  Maybe he meant that the divisions that separated Samaritans from Judeans and that continue to separate races, ethnicities, genders, nationalities, and religions are a much more serious malady than even leprosy. Maybe he wasn’t commenting on the lack of gratitude of the nine who didn’t return as much as on the system that would accept them and reject the Samaritan; all the systems that create a “Them” that we can despise or ignore because they are not “Us.”

We don’t know exactly what Jesus meant, but it’s safe to say that, to Jesus, “wellness” does not include going back to a life of “Them” and “Us.”  “Where are the nine?” asked Jesus.  The nine were right back where they came from, safely on the right side of the border, healed of their exterior problems but locked back into their prejudices.  Healed, but not well.  As Maggi Dawn writes, “We are healed not to stay the same, but to live differently.”

We are healed not to stay the same, but to live differently.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Maggi Dawn, “Untouchables,” in The Christian Century,” October 2, 2007, http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2007-10/untouchables.

Frederick J. Gaiser, “Your Faith Has Made You Well: Healing and Salvation in Luke 17:12-19” in Word and World, Volume XVI, Number 3, Summer 1996.

Fred B. Craddock, Interpretation: Luke (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990).

[1]  Leviticus 13:45. 

[2]  Leviticus 13:2-17. 

[3]  See for example, 2 Kings 17:24-24; John 4:9.

[4]  The four people in the Gospel of Luke who hear Jesus speak the words, “Your faith has made you well”: the woman of questionable reputation who washes Jesus’ feet, Luke 7:36-50; the woman with the 12-year flow of blood, Luke 8:43-48; a blind man, Luke 18:35-43; and this Samaritan ex-leper, Luke 17:11-19.  The woman was a “sinner,” and so she was cut off from the righteous.  The others were ritually unclean, excluded from the temple by the law. 

Increase Our Faith

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Luke 17:5-10

Ever since chapter 9 when Jesus turns and “[sets] his face to go to Jerusalem,” Jesus has made it clear that that the road ahead is tough – perhaps deadly – and he’s going to stay on it. He’s just finished telling his disciples that they, too, need to stay the course, and besides that, forgive people again and again. The disciples are overwhelmed. That’s when they cry out, “Increase our faith!”

If they could just have more faith, maybe they could meet Jesus’ expectations. You may have run into someone who says if you only had enough faith, you could do anything: get the job, keep the marriage together, even keep your loved one from dying. The problem is that then when things don’t work out, it’s your fault; you failed the test of faith. This is not only cruel, but also magical thinking and it isn’t what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is thinking about faith in a very different way.

First, says Jesus, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could command a mulberry tree to transplant itself into the sea. Why a mulberry tree in the sea? The point is that it’s absurdly impossible. But the meaning of the passage turns on the original Greek, which says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…and you do…. .” So Jesus is saying, “You can do this absurdly impossible thing. You already have enough faith.” With the little faith they have they can do things they never, ever could have imagined. In other words, the disciples don’t need more faith; they need to make use of the faith that they already have.

Then Jesus tells them a parable: Imagine you are a master with servants. Do you thank your servants for doing what they’re supposed to do? Of course not, says Jesus. You expect them just to keep on doing it. And then he switches perspectives: Imagine you’re the servant. Do you expect reward for just doing what you’re supposed to do? Of course not.

This sounds a little harsh to twenty-first century Americans who hand out trophies to kids for just showing up. But in a different time and culture, Jesus is merely describing life as the disciples know it.

So add these two thoughts together: First, if you have only a speck of faith – and you do – you’ll be able to do unimaginable things. And second, stop expecting someone to make a fuss when you do what you’re supposed to be doing. This is Jesus’ message to his disciples: Stop worrying about whether you’re a faith superstar and get to the business at hand.

Jesus is saying that faith isn’t about perfecting yourself or becoming better than someone else. Faithfulness is simply doing what we see needs to be done. Faith doesn’t have to be heroic, or even particularly religious. Maybe faith is just being attentive to the needs around us and committing ourselves to doing what we can with what we have, trusting that God will make use of it.

We’re facing another government shutdown this week. A few years back, Anne Lamott compared an actual government shutdown to the alcoholic uncle at family holidays who has been threatening to do something rash every time he gets drunk, and he “he finally does some bizarre, bullying, irrational act that he has been threatening to do for awhile.” How does the family even begin to deal with the havoc the alcoholic has caused? Get him to bed, she says. “In the meantime,” she writes, “the praying people pray. Someone sweeps. The children and the elderly are fed, and comforted. The kids go off to school. Everyone pitches in to help clean up. … And since we are not going to figure this out today, and since ‘Figure it out’ is not a good slogan, let’s do what we’ve always done. We’ll stick together, and get the thirsty people a glass of water. I’ll remember the sticker I saw once, of Koko, the sign language gorilla, above the words, ‘The law of the American jungle: remain calm and share your bananas.’ I am going to fill a box of warm clothes and take it to Goodwill … I am going to pick up litter. I’ll send some money to one of America’s hunger projects. I’ll pray and pray and pray, all day, that we’ll all pitch in to help our most vulnerable, and that we’ll help each other keep the faith, and our senses of humor.”

That all sounds pretty ordinary. But as David Lose writes, even the simplest things done in faith can have a huge impact. Lose also writes this description of faith which has been important to me in my own journey, including naming this blog: “Faith is putting one foot in front of the other and walking toward a future we do not see yet but trust God is fashioning. Faith is heading out the door each day looking for opportunities to be God’s partner and co-worker in the world. Faith is imagining that the various challenges put in front of us — whether solving a problem at work or forgiving someone who wronged us — are actually opportunities that invite us to grow as disciples and witness to God’s presence and goodness in the world.”

Ordinary, but extraordinary. Especially when done together, prayerfully.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2773
Anne Lamott, October 1, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/AnneLamott/posts/382839661845683.

Choose Life

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Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-33

This passage in Luke 14 begins with Jesus delivering a seriously troubling description of discipleship. “Hate your family” and “Carry your cross”? Yikes. Before you run for the hills, remember that this is the same Jesus who said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Who sat down to dinner with people that the religious show-offs thought were unsavory. Who welcomed outcasts, healed the sick; who said loving your neighbor was more important than anything else, which would include your neighbor who’s a family member. Somehow, this passage must be consistent with that Jesus.

We need to figure out what “carry your cross” means before we can make sense of “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Do you assume that maybe there’s one “correct” answer? Were you taught growing up, or maybe you absorbed it in a long life of singing old hymns, that the cross has something to do with suffering and forgiveness of sins? Have you ever wondered what the cross meant for Luke? For Matthew? For Mark or John? For Paul? The New Testament doesn’t have a uniform answer to that question. There is no one correct biblical answer.; it’s a conversation.

What Luke brings to that conversation is an exceptional concern for the poor and marginalized, and a tender heart for the outcast and the forsaken. So, for Luke, “carry your cross” could mean to carry the ministry of Jesus forward by seeing those whom the world overlooks. It could mean favoring the marginalized, even when it might lead to your own discomfort.

In my NRSV version of the Bible, the bold heading before this passage is “The Cost of Discipleship.” But is it really a cost? Or is it a choice? The verses from Deuteronomy come from a long speech Moses delivers to the people Israel after giving them the law, part of the covenant between God and God’s people. Moses explains that they have in front of them two paths: life and prosperity, or death and adversity. If they choose the path of following God’s law, treating each other fairly, welcoming the stranger and caring for the needy, and loving your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), then the people will thrive. Imagine, for a moment, a society that makes that choice; imagine a society that chooses kindness, fairness, civility, and generosity. It’s true that the Hebrew Scriptures also include some ancient Middle Eastern rules that are odd or even repugnant to us today. But Jesus pointed out that what it all boils down to is “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and live,” he said (Luke 10:28). So, Moses says that if the people choose a different path, a path of ignoring these basic rules of human fairness and kindness, they will perish. “Perish” might sound like a threat of divine punishment, but it’s just logical consequences. If you don’t live in harmony and fairness with the people you encounter, the consequence is discord, enmity, strife, and violence. If you don’t care for the needy, you’ll find yourself hunkering down to protect your stuff because you’re afraid someone will try to take it from you. If you don’t take care of the earth that is our home, it won’t take care of us. Consequences. God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Choose life. If we think of our faith as being primarily about what it costs, about what we give up, what we sacrifice, then we’re forgetting that life – all of life – is full of choices that cost us. We’re limited beings and very often when we choose one path it means we have to give up another path. Parenthood, marriage, careers, education – anything that takes commitment and effort has a cost. But that isn’t why we choose them, is it? Even when we know our choice will impact our lives in huge and unforeseen ways, even when we know there will be a “cost,” what we’re more likely to feel when we take the job, embark on the marriage, or extend ourselves in generosity is joy and gratitude, a sense of rightness, or in Christian terms, a sense of calling.

That is what the cross means here in Luke. One commentator writes, “The cross is not unique but representative of what life is. To carry your cross is to carry the choices and burdens and realities of a life that has made a certain commitment – a commitment to a way of life that is committed to bringing about the Kingdom of God here and now. That’s certainly what it meant for Jesus.”

What about the hating your family thing? Is Jesus ignoring “Honor thy father and thy mother,” one of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16, Exodus 20:12)? I’ve known a number of people who had to choose between a relationship with a family member and their own integrity or well-being. For Luke’s audience, following Jesus would have put family relationships at risk. And so even here, Jesus is saying, choose life; choose what will bring life, wholeness, shalom, to you and to the whole world.

What a different way of being it is if we think of the cross as a way of choosing life, rather than fixating on death. This isn’t to say Jesus’ death doesn’t matter. It’s encourages a conversation about why it matters. Maybe it matters for Luke because the cross was Jesus standing up to empire, resisting the powers that dominate, oppress, and enslave.

I quoted Barbara Ehrenreich on August 10, and I am drawn to her wisdom again. She was asked in an interview 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.”

Choose life.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Karoline Lewis, “Carrying the Cross,” August 28, 2016,
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4706.

Make Room

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Luke 14:1, 7-14

Here in Luke 14, we find Jesus invited to dinner at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees was mixed. In the previous chapter, some Pharisees are concerned enough about Jesus’ safety that they warn him to leave Jerusalem because Herod wants him dead (Luke 13:31). However, Jesus repeatedly challenges the Pharisees’ interpretation of the Sabbath and they don’t seem to like the company he keeps (Luke 5:30). Maybe they invite him to dinner because they want to expose him to a better set of friends. Whatever the reason for the invitation, the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees is tense enough that while Jesus is at the meal, the other guests are “watching him closely” (14:1).

At the same time, Jesus is watching them. He notices where people sit, who is talking to whom, who is present, and who is missing. This leads him to offer two related teachings.

The first concerns seating arrangements. The seating chart in this highly stratified, honor/shame culture would have placed the most important guests, the ones who could do the host the most favors or improve the host’s standing, closest to the host. Jesus paraphrases Proverbs 25:6-7, warning against social overreaching. “Do not . . . stand in the place of the great,” Proverbs warns, “for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble” (25:6–7). It would be absolutely mortifying to have your host ask you to move to a lower place at dinner, and a remarkable honor to be invited to a better seat. What Jesus says is just common sense. The other dinner guests are probably nodding their heads in agreement at this wisdom.

Then Jesus goes on to advise his host not to invite those people to dinner who could repay him in any way but instead to invite the undesirables of the world, even the unclean. At this, the guests likely stop nodding; I suspect their jaws drop. To begin with, Jesus is saying this to his host in a culture in which you are supposed to ingratiate yourself to your host. Further, this is a world in which the exchange of mutual obligations was simply the way things worked. The way you gained status was through a system of mutual patronage: you did people favors who then owed you; they did the same for you and so on. What Jesus has said is not just counter-cultural; it’s ludicrous, even offensive.

As David Lose writes, “Which is probably how you know it’s of God.”

It’s important to remember who the audience is in this text. Jesus is speaking to the guests of a leader of the Pharisees. Most of these folks are likely rather high status. Jesus doesn’t call the marginalized, poor, and often-overlooked servants at the party to humble themselves. He’s telling the privileged to move over and make room.

Programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, known as “DEI,” have come under fire recently. The argument is that these programs are discriminatory, favoring certain groups over others, thereby undermining the principle of equal treatment for all individuals. That argument ignores the reality Jesus observed: People are not treated equally in a stratified culture, and that includes our culture and pretty much every culture I’ve encountered. Some people are already privileged, already included, already reaping the benefits of high status while others are left out because of poverty, lack of education, racism, sexism, and other ways we stratify our society. Some people have the ability and the resources to achieve in whatever way a society, ancient or contemporary, perceives is important. Others do not. DEI doesn’t “discriminate,” it fixes a problem that a stratified society creates. Jesus’ advice here couldn’t be more clear: Bring everyone to the table. Give everyone a chance to enjoy God’s abundance, so often enjoyed only by a few. Make space for the people on the margins, regardless of whether that will increase your own status or success. Share the wealth. Make room.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
David Lose, https://www.davidlose.net/2013/10/luke-14-7-14/.
Craig S. Keener, The Christian Century, August 10, 2022, https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/august-28-ordinary-22c-luke-14-1-7-14
E. Trey Clark, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-3/commentary-on-luke-141-7-14-6
Mitzi J. Smith, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-22-3/commentary-on-luke-141-7-14-4

Sabbath Freedom

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Luke 13:10-17

In these verses, Jesus is confronted with a rule that, in this context, seems harsh. The disagreement arises when a woman with a debilitating spinal condition shows up on a Sabbath while Jesus is teaching. Jesus sees her, touches her, and heals her, earning him a reprimand from the leader of the synagogue: “There are six days on which work ought to be done.” He’s referring to the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” Presumably the religious leader isn’t against healing; he just wants Jesus to wait until tomorrow. After all, she’s had this condition for eighteen years. What’s one more day?

Jesus responds that the Sabbath is the perfect day to set someone free from an eighteen-year bondage to a crippling condition. With this reference to freedom, Jesus is saying the well-meaning religious leader doesn’t understand what the Sabbath is all about. Jesus is alluding to Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments, which adds, and 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.” Everyone, not just the upper classes, not just the priests and elites and the king have the right to rest one day a week. One day of freedom for everyone, including your animals.

So there’s a very good reason for keeping the Sabbath. Jesus doesn’t say 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, a rule I try to follow. During seminary I took a course in environmental ethics. A couple of my fellow students did a report on organic food: how much better it is for the planet, how much better it is for farm workers and the people who consume the food. No argument there, right? They gave the class slices of organic and non-organic carrots for a taste test, and the organic carrots actually tasted better. And then another student asked, “How much more do the organic carrots cost than the other carrots?” At the time, it was a considerable difference; still today, organic produce costs about 50% more on average than regular produce. 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 many 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 get rid of the Sabbath. He’s saying that demanding rigid observance of the law without empathy for how that impacts people doesn’t keep the Sabbath “holy.” Rather, it creates a “systemic barrier,” one the religious leader doesn’t even see. That’s what privilege is. It’s being able to ignore or not even see things that confront other people every day. Jesus is saying the point of the Sabbath, the point of all God’s laws, is to serve God’s people and draw them more deeply into the abundant life God offers not just to some people, not just to the 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 those qualities honors God. Focusing on those keeps the Sabbath holy.

The religious leader forgot this. Which is easy to do when following the rules is easy for us.

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, and once a week on the Sabbath, being reminded that each life matters to God, our God who wants freedom for everyone. Everyone. “The entire crowd was rejoicing.” You bet they were.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

References:
Exodus 20:8-11
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2699.
John M. Buchanan, “Expansive,” http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2007/082607.html.
Dan Shepard and Maggie Davis, “Organic produce now costs as much as 53% more than conventional alternatives, and the price disparity is getting worse,” April 17, 2025, https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2025/04/17/organic-produce-now-costs-as-much-as-53-more-than-conventional-alternatives-and-the-price-disparity-is-getting-worse/

Interpreting the Present

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Luke 12:49-56

   With what’s going on in our world, it seems the last thing we need is a gospel text that encourages more division.  This is not a reading that offers comfort.  But hang with me here.  Jesus did not have an evil twin or suddenly get a personality transplant.  This is the same Jesus who reminded us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

   Jesus is frustrated, and he says as much, and if nothing else, this passage shows Jesus responding to stress in a very human way.  He says he has work to do and he’s under incredible stress to complete it in the time he has left.  Does that mean Jesus knew for sure he was going to be arrested and crucified?  Maybe, or maybe it just means he knew the risks of putting love of God and love of neighbor first.

   Which is Jesus’ point, here.  Relentlessly loving God and neighbor is risky.  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, or in the classroom.  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 in a presidential election.  The one who sees the world entirely differently from the way you do, who believes different truths than you do.  Love that neighbor, which includes working toward his well-being, even if it looks to you as though he’s doing everything he can to work against your well-being.  Jesus shows us that loving your neighbor means questioning the religious, social, and economic status quo that undermines your neighbor’s safety and security.  It means speaking the truth in love to that neighbor and doing the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation with that neighbor.  When Jesus talked about love and modeled it in his actions, that’s what love looks like. 

   That kind of love is risky.  It doesn’t make people popular.  We all can rattle off a long list of peacemakers and justice-lovers who loved their neighbors just this way 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.  This was certainly true for Jesus’ original audience.  I wonder: Is it any less true for us?  How would our family and friends and co-workers react if we really acted like Jesus did?  How would our government act; how would ICE agents or the National Guard act?  What Jesus is concerned with here is the persecution, if you will, not of people who choose one faith over another but of people who strive to love God and neighbor. 

   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. 

   What are we to do, then, in order to interpret the present faithfully? 

   It is hard to look at the broken and hurting world around us and see in the hurt and the brokenness a call that something has to change – that we might just have to change.  It can seem overwhelming but maybe we just start by mending a little corner of the world, our tiny corner.  Anne Lamott uses the metaphor of stitching: “You start wherever you can. You see a great need, so you thread a needle, you tie a knot in your thread. You find one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that’s strong and true.”

   We mend what we can.  If households are not to be divided, mother against daughter, father against son, it will be because, through the grace of God, we reach across those divides instead of accepting them as insurmountable, and take small steps, make small stitches. 

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013).

Don’t Be Afraid

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Luke 12:32-40

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

These words are part of the response that Jesus gave to the man who approached him in last week’s Luke passage. The man asked Jesus to mediate an argument he had with his brother over property. Jesus declined and then told the parable of the rich fool who built bigger barns for all his grain. The lectionary skips the verses that come right after that parable, which include 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 you’ll eat or what you’ll wear. God knows you need those things, says Jesus. So don’t worry – besides, he adds, can you add a single hour to your life by worrying?

That’s where we pick up with Luke 12:32-40. “Don’t be afraid” might feel like an unreasonable admonition right now, even without the instruction that immediately follows it to sell all our possessions. I receive dozens of texts every day from politicians telling me to be afraid – and give them money. Even if I don’t respond with a contribution, these doomsayers have a good point. Things are scary right now.

“Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell all your possessions, and give alms.” How do these ideas fit together, and is there any good news here?

First, notice that it’s God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Like a loving parent, God takes delight in giving God’s children good things. This is what God is like. Not a rule-enforcer, a power player, or an authoritarian tyrant; rather, a parent who delights in giving gifts.

Second, God gives us the kingdom. Use kin-dom, reign, whatever word you choose if “kingdom” sounds too patriarchal. The kingdom of God is the way Jesus described what this life on earth would be like if God were our only king. The point Jesus makes here is that we neither earn the kingdom nor create it. We can participate in it, and as Christ’s followers, we are called to do so. But God’s promise is to give us the kingdom.

Then Jesus tells a parable about being ready. In Scripture, Jesus describes the kingdom of God as “near.” 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. “Jesus and the Jewish people of his time do not think in linear terms but in relationships, above all relationships to God. In Jesus’ language there is not even a word corresponding to the word ‘future.’ The next day is called ‘what is to come.’ … ‘What is to come’” – the kingdom – “is expected not only by suffering men and women but also by God, with longing and hope.” 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.”

That is what readiness looks like: “The strength of the hope which is spreading among people.” In the verses the lectionary skips, Jesus says, “Strive first for the kingdom …” and you’ll have all you need. This is because in the kingdom of God, everyone has enough. Is this a pie-in-the-sky fantasy? No; 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.” What might happen if enough people lived as though this is true? How might that strengthen the hope which is spreading among people?

So then, what is a faithful response to “Sell all your possessions”? In many ways, it would be easier to work for the kingdom if we abandoned our lives entirely and started over. But most of us have responsibilities and attachments we’re not going to abandon, and that it wouldn’t be kind, ethical, or faithful to abandon. What Jesus is expressing with these words is urgency. It is a wakeup call. Last week’s parable of the rich man pointed to the folly of attaching to possessions. What is it about our attachment to possessions that is folly, that gets in the way of our participation in the kingdom and needs to be urgently addressed? Is it the way we ignore the toxic impact of mining the rare earth minerals required for our technology? Or the fact that only one-tenth of the world’s greenhouse gases are emitted by the 74 lowest income countries, but those countries will be most affected by climate change? Or the fact that cheap clothing has a hidden cost: the exploitation of vulnerable labor forces, especially children? Is it the fact that a fraction of billionaires’ wealth could end starvation and homelessness? Or is it simply that we measure our worth by the quantity and quality of stuff we own?

By clinging to our possessions, are we helping to create a sense of scarcity? As Parker Palmer writes, “The irony, often tragic, is that by embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear. If I hoard material goods, others will have too little and I will never have enough. If I fight my way up the ladder of power, others will be defeated and I will never feel secure. If I get jealous of someone I love, I am likely to drive that person away. …. We create scarcity … by competing with others for resources as if we were stranded on the Sahara at the last oasis.”

Author Barbara Ehrenreich was asked in an interview 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.” Don’t be afraid, says Jesus. Don’t be afraid because God has something better in mind. It’s God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Dorothee Soelle and Luise Schottroff, Jesus of Nazareth (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002).
Jaya Nayar, “’Not So “Green’ Technology: The Complicated Legacy of Rare Earth Mining,” August 12, 2021, https://hir.harvard.edu/not-so-green-technology-the-complicated-legacy-of-rare-earth-mining/
Ruma Bhargawa and Megha Bhargava, “The Climate Crisis Disproportionately Hits the Poor. How Can We Protect Them?” January 13, 2023, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/01/climate-crisis-poor-davos2023/
Suha Fasih, “The Fast-Fashion Dilemma: Unraveling Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains,” October 21, 2024, https://lawjournalforsocialjustice.com/2024/10/31/the-fast-fashion-dilemma-unraveling-forced-labor-in-global-supply-chains/
Mark G. Miller, “A fraction of billionaires’ wealth could end starvation and homelessness,” March 5, 2025, https://millermarkg.com/2025/03/05/a-fraction-of-billionaires-wealth-could-end-starvation-and-homelessness/

Rich Toward God

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Luke 12:13-21

I was disappointed to learn that the old adage, “Money can’t buy happiness,” isn’t actually true. To tell the truth, it never made intuitive sense to me. I knew from personal experience as a struggling student as well as observing parishioners that if you don’t have enough money to cover basic expenses, it causes unhappiness in the form of anxiety. So money definitely buys relief from anxiety, which perhaps is not the same as happiness. Nevertheless, studies now show that real happiness improves as income increases, and continues to rise alongside one’s bank account with no clear upper limit. Still, I wanted the saying to be true. As a person who has chosen a career guaranteed to keep me free from excessive wealth, I wanted it to be true that once basic needs are met, people are equally happy.

The parable in this passage in Luke doesn’t dispute the new research. However, it does suggest that the happiness that comes with wealth isn’t what really matters in the long run. Responding to a request for financial advice from someone in the crowd, Jesus warns against greed, which ancient philosophers believed to be a form of depravity and a lack of self-control. He explains, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” and then tells the parable about a rich, apparently happy man. We hear the rich man’s inner monologue: He wonders how to store his overabundance of crops and belongings, and the obvious solution is to build bigger barns. That’s when God shows up, a rare occurrence in a parable, and tells him he’s a fool. He’s going to die that very night, and, as another old saying goes, you can’t take it with you. “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Jesus doesn’t say the man is wicked. He doesn’t say he’s evil. He says he’s a fool. Given that money can buy happiness, what makes this man a fool? He’s a fool, says Jesus, because he stored up treasures for himself, when he should have been “rich toward God.” But what does “rich toward God” mean?

Maybe the man isn’t “rich toward God” because he only considers his own interests, needs, and desires. The conversation he has with himself is utterly self-focused. Has he grown apathetic to the needs of others because of the insulation that his wealth provides? He seems to have no concern outside his own comfort and contentment. He has no empathy for others; no sense of the needs of his neighbors; no sense of how his blessing could be a blessing to others; no sense of connection to anyone. It is foolish to live locked in your own little world, oblivious to the presence, humanity, and needs of others.

Perhaps he isn’t “rich toward God” because he has made wealth his goal. Has wealth replaced God in his heart? “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34) A 2003 study describes “the money and happiness paradox”: Even though having more money is associated with happiness, seeking more money impairs our happiness. The study found that people with strong financial success goals reported lower satisfaction with family life, friendships, and jobs. It found that “the greater your goal for financial success, the lower your satisfaction with family life, regardless of household income.” This paradox teaches that money boosts happiness when it is a result, but not when it is a primary goal, or as one researcher noted, “It is generally good for your happiness to have money, but toxic to your happiness to want money too much.” When money becomes our God, it jeopardizes our happiness.

Maybe he is not “rich toward God” in the way he seems to assume he alone can take credit for his wealth; that his wealth belongs to him and him alone. Psalm 24 teaches, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it.” Our lives and possessions are not our own. They belong to God. We are merely stewards of them for the time God has given us on this earth. Elisabeth Johnson writes, “We rebel against this truth because we want to be in charge of our lives and our stuff.” God’s surprise announcement is a stark reminder that, ultimately, control of our lives is an illusion. Sooner or later we learn that no amount of wealth or property can secure our lives. No amount of wealth can protect us from a genetically inherited disease, for instance, or from a tragic accident. No amount of wealth can keep our relationships healthy and our families from falling apart. In fact, wealth and property can easily drive a wedge between family members, as in the case of the brothers fighting over their inheritance at the beginning of this passage.

Maybe he isn’t “rich toward God” because his focus on his own comfort ignores God’s good Creation. We aren’t told this man achieved his wealth by misusing other people or exploiting the planet, but we know this accounts for much of the extreme wealth in our world today, as well as the historic levels of income inequality we’re witnessing. Jesus follows this parable with Luke’s version of the “lilies of the field,” concluding, “Instead, seek God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well” (Luke 12:31). In God’s kingdom, Jesus’ metaphor for the world governed by God’s love for all of God’s Creation, everyone has enough because people share, people do not hoard, people do not exploit others or the earth so that the earth can sustain all God’s creatures. In other words, people love their neighbors as themselves and it is apparent in the economy.

In our consumer culture, our worthiness is measured by what we own, can afford to buy, and the power that comes from vast sums of money. This makes it a hard sell convincing anyone that the happiness generated by wealth isn’t what really matters. But we only need to look around us to see the tragic consequences of wealth that insulates people from the struggles of the rest of the world and contributes to the destruction of the planet. It is abundantly clear that it is not “rich toward God.” It is, in fact, foolish.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Aimee Picchi, “Yes, Money Can Buy Happiness: the More Wealth You Have, the Happier You Get, Research Finds,” July 26, 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/money-buys-happiness-study-finds-rich-are-happier-research/.
Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, “This is a funny story. We laugh. But we’re laughing at ourselves,” July 17, 2019, https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/august-4-ordinary-18c-luke-12-13-21
John Jennings, “Does Money Buy Happiness? Actually, Yes,” February 12, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnjennings/2024/02/12/money-buys-happiness-after-all/
Elisabeth Johnson, “Commentary Luke 12:13-21,” August 4, 2019, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-3/commentary-on-luke-1213-21-4

Teach Us to Pray

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Luke 11:1-13

Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them to pray as John the Baptizer taught his disciples. Jesus accepts the challenge, and begins, “When you pray …” Not if you pray, but when. So, the first part of the lesson is that praying is what Jesus’ disciples do.

He then teaches them a model prayer, Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew’s version, imbedded in the Sermon on the Mount, is slightly different (Matthew 6:9-13). Jesus doesn’t say this is the only prayer we should pray, but the Lord’s Prayer does teach us about prayer in general.

We are to begin prayer, says Jesus, by noticing that God is like a loving parent and we, each of us, all of us, are part of God’s family (“Our Father”). Yet God is also a Holy Mystery that can’t be limited to one image and is deserving of our reverence (“hallowed be thy name”).

Then, we are to orient ourselves to what God wills for God’s Creation, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But just what is God’s will? That question is worth an entire sermon series, but for now, I’ll note that Jesus doesn’t confuse God’s will with fate or destiny. Rather, when Jesus says, “thy will,” he means God’s desires for God’s world. He describes this with the metaphor, “the kingdom of God;” thus, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth …” The simplest way for Christians to determine what “God’s will” means is to look at Jesus himself. If we do this, we’ll see in Jesus’ life and teachings that God’s will is that we love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves. We’ll see that we are to welcome outcasts, forgive others and accept forgiveness, and be reconciled with our enemies. We’ll see that we are to help those in need regardless of who they are, and that all manner of healing is more important than almost anything else we can do. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth,” we pray that we will adjust, adapt, and transform our lives, desires, and hopes to these desires of God for all of God’s world.

Next, Jesus teaches that we are to bring our needs to God: our need for survival and sustenance (our “daily bread”), and our need for forgiveness and reconciliation (“forgive us …, as we forgive others …”). On the one hand, every pronoun is in the plural – our daily bread, not my daily bread. We are praying for the welfare of all. On the other hand, being open and honest with God about our personal, individual fears, needs, and vulnerabilities helps us recognize them and put them in the context of God’s love. Praying is how we form and maintain a relationship with God, and honest communication is always better for relationships.

Finally, we are to remember that, in many ways, the world in which we live does not reflect God’s will, and we pray to be spared those temptations, those “trials,” that might throw us off track.

Jesus follows his model prayer with some especially challenging verses: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Does Jesus really mean we’ll get whatever we pray for as though God were a giant vending machine in the sky? No. Careful reading shows that Jesus makes only one promise: When we pray, God will give us God’s Spirit.

But what does that mean? When what you really want is for your loved one to survive cancer or for your child to stay off drugs or for people to be treated justly or for the bombs to stop falling, God’s Spirit may not sound like enough of an answer to prayer. I know many people who pray and wonder, “Is anybody listening?”

Søren Kierkegaard said, “The function of prayer is not to influence God but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” That is certainly my own experience. Debie Thomas writes, “…[O]ften … I want God to sweep in and fix everything much more than I want God’s Spirit to fill and accompany me so that I can do my part to heal the world. Resting in God’s yes [to give us the Spirit] requires vulnerability, patience, courage, discipline, and trust — traits I can only cultivate in prayer.”

God’s Spirit is the source of those traits. God’s Spirit is exactly what we need to participate with God in healing the world. Perhaps the precise way prayer changes us is as individual as each one of us, as complex as our complex lives, but the goal is always healing: healing ourselves, healing God’s world.

The old hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” includes these lines:
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged,
Take it to the Lord in prayer.

I won’t tell anyone that they should never be discouraged. However, I agree with the hymn that we should bring everything to God in prayer. Everything. Not because God will fix everything, but because it means we’re showing up. We’re maintaining the relationship. Nothing we bring to God will surprise God. I realize prayer is in many ways mysterious; how it “works” or changes us is hard to measure or prove but Jesus said “when.” “When you pray…” Not “if.” So we pray, with and without words, on our knees and in real and metaphorical bunkers, in desperation and in gratitude, and we count on the promise that God’s Spirit will change us, heal us, and change and heal the world through us.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Debie Thomas, “When You Pray,” in Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022).
Brian D. McLaren, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbl6hPBA5rU.

Hospitality

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Luke 10:38-42

In this passage, Martha has welcomed Jesus into her home, which should get her the special blessings that go to those who receive Jesus or his disciples. As Jesus said, “whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” But what does Martha get instead? She gets corrected by Jesus for not doing it right! He’s gentle about it, but still, kind of annoyingly patronizing. “Martha, Martha….” You can just see Jesus shaking his head. And it seems Jesus is setting up a rivalry between Martha and her sister Mary, the one who is doing it right.

It’s hard not to choose sides, especially because Luke wants us to choose sides. Unfortunately, this has felt like a double bind for a lot of people, and for women in particular. If, like Martha, you focus on the details of a meal, the menu, the preparation, the clean-up, you risk being labeled “over-functioning.” If, like Mary, you sit and listens too long, nothing gets done. What many folks I know want Jesus to say is, “You’re absolutely right, Martha. What was I thinking? Why don’t we all come into the kitchen and help with the dishes and talk while we work?”

But this story is about Martha and Mary. Not Martha versus Mary, or even Martha or Mary. Jesus does say that Mary has chosen the “better” part and it won’t be taken from her. This might sound harsh to Martha but it’s radical news for women: he affirms a woman can choose to sit in the circle of men as he teaches. “Sitting at his feet” means being a disciple, and at this point in history women were not allowed to sit at the feet of rabbis; they were not allowed to be disciples. But Jesus won’t send Mary off to the kitchen, even if the other disciples and Martha think she belongs there.

Jesus also says something about hospitality. He doesn’t tell us that acts of hospitality are unimportant, but Mary has chosen the “one thing” that is needed. Here, that one thing is the purpose of hospitality itself, and that is the interchange between the host and the guest. I looked at a handful of websites that offer some version of “10 Tips for Giving the Perfect Dinner Party” and they all include something like, “Get out of the kitchen and enjoy your guests. They came to see you, not just to eat your food.” Jesus sees that Martha is “worried and distracted.” Maybe’s she’s so worried and distracted that she misses the point of welcoming a guest in the first place. The interchange between the host and the guest is what really matters.

This isn’t about doing versus being. It’s about doing what’s called for by the situation, and the situation of welcoming a guest calls for paying attention to the guest because that is one important way we love our neighbor, and it’s one important way we recognize the face of God in our neighbor. I love the way Melissa Weintraub puts it: “For us, revelation does not usually happen in thunder and smoke. Most often it happens in simple face-to-face conversation over coffee and cake.”

The experience of God, the encounter with God – which is what revelation means – the encounter with God does not usually happen in thunder and smoke. Not for most of us. Most often it happens in simple face-to-face conversation over coffee and cake. Or over a latte, or a beer, or a potluck casserole. And like any true encounter with God, genuine hospitality changes us because the encounter with the Other, with any other human being, always changes us.

Hospitality might sound trivial given what’s going on in our current socio-political atmosphere but think about it. Think about how extending hospitality to anyone and everyone, including those with whom we disagree or even those who infuriate us, think how that could change the way we see everything. Imagine if we listened to everyone as though they matter, as though what they have to say really matters. Imagine if we expected that we might very well encounter something of the Divine Presence in a conversation over coffee and cake.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Melissa Weintraub, “Revelations of the Other, Face-to-Face,” February 18, 2006, http://www.encounterprograms.org/sources_sermon.html
Fred B. Craddock, Interpretation: Luke (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990).