Make Room

August 26, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

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.

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

Don’t Be Afraid

August 5, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

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.

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

July 30, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

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.

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

July 22, 2025 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

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.

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.

The Sound of Sheer Silence

June 17, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

1 Kings 19:1-15a

Once again, this week I’m looking at the Hebrew Scripture passage, where we find Elijah, the prophet of God, tired, discouraged, and suicidal. And yet, God is with the prophet.

The story begins with King Ahab reporting to his wife Jezebel that Elijah not only trounced the prophets of Baal in a contest of “Whose God is the Real God?” but followed this up by slaughtering them all. Yikes. This is why we preach the New Testament, right? Jezebel responds by threatening Elijah, which means Elijah must run for his life. He heads for the wilderness, which as one commentator notes is less like Vermont or Oregon and more like an Arizona desert. He’s on foot but he keeps running, fearing Jezebel’s men are in pursuit. Finally, utterly exhausted and spent as well as terrified, he sits down under a tree and prays, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life.” (verse 4).

Maybe most of us never had to run for our lives, but I know few people who haven’t at some point been so tired, so exhausted, so emotionally spent and dejected, so completely discouraged and maybe hungry as well that they haven’t wondered whether there was a reason to continue.

God sends an angel who tells Elijah to get up and eat. Drink some water. Such great advice, and besides, the angel provides the picnic. Strengthened, Elijah heads to Mount Horeb, known elsewhere in Scripture as Mount Sinai. It’s the mountain of God; Elijah wants to meet with God. Elijah ducks into a cave and God asks him an excellent spiritual direction question, an invitation to take stock and reflect: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah recites his complaint: “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (verse 10). It sounds as though Elijah is feeling sorry for himself, but really, who can blame him? He’d done all the right things: he humiliated the prophets of Baal and their sponsor, Jezebel; he’d proven the Lord God is the Lord God. Instead of glory and gratitude, however, he’s running for his life.

God tells Elijah to stand before the mountain because God is about to pass by. There at the mouth of the cave, Elijah witnesses a mountain-shattering wind, an earthquake, and a raging fire. But the passage tells us God is not in the wind, earthquake, or fire. After the fire is “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSV), translated elsewhere as a “gentle whisper” (NIV), or a “still small voice” (KJV) (verse 12). This is when Elijah wraps his face in his mantle, presumably to protect himself from the face-to-face encounter with God. God is revealed not in the dramatic forces of nature but in silence, in a still, small voice.

God repeats the question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (verse 13). The prophet gives the exact same response, word for word. Did he learn nothing from the encounter with God? Is he still feeling sorry for himself? Or, perhaps, something is different. Perhaps the prophet is no longer afraid. Perhaps he’s ready to listen when God gives him his marching orders to go to Damascus. Go, continue the work God has given you. Elijah isn’t alone. In fact, there are at least 7,000 others faithful to God, some of whom will be anointed as God’s prophets (verses 15-18).

The story describes God’s chief prophet hitting his lowest point. One lesson might be that success doesn’t always lead to victory, vindication, and glory. As Peter Gomes put it, “failure is often the price of success.” But perhaps at rock bottom, Elijah is able to recognize that the work to which he is called is God’s work, not his own. Like the wind, earthquake, and fire, the work is God’s doing. At the mouth of the cave, he experienced the strength of God. It is God’s strength he needs to rely on, not his own strength. Relying on God’s strength, he can go do the new tasks God gives him, including anointing his successor.

The themes of reversal, disappointment, and exhaustion may feel current to congregations (and pastors) worn down by political polarization, threats to democracy, immigrants in peril, economic hardship, deferred dreams, dislocated populations, and the specter of global war. Or where ministry itself feels like a desert. Elijah’s story assures us that God provides food for the journey as we wander through our metaphorical deserts, remembering what we have left but not knowing where we will end up. Daniel Hawk writes, “It removes the burden of pursuing the spectacular, the exciting, and the dramatic, resets our focus on the unspectacular, quiet voice of God that animates ministry within the mundane, and tells us that neither we nor God are finished yet. There is more yet to do and more yet to be disclosed, in a new and unfamiliar desert.”

Resources:
L. Daniel Hawk, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-1-kings-191-4-5-7-8-15a
Peter J. Gomes, Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998).
Roger Nam, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-1-kings-191-45-78-15a-3

Do You Want to Be Made Well?

May 24, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

John 5:1-9

A man who has been ill for thirty-eight years lies by a pool that is believed to have healing powers. He’s been trying to make his way to the healing waters of the pool, but he can’t do it without help, and he has no help. Jesus asks, “Do you want to be made well?”

“Well, duh!” seems to be the obvious answer. Of course he wants to be made well. The question seems almost cruel. Is Jesus implying that the man isn’t well because he doesn’t want it enough? In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Bright-sided, she described her battle with breast cancer and the unrelenting message that you won’t recover unless you have a sufficiently positive attitude. It was made clear to her, she said, that “If I don’t get better, it’s my fault. … It’s a clever blame-the-victim sort of thing.” Given this message, we might wonder if the man’s response is defensive: “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Some alternative Greek manuscripts for John’s Gospel explain that it was believed that these waters had healing powers only when they were moving, mysteriously stirred up, and only the first person in the pool when the water begins to move would be healed. This means every ailing person is competing with every other ailing person for a very limited opportunity. Not the best system, but it’s the only system the man knows. Of course he wants to be made well; otherwise he wouldn’t keep making regular trips to the pool.

Jesus is not telling the man that he just needs a sunnier outlook or that he needs to pray a little harder. It is cruel to tell people who are sick, or jobless, or unhoused, or refugees that they just aren’t thinking positively enough, they just aren’t trying hard enough, that whatever they are experiencing is their own fault. And one thing we can say for certain about Jesus is that he wasn’t cruel. Why, then, does he ask, “Do you want to be made well”?

Jesus spoke to people as though they could think, decide, make judgments. He knows the man wants to be made well, so in essence, he’s asking, “Is this working for you? Is sitting by this pool getting you what you want and need?” And if that’s what Jesus is asking, then the man’s answer makes more sense; it sounds less like a bundle of excuses and more like a thoughtful, if exasperated reply. I’m imagining he’s saying something like, “Does it work? Just listen to how much it doesn’t work,” and then he describes the tedious process he’s endured for years.

Jesus asks, “Is this really working for you? Or are you ready to try something else?” The closing verse of this passage points to this: “Now that day was a Sabbath.” The story continues beyond this passage to explain why that’s a problem. At this point in Christian history, it’s likely that both Jewish Christians and the traditional Jewish community intended to keep the Sabbath. The struggle was over how to apply this – what did it mean to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy? So part of Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be made well?” includes, “Is this system working for you?” Not only the system that’s kept him coming back to this pool for years with no change in his condition, but the system that would prevent Jesus from healing him on the Sabbath, as well as preventing the man from carrying his bed away from the pool once he’s healed.

Is this really working for you? Ask anyone who’s been in a twelve-step group and they will tell you that Step 1 is honesty – honesty about your condition, honesty about the fact that what you’ve tried in the past isn’t working. It is the question that every one of us, every group and every institution needs to answer in the negative before we can begin to change. “Is this really working?” If you can’t say, “Well, no, now that you mention it, it isn’t working,” there’s no reason to try something else.

I believe we are to hear, first and foremost, Jesus asking us the question. “Do you want to be made well? Is what you are doing really working? Is it working to give you health and wholeness? Or are you ready to try something else?” Not so we can heal ourselves with the power of positive thinking but so we can let go of whatever system or whatever beliefs or whatever we’ve been doing that is not working. In our relationships. In our work. In our national life, in our economy, in our churches, in our care of creation and the climate, in our care of our fellow human beings. In our relationships with other nations. And in our health, and certainly in our health care delivery system, which is not so different from what existed back then in that it lets one person be pushed aside while another receives care. Maybe this story isn’t so much about one man as it is about a system of healing out of whack.

Jesus offers us another way. Let go of what isn’t working. Try something else.

Resources:
Herman C. Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple (New York: T & T Clark International, 2005).
Patricia Cohen, “Author’s Personal Forecast: Not Always Sunny, But Pleasantly Skeptical,” October 10, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/books/10ehrenreich.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print.
Gerard Sloyan, Interpretation: John (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1988).

By This Everyone Will Know

May 14, 2025 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

John 13:31-35

A few weeks ago, I spoke at a California State Senate committee hearing in Sacramento, advocating for a bill that would prohibit discrimination in healthcare on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. I stood in line at the mic after the bill’s author made her introduction, and we were instructed to give only our names and affiliation, and voice our support. The person who invited me to this hearing asked me to wear my clergy collar, which I rarely do. I realize the collar announces loud and clear what I am, but I find that when I wear one in public, people tend to avert their eyes. This was the case that day in Sacramento. I’m glad I spoke up, I’m glad I claimed the affiliation of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and I’m even glad I wore the collar because it makes me look more official. But on elevators and in corridors, it felt as though people thought I might have something contagious.

It makes me wonder what they think about clergy, but also, about Christians. I ran across a short video called, “What Are Christians Known For?” An interviewer asked this very question of random people in random settings. It wasn’t a scientific poll, but it had the feel of being pretty much where people are about Christians these days. You may watch the video here:

About half of the people responded the way I’d hoped: Forgiveness, compassion, loving our neighbors. The other half responded with what I feared they might: Fanaticism, hypocrisy, killing off non-Christians. I’m deeply grateful that at least some of the people interviewed mentioned Jesus, and even echoed his words in this passage in John’s Gospel. These verses take place shortly before Jesus’ arrest. Jesus has just washed the disciples’ feet, a vivid demonstration of servanthood, hospitality, and love. Then Jesus announces that one among them will betray him. After Judas leaves, Jesus speaks the words in today’s lesson.

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He’s asking them to care for each other as he has cared for them. It doesn’t end there, within the community of disciples, but it does start there and that’s hard enough. We’ve just seen Judas, a disciple, turn on Jesus and the other disciples, for crying out loud. John wrote his gospel in the context of the early church, which experienced conflict from without and within. All of Paul’s letters to the ancient churches were about how to get along, how to treat each other within the community of faith. Paul’s most famous words, that gorgeous chapter 13 from First Corinthians that practically everyone including me has read at their wedding is not about marriage; it’s about church. It’s about telling people how to love each other in the church.

In order to bring the good news of Christ to the rest of the world, the followers of Christ needed to take care of one another. They need to love each other. Note what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say: “You will know them by their exacting adherence to correct doctrine.” He doesn’t say, “You will know them by the way they read the Bible literally,” or “You will know them by who it is they condemn as sinners.” Jesus doesn’t say, “You will know them by their lack of doubts, or by their lack of questions.”

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As the little video shows, people are watching us. They may not be watching closely enough to know the difference between a Pentecostal, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic. But they’re watching to see how we act. They’re watching to see if we love each other. And of course, they’re watching to see if we extend that love beyond the doors of our churches. But it has to start with the community. The church’s purpose is love, not condemnation. The church’s purpose is love, not judgment. William Barclay writes, “More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all of the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all of the doubts in the world.”

It has to start with the community, but to end there is to miss the point. The church does not exist to preserve or maintain itself, but rather, to be Body of Christ in the world, to go into the world to do the work God calls us to do. Amy Allen writes, “For John’s Jesus, this was showing the world the Light, to show what it meant to be a follower of Christ. For Luke’s Jesus, this was showing the world aid and concern, helping the victims, eating with those different from you, and baptizing whole households, even slaves, women, and children. Being a disciple of Jesus in these circumstances meant loving into community the whole people of God – not simply loving those with whom one was already in communion.”

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” David Lose points out that these words “are simultaneously ridiculously easy to understand and ridiculously hard to do.” And yet, Jesus would not have given us this new commandment if it had not been possible. We gather in communities, in churches, precisely to figure out how it’s possible.

Resources:

Amy Allen, http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-beloved-community-read-through-acts-111-18-and-john-1331-35/

David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2542

Nonviolent Protest

April 8, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Luke 19:28-40

This past Saturday, demonstrators gathered in cities and towns across the United States energized by different concerns but united in opposition to many of the measures taken by the current administration since taking office in January. The message was, “Hands Off!” those rights, values, institutions, and services that Americans agree are essential to a fair and thriving economy and a compassionate and equitable society. Hands off Social Security, hands off veterans’ services, hands off climate initiatives. Hands off Medicare, the Department of Education, universities, women’s healthcare, USAID, DEI initiatives, our personal data, and ultimately, hands off our democracy. Organizers reported that more than 1,400 nonpartisan rallies took place, in all 50 states, all of them nonviolent, ranging in size from over 100,000 people in Washington, D.C., to perhaps 250 people at the event I attended in El Sobrante, California, a small Bay Area town. London, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere around the globe supported these protests with rallies of their own. Estimates of the total participants vary, some projecting as many as 5.2 million people.

So, on Saturday night, everyone was talking about the research of Harvard political scientist Erica Chenowith. After learning about the benefits of nonviolent protest, Dr. Chenoweth conducted a study of violent protests and nonviolent protests, comparing their success rate. After looking at hundreds of protests across the world, Chenoweth found that protests are twice as likely to succeed if they are nonviolent and that around 3.5% of the population must participate to create serious change. Chenoweth said, “There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event.” Successful revolutions that were nonviolent and reached the 3.5% threshold include those in Estonia, Georgia, the Philippines and dozens more. What will it take, people asked last Saturday, to get 3.5% of Americans on the streets?

Which made me wonder: Did 3.5% of the population of Jerusalem turn out to watch Jesus enter the city in the procession we celebrate on Palm Sunday?

No doubt about it: Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was a nonviolent protest. Luke reports that the people spread their cloaks on the road before Jesus, shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” Yikes! Blessed is the king?! These are people who already have a king. They have King Herod, Herod Antipas, the puppet of the Roman Emperor Caesar. Which means these ancient Judeans have both a king (puppet or not) and an emperor. “Blessed is the king”? Throwing cloaks on the road, as one does for a king? This is a call for regime change.

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” This helps explain why Jesus was arrested and crucified. He entered Jerusalem just before the Passover celebration, and even without his kingly procession, Passover was tricky for the Romans. The Passover festival is all about deliverance from slavery and freedom from oppression. Passover wasn’t good for the Empire. And so Jesus didn’t merely offend the religious authorities. He proclaimed another kingdom – the kingdom not of Herod or Caesar but of God – and called people to give their allegiance to God’s kingdom first. In other words, he was a real threat. He was a threat to the way the Romans and their puppet king led, ruled, and lived.

For that matter, he is still a threat. He threatens systems that dominate with intimidation, violence, coercion, and manipulation. He threatens our obsession with defining ourselves over and against others. He threatens the way in which we seek to secure our future by hording wealth and power. He threatens our habit of drawing lines and making rules about who is acceptable and who is not. He threatens all these things and more.

The authorities think they can eliminate this threat by violence. They are wrong. As Dr. King put it, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. … Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

It reminds me of a short poem by Michael Leunig:
There are only two feelings,
Love and fear.
There are only two languages,
Love and fear.
There are only two activities,
Love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results,
Love and fear,
Love and fear.

All tyrants fear those they tyrannize. Otherwise, they would not resort to tyranny.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord: in the name of compassion, in the name of mercy, in the name of truth and freedom, in the name of love. It could change the world.

Resources:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/organizers-say-millions-turn-out-for-anti-trump-hands-off-rallies-nationwide/ar-AA1Cm7u2
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/05/nx-s1-5353388/hands-off-protests-washington-dc
https://www.karunanews.org/story/1596/3-5-rule-how-a-small-minority-can-change-the-world
https://www.leunig.com.au/works/prayers
David Lose, “Dear Partner: Palm/Passion Sunday A,” April 5, 2017, http://www.davidlose.net/2017/04/palmpassion-sunday-a/.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love (Harper and Row, 1963; reprinted as a gift edition by Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).

Extravagant Compassion

April 1, 2025March 25, 2025 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

Lesson: John 12:1-8

The Lazarus story just before this chapter is a turning point. When the news about Lazarus gets around, people will think Jesus is some sort of savior, and the Romans will wreak havoc on everyone. The authorities decide “better to have one man die than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50). They plan to grab Jesus when he shows up in Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus’ days are numbered, and he knows it.

With this backdrop, Jesus is just outside of Jerusalem, having dinner with friends: Lazarus, his sisters Mary and Martha, and a few disciples. Without explanation, Mary breaks open a bottle of nard, an incredibly expensive perfumed ointment. Mary lets her hair down in a room full of men, which an honorable woman never does. Normally you’d anoint someone’s head, but Mary pours the nard on Jesus’ feet, and then she, a single woman, touches him, a single man; also just not done. Then in the oddest move of all she wipes off the perfume with her hair.

Just exactly what’s going on isn’t clear, but Mary has stepped far outside the bounds of convention, teetering on the edge of scandal. That’s why Judas reacts so strongly. He attacks Mary for wasting 300 denarii on nard. A typical worker earned 300 denarii in an entire year. Doesn’t Judas have a point? But Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Jim Wallis writes that somehow this verse has been translated, “There is nothing we can do about poverty, the poor will always be there, so why bother?” But what Jesus meant was, “You’ll always have the poor with you because you’re my disciples. You know who we spend time with. You’ll always be near the poor.” Jesus is quoting the Torah here, and the context is important. In Deuteronomy, God tells Moses: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward those of your people who are poor and needy in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

We’re told Judas isn’t being altruistic. The gospel writer is telling us to keep our eyes on this guy. But Jesus says, “Let it go, because my time is running out.” Whatever Mary’s original motivations, Jesus knows what waits for him in Jerusalem. He says she’s saved the nard for the day of his burial. In other words, he’s as good as dead, right now.

So, leave her alone, Jesus says, because her kind of love is what Jesus needs, and what the world needs. Mid-twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich sums up the story: “[Mary] has performed an act of holy waste growing out of the abundance of her heart. . . . Jesus (alone) knows that without the abundance of heart nothing great can happen … . He knows that calculating love is not love at all.” “The history of humankind,” Tillich continues, “is the history of men and women who wasted themselves and were not afraid to do so. They did not fear to waste themselves in the service of a new creation. They wasted out of the fullness of their hearts.”

The only other time we encounter Mary in John’s gospel is right after Lazarus has died. When Jesus saw her and the others weeping, “he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” The Greek words are unusually powerful; Jesus is really bent out of shape by the sorrow he witnesses. His extravagantly compassionate response is to bring Lazarus back from the dead. Maybe he can’t heal every leper and paralytic; maybe he can’t bring back every friend from the dead, but it doesn’t stop him from helping this time. It ended up getting him in hot water with the authorities, but he did not fear to waste himself in service of a new creation.

In today’s passage, Mary echoes Jesus’ “holy waste,” his extravagant compassion, by anointing him with costly perfume. Perhaps what this story is reminding us is that extravagant compassion is what Jesus offered and it’s exactly what this world needs. We can’t right every injustice; we can’t heal every hatred, but that shouldn’t stop us from stepping in with extravagant compassion, with radical love and acceptance, when and where we can.

The extravagant, radical compassion approved and exhibited by Jesus himself stands in opposition to a growing movement among some conservatives, including Christians, pushing back against traditional Christian notions of empathy and compassion. In a New York Times op-ed, David French writes, “These attacks are rooted in the idea that progressives emotionally manipulate evangelicals into supporting causes they would otherwise reject. For example, if people respond to the foreign aid shutdown and the stop-work orders by talking about how children might suffer or die, then they’re exhibiting toxic empathy.” But as French points out, “So, yes, you say that children might die without a certain program when the very purpose of the program is to prevent children from dying. That’s not manipulation. It’s confronting individuals with facts. It’s making them understand exactly what they are choosing to do.”

Jesus chooses empathy. Jesus choose compassion. He chooses them because they are in fact what can save us, save our civilization, save our species, save our planet, save the world that God so loves.

Resources:
Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Prophet Mary,” http://day1.org/1760-the_prophet_mary.
Herman C. Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple (New York: T & T Clark, 2005).
Jim Wallis, God’s Politics (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).
Paul Tillich, “Holy Waste,” in The New Being: Existential Sermons (Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, originally published in 1955; 2005 paperback edition).
David French, “Behold the Strange Spectacle of Christians Against Empathy,” New York Times, February 13, 2025

This Fellow Welcomes Sinners and Eats with Them

March 24, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

The Pharisees and scribes complain when they see Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. In Jesus’ time, “sinners” fell into several categories. There were the people in unacceptable occupations, including tax collectors because they worked for the Romans and profited from graft and corruption. There were people who did immoral things; okay, fair enough. But you could also be a “sinner” just by being born into the wrong group; both Samaritans and Gentiles were “sinners.” Finally, there were people who didn’t keep the law to the rigorous standards of the religious elites, which included many ordinary folks who couldn’t sit around debating the finer points of religious law. The question for us is this: Putting aside these first century definitions of who was a sinner, who would you be scandalized to see having breakfast with Jesus at Denny’s? An ex-convict? Your ex-spouse? A terrorist? Someone in human trafficking? Someone currently holding elected office in the United States? The relative who made off with Grandma’s silver tea service an hour after she died, the guy who bullied you every day all through middle school? Whose name is crossed off your guest list forever? That’s who’s at the table. If you aren’t scandalized by the thought of Jesus eating with that person, then that’s not who was eating with Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t argue. He tells a story about a man with two sons. The younger son essentially tells his father he can’t wait for him to die. He wants his share of the estate now. That’s a big slap in the face even today, but even more so given the huge honor owed the patriarch of a family and the elaborate code for keeping that honor in place. The father divides the property between the two sons, no questions asked. The younger son takes the money and runs to a distant country where he spends it all on what Jesus delicately calls dissolute living. This means the older son has to support the rest of the family on two-thirds of the family resources, their mother is more vulnerable because now she only has one son, and the family is dishonored.

When he’s broke, the younger son takes a job working for Gentiles feeding hogs, which, for a Jew, is hitting bottom and then some. He “comes to himself,” but we don’t know if he’s contrite or repentant; maybe he just remembers where there are clean sheets and three meals a day. On the road home he rehearses his speech: “Just treat me like a hired hand but let me come home.” His father sees him coming. Has he been out there every day, scanning the horizon, hoping? The father runs down the road, which an honorable patriarch wouldn’t do, and before the son can spit out his speech his father has his arms around him. The son finally blurts out, “I have sinned; I am not worthy,” but the father is busy planning a celebration. He orders his servants to kill the fatted calf, a sign that the celebration is a feast for the entire village. It’s a feast to restore the family’s honor as well as a feast to restore the family’s son.

As one of my preaching students put it, if the story ended there, it would be a happy ending. But it doesn’t. We typically call this the Parable of the Prodigal Son but there’s that other son, the elder son. He’s done everything right; in his mind, he’s earned his father’s love, and he isn’t about to sit at the same table with that self-centered brat who caused his family so much grief. Right there in front of everyone, he refuses to come in the house. The father could ignore his elder’s son conspicuous absence until his guests leave, but as we’ve seen, honor doesn’t matter to this man; keeping his family together does. He goes to talk to the elder son.

Perhaps the most obvious lesson is that both sons have their father’s love not because they earned it, but because loving is what their father does. That is what we call grace. But if that were the end of the story, if God’s grace were the single point of the parable, then it would be the theological equivalent of both brothers’ saying, “We like to sin. God likes to forgive. What could be better?” Which, by the way, is not the gospel.

“Sin” is a loaded word, a word that has been used to label and hurt people, but sin is not a check in the demerit column made by a cranky scorekeeper God. Sin is whatever hurts our relationship with God and with each other. That’s why God hates sin: because God loves us. What the younger brother did caused serious harm to the family, even to the community. And so did what the older brother did. The older brother is just as self-interested as the younger brother when it comes right down to it. And just as lost. Both are forgiven because forgiveness means the past doesn’t have all the power in this relationship. The father is saying to the older son, “We have a different future than anything the past has led us to expect. This is the reason for the party.”

The older brother, having heard his father’s pleas, stands in the yard. Fade to black. No happy ending. Now, remember who is listening to the story. The Pharisees, and the sinners and outcasts around the table, and, of course, Christians down through the centuries. So it isn’t so much a parable without an ending as it is a parable in which the ending is left to us. Will we come home, like the younger brother? Will we come in, as the older brother was invited to do? Will we get over being scandalized by Jesus’ dinner companions, and imagine a future in which God’s love counts more than someone’s past or our own self-righteous conviction that we are the ones who are right? As Frederick Buechner wrote, “True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ than to the future and saying, ‘Wow!’”

Resources:
Barbara Brown Taylor, “Table Manners,” in The Christian Century, March 11, 1998
Gary Inrig, The Parables (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Press, 1991).
Leviticus 11:7
Isaiah 65:4, 66:17.
Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family,” March 18, 2007, http://www.fourthchurch.org/031807sermon.html.
Mary Hinkle, “Wherever you Are,” March 16, 2004, http://maryhinkle.typepad.com/pilgrim_preaching/2004/03/wherever_you_ar.html.

Solvitur Ambulando

Putting one foot in front of the other on the path of faith

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