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

Sabbath Freedom

August 19, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

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.

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

August 12, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

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.

Resources:

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

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.

Hospitality

July 15, 2025 / cjwhitt / 1 Comment

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.

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).

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

Tabitha, Get Up

May 5, 2025 / cjwhitt / Leave a comment

Acts 9:36-43

Today’s story in Acts reminds me of a Billy Collins poem. Collins, who teaches poetry as well as writing it, wrote these lines about his students in his poem, “Introduction to Poetry”:
“I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
…
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.” …

“But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.”

The account of the raising of Tabitha is short but enigmatic and challenging. For starters, someone is brought back to life after having died, and not even by Jesus, but rather, by Peter. It’s a tough miracle to swallow, but the biblical writers weren’t worried about science the way we are. They cared about what they remembered, and they cared what God was saying to them. So how do we determine what God is saying through this story, the story the community remembered, without tying it to a chair and beating a confession out of it?

Tabitha is described as a disciple. We’re told she is devoted to good works and acts of charity. It appears that she cared for the needy widows in Joppa, out of her own resources and in a very practical way: she made clothing for them. When Tabitha dies, the community fears that her life-giving work dies with her.

We aren’t told why Peter is called, or what’s expected of him. Tabitha is dead; her friends have already washed her body. When he arrives, he’s ushered to the upstairs room, and he asks everyone to leave. He kneels and prays and then speaks. The text emphasizes that he’s speaking to “the body,” not to an aware, alive person. He says, “Tabitha, get up.” And she does. The news gets around, and we’re told, “many believed in the Lord.” Well, yeah. If Christians today started raising the dead, churches would have no trouble meeting their budgets.

Every bible story is set in the midst of other stories. Behind this story about Tabitha is a story from Mark’s gospel that was retold by Luke, who was also the author of the book of Acts. The story in Mark is about Jairus and his daughter. Jairus, a leader of a Galilee synagogue, asks Jesus to heal his 12-year-old daughter, who is dying. On his way to Jairus’ house, Jesus heals the woman who touches his cloak in a crowd. Moments later, a messenger arrives with the news that Jairus’ daughter has died. But Jesus responds, “Do not fear, only believe.” Jesus continues to the house, where he tells all those present that the girl is not dead but asleep. He then goes upstairs and restores the little girl to life. In Mark’s account, Jesus speaks the Aramaic phrase “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”

Talitha, get up. Tabitha, get up. The words are meant to sound the same, to be an echo. Tabitha’s upstairs room is meant to be an echo of that earlier upstairs room. And then there’s Peter, who had been called Simon but of whom Jesus said, “You are Peter, and on this rock” – because that’s what “Peter” means – it means “rock” – “on this rock I will build my church.” Peter in this story is meant to be an epitome of the authority, capacity, and mission of the church. He is the embodiment of the church, if you will. He enters the room where there is a smell of death and prays. He says, “Get up,” just the way Jesus did. And life is given, just the way it was when Jesus did it.

This story is a startling and dramatic announcement that Peter – that is, the Church – is to carry on the work of Jesus, and is entrusted with his resurrection power, the power of new life. Paul used the phrase, “the Body of Christ,” to capture this idea. The Church is the Body of Christ, given Christ’s life-giving work to do, and the power to do it.

We can’t really explain what happened in this miraculous story, and we shouldn’t try, but we can say that, at its core, it is subversive. It is subversive because every culture and community, every family, every congregation assumes things have to be a certain way. Who is powerful, who is weak; who thrives, who struggles; who lives, who dies. Tabitha, for example, is supposed to stay home and let the men come up with a way to care for vulnerable widows. Peter is to stay with his fishing nets and leave theology to the scholars and preaching to the charismatic. This story turns that upside down. Death is not the final word, and so reality is not bound to what has been. Flipping over the old assumptions is what the Church is to be about.

The Church tells and retells Tabitha’s story as a reminder that the Church is entrusted with the power to bring new life … bodily, concretely, locally. And not only life, but life for those who are on the bottom rung of the ladder, people who normally have no one to represent or protect them. Tabitha’s story tells us widows will not be abandoned. God will not allow it. That might impact how the Church responds to proposed reductions in Social Security benefits. It might impact what the Church teaches daughters and granddaughters, as well as sons, about choosing a career that will sustain them. It might impact a congregation’s decision to offer sanctuary to refugees in spite of the current war on immigrants.

William Willimon writes about Tabitha’s story: “Every time a couple of little stories like these are faithfully told by the church, the social system is rendered null and void. The church comes out and [says] … ‘Rise!’ and nothing is ever quite the same again.”

Perhaps Tabitha, sewing clothes for widows, also already knew what Mother Teresa said, that none of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Anne Lamott writes, “[M]ost of us have figured out that we have to do what’s in front of us and keep doing it. We clean up beaches after oil spills. We rebuild whole towns after hurricanes and tornadoes. We return calls and library books. We get people water. Some of us even pray. Every time we choose the good action or response, the decent, the valuable, it builds, incrementally, to renewal, resurrection, the place of newness, freedom, justice. The equation is: life, death, resurrection, hope. The horror is real, and so you make casseroles for your neighbor, organize an overseas clothing drive, and do your laundry. You can also offer to do other people’s laundry, if they have recently had any random babies or surgeries.”

The Church proclaims, “Tabitha, get up.” Widows and the vulnerable of our world, get up. You, who are surprised to discover that even you have been named as a disciple, get up. Get up, choose the good action, the decent, the valuable, and give witness to the resurrection to new life here and now.

Resources:
Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry,” from The Apple that Astonished Paris (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2006).
Mitzi Smith, “Commentary on Acts 9:36-43,” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2814.
William H. Willimon, Interpretation: Acts (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1988).
Walter Brueggemann, “Blogging toward Sunday: Acts 9:36-43,” in The Christian Century, April 24, 2007, http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2007-04/blogging-toward-sunday-0.
Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013).

Solvitur Ambulando

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

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