Jeremiah 31:31-34
John 8:31-36
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I wonder what someone new to faith and religion, someone who identifies as “spiritual but not religious”, or perhaps even a “none”, a person with no experience with religion or the church, sees when they come into our worship spaces. Especially on a day like today when we are celebrating Reformation Sunday and recalling Martin Luther’s boldness, when pageantry and exuberance energize the air, and we take in the music and the red paraments and banners,
what do our neighbors see?
A preaching colleague regularly reminds us to “show ‘em Jesus” and certainly, that is my prayer, that people encountering us for the first time see Jesus.
But showing people Jesus doesn’t mean only reading and teaching the parts of Scripture, what we call the New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, that include the stories of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. The Old Testament texts also show how “the Word of God [has entered] communities of faith by calling, warning, exhorting, judging, redeeming and forgiving.”[i] These texts narrate the experience of our spiritual mothers and fathers.
In tonight’s Old Testament text, we hear from Jeremiah, a prophet and an unpopular truth-teller commissioned by God who was active from approximately 627 BCE through the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE. Remaining in Judah until he was forced into exile in Egypt, Jeremiah tried to awaken Israel to the ways that the people had been un-faithful to Yahweh.
He repeatedly charged God’s people with fickleness and urged them to return to their God, warning them of the destruction that would follow rebellion, and worse, their indifference, to their sovereign Lord. In defiance to royal posturing, Jeremiah announced God’s severe judgment and offered lament for the unavoidable devastation of Jerusalem.
In contrast, the text we just heard comes from a portion of Jeremiah called “The Book of Consolation” or “The Book of Comfort” because the verses in these chapters voice “comfort, consolation, assurance and hope”, rooted in the character of God.[ii]
From the beginning, God created humankind for relationship, establishing a covenant that was carried through the generations. “Covenant” is a 50-cent word for relationship. First with Noah, and then with Abram, Isaac and Jacob, and again with David, God established a covenant with God’s people, promising to be in relationship with them.[iii]
The covenant God created was meant to be eternal, for-ever, but again and again throughout Scripture, God’s people rejected their covenant relationship with God,
grasping for power, wrenching control away from God and insisting on their own plans.
When Jeremiah speaks on behalf of the Lord in these verses, God’s people are in exile, suffering their punishment for breaking their covenantal relationship with God. And it is into that disconsolation and despair that God promises a “new covenant”. (v. 31)
For we Christians, it is important to remember that these words were spoken first to Israel. The words are ours only because they were spoken to people who were our ancestors in faith. God has not forgotten or replaced Israel.
God names this a “new covenant” because God is offering God’s people a “new” way of being in relationship with God. It is a “new” covenant” because it transforms us, reconciling us to God.
In these verses, Jeremiah explains how this transformation will take place. The teaching and instruction that were written on stone tablets and given to Moses at Sinai were neglected by God’s people, and their hearts were corrupted by sin and willfulness.
Now God’s law will be written in our hearts, at the center of our being, so that it will become part of our nature so that, instead of an impulse toward rebellion against God, we will be instinctively drawn into life with God. As Walter Brueggemann writes, “Our identity will now be internal, “so obeying will be as normal and as readily accepted as breathing and eating.”[v]
This “new covenant” is not an ethereal or ambiguous hope. It is a divine promise that God enables us to live in covenant and relationship with Godself, and empowers us to live according to God’s instruction. [vi] With abundant grace, mercy and forgiveness, God un-binds us from our sin and frees us to begin again.
This promise is at the heart of the Reformation.
This grace-filled God is the one that Martin Luther discovered when he learned Hebrew and Greek and read Scripture in its original languages. Even after he had become an Augustinian monk, Luther had remained terrified of the vengeful God who would exact punishment upon pitiful sinners, but then he discovered the evidence of God’s grace throughout the canon and gained a new understanding of the depth of God’s love for each of us. In his famed 95 Theses, Luther argued against church practices that were corrupt or kept citizens captive to papal authority and he urged reform. His intent was never to separate from the Catholic Church but, like Jeremiah, to speak truth to a culture, authority and institution that was faltering.
One of the revelations that Luther shared was that faith was rooted in direct relationship with God and no one mediates faith for another person. This is the idea of covenant; God’s covenant is not with Rome or with our bishops or denomination authorities, it is with each and every one of us.
“John’s Gospel, [especially] focuses on the Covenant and becoming one with God.”[vii] In tonight’s gospel text, Jesus, speaking to believers, says,
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”[viii]
When we hear the word “truth” here, in our humanity, like Pilate we want to know, “What is truth?” “What do we have to know?” “What do we have to do to get the ‘true disciple’ badge?”
Is truth found in the right style of worship, the right number of members, the biggest vacation bible school, the prettiest stained glass windows or the best sound system? Is it known through strict piety with morning and evening prayers and daily confession? Tell us and we’ll do it!
Sometimes we want to know we have the truth so that we get the bragging rights. We want to feel special. So, too often, as we observe the anniversary of the reformation, we tell the story in such a way that it sounds like Martin Luther was the first and only one who challenged the Roman church, as though he must have been the one who knew the truth because his arguments prevailed. Of course, he wasn’t the only one, and the truth that Jesus names here isn’t ours to keep for ourselves.
The very first time we hear this word in John’s gospel is in the prologue in the first chapter, when the Evangelist tells us, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth”.[ix]
Jesus isn’t using the word “truth” to describe a coveted treasure, a checklist, or an argument to be won. Jesus is the truth, and the embodiment of God’s compassionate mercy in the world.
God loves us because God cannot help but love us, and in Jesus, we see God’s love with skin on it.
Speaking about Jesus, the incarnation and the resurrection, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the messiness of the world we live in and says, “the undoing is part of the remaking.” [x]
This past summer, I began pottery classes at the community college and, as a novice potter, I love that phrase: “the undoing is part of the remaking.” Seated at the potter’s wheel, one of the first steps is called centering. You use water and the rotating wheel to prepare the ball of clay, coning it upward and then cupping it and returning it to more of a ball. It gets the air out of the clay and gets the clay to sit evenly on the wheel. One of the ways you know the clay is centered is that your hands no longer shudder or vibrate as the wheel turns beneath them. If you don’t get the clay centered or keep it that way, your work will be lopsided, or as my instructor kindly says, “organic”. Other times, when you’re working at the wheel, the clay gets too wet or thin or collapses on itself, and when you know you can’t redeem it, you scrape it off and put the clay into a bag where it will dry out enough to be shaped into a new ball that can become something new the next week.
“The undoing is part of the remaking.”
The undoing, disorder or disorientation that we experience in our lives is not in vain. It is part of the reconciling work that God is about in the world.
Reformer John Wesley defined salvation as the restoration of our capacity to bear God’s image in the world.[xi] And Luther wrote, “We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road.”[xii]
In this way, we are semper reformanda, always reforming.
A life of faith isn’t predictable or linear and it rarely follows our plans. And sometimes it means starting over and waiting on God to reveal what’s next. A life following Jesus breaks open our ideas about where we find truth and meaning. And through this messy and unpredictable life together, Jesus reveals that God is working in and through us.
Redeemed by God through faith in Jesus, we are invited to participate in this new life and show forth the love of God to our neighbors and the world,
showing ‘em Jesus.
Let us pray…
Holy God, our Redeemer and Lord,
By your Word, you invite us into a new covenant, promising forgiveness and love.
Teach us to abide in Your Word, to remain in your love, to continue in your presence.
By your Spirit, guide us in the truth that is in Jesus, truth that does not exclude but includes, and sends us into the world to bear your love to our neighbors and communities.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
[i] Terence Fretheim. The Pentateuch. 21.
[ii] Brueggemann, Walter. Jeremiah. 264-265.
[iii] Breen, Mike. Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible. 3DM. Kindle Edition.
[iv] Jeremiah 31:33, NRSV.
[v] Brueggemann, Walter. Jeremiah. 293.
[vi] Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination (p. 56). Augsburg Fortress - A. Kindle Edition.
[vii] Breen. Location 2014.
[viii] John 8:31-32, NRSV.
[ix] John 1:14, NRSV.
[x] “Jesus, Incarnation and The Christ Resurrection”. Another Name For Every Thing with Richard Rohr. Podcast audio. August 3, 2019. Center for Contemplation and Action. https://cac.org/podcasts/1-jesus-incarnation-and-the-christ-resurrection/.
[xi] Joy Moore. Sermon Brainwave #687. Luther Seminary. Podcast audio. October 27, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx.
[xii] Martin Luther, *Defense of All the Articles*, Lazareth transl., as found in Grace Brame, *Receptive Prayer* (Chalice Press, 1985) p.119
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Lectionary 29C/ Proper 24
Luke 18:1-8
When a much-anticipated movie or book is released, people rush to watch it or get their copy, devouring it as quickly as they can. And then they inevitably want to tell others all about it. Warning whoever is listening they’re about to give away something important about the storyline, they say, “spoiler alert!”
I remember when the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released. It was summer and our daughters were with their grandparents, and I had the luxury of being able to read the book cover to cover without any distractions. This was the early days of social media and spoiler alerts were easy to avoid.
Today, you have to turn off the tv, and stay off your phone if you want to escape someone else’s take on a story. And in today’s gospel we see that the impulse to tell others what we think is happening in a scene or a story is ancient.
Our gospel this morning includes yet another parable, and Luke is quick to tell us what it’s about. The gospel writer says it’s about “the need to pray always and not to lose heart.”(8:1) If we let him, he will take away any chance we have to listen to the characters for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.
But we’re not going to let him do that.
Instead, we’re going to look at the text of the parable in verses 2 to 5 and listen for what God is saying, recognizing that the verses before and after the parable are Luke’s commentary on it.
The first character Jesus introduces us to is the judge. The parable’s often titled “the widow and the unjust judge” but it’s Luke, not Jesus, who identifies him as “unjust”, later in verse 6.
In verse 2, Jesus says the judge “neither feared God or had respect for people.” In the Small Catechism, Luther teaches that the very first commandment “You shall have no other gods.” means that “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” Luther then teaches that our fear and love for God directs all of our human relationships. The judge doesn’t follow the commandments
given to us by God
to govern our relationship with God or with others.
He denies God.
When I hear Luke’s word “unjust”, I immediately think the judge is corrupt or dishonest, but what Jesus describes isn’t necessarily a criminal or a miscreant. It is someone turned in on himself, selfish and self-centered, without regard for God or neighbor.
The second person that Jesus introduces is the widow. I recently re-read an article that talked about how different words are “marked” or carry assumptions with them.[i]
But maybe not.
Amy Jill-Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, suggests that because Anna’s husband goes unnamed but she is introduced as “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher” explicitly connecting her to the Northern tribes of Israel that were taken into exile, she “represents the tenacity of holding on to her identity.” Levine also notes that the widow at Zarephath argues with Elijah, advocating for her son who is ill, instead of submitting to his demands. And finally, the widow who gives her two coins clearly had her own money and choices to make about how she used it. No one had exploited her. These women all have “agency and individuality.”[ii]
In the translation we just heard, Jesus tells us that the woman kept saying to the judge, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”
But the word translated here as “justice” is ἐκδικούμενα
(ek-dee-kó-mena) which is “vengeance” or “revenge”,
not the κρίσις (kree-sis) that we recognize from the prophet Isaiah’s instruction to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17)
Hearing the woman sought vengeance changes how we hear the parable. Vengeance or revenge is consuming; it distorts how we view the world and events. It isolates us from others who do not share our passion. Reconsidering how we imagine “widows” and casting the woman as vengeful makes her character less sympathetic or morally exemplary.
Continuing the parable, Jesus tells us that the judge relents. We shouldn’t mistake his action as a change of heart, or repentance, turning toward God. Still adamantly denying God and neighbor, he is motivated by self-preservation; in our translation, it says the woman will “wear him out” but the Greek is actually a boxing word that is better translated as “beat on him” or even “give him a black eye.” He acts because he feels threatened, not compassionate.
So now what?
Jesus doesn’t commend the judge to us as a moral exemplar. The judge remains turned inward, searching out the most expedient way to get rid of the fuss and bother that interacting with his community brings.
And Jesus isn’t commending the woman’s dogged pursuit of vengeance to us either. After all, in Leviticus we hear the Lord command Israel,
This weekend, a Mississippi memorial to Emmett Till was rededicated. Kidnapped by two white men in 1955, the fourteen-year old black boy visiting family in the South was beaten and killed. His body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River three days later. The two men arrested for his murder were acquitted, and because of double jeopardy laws, were never convicted even after they publicly professed to what they had done. Till’s mother had her son’s body brought back to Chicago and his casket was open during his funeral to display the brutality inflicted on him. Today you can see that casket on display in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
There was no justice for Emmett Till, but more than fifty years after his death, a memorial commission was formed in Mississippi and people continue to work to tell the story of his death and work for racial justice now. One of the ways they tell Till’s story is through markers or memorial signs, and after the first three signs were vandalized with graffiti, bullets and acid, they constructed a more durable memorial that was rededicated this weekend.
Justice – setting things right – is what we hear the prophets argue for. It is what Amos calls for when, as Eugene Peterson wrote in the Message paraphrase,
Where revenge is punitive and wants someone to suffer, to be hurt or feel pain, justice is restorative, recognizing that God cares for both victims and perpetrators and we are created for relationship. Restorative justice doesn’t eliminate accountability or consequences but seeks reconciliation and repairs relationships.
For all of us, who have a lot more in common with the widow and the judge than with Jesus, this parable is good news that gives away the ending of the greatest story we have. God doesn’t play the games that these two characters play. We neither have to pound on God for attention, or fear God’s disdain. God welcomes us with abundant love and gives us unearned grace in faith. God knows us fully, even we fail to love and fear God,
even when we are angry or vengeful,
or selfish and unmoved by the troubles of those around us.
And God invites us into this life with God, with each other and with the world, trusting us to seek justice, to set things right, that God will be known.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus and for the grace you have given each one of us —
grace that is patient with us as we learn what it means to fear and love You; grace that strengthens our voices and encourages us to love our neighbors and seek justice in an unjust world.
Prompt us to listen to Your Word and what You are saying to us as You call us to follow Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Deborah F. Tannen. “Wears Jump Suit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband's Last Name”, New York Times. June 20, 1993, Section 6, Page 18.
[ii] Amy-Jill Levine. Short Stories by Jesus. 257-260.
[iii] Leon F Seltzer Ph.D. “Don’t Confuse Revenge with Justice: Five Key Differences.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201402/don-t-confuse-revenge-justice-five-key-differences, accessed 10/19/2019.
When a much-anticipated movie or book is released, people rush to watch it or get their copy, devouring it as quickly as they can. And then they inevitably want to tell others all about it. Warning whoever is listening they’re about to give away something important about the storyline, they say, “spoiler alert!”
I remember when the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released. It was summer and our daughters were with their grandparents, and I had the luxury of being able to read the book cover to cover without any distractions. This was the early days of social media and spoiler alerts were easy to avoid.
Today, you have to turn off the tv, and stay off your phone if you want to escape someone else’s take on a story. And in today’s gospel we see that the impulse to tell others what we think is happening in a scene or a story is ancient.
Our gospel this morning includes yet another parable, and Luke is quick to tell us what it’s about. The gospel writer says it’s about “the need to pray always and not to lose heart.”(8:1) If we let him, he will take away any chance we have to listen to the characters for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.
But we’re not going to let him do that.
Instead, we’re going to look at the text of the parable in verses 2 to 5 and listen for what God is saying, recognizing that the verses before and after the parable are Luke’s commentary on it.
The first character Jesus introduces us to is the judge. The parable’s often titled “the widow and the unjust judge” but it’s Luke, not Jesus, who identifies him as “unjust”, later in verse 6.
In verse 2, Jesus says the judge “neither feared God or had respect for people.” In the Small Catechism, Luther teaches that the very first commandment “You shall have no other gods.” means that “we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things.” Luther then teaches that our fear and love for God directs all of our human relationships. The judge doesn’t follow the commandments
given to us by God
to govern our relationship with God or with others.
He denies God.
When I hear Luke’s word “unjust”, I immediately think the judge is corrupt or dishonest, but what Jesus describes isn’t necessarily a criminal or a miscreant. It is someone turned in on himself, selfish and self-centered, without regard for God or neighbor.
The second person that Jesus introduces is the widow. I recently re-read an article that talked about how different words are “marked” or carry assumptions with them.[i]
The unmarked form of a word carries the meaning thatI think “widow” is a marked word. When we hear widows named in Scripture, we may remember Anna, a prophet at the Temple in Luke Chapter 2, the widow at Zarephath who met Elijah (1 Kings 17) who Luke references in Chapter 4 or the widow who gives all she has to the treasury in Chapter 21. In Luke’s telling, all of these widows are aged and alone, with little means of their own.
goes without saying -- what you think of when you're
not thinking anything special.
But maybe not.
Amy Jill-Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, suggests that because Anna’s husband goes unnamed but she is introduced as “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher” explicitly connecting her to the Northern tribes of Israel that were taken into exile, she “represents the tenacity of holding on to her identity.” Levine also notes that the widow at Zarephath argues with Elijah, advocating for her son who is ill, instead of submitting to his demands. And finally, the widow who gives her two coins clearly had her own money and choices to make about how she used it. No one had exploited her. These women all have “agency and individuality.”[ii]
In the translation we just heard, Jesus tells us that the woman kept saying to the judge, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”
But the word translated here as “justice” is ἐκδικούμενα
(ek-dee-kó-mena) which is “vengeance” or “revenge”,
not the κρίσις (kree-sis) that we recognize from the prophet Isaiah’s instruction to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17)
Hearing the woman sought vengeance changes how we hear the parable. Vengeance or revenge is consuming; it distorts how we view the world and events. It isolates us from others who do not share our passion. Reconsidering how we imagine “widows” and casting the woman as vengeful makes her character less sympathetic or morally exemplary.
Continuing the parable, Jesus tells us that the judge relents. We shouldn’t mistake his action as a change of heart, or repentance, turning toward God. Still adamantly denying God and neighbor, he is motivated by self-preservation; in our translation, it says the woman will “wear him out” but the Greek is actually a boxing word that is better translated as “beat on him” or even “give him a black eye.” He acts because he feels threatened, not compassionate.
So now what?
Jesus doesn’t commend the judge to us as a moral exemplar. The judge remains turned inward, searching out the most expedient way to get rid of the fuss and bother that interacting with his community brings.
And Jesus isn’t commending the woman’s dogged pursuit of vengeance to us either. After all, in Leviticus we hear the Lord command Israel,
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself…. (Leviticus 19:18)and in his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul writes
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Romans 12:19)As we have listened to the parables, we have learned that Jesus often told these stories to disrupt and prompt us to see the world a different way. So perhaps this parable points us to think differently about what justice is, and how it’s achieved.
This weekend, a Mississippi memorial to Emmett Till was rededicated. Kidnapped by two white men in 1955, the fourteen-year old black boy visiting family in the South was beaten and killed. His body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River three days later. The two men arrested for his murder were acquitted, and because of double jeopardy laws, were never convicted even after they publicly professed to what they had done. Till’s mother had her son’s body brought back to Chicago and his casket was open during his funeral to display the brutality inflicted on him. Today you can see that casket on display in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
There was no justice for Emmett Till, but more than fifty years after his death, a memorial commission was formed in Mississippi and people continue to work to tell the story of his death and work for racial justice now. One of the ways they tell Till’s story is through markers or memorial signs, and after the first three signs were vandalized with graffiti, bullets and acid, they constructed a more durable memorial that was rededicated this weekend.
Justice – setting things right – is what we hear the prophets argue for. It is what Amos calls for when, as Eugene Peterson wrote in the Message paraphrase,
“Do you know what I want?Where revenge is personal, justice is rooted in community and society. It isn’t about “getting even.” Instead, it is about correcting wrongs that have been perpetrated and systems that have gone unchallenged.[iii]
I want justice - oceans of it. I want fairness - rivers of it.
That's what I want. That's all I want.” (Amos 5:24)
Where revenge is punitive and wants someone to suffer, to be hurt or feel pain, justice is restorative, recognizing that God cares for both victims and perpetrators and we are created for relationship. Restorative justice doesn’t eliminate accountability or consequences but seeks reconciliation and repairs relationships.
For all of us, who have a lot more in common with the widow and the judge than with Jesus, this parable is good news that gives away the ending of the greatest story we have. God doesn’t play the games that these two characters play. We neither have to pound on God for attention, or fear God’s disdain. God welcomes us with abundant love and gives us unearned grace in faith. God knows us fully, even we fail to love and fear God,
even when we are angry or vengeful,
or selfish and unmoved by the troubles of those around us.
And God invites us into this life with God, with each other and with the world, trusting us to seek justice, to set things right, that God will be known.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus and for the grace you have given each one of us —
grace that is patient with us as we learn what it means to fear and love You; grace that strengthens our voices and encourages us to love our neighbors and seek justice in an unjust world.
Prompt us to listen to Your Word and what You are saying to us as You call us to follow Jesus.
Amen.
[i] Deborah F. Tannen. “Wears Jump Suit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband's Last Name”, New York Times. June 20, 1993, Section 6, Page 18.
[ii] Amy-Jill Levine. Short Stories by Jesus. 257-260.
[iii] Leon F Seltzer Ph.D. “Don’t Confuse Revenge with Justice: Five Key Differences.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201402/don-t-confuse-revenge-justice-five-key-differences, accessed 10/19/2019.
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Lectionary 27C/ Proper 22
Luke 17:5-10
For all of us who were in school before the internet and search engines like Google, John Bartlett’s “Book of Familiar Quotations” was a standard reference where you could find well-known sayings from Scripture and from poets, authors and politicians. You didn’t have to know the whole quote, just a keyword or phrase or perhaps whose words they were.
Today’s gospel reads a little like an entry in Bartlett’s. The first ten verses of this chapter are a collection of seemingly unrelated sayings of Jesus, first about forgiveness and then about faith and then about servanthood.
Instead of trying to find a thread that connects the different themes, I’m going to focus on verses five and six where Jesus and the disciples are talking about faith.
The disciples have been traveling with Jesus and listening, as we have, to his parables and watching how he responds to the people around him. And after another series of hard teachings, the apostles say to him, “Lord, increase our faith!” They plead with Jesus to add to what’s there or give them more of this thing called faith.
It’s something every one of us probably has said at some point in our lives. “Lord, increase our faith.” Because we fall captive to the lie that the answer to whatever challenge we face is located in being more or having more.
Jesus rebukes the disciples and that way of thinking.
Faith isn’t an object or an asset that can be measured or quantified in ounces or pounds, square feet or acres.
I had the privilege on Friday of listening to Pastor CeCee Mills speak in Durham. Pastor CeCee is the new Associate Director for Evangelical Mission in the North Carolina Synod. And she was talking about ministry in small congregations. Or rather, given that 80% of ELCA congregations now have fewer than 100 people in worship on an average Sunday, she was talking about ministry in our churches today.
And one of the first things she asked us to do was to define the word “small.” I’m going to ask you to do the same thing. Not out loud and I won’t ask you to write it down, but take a minute to think, if you were going to look up the word “small” in Webster’s Dictionary, or on Google, what would it say?
And now, I’m going to ask you to listen, and pay attention to how you react, what emotions you feel and what adjectives come to mind, when you hear the following:
small car big car
small house big house
small tumor big tumor
small church big church
small group big group
small debt big debt
What are the associations you made?
Efficient, nimble, precious, intimate and visible were some of the words we used to describe the small things she named.
Through our conversation with Pastor CeCee, we recognized the lie that says, “bigger is always better.”
With his rebuke, Jesus tells the apostles, “You are worried about the wrong things.”
Earlier in Luke, Jesus had described the kingdom of heaven as a mustard seed that was sown into the ground and became a tree where birds could nest. (13:18-19) And here in our gospel text, Jesus describes the power of faith as a mustard seed. (17:6)
In our humanity, we think the kingdom of heaven is more visible when the church is big and boisterous and there are more people in worship, but Jesus says, “Listen, you are paying attention to the wrong things.”
In our humanity, we think faith must be big and boisterous to be any good at all, but often the Spirit of God comes upon us as a breath or even a whisper. (Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 29)
And the Lord says to us, as he did to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”[i]
Faith is surrendering ourselves to God, admitting our weakness and our dependence upon God in all things.
Four times in Luke leading up to this exchange with his apostles, Jesus bore witness to the power of faith active in the lives of the people he meets.
First, he encounters the friends of the man who cut a hole in the roof of a building to lower their paralyzed friend down to him. Luke tells us, “When [Jesus] saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you." (Luke 5:20)
Next the centurion whose slave is sick sends friends to Jesus and when he receives the soldier’s message through them, he says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And the slave was healed. (Luke 7:9)
Then dining at a Pharisee’s house, Jesus defends a woman who bathes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair and anoints them with perfume, saying to her, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (7:38 - 50)
And finally, Jesus is on the street when the woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years touches the hem of his cloak, and he tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." (8:43-48)
“Faith is putting our trust in God, in life and in death.”[ii]
However, it is important to say out loud that these verses have caused harm at bedsides and in exam rooms and emergency rooms when doctors have explained a difficult diagnosis or condition and someone has responded, “If you have enough faith, they’ll be cured.” Faith isn’t a magic charm or potion that can promise a cure or prevent death.
In Martin Luther’s “Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans”, he writes:
Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.[iii]
When we are afraid, the Good News is that the answer is not found in getting more. God’s grace is sufficient. God’s promise that we have life in Christ and power in the Holy Spirit sustains us and God provides for us all that we need.
Thanks be to God.
[i] 2 Corinthians 12:9
[ii] Bishop Mike Rinehart. https://bishopmike.com/2019/09/29/pentecost-17c-proper-22c-lectionary-27c-october-6-2019/, accessed 10/1/2019.
[iii] Martin Luther. “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” http://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt, accessed, 10/5/2019.
For all of us who were in school before the internet and search engines like Google, John Bartlett’s “Book of Familiar Quotations” was a standard reference where you could find well-known sayings from Scripture and from poets, authors and politicians. You didn’t have to know the whole quote, just a keyword or phrase or perhaps whose words they were.
Today’s gospel reads a little like an entry in Bartlett’s. The first ten verses of this chapter are a collection of seemingly unrelated sayings of Jesus, first about forgiveness and then about faith and then about servanthood.
Instead of trying to find a thread that connects the different themes, I’m going to focus on verses five and six where Jesus and the disciples are talking about faith.
The disciples have been traveling with Jesus and listening, as we have, to his parables and watching how he responds to the people around him. And after another series of hard teachings, the apostles say to him, “Lord, increase our faith!” They plead with Jesus to add to what’s there or give them more of this thing called faith.
It’s something every one of us probably has said at some point in our lives. “Lord, increase our faith.” Because we fall captive to the lie that the answer to whatever challenge we face is located in being more or having more.
Jesus rebukes the disciples and that way of thinking.
Faith isn’t an object or an asset that can be measured or quantified in ounces or pounds, square feet or acres.
I had the privilege on Friday of listening to Pastor CeCee Mills speak in Durham. Pastor CeCee is the new Associate Director for Evangelical Mission in the North Carolina Synod. And she was talking about ministry in small congregations. Or rather, given that 80% of ELCA congregations now have fewer than 100 people in worship on an average Sunday, she was talking about ministry in our churches today.
And one of the first things she asked us to do was to define the word “small.” I’m going to ask you to do the same thing. Not out loud and I won’t ask you to write it down, but take a minute to think, if you were going to look up the word “small” in Webster’s Dictionary, or on Google, what would it say?
And now, I’m going to ask you to listen, and pay attention to how you react, what emotions you feel and what adjectives come to mind, when you hear the following:
small car big car
small house big house
small tumor big tumor
small church big church
small group big group
small debt big debt
What are the associations you made?
Efficient, nimble, precious, intimate and visible were some of the words we used to describe the small things she named.
Through our conversation with Pastor CeCee, we recognized the lie that says, “bigger is always better.”
With his rebuke, Jesus tells the apostles, “You are worried about the wrong things.”
Earlier in Luke, Jesus had described the kingdom of heaven as a mustard seed that was sown into the ground and became a tree where birds could nest. (13:18-19) And here in our gospel text, Jesus describes the power of faith as a mustard seed. (17:6)
In our humanity, we think the kingdom of heaven is more visible when the church is big and boisterous and there are more people in worship, but Jesus says, “Listen, you are paying attention to the wrong things.”
In our humanity, we think faith must be big and boisterous to be any good at all, but often the Spirit of God comes upon us as a breath or even a whisper. (Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 29)
And the Lord says to us, as he did to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”[i]
Faith is surrendering ourselves to God, admitting our weakness and our dependence upon God in all things.
Four times in Luke leading up to this exchange with his apostles, Jesus bore witness to the power of faith active in the lives of the people he meets.
First, he encounters the friends of the man who cut a hole in the roof of a building to lower their paralyzed friend down to him. Luke tells us, “When [Jesus] saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven you." (Luke 5:20)
Next the centurion whose slave is sick sends friends to Jesus and when he receives the soldier’s message through them, he says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And the slave was healed. (Luke 7:9)
Then dining at a Pharisee’s house, Jesus defends a woman who bathes his feet with her tears, dries them with her hair and anoints them with perfume, saying to her, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (7:38 - 50)
And finally, Jesus is on the street when the woman who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years touches the hem of his cloak, and he tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." (8:43-48)
“Faith is putting our trust in God, in life and in death.”[ii]
However, it is important to say out loud that these verses have caused harm at bedsides and in exam rooms and emergency rooms when doctors have explained a difficult diagnosis or condition and someone has responded, “If you have enough faith, they’ll be cured.” Faith isn’t a magic charm or potion that can promise a cure or prevent death.
In Martin Luther’s “Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans”, he writes:
Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.[iii]
When we are afraid, the Good News is that the answer is not found in getting more. God’s grace is sufficient. God’s promise that we have life in Christ and power in the Holy Spirit sustains us and God provides for us all that we need.
Thanks be to God.
[i] 2 Corinthians 12:9
[ii] Bishop Mike Rinehart. https://bishopmike.com/2019/09/29/pentecost-17c-proper-22c-lectionary-27c-october-6-2019/, accessed 10/1/2019.
[iii] Martin Luther. “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” http://www.projectwittenberg.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt, accessed, 10/5/2019.
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