Our Money Story: Reimagine

 Jesus told them, "When you pray, say:
‘Father, uphold the holiness of your name.
Bring in your kingdom.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us.

And don't lead us into temptation.'"  --Luke 11:2-4 (CEB)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I know this may be confusing. We are in our third and final week, considering the Lord’s Prayer as it is written in the Gospel of Luke. In addition, we are in our third of four weeks focusing on the topic of our Money Story. That’s where it may get confusing. It would seem reasonable that our discussion around our money stories should conclude with our discussion around Luke’s Lord Prayer. But, have you ever experienced the end of something in your life while at the same time something else continued on? Let’s think of middle school, for example. You can finish fifth grade, but still be in middle school, right? Or think of parenting. Your child can finish college and move away, but your role as parent doesn’t end, right? It continues on.

So it is sometimes with sermons and sermon series. I hope that after next week, all of this will have made sense to you. Not to mention being a carrot for you to join us in worship next week, too!

Before we focus in on verse 4 of today’s reading, I’d like us to look back at this entire prayer in Luke in a slightly different way. We haven’t yet talked about this, but if we look closely at these three verses, we see that they are a chiasm. A chiasm is a tool in ancient literature and argument in which the elements of a passage are divided into parallel members. 

A Father, uphold the holiness of your name.

B Bring in your kingdom,

C Give us the bread we need for today.

B’ Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us.

A’ And don’t lead us into temptation.

The parallelism works from the outside in. So, if you take our reading in Luke, you will see that the lines marked with an A are parallel to each other, here in white. Likewise, the B lines are also parallel to one another. In green. In the center of the chiasm is line C. This is the most important line in the chiasm. Revealing the deepest concern of the passage. A prayer for God to give us provision. What we need.

Why do we need this provision? The question may seem silly to us. Of course we need food and shelter. To live. But, perhaps this question about why we need this provision is better answered by backing up in the chiasm. From Line C to Line B. 

Now, there are different types of chiasms. In this particular one, the parallel line are intended to explain each other. So, if we look at the first B line “bring in your kingdom,” it is to be further explained by the second B line. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us. Our prayer for forgiveness is related to our prayer that God’s kingdom come. 

Now to our focus on verse 4.

The idea of forgiveness here is not intended to be pietistic or moralistic. Instead, about seeking forgiveness because we have failed in working for the coming of God’s kingdom. A kingdom of justice. A kingdom of equity. A kingdom of enough. For everyone. We have failed in working to bring God's kingdom on earth by holding onto our wealth and our possessions. By being unwilling to share abundantly of them, in the same way they have been abundantly shared with us. Maybe we need to be forgiven because Our Money Story has been about scarcity. About hoarding our abundance. And in so doing, by maintaining power. 

To share our possessions is not only a mandate by God by a symbol of our faith. A fruit of it.

But, perhaps we’re on the other side of this. Perhaps we are impoverished. Poor. Lacking even the basic essentials. Wronged by those with means. Perhaps we lack power, wronged by systemic structures that seem to only keep us enslaved. We, too, are called to forgiveness. To forgive those who have wronged us.

To forgive and to be forgiven frees us from all that binds us. It reconciles us with God and with one another. So that we might begin to reimagine a world where social and economic systems no longer disparage or impoverish, but provide for and benefit everyone. A world consistent with the reign of God. And a world in which the holiness of God’s name is upheld and we are not tempted to idolatry.

We’ve now been in this time of pandemic for nearly six months. A few months into it, I remember reading several articles and hearing news reports about how, even in the midst of the evil we were experiencing, it seemed as though we were learning important lessons and considering the possibility of a new way of being after all of this was over. Spending more time with family and in relationship with others. Working to simplify our lives and be less busy and less consumed with acquiring stuff. Spending more time on our spiritual lives and our relationship with God and our faith community. And wanting to create new structures in our world, structures in which the inequities that have become so apparent in these past few months might be repaired. The world was, even in this midst of pandemic, vividly reimagining what might come out of this period of bondage. 

Last week, we talked about the year of jubilee set forth in Deuteronomy. A Sabbath year, where everyone and everything was to rest. To cease work. In a way it feels as though we are in a coronavirus-induced year of jubilee. Yet, as much as we might hope that things will be different at the end of this jubilee - this Sabbath year, we are already beginning to witness this hopefulness diminish as we become more tired and disheartened. And more divided. I have no doubt that, when it does end, credit card companies will charge interest again. Libraries will impose late fees. Prisons will be full once more. Rent will be due and not forgiven. The land will be worked and overworked. Just as our worth, our value, will, once again, be measured by our productivity or lack thereof.

Yet we, you and I as the church, are called to something different. We are called to bear witness to a greater jubilee, a fuller Sabbath, a never-ending kingdom inaugurated by Jesus. To continue to reimagine our money stories and to live out our reimagined lives in ways consistent with God’s kingdom. Lives of solidarity with and compassion for the poor and the dispossessed. Lives driven, not by consumerism and consumption, but by simplicity and gratitude for the abundance God showers on us, knowing that there is more than enough. And lives in which we are released from all that keeps us in bondage so that we might remember God’s name and, as the reconciled people of God, might fully experience the love God shows us through Christ Jesus. Witnesses to this reimagined way of being.

Luke in his version of the Lord’s Prayer calls us to pray for the coming of this kingdom. To be sustained as we wait and witness to it. And, in our praying, to open ourselves up to the divine coming, where God will wrap God’s arms around us and bind up our wounds. As God will do for the world.

Amen.

Preached September 13, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Pentecost 14

Readings: Luke 11:2-4; Psalm 126

God's Kingdom Announced: The Reign of God

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

--Mark 2:1-22 (NRSV)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I have a question for all of you. How many of you, when you read a book, before you start, go to the last chapter of the book and read the ending? Come on now, be honest. Let’s see a show of hands.

My sister was like you. It used to make me so crazy! I mean, really, how can you read the ending and then go back and read the book from the beginning. You know how it comes out, then. You miss the suspense, the entire denouement of the book. You know how the major plot line and the minor plot lines will end. What fun is there in this!

I harassed her over and over about this. And, yet, she continued to do it.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I had a serious change of heart. So, in seminary, the average pages assigned for reading per class - at least where I attended seminary - was 5,000. Five thousand pages of theological reading. Sometimes, we would have a professor who would cut us a little break. But, usually, by the end of each quarter, I would have read nearly 15,000 pages of theology.

It wasn’t until my last year of seminary that I learned about the Pareto Principle of reading. This method comes from what is called the Pareto Analysis, which comes out of the field of statistics, that tells us that by doing 20% of the work you can achieve 80% of the benefit of doing an entire job. You like this idea, don’t you? I did, too!

So, this transfers to reading with the assumption that only 20% of a book is actually worth reading. And what the Pareto method of reading tells you to do is to skim the book to find out the author’s method to figure out where they put their thesis sentences, whether at the beginning or at the end of a paragraph. Because this is, generally, the model they will use for the entire book. So the practice is to skim the book, but focus on either the beginning or ending of the chapters and of the entire book, depending upon the author’s method. 

Learning this method of reading literally cut my reading time by 75% in my last year of seminary. If only I’d known this at the beginning of seminary, rather than the end… :/

So, what’s the whole point of this conversation? Today, in our reading from Mark, we move into
learning about Jesus and Jesus’ ministry, and what the reign of God - the kingdom of God - looks like...because, after all our entire theme for this year has been “Living Out the Kingdom of God.” So, it’s necessary for us to know what this kingdom looks like so that we can actually live it out. In today’s reading, we have three scenes or stories, three pericopes, that seem to have no real relationship to each other. We, first have the story of the healing of the man who is paralyzed and the response of the scribes to Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath. The second scene takes us to dinner. At Levi’s house. Levi, who is a tax collector. Who is extremely wealthy. Who is hated by the Jewish people. Viewed as an outcast. As a sinner. And then we have the third scene - again with the scribes of the Pharisees, the theologians - who challenge Jesus’ eating with “sinners” and that he isn’t fasting like they and John the Baptist’s disciples are. And to whom Jesus responds with three little, micro parables, that don’t seem to really make much sense. Three little parables about a wedding banquet. About a piece of clothing. And about wineskins.

But, my friends, it’s at the end of this story, where we find our beginning. Just as in seminary!

In the first micro parable, Jesus invites the scribes into a thought experiment about fasting at a wedding. Now, We have to remember that Jesus’ listeners didn’t know the end of the story, as we do. They don’t see how this could be interpreted as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ later arrest. Our mini-parable opens on a wedding banquet. And the celebrating and feasting that is happening. Jesus asks the scribes this question: can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is present? The answer has to be “no.” Why would you fast when the bridegroom - central to the feast - is present. But, then, suddenly the bridegroom is abducted. It is then that the fasting begins. 

The second small parable is about a coat. We don’t really patch clothing much anymore, so it might be a little hard to understand this parable. But, when you’re patching an old garment, you never want to use a patch made of material that hasn’t been pre-shrunk. Because the first time you wash it, it will shrink. And it will pull the rest of the material towards it, making it pucker and not lay flat. Making the patch especially noticeable.

The third parable is similar. But, this time it’s about wineskins. I don’t have much experience with wineskins. But, it makes sense to me that, if you were making wine, you would not want to put your new wine into an old wineskin. Because, the old wineskin has already been used and stretched to its capacity thanks to the fermentation process. If you put new wine into an old wineskin, as the new wine begins to ferment it will stretch the old wineskin, which has already been stretched. And the result will be that the old wineskin will burst.

What these micro-parables teach us is that what is at stake in the dispute between Jesus and scribes is clearly the relationship between old and new. About the past and the future. About time-honored ways and uncharted territory.

But, do you notice that, particularly, the parables about the coat and the wineskin do not make value judgments. That old is better than new. Or vice versa. These mini-lessons do not suggest that old things are bad and new things are good, or that old things are good and new things are bad. No, in fact, if you look closely, the old coat is to be repaired so it can be used. The old wineskin is to be preserved. Even, in the parable about the wedding and fasting, the practice of fasting is not rejected out of hand, but is reserved for a later time and purpose.

These are not texts that tell us to abandon traditions or older expressions of faith out - that those things of faith that we inherit are not necessarily bad things. Likewise, those things that are new are also not to be rejected out of hand. New thinking, new theology comes out of the old. Both are to be looked at. As one Lutheran theologian says, they are to be tested against scripture and against Jesus’ teaching. Those that do not fit are to be discarded, new and old.

All of this takes us back to the opening scene and the forgiveness and healing by Jesus of the man who is paralyzed. Did you hear the first thing that Jesus did for the man who had so cleverly been brought before Jesus for healing? Did you hear that the first thing Jesus did was to forgive this man?

Over many years in the church, we have, perhaps erroneously, distilled the gospel down to one little nugget. That God loves you. But, this story pushes us to take it further. To both hold onto the old, but embrace the new. Yes, God loves you.  But, God forgives you. Because it is forgiveness that brings transformation. Forgiveness that brings healing and wholeness. Forgiveness that brings life and that, then, allows us to bask in that amazing love that God has for all of us, both as individuals and as a community. 

If you doubt the power of forgiveness or, using this week’s Pub Theology topic, if you are skeptical of the transformational power of forgiveness, I invite you to watch this video clip, a film clip of Brandt Jean, brother of Botham Jean, who was so tragically killed by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger in 2018. This is from her sentencing hearing last October. 

There is nothing you can do or that you have done that will separate you from the love of God in Christ. God loves you. God forgives you. Amen.

Preached January 29, 2020, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Epiphany 2
Readings: Mark 2:1-22; Isaiah 42:6-9, Psalm 103:6-14

Living Faithfully in the Promise: Choosing Faithfulness

Grace and peace to you from God, our Liberator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Before we hear our lesson today, I’d like to catch you up to everything that has happened between last week’s story and today’s from Joshua. We ended last week with Israel at Mt. Sinai. It was here that they received God’s ten commandments. The Ten Words of hope - the hope of what a realized kingdom of God was to look like. It was at the mountain where they entered into a covenant with God - that if they would remain faithful to God, God would give them a land and make them into a chosen people.

That hope Israel had coming off the mountain quickly turned to despair. They began to lose faith. To doubt. To complain. And to break the covenant. The result, if you remember the history of Israel, was that they were punished by God. Made to wander for 40 years in the wilderness until their generation had passed away, never getting to enter the Promised Land. Even Moses was unable to enter before he died.

And so, our story today is from Joshua. Joshua was Moses’ successor. A new spiritual and military leader for Israel. The one who would bring them, with God’s help and guidance, into the Promised Land. In the chapters before today’s reading, Joshua has led Israel across the Jordan River into Canaan - that Promised Land. There have been a series of military conquests, including the famous Battle of Jericho. The land has been divided among the twelve tribes of Israel. It is at this point, before the people depart to their inherited lands - to their legacy - that Joshua calls them together at Shechem. It is at this point, where our story opens.

I read today from Joshua, chapter 24.

Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders of Israel, its leaders, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. Then Joshua said to the entire people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates. They served other gods. Among them was Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. I took Abraham your ancestor from the other side of the Euphrates. I led him around through the whole land of Canaan. I added to his descendants and gave him Isaac. To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Mount Seir to Esau to take over. But Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron. I plagued Egypt with what I did to them. After that I brought you out. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. The Egyptians chased your ancestors with chariots and horses to the Reed Sea. Then they cried for help to the Lord. So he set darkness between you and the Egyptians. He brought the sea down on them, and it covered them. With your own eyes you saw what I did to the Egyptians. You lived in the desert for a long time.

“Then I brought you into the land of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They attacked you, but I gave them into your power, and you took over their land. I wiped them out before you. Then Moab’s King Balak, Zippor’s son, set out to attack Israel. He summoned Balaam, Beor’s son, to curse you. But I wasn’t willing to listen to Balaam, so he actually blessed you. I rescued you from his power. Then you crossed over the Jordan. You came to Jericho, and the citizens of Jericho attacked you. They were Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites. But I gave them into your power. I sent the hornet before you. It drove them out before you and did the same to the two kings of the Amorites. It wasn’t your sword or bow that did this. I gave you land on which you hadn’t toiled and cities that you hadn’t built. You settled in them and are enjoying produce from vineyards and olive groves that you didn’t plant.


“So now, revere the Lord. Serve him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:1-15 (CEB)

"What has God done for you lately?" This is really the question that Joshua is asking. Speaking in the first person as God, Joshua recounts what God has done. Every statement begins with “I” and is followed by a verb. “I took. I led. I added. I gave. I sent. I plagued. I brought. I did.”

In his recounting, Joshua is helping this new generation of Israelites remember what God has done. How God has acted to save them. How God has fulfilled God’s promises to them. How God has remained faithful to them.

And so, with Israel knowing this history, Joshua asks them this question,"Whom will you serve? Will you serve the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Will you serve the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live?" God has freed Israel from captivity. God has safely brought them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. "Choose," Joshua tells them. "Choose today whom you will serve." 

And, then, Joshua speaks those famous words that we see embroidered on pillows or hanging on our walls. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

You see Joshua knows. He knows that Israel will quickly adjust from the nomadic life they have been living these past 40 years. He knows they will quickly adjust to a life settled in this new land. He knows that Israel will quickly become distracted. By day-to-day life. By the gods of the people into whose land they are settling. Joshua knows that it will be a challenge for them to remain faithful. And so, he tells them to commit. To choose. "Choose today whom you will serve."

Whom (or what)  do you choose? As people who have been given a gift of complete freedom by God in Christ, whom do you choose to serve? Living as God’s faithful people involves choosing to turn away from the distractions in our world. And not simply to turn away, but then to live according to how God desires. 

You see, just like the Israelites, we are often surrounded by people and a culture that does not share the same values and view of the world as God. What are the things that compete in our lives for our attention? For our love? For our adoration? What does our society worship through its time and energy that compete for our attention? Maybe it’s money? Or our family? Or maybe it’s status? Or maybe its things that entertain us? Or our work or school? 

Do these things help us live life like God wants us to? With our focus on God? Or are they distractions for us? 

Our reading continues.

Then the people answered, “God forbid that we ever leave the Lord to serve other gods! The Lord is our God. He is the one who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. He has done these mighty signs in our sight. He has protected us the whole way we’ve gone and in all the nations through which we’ve passed. The Lord has driven out all the nations before us, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

Then Joshua said to the people, “You can’t serve the Lord, because he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won’t forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you leave the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn around and do you harm and finish you off, in spite of having done you good in the past.”

Then the people said to Joshua, “No! The Lord is the one we will serve.”

So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

They said, “We are witnesses!”

“So now put aside the foreign gods that are among you. Focus your hearts on the Lord, the God of Israel.”

The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and will obey him.”


On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people and established just rule for them at Shechem. Joshua wrote these words in God’s Instruction scroll. Then he took a large stone and put it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord. Joshua said to all the people, “This stone will serve here as a witness against us, because it has heard all the Lord’s words that he spoke to us. It will serve as a witness against you in case you aren’t true to your God.” Then Joshua sent the people away to each one’s legacy. Joshua 24:16-28 (CEB)

Israel chose God. Recognizing how faithful God had been to them, Israel chose God.

And Joshua’s response? He didn’t believe them. He’d seen too much with his own eyes. How Israel constantly rebelled against God. How Israel had worshipped other gods. How Israel had sinned against God. Joshua told them that God would not forgive them. That God would punish them and finish them off.

This is where Joshua was wrong. Because over and over as Israel had sinned in the wilderness, God had forgiven them. When they had turned back to God in repentance, God had always forgiven them.

Our story today includes an invitation for us to recommit ourselves to serving God. Because, just like Israel, we wander. Just like Israel, we rebel against God. We worship other gods. Just. Like. Israel. And over and over and over again, when we turn to God in repentance, God forgives us. This promise to forgive is embodied for us on the cross. In Jesus. A promise of God’s faithfulness to never turn away from us. Ever. And to always forgive.

Then, forgiven, we try one more time. To be more diligent in our study of scripture. To pray more. To be more committed to doing the work of God’s kingdom. And to be more regular in our worship attendance where we hear and remember God’s covenant with us in our baptisms. Where we hear and remember Jesus’ death and resurrection at the communion table. Where we hear and remember all of God’s previous acts. And then, we re-commit to serving God. Because the grace and the forgiveness we have received from God should not be cheapened by our unwillingness to even attempt to be God’s people. To be more focused. To focus our hearts on the LORD. Israel’s God. Our God. A God who deserves our faithfulness.

And so, my friends, I hope you choose God. I hope you choose faithfulness. That you choose to be faithful to God and to grow in your faith. To engage in practices that bring you closer to God. That deepen your relationship with God. And that help you turn away from the things of this world that distract you from God. 

But, know, that even when you fail - know that God will be there. When you turn back from the distractions of life to God, God will be there to forgive you. Once again. To forgive and to lift you up. And to set you back on the path of discipleship one more time. 

This is what it is to live as God’s faithful people. This is what it is to live faithfully in God’s promise. May God help us to do so. Amen.

Preached Saturday, October 13, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Pentecost 21
Readings: Matt. 4:8-10, Joshua 24:1-28.