Without Words

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday March 28, 2010, Palm Sunday, the 6th Sunday in Lent.

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 19:28-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There are choices we are called to make everyday as it comes to how we walk with our Lord. For me, one example is our reading for today. Usually, the lectionary gives us four readings for the day, one from the Old Testament and another from the epistles; also there is a reading from the psalms and another from the gospels. Today, it’s not that simple.

The lectionary provides several choices of scriptures used in today’s worship. This week there is only one reading from the Old Testament and another from the epistles so those choices are made, but this is where the system goes haywire. There are two different psalm readings and three different gospel readings. Decisions, decisions…

It didn’t take long to see the differences between the readings. One psalm and one gospel reading deal specifically with the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, what we traditionally think of on Palm Sunday. The other readings, well, one is the final time Christ dines with his disciples, his last meal. The other is the Passion narrative, the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These are often chosen for worship on this day in the liturgical calendar, but in my opinion they are more appropriate for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. So today, I have made a choice based on that opinion; I selected the Palm centered scripture over the others.

It is my call, my vocation as Minister of the Word and Sacrament to serve the Word of God. I begin serving this vocation in just this way, selecting the reading and interpreting the Word for this part of the Body of Christ. I don’t do this because it makes me feel important, or to flex my theological and ecclesial muscle. Rather, I do it because this is how I first and foremost serve this part of the Body of Christ.

I mention this because our readings this morning show us what vocation means within scripture. To start, Paul’s letter to the Philippians teaches us about Christ’s vocation to the church. It teaches about humility and its most Godly reward.

Paul reminds us first that Jesus the Christ is equal to God, and that Jesus did not regard his equality as something to be exploited. Without discarding them, Jesus emptied himself of his rightful fully divine trappings to be the fully human Jesus of Nazareth for the world.

This humility did not remove Jesus from his relationship with his Father, nor did it prevent him from exercising his Lordly authority, when cleansing the temple for example. Rather, what Jesus emptied himself of was any wanting to exploit his godliness for his own glory. People often ask why Jesus doesn’t just come down now and make right all that is wrong with the world. Why doesn’t he just come with his power and take care of business? Perhaps it is so that he may exalt the entire Godhead, the whole Trinity, not just himself.

To show how far he is willing to go to empty himself, he was obedient to his father, even to the point of his own death on the cross.

Paul continues; because Jesus emptied himself, because Jesus became a slave to God and to all God created, because Jesus humbled himself to the point that he poured out his life like a drink offering emptied from its vessel; because of this, God also highly exalts him and gave him the name that is above every name. For this, every knee will bend, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Because we know this is true, because we enjoy the benefits of life in Christ, we are called to respond to the grace of God by sharing this good news with the world. This week I have been reminded of the quote from St. Francis who said that we are to share the gospel, using words when necessary. Our gospel reading gives glorious examples of how to share the good news of Christ without words.

We begin with Jesus and the disciples arriving near Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Here he sends two disciples saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

This is our first and most deceptively difficult lesson: Pay attention. When the Lord speaks, pay attention. Obedience to the commands of the Lord is vital to discipleship.

Christian author Oswald Chambers wrote: “When God gives a vision by his Spirit through his Word of what he wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view which our Lord never had.”[1]

Often the Lord gives us the most simple of tasks that opens the door of faith into a world that thirsts for it. Jesus says, “Untie the colt and bring it here.” He even tells them what to do when someone finds objection to what they’re doing. Obedience to the vision of the Holy Spirit thrills our soul, but as Chambers points out, when we do not follow that vision, the consequences are dire. Did not obeying cross their minds because they worried about how the owner of the colt would take their intrusion? Maybe, maybe not, scripture is silent, but Chambers continues on this matter:

“Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ. Do not look at someone else and say: Well, if he can have these views and prosper, why can't I? You have to walk in the light of the vision that has been given you and not compare yourself with others or judge them; that is between them and God.” [2]

This is the first element of our vocation as Christians, being obedient to Christ. The second element, again being made clear in our gospel reading, is that we are to worship Christ for who he is and what he has done. Our reading continues at verse 37:

“As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

‘Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!’”

This sort of praise and worship may be more robust than we are familiar. Still, whenever we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, as we do today, we say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” Without words we do this whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper by taking from the loaf, dipping into the cup, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

In this too, we show our obedience in praise and worship. By this mystery, we are nourished. This sacrament is one of the visible signs of God’s invisible grace, the grace of God which through faith, we are saved.

Yet there is another issue with obedience is not so much a matter of disobedience than a matter of loss of control. There is fervor which the people demonstrate upon Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that is not present in much of our worship. The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton speaks eloquently on this loss of control:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

Often we do not understand what the call to a specific obedience means, and we don’t understand the shape of our worship. This loss of control is frightening. Because of this loss of control, we are called to obedience and worship with the hope that our obedience and worship pleases the Lord God.

Christ has forsaken all control, emptying himself of all Godly trappings while walking the earth. He humbled himself and accepted the humiliation of death, even death upon the cross. In Palm Sunday and Luke’s version of the triumphant entry, we learn how we are called to obedience to the Lord through praise and worship, even when we don’t use words, even when we don’t quite understand what the shape of our worship means.

There is a way to sum up what our worship means in a way that will seem very unfamiliar to us. These words from the eighth century give us an eye to worship and our vocation as Christians that is far bolder than anything I have ever thought to write. In the words of Andrew of Crete: “It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not our coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ—‘for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ’—so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.”[3]

We are called to make choices, choices as easy as picking scripture or as hard as standing up for those who cannot stand for themselves. We are called in our vocation to be the road on which Christ travels to do his work, whether we use words or not. We are called to do this for one simple reason, the same reason given to the disciples who were sent after the colt, “The Lord needs it.”

[1] Chambers, Oswald, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=869, retrieved March 27, 2010.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Andrew of Crete, “From the Fathers to the Churches” Brother Kenneth, Editor. London: William Collins Sons and Company, 1983

Unconventional Wisdom

This sermon was heard on March 21, 2010, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In 1987, Oliver Stone made “Wall Street,” the story of the rise and fall of Bud Fox, a young stockbroker desperate to succeed, and his hero, Gordon Gekko, a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate raider. This movie has long been known and remembered for what became the financial credo of the 80’s, “Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good.” What isn’t so widely known and remembered is that this speech was inspired by a commencement address made by stock trader and finance wiz Ivan Boesky at UC Berkeley’s School of Business Administration on May 18, 1986. To an entire generation of business, management, and finance graduates Boesky said, “Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”

This was the conventional wisdom of the day; it’s all about the green back dollar. Ten years later, Diddy taught us the same thing singing “It’s All About the Benjamins.” So, where did conventional wisdom get us?

In the third quarter of 2009, the country had its worst rash of mortgage foreclosures ever, beating the record from the third quarter of 2008. During this quarter, the one out of every 136 mortgages suffered foreclosure.[1] Missouri ranked 30th out of the 50 states with one out of every 335 mortgages foreclosed. Kansas fared just a little better, ranking 31st with a foreclosure rate of one out of 358 home loans being shuttered.

As far as unemployment goes,[2] in the Kansas City census area, which includes both sides of the state line, the unemployment rate is 9.1%, ranking 133rd out of 372 metropolitan areas. This is less than the national unemployment rate at 10.6%, but if you or a member of your family or a friend is unemployed, these numbers are pretty meaningless. The same goes for the mortgage statistics.

The statistics are horrible, and the human element of these numbers is worse. As a Kansas City musician once sang, “Numbers don’t lie, but numbers don’t bleed.”[3] Between you and me, I would just assume a lot of financial wizards were a little less greedy, even at the risk of them feeling a worse about themselves.

Pastor Andy shared with me that you have been studying the story of the Prodigal Son during this Lenten season. One of the things I learned about this passage is that the scribes and the Pharisees, this story’s first audience, would have thought the hero in this story wasn’t the loving father; they would have though he was a fool. No, to the scribes and Pharisees the hero in this story was the elder brother. The elder brother stood for traditional family values, the elder brother stood for the social standards of the community; the elder brother stood for truth, justice, and the Galilean Way.

It is only later when we receive the extravagant grace of the cross and the empty tomb that we are able to see this same overwhelming love in the father for both of his sons. Even though both sons had caused their father grief and sorrow, the father goes to great lengths so that they may be reconciled to him and to one another. It is designed to remind us all of the embarrassing lengths to which God, in the person of Jesus, goes to make that homecoming a reality.[4]

So when we look at our gospel reading for today, we run into the same issue; human wisdom is being faced with Godly wisdom offered by the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

Our reading begins six days before the Passover, and Jesus is in the home of Lazarus where a dinner was being held for Jesus. As Martha was preparing supper, her sister Mary was preparing Jesus by anointing his feet in a pound of pure nard.

I tried to figure out how much a pound of pure nard would cost today, but in my research for this sermon, it was impossible for me to find pure nard on the internet, much less its cost. Using the metric provided in scripture, 300 denarii is a year’s wages for the common worker. According to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center, the average year’s wage for a worker in Kansas City is $37,200.[5] As we read this passage we have two choices about how to interpret Mary’s actions. Let’s begin with how it is seen by Judas.

Judas was a man. He is a member of Jesus’ inner circle, one of the twelve apostles. He is the treasurer and he’s full of human wisdom. He’s not just an accountant; he’s the most stereotypical kind of bean counter. He’s also dishonest and a thief; and worse than all of those things, he’s also a hypocrite.

There is a moment like this in the “greed is good” speech from “Wall Street.” Gekko is addressing the shareholder’s meeting of Teldar Paper and telling everyone that the company is in bad shape. There are 33 company vice presidents who each earn over $200,000 per year. There are luncheons and hunting trips, corporate jets and golden parachutes, and for what? In the eyes of Gordon Gekko these VP’s produce nothing discernable. As true as this may be in the story, we know better. We know that Gekko is working the room like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s sympathetic to the individual shareholder, until he crushes the company.

Judas points out that the nard could be sold for a great deal, a year’s wages, 300 denarii by his reckoning and $37,200 by mine. This money could be used to create community development grants, or purchase goods for a food pantry, or help with the budget of a homeless shelter. There are a lot more things this money could be used for than foot washing.

Human wisdom tells us that at face value Judas has a point; of course we know that this face value is of no value at all since we are also told that Judas is a thief. But at face value, we know that there is more that can be done with this nard than getting into the Guinness Book of Records for the most expensive pedi ever.

This is conventional wisdom, but there is a fallacy with this wisdom.

To Mary, what she was doing was not a waste of time or money; it was a sacrifice of praise made to her Lord. It was a gift of thanks made to the one who brought her brother back from the dead.

Imagine sacrificing a year’s wages, imagine sacrificing $37,200 to wash someone’s feet. Quite intentionally I don’t mean “wasting” a year’s wages, I mean sacrificing this much to wash feet, and then wiping, massaging these ravaged feet with your hair. Imagine loving someone so much that you are willing to wash their feet with such expensive balm.

To the world this is extravagant to the point of foolishness, but this is the world’s wisdom, this is the wisdom of Judas Iscariot, this is not the glory of the Lord. This was a gift, an extravagant gift freely offered, a gift of love, to the one who deserves it above all others. To the Lord, it is even more than that.

Jesus accepts this sacrifice of praise Mary offers. Jesus is anointed and his feet massaged in an act of thanksgiving during a time of fellowship at the table where her Lord and her brother share dinner. Judas argues, and Jesus says, “Leave her alone.” She brought the nard, as well as her sacrifice of wealth and praise to prepare Jesus for the day of his burial. Jesus proclaims that he is not long for this world, but the human condition will long remain until the end of days. She prepares thanks to her Lord even in the shadow of the cross.

Lent is a journey that reminds us that the story of Jesus inevitably moves toward the cross, the ultimate picture of failure and disgrace. Jesus willingly accepts the embarrassment of being stripped, beaten and hanged naked to die and to be held up as a failure for the whole world to see on a day that we call Good Friday. It is through that failure, that embarrassment, that disgrace that God chooses to save the world.[6]

What’s ironic about this take on wisdom and the illustration from the movie “Wall Street” is that Oliver Stone wanted people to leave the theater recognizing the cautionary tale of Bud Fox, a good boy swept up in a current that would only carry him to his own demise. Instead, people left the theater saying, “I wanna be like Gordon Gekko, greed is good, money is good, wealth is good, power is good.” The director sends one message, but the listener hears another.[7]

Gordon Gekko tells us that “greed is good.” He tells us that greed will save us. Jesus tells us that our wisdom is nothing. Lent leads us toward the cross and Mary is taking this moment to sacrifice what she has so that Jesus may make his walk to the cross with beautiful feet. Costly and degrading as far as the world is concerned, glorious in the new ways of God.

Thanks be to God that through Christ, human wisdom that by our reckoning is quite sensible, is replaced by something better. Our Old Testament reading makes way precisely for this point as Isaiah writes, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Even as we wander in the boondocks of our own wisdom, we will be given “water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” God gives drink to the chosen people, the people whom the Lord formed so that they might declare God’s praise.

So we have two choices, one of them is to accept the conventional wisdom of the day and hail and praise people who turn out to be less than sympathetic. In the story of the prodigal, this is the older brother. In the story of Mary anointing Jesus, in an ancient yet still money hungry world, this is Judas. As for our world, Ivan Boesky, the man who first told business and management graduates at UC Berkley that greed is good, he would later be convicted of insider-trading.

The other choice, the better choice is to know that our knowledge is limited. What we know for sure is bounded by what we sense.

Over the past three years or so, Oliver Stone has partnered again with Michael Douglas to produce the sequel to “Wall Street.” In September, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”[8] hits theaters. In the sequel, Gordon Gekko leaves prison after a term of twenty-three years in jail, the longest prison sentence ever for a fictional character convicted of insider trading. In an effort to make amends with his daughter, Gordon comes to the assistance of her fiancé, a Wall Street trader played by Shia Leboeuf. He leaves prison with nothing and through trials and tribulation, seeks to make amends, to be reconciled to life anew.

Will Gordon Gekko leave greed behind? Will he find scruples? Well, we’ll all just have to buy a ticket when the movie is released in September to see. The question that matters to us is will we follow the conventional wisdom of our day, or will we seek something better? Will we give all that we have in worship to God? Are we willing to go as far as to wash feet to show our love to the Lord? These are the questions we leave with today.

Gloriously, wondrously, we leave here with one answer. Our Lord Jesus Christ has already done a new thing for our benefit and for all of creation. It is this new way, this unconventional wisdom that we are called to seek and follow. So come and give thanks to the Lord for he has given greater things to us, even his life on a cross, just six days after this meal.

[1] Foreclosure Activity Hits Record High in Third Quarter, http://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/foreclosure-rates.html, retrieved March 15, 2010.
[2] Unemployment Rates for Metropolitan Areas, http://www.bls.gov/web/laummtrk.htm, retrieved March 20, 2010.
[3] Walkenhorst, Bob, “Too Many Twenties.” From “Skin,” V&R Records, 1996.
[4] Post Your Failure, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040516, retrieved February 15, 2010.
[5] Median Household Income by City, http://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/wages/city_medincome.stm#k, retrieved March 20, 2010.
[6] Post Your Failure, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040516, retrieved February 15, 2010.
[7] Lewis, Michael, “Greed Never Left,” Vanity Fair, April 2010, page 126-129.
[8] Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street:_Money_Never_Sleeps, retrieved March 20, 2010

Abiding Together

This homily was heard at the marriage of Maddie Lloyd and John Kamphaus who were married Friday March 19, 2009 at half-past four o'clock. Congratulations John and Maddie, may God keep you and bless you. Mazel tov!

Gospel Reading: Selected verses from John 15:1-17

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.


This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

This is the gospel of the Lord,
Thanks be to God.

Homily—Abiding Together


I believe that there is nothing more wonderful in life than connections, especially connections between people. Our reading from the gospel is a glorious example of connection. The fruit of the vine only grows when the vine is properly tended. The grape only becomes ripe when the fruit abides in the branch, the branch in the vine, and the vine in the soil. Nurtured by the source of all that gives life, through God’s ordained order, these connections bring about all life as the Lord intended.

Scripture tells us when we abide in Christ we will bear much fruit, the best fruit. We hear that just as the Father loves the Son, so too the Son loves us. We hear that when we abide in Christ we become his disciples. He said these things to us so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete.

The Lord tells us, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

When we abide in the soils of God, we have all that we need. And when a single vine abides in the ground, its fruit can multiply beyond imagination, continuing the process of life in the outstretched arms of the everlasting Lord.

And friends, when two vines are grafted together, abiding together one into another, what they form is far greater than any single vine produces on its own. Abiding in one another, the fruit of the vine blooms in abundance; an abundance of love, peace, and grace. We receive this gift from the Lord so that we may love one another. Today this is what John and Maddie have invited us to celebrate.

Today as these two vines come together, grafted to one another, we come to bear witness as Maddie and John establish a covenant, a covenant to abide in one another and in God. They come to abide together as the fruit abides in the branch, the branch in the vine, and the vine in the soil. And as their family and friends, we come together as the fruit of the vine, connected to one another in the extravagant and gracious joy of God’s love; fruit that by God becomes the most extraordinary wine.

Abiding, our lives and our faith are nourished in the love of the Lord Jesus. There is no greater love than when we abide in God’s love. John and Maddie, abide in Christ and abide in one another. There is no greater love than this.

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you both now and forever. Amen.

Failure into Victory

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday March 14, 2010, the 4th Sunday in Lent.

Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The story of the Prodigal Son, who doesn’t like the story of the Prodigal Son?

Well, I guess every “older brother” that ever walked the face of the earth. Every honest, hard working, home bodied, insufferable, stick-in-the-mud sibling that ever walked the face of the earth probably doesn’t like the story of the Prodigal Son. Well, today it seems that I am putting him on the spot for being such an unbearable over-wound fogey; but at least he will have company.

Let’s begin where the story begins, with a man who had two sons. In the beginning of the passage, all we learn about the man is that he is a patriarch of a clan with some land to call his own. He is blessed, as would be any father with two sons. Granted, in this day and time seven sons is a greater blessing, but he’s got two and that’s good indeed. In a way, it’s like Miss America, should the older son not be able to fulfill his obligations the younger will be able to take over. Soon, we discover that this patriarch is what the listeners to this story would call a patsy, but that comes later.

The younger son is the one we all know more about from this story. He must have been a real piece of work. “Oh Daddy, I wish you were dead so that I may have my share of you now.” Yeah, now that’s love. “Oh Daddy, I don’t want anything to do with the family business. I want to make my way in the world and for that I’ll need a third of all that’s yours to be mine, now.”

As repulsive as it sounds to us, in the time Jesus was telling this story it was particularly horrible. In an era where “Honor thy Father” was one of the “Heavy Ten” and not the title of a made for TV organized crime movie; in a culture where family and community always took precedence over the individual; the younger son’s request was insolent.

Now it wasn’t unusual for a father to distribute his property before his death, the marriage of a son was a common reason to expedite the inheritance, but for the younger son to demand an early distribution so that he could make his way in the world is disrespectful, rebellious, and foolish.

None of this would have escaped the listener when Jesus told this story.

So now we return to the Father. Surely the Father is blessed, and from the hundreds of times we have heard, read, and contemplated this story, we know him as the generous Father of grace, peace, and mercy. He is love personified. But this is not necessarily how Jesus’ listeners would have heard this story.

In the first century context, to those Jesus originally shared this story, the Father is the biggest failure in the whole tale! First of all, he raised a son who was so impertinent toward his family that he dared ask for his share of the family fortune just so that he could get out of the house and away from the farm. To make matters worse, the Father agrees to his son’s disrespectful request.

The Father further disrespects himself by waiting for the return of his son. Scripture doesn’t elaborate on this point, but according to our reading the Father sees his son returning while he was still far off. Obviously, the father was watching and waiting for the return of his disobedient spawn.

Establishing that the father not only waited but then saw the son coming home, the Father, the patriarch of this small but blessed clan, ran to meet the son who dishonored him. Patriarchs never ran anywhere. In the mafia movie “Goodfellas,” Ray Liota’s character speaks of the head of the family saying, “Paulie never ran anywhere. He didn’t have to.” This mentality was the norm for the fathers of Jesus’ day.

Then, just to put the icing on the cake, the father has the fatted calf butchered so that there can be a party to celebrate the sorry brother’s return. The calf that could have been used to honor the Lord at a religious festival is used to hail the irresponsible son’s return. Then to put the decorative flowers and the “Welcome Home” on the icing on the cake; the older brother is so angry that he refuses to enter the house so the father had to come out and begin to plead with him. The first century listener would have revoked the father’s man-card on the spot.
While this is not what we hear listening to this story, this would not have escaped the listener who heard Jesus tell this story.

While we’re on the subject of the older brother; he’s a piece of work himself, but not without reason. To suit his younger brother, Dad liquidates one-third of the estate. That obviously left the family in a cash crunch. Then when the younger brother comes home, it is entirely possible that little brother can be set up with another share of the estate. Doing the math, it is possible that the gadfly brother could walk away with over half of the father’s wealth.[1] I don’t think any of us would be any less upset than the older brother.

Yes, the Father will affirm that the property will not be split again. The father tells his older son “all that is mine is yours,” but he sure didn’t know that while he’s standing outside.

Still, reason or not, he lets his anger show disrespect to his father by hanging out under the olive tree hoping the whole thing will just go away. The culturally foolish father comes out and is raked over the coals by his devoted yet now disrespectful son. “You never did this for me. I worked my fingers to the bone for years, for you, and did I get any thanks? No, you gave this son of yours, notice it’s not my brother, but your son, gave this son of yours the fatted calf and I never got a pony, er… party.” Sure in the end the younger brother’s life in the wilderness turned out to be a punishment, but it’s the lack of discipline in the beginning of the story that the older brother loathes.

It may be hard for us to imagine, but the older brother might have been the most sympathetic character to the listeners of the story in Jesus’ day. He was the only one who is devoted to the traditional values of family and community, but you can’t get away from this story without thinking he needs to get off of his pity pot.

The “traditional values” part of this would not have escaped the listener when Jesus told this story. The un-sympathetic character portion might have.

Henri Nouwen, one of the great spiritual writers of the twentieth century, commented on the “lostness” of both sons in this story.

He wrote, “Did you ever notice how lost you are when you are resentful? It’s a very deep lostness. The younger son gets lost in a much more spectacular way—giving in to his lust and his greed, using women, playing poker, and losing his money. His wrongdoing is very clear-cut. He knows it and everybody else does, too. Because of it he can come back, and he can be forgiven. The problem with resentment is that it is not so clear-cut: It’s not spectacular. And it is not overt, and it can be covered by the appearance of a holy life. Resentment is so pernicious because it sits very deep in you, in your heart, in your bones, and in your flesh, and often you don’t even know it is there. You think you’re so good. But in fact you are lost in a very profound way.”[2]

I have colleagues that call this gospel “Luke and the Losers.” This story is a fine example of why. Jesus has a habit of turning failures into heroes in his stories, turning failure into victory. Jesus picked losers such as tax collectors to be his disciples and partied with people who everyone in polite and pious society would have considered to be failures on many, many of levels.

He didn’t seem to mind being pictured as a failure because he knew that was the only way that folks everyone else considered failures could come to him. This story was designed to invite self-righteous Pharisees and scribes to see how they had become the older brother, failing to experience the joy and celebration that God does when wayward sinners come home. But it is also designed to remind us all of the embarrassing lengths to which God, in the person of Jesus, would go to make that homecoming a reality.[3]

There are a lot of tensions in this story: grace over justice, disrespect over honor, and foolishness over traditional values. As this story invited the Pharisees to see how they have become the older brother, these tensions force us to examine the way we handle tensions in our own lives. They force us to examine how we have become both brothers in one way or another.

The final tension we have to explore is that the Father goes to each son. The father joyfully welcomes the irresponsible brother when he returns home from the physical wilderness. Then the father joyfully welcomes the responsible brother as he stands in his virtual wilderness. Foolish as this seems, it is the mark of the generous and loving father we have come to associate with the Lord our God. This is the sign and seal of God’s gracious love for us. This is the way our Lord turns what the world considers failure into victory.

Lent reminds us that the story of Jesus inevitably moves toward the cross, the ultimate picture of failure and disgrace. Jesus was willing to risk the embarrassment of being stripped, beaten and hanged naked to die and to be held up as a failure for the whole world to see on that Friday. It is through that failure that God chooses to save the world.[4]

[1] Traditionally, the younger of two sons could inherit one-third of the father’s wealth. According to homileticsonline.com, id=23050 the younger son could have left the first time with only 11% of his inheritance, but if he had been restored to the estate, he could have eventually taken up to 40% of the father’s estate. According to homileticsonline.com, id=40793 he could have taken one third of the father’s estate and then one-third again, or up to 56% of the original split. Retrieved March 8, 2007.
[2] Henri Nouwen, From Fear to Love: Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, (Fenton, Missouri: Creative Communications for the Parish, 1998), 13-14.
[3] Post Your Failure, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040516, retrieved February 15, 2010.
[4] Post Your Failure, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040516, retrieved February 15, 2010.

re-Turn

This sermon was heard on Sunday March 7, 2010, the 3rd Sunday in Lent.

Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

A good friend of mine strongly believes that whenever we study scripture, new things open to us that had escaped us in the past. He never speculates why, I figure there are many reasons. Maybe sometimes there is something else in the passage that caught our eye in the past, so there is still a morsel on the bone waiting to be devoured when we read it again. Maybe we think we understand it, but then something happens which makes us reconsider our earlier reading. Maybe it’s something that just seemed so obvious in the past that there is new meaning in the present.

Well, I had one of those epiphanies over our gospel reading.

Verse five reads, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Suddenly I’m reading this and wondering just what in the world that means, “Just as they did.” In reading other translations, this distinction isn’t as obvious. It’s tempting to go with a simpler translation, treating the issue like an ostrich with its head in the sand, and ignoring it; but that’s not what we’re called to do. So what does it mean?

Let’s begin with looking at the Galileans and the eighteen killed at Siloam and see what’s so special about them. We come to this question at a disadvantage; because these stories don’t exist anywhere else in scripture. These events in Luke’s narrative are described nowhere else. The only things we know about these events is what we can gauge from Luke’s description and a little background knowledge.

The Galileans were killed with their sacrifices. While Luke’s gospel is silent on this issue, the others speak of Jesus cleansing the temple, toppling the tables of the money changers, and scattering the livestock. The reason for the money changers and the livestock at the temple was to provide animals for sacrifice and a way to purchase them. It would have been very difficult for anyone to bring livestock flawless and worthy of sacrifice from home to the temple, so enterprising entrepreneurs set up a market so that sacrifices could be purchased once people reached the temple.

This knowledge allows us to be quite certain that the blood of the Galileans that was spilled and mingled with their sacrifices did not take place in Jerusalem’s countryside; it took place at the temple. So the Galileans are more than simple victims of Pilate’s brutality. They are martyrs to the petty anger of a despot in the courtyard of the temple, in the front of the holiest place in Judaism.

So who were the eighteen killed at Siloam? The tower of Siloam was most probably at a corner of the great wall of Jerusalem by the pool of Siloam. It is to this pool that Jesus will send the blind man of John 9 to wash after the Lord restores his sight.

There is nothing particularly special about this pool. There is nothing particularly special about a tower falling. There is something particularly horrible about the death of eighteen people at this pool when the tower falls, but it certainly isn’t the same sort of death faced by the martyrs from Galilee. Perhaps they were doing their ritual cleansing; preparing to enter the temple, but that would be speculation.

On one hand we have the victims of a brutal dictator and on the other victims of a construction accident. What in the world is the connection between these two? Why is Jesus using these two examples warning us that we may perish “just as they did”?

Surely the greatest truth is that these victims are all sinful people, exactly like us. They were taking care of business. They were going to church, taking a bath, cleaning the house, dropping off the kids at practice. They were doing what made their lives not so different from ours. One group died while approaching the temple to worship the Lord becoming religious and political martyrs. The others were victims of an engineering failure as horrid as the I-35 bridge collapse in the twin cities a few years ago. It seems that the only thing that connects them is their humanity, their status as the Children of Adam.

This is one thing that makes us different from them. We too are the Children of Adam, and we are the Children of Christ. We have an opportunity these victims did not have, we can share in a life in Christ, a life in the resurrection that they could not.

Christ calls us to participate in His holy work, the work of reconciliation of all creation. We are called to prepare our very beings through confession. Bending our selves to the ways of the Lord we become able to bear fruit through the Lord our God. Joyfully, the parable that follows helps reveal truth vital to our ability to bear good fruit, the fruit of the Spirit.

We read of a landowner who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. There are some things that we need to remember about these ancient landowners. They were very rich men. They were men with the power to do as they wished with their land and their people. This isn’t so different from rich men in every time and place.

Too, many landowners were absent from their lands much of the year. These farms tended to be kept by lease holders, share croppers of a sort. This is not so different from what we know in our age of corporately owned farms. Perhaps the only difference in the last 2,000 years is the speed of communication and the quality of information between the farmer and the landowner.

Landowners are the Lords of the Manor and Lords of the Lands. Their whims could move worlds, their fancies could change lives. Their eyes on the bottom line can move jobs overseas and their accounting can ruin the retirement funds for thousands of workers.

There is a hired gardener in this story too. The gardener is like the lessee or the share cropper. This is the one who tends the vines and the trees. This is the one who knows the soils and the plants and cares for all of the matters of the Master’s land. Again, this person is not so different from many who work the land in every time and place.

If the gardener seems like a simple person, it is only because the wisdom this person carries is so old and without nonsense that all pretense has washed away and all that remains is plain and simple truth. These basic truths haven’t changed in 2,000 years, but there is an even deeper understanding of the truth that comes with time and revelation.

These are the working farmers. These are the folks who tend the land. Their whims can’t move a dry pea across the hard ground; but by their work, what to some looks like arid land can bear great fruit. These are the people who carry the torch and till the land. These are the people who bring in the crop and present it to the landowner.

Erich Auerbach, a German Jewish scholar who immigrated from Germany to Turkey and then the United States before World War II wrote, “God’s grace is infinite, but so also is God’s justice, and one does not negate the other.”[1] The Lord God Almighty will come as the landowner to judge the fruit of our labor. Should our lives not bear fruit, then God’s judgment will be upon us.

In the same hand comes the Lord God Almighty tends and sustains us as the farmer tills the land. The same Lord will tend the soil and provide the best possible conditions for us to thrive. And as in the end of this parable, this graceful farmer also reminds us that judgment is upon us. If we bear no fruit, we will be cut down and our only use will be as kindling for the fire.

It’s not so much a question of whether or not we will be judged, because we will be judged. The question is how we will be judged by the Lord our God; and as we see through this reading we will be judged in the same way as the fig tree, by the fruit we bear, in our case the fruit of the Spirit. As the tree, to be able to produce good fruit, we must be willing to be humbled by our lord. The gardener works hard to prepare the soil around the tree, but the tree will have to bear the indignity, if you will, of being prepared.

The tree will have the soil around the roots prepared. This will involve shovel and spade. There will be digging around the tender roots of what makes us what we are to make it so we can grow. This digging will be too close for comfort. There is bound to be some times when the shovel will nick a root or worse, causing what we might think an irreparable scar. Still, the gardener knows how to work the soil. The gardener knows how to prepare us to get the best results.

Then the gardener will give us the best food so that we may provide the best fruit. This sounds wonderful when we read it like this, “the best food…” This is when we get to remember that in this parable the best food is manure. Yes, in order to provide the best fruit we have to be humble enough to be covered in the part of beef that’s not for dinner. We want to receive the best of all things from the Lord, we hear of the feast at the table of God; and in this case the best of what we can receive what comes from beyond the hindquarters of livestock.

In the words of the German worship and liturgy author Rudolf Peil: “The gospels that prepare for Lent indicate the springtime labor that must be done in the vineyard of the soul. The soul must be harrowed by penance and contrition in order that the divine seed of the holy season of Lent may bring forth an abundant harvest.”[2]

In this Lenten season, we travel with Jesus from the countryside to the temple to the cross and to new life. Only by this special revelation, only in the words and works of the Christ are we able to repent in ways the victims of Luke’s tragedies only prayed to know. Only in the words and works of Christ can we repent in ways that the world around us seeks, wishes, and needs to know. Only by Christ in this life and in the life to come do we know eternal life.

This repentance, spoken of so gloriously in the words of the prophet Isaiah, made real in the person and work of Jesus Christ, this repentance turns us to be able to bear good fruit. Yet it is not enough that we turn once and forever to the word of God written, proclaimed, and incarnate. As my friend pointed out, the Word of God is made new everyday. Our Redeemer lives and His revelation is not dead either. So let us not simply turn to God, let us return again and again to the signs and sacraments of our faith in Christ everlasting.

Other Resource:
“Feasting on the Word, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.” Edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Year C, Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, pages 92-97.

[1] Auerbach, Erich, “Dante, Poet of the Secular World.” Translated by Ralph Manheim. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
[2] Peil, Rudolf, “A Handbook of the Liturgy.” Translated by H. E. Winstone. New York: The Crossroad/Continuum Publishing Company with permission of Herder and Herder, 1960.