This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 12, 2016, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1Kings 21:1-21a
Psalm 5:1-8
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Here’s a name baseball fans will remember, Al Hrabosky. “The Mad Hungarian” came up through the St. Louis Cardinal Minor League system to become one of the most influential relief pitchers of the Seventy’s. Was it his wicked delivery? His unrivaled intensity? His Fu Manchu mustache?
If you selected “All of the above” you got the Hrabosky effect.
In 1978 he left the Cards to sign a contract with the cross state rival Kansas City Royals. Two years later Hrabosky became a free agent and signed with the Atlanta Braves. When asked why the Royals did not choose to match the Braves’ offer, General Manager Joe Burke said he wasn’t worth it. Hrabosky countered, “The Braves are willing to pay me, so I must be worth it.”
This is today’s lesson in free market economics, something is worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. We’ll get back to this.
In our gospel reading, it’s getting along to be mealtime. It seems Luke’s gospel has Jesus going from one meal to the next, my kind of gospel. Jesus is invited to the home of Simon the Pharisee for a meal. Others are invited too.
Just a couple of things you may not be aware of that will be helpful. This isn’t a closed off banquet hall with high style chairs. This table is not very high at all and those who will eat lay on mats on their left elbows and eat with their right hands. Their legs will be splayed back and away from the table. Also, strangely to us, it is not uncommon for people to just drop in on the festivities seemingly for no good reason at all.
So Jesus goes with Simon to the festivities. Everyone was reclined at the table and the servants brought the food. Among the passersby is a local woman who has led a sinful life. As you see, anybody can just drop by a fancy dinner, even this sinful life leading woman! She breaks open an alabaster jar of perfume and anoints the feet of the Lord Jesus.
Can you imagine how good that felt after a long day on the road? The oils and the balm being rubbed lovingly into your feet. She’s weeping. She’s washing your feet with her long, long hair. Do you think he might have closed his eyes enjoying this tender care?
Well, she’s in his house, on his grounds, and Simon can’t keep quiet. He mumbles “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
This is Simon the Pharisee’s “Al Hrabosky” moment of human economics; and as far as he’s concerned she’s not worth all that and a bag of chips. Jesus on the other hand teaches that heavenly economics are not human economics.
Jesus engages Simon in a riddle, actually a common form of entertainment at get-togethers like this in the day before college football and TiVo. He offered the story of a moneylender who forgave two debts, one of fifty denarii and another of 500 denarii.
First though, a quick lesson in ancient finance. A denarius was a day’s living wage for the common worker. It was fair, it wasn’t extravagant, it was a living wage. So 50 denarii would amount to a healthy credit card bill and 500 would pay for a nice sedan.
Neither bill so high it can’t be incurred or repaid over time, but when bankruptcy comes, broke is broke.
Jesus asks, “The moneylender forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Isn’t it obvious? It is to Simon, the one with the larger debt.
Jesus tells him he made the right choice. Technically it’s not much of a riddle, but then again, I find the rest of the conversation has a bigger riddle.
Back in the day, hospitality rules said that when you invite someone over you provide water for them to wash their feet. When you wear sandals and share roads with beasts of burden, you’d want to wash your feet too. On a side note which will become a matter of no small importance, you wash your own feet. A slave can’t be compelled to wash someone else’s feet.
Well, Simon didn’t provide so much as a basin of water. Simon did not meet his guest with a kiss either. Nor did Simon give oil for washing. This sinful woman provided perfume, her kisses, her tears, and her hair for our Lord’s feet. She could not be compelled to wash his feet, yet she did she served him on her own accord out of love. Yes, she may have been a sinful woman, and we don’t know what her sins are, but by my count the score is Sinful Woman 5, Simon 0.
Jesus continues, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” To her alone he says, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
This woman seemed to know what Paul tells the Galatians over and over. They are not saved by the Law, but by grace. Yes, she is a sinner, a sinner serving God. By accepting Jesus the Christ, by loving and serving Christ, she has found her way to forgiveness. She has found shalom. She has found peace.
Paul says what Christ shows, we who know God, we who know the Christ will find ourselves “among the sinners.” I find this ironic, I have always found that when we find ourselves around those who know God we find ourselves among those who sin too. People like Simon.
While we are on this earth, we sin. People sin. Some days we sin like we owe fifty day’s pay. Others like 500 day’s pay. Others we owe a government sized bailout. Who needs more love? Of course it’s the one who owes more.
But let’s ask this question, who’s more worthy?
The question of worth is always based on some scale. Some external scale that somebody sets up and interprets. Did you meet the scale? Did you exceed expectations? Did you earn this bonus? Are you worthy of this reward?
The Jews measure this through the law. The 613 Commandments, the 613 Mitzvoth. The 248 positive commandments and the 365 negative commandments; if you were going to be judged by a code, that was quite a code. There were people who would judge. There were courts and there were scribes and Pharisees. Paul knew all of this. Paul was raised in this and he was esteemed in all of this.
Then Paul received the revelation of the better way. “So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
By his interpretation of the law, Simon judged the woman a sinner. She was way down on his totem pole. He, a Pharisee, was having Jesus, the “next big thing,” the “Flavor of the Month,” over for dinner. Simon’s star was ascending. He was seeing and being seen by all the right people. He had kept the law since a young child. Simon was living right. He thought he was on top of the world and in all the right ways, he was.
But with Jesus at the table, everything had changed. Paul says it this way to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus didn’t give himself for those with the best marks in the law. God in Christ knew the people who needed him most were those in the most difficulty, those who owed 500 denarii.
Those who owed fifty couldn’t save themselves though. It’s just that those who are in worse shape will love the redeemer more.
That’s the issue here. We have laws. We have lots of laws. They can be called benchmarks or standards or goals or outcome projections. They will end up as judgements. We face them every day and we will be judged worthy or unworthy.
In God’s law, we have all fallen short of the mark. We all sin. We are unworthy of the salvation freely offered through the life, work, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Yet, in God’s economics, as the children of God, though we are unworthy, we are saved. God loves us so much, that even if we think we have done enough, we haven’t, we can’t, and his grace is sufficient.
This takes me back to Simon and the sinful woman. Simon the Pharisee serves the Church and the Law, but he forgets the simplest principles of hospitality, water, oil, and greeting. The sinful woman brings these and the tears of shame knowing she’s not worthy, or is it tears of joy knowing that while she is not worthy, she is yet at the feet of her Lord.
Scripture doesn’t say. But this question makes me wonder this riddle, in our reading is Simon the fifty denarii sinner or is he the 500 denarii sinner? It also makes me wonder which I am. But in truth, all the answer to that riddle will show us is how grateful we should be when the moneylender forgives our debt.
In the end our response to this question must be to be like response of the sinful woman. Seek the feet of Christ and serve him where he is, for there is forgiveness. Not because we are worthy, because we are never going to be. Our human condition will forever keep us from that.
But here’s the Good News of Jesus Christ, like the sinful woman we seek and serve the Lord not because we are worthy, but because he is.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Sunday, June 05, 2016
Changes
This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 5, 2016, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
With thanks and praise to God and grateful thanks to the people of The Federated Church, this is my first Sunday as Pastor of The Federated Church.
1Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I want you, for a moment, to consider the plight of the family in our reading from 1Kings. At the beginning of this chapter, Elijah declared a drought upon the land because Ahab, the son of Omri the King of Israel had built a temple to worship Baal. At the same time Hiel of Bethel sacrificed two sons, his oldest and his youngest, to rebuild Jericho.
Joshua’s son Nun warned this would happen. These chickens have come home to roost at Bethel. It’s ironic that Bethel is the Hebrew word for “House of God.” This would be the First Commandment, “The Lord is our God” God, not the god Baal. So yeah, ironic. Hence, the prophet has declared a drought.
This also reminds me of wealth distribution like it is today, the powerful cats play, the weak mice pay. While everybody was hurt by the drought, those who were better off weren’t hurt so badly nor so quickly. For the rich things hurt, but not immediately. For those on the fringes of society, the widowed, the single parents, pain already knew their address.
As we read, sometime later the brook died up at Zarephath. Everything dried up at Zarephath. Even hope dried up at Zarephath. In a time when without a man you were nothing, she became less than nothing. She had a son to feed, we’ll never know his age, but he wasn’t old enough to earn his keep. Imagine how she scrimped and saved to get meal and oil for bread.
So here comes Elijah. The Lord commands him to see the widow who has likewise been commanded to supply him with food. So he arrives asking for some water and a piece of bread.
How does the widow prepare for the prophet’s arrival? She’s fetching sticks. Her words, not mine, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
Prepare a meal for myself and my son so that we may eat it and die. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation—poverty caused by a drought caused by men who would not follow the Lord the God of Israel. The powerful curse the prophet, all the while the poor prepare to die.
Take just a moment in her shoes my friends. You know her decision was not made lightly. It’s not that she hit a quick bump in the road and said, “Well,
it’s time to shut off the lights.”
She had a family. She has a son who is dying of malnutrition. All they have left is nothing but one more meal and sticks to heat it up. She has nobody, nobody to fight for her in this life. No husband, she literally has no breadwinner. There is nobody else she can rely upon since there is no other family. If there was a widow’s share from life insurance or the union or social security or food stamps, it’s long gone because the economy has gone to… yeah, you know, the drought.
On death row you can get steak and lobster, she doesn’t even have any more oil to put on the bread.
How distressed is she? How depressed is she? How hopeless does she feel? Verse nine says the Lord tells Elijah the woman has been told to give the prophet food. God has spoken to her and still as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing to do but to have a last supper, curl up and die.
She acknowledges the Lord God lives and she still can only see death for her and hers. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation.
Elijah cries out, fear not! (Are lovelier spoken in scripture?) Do this for me and the Lord God promises you have meal and oil until rain comes again upon the land.
Now take a walk in Paul’s shoes. The shoes that have lived the life he now shares with the Galatians. How he has changed, and how he hasn’t, is the heart of this part of this letter. Paul who persecuted the church. Paul who was Pharisee Employee of the Month at the Stoning of Stephen is now Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles. Changes don’t get much bigger. This one is so big he isn’t completely trusted.
Paul makes it clear that he is not the disciple of any man. When he received his revelation it came from Jesus himself. He then spent three years on the road before going to Jerusalem. When there, did he go to “All Disciples Temple” to get his teaching approved? No. He did go see Peter (Cephas in our reading), James, and John, and he didn’t seek their approval.
Now it’s time to put on our gospel shoes and walk with the widow of Nain from Luke’s gospel. This reading takes the setting from a step further. Her stresses are raised exponentially when her son dies. This woman now has no family. There is nobody to take her in. Her life is lifeless on a bier carried by bearers.
As hopeless as the widow in Kings was, this woman’s plight was much worse. Imagine the crying. Imagine the wailing. Imagine the horror. Imagine the people thanking God it wasn’t them.
They weren’t thanking God it was her, but they were grateful it wasn’t them.
Burying a spouse and an only child, nobody is prepared to face that change.
These folks have faced changes that are absolutely brutal. Paul’s life was set. He was a learned man from a good family. He could have been head of the Sanhedrin. Instead his life, socially, politically, and economically were ruined. He went from being greatly esteemed by one group and greatly feared by another to being loathed by everyone. Now he is hated by his fellow Jews and not easily trusted by the followers of Jesus.
The women, the widows have faced changes that have taken their lives away. With no other family they have nowhere to go. With no means of support they have no way to put a roof overhead or put food on the table. The widow of Nain also lost any hope of gaining a place in her son’s home in the future. One woman was preparing for death and the other was as good as dead already.
But they had one thing in common, one thing. They had an encounter with the Living God. An encounter that changed their lives. Paul went from trying to destroy the Church to being the its greatest evangelist. It is rightly said if not for Paul the Good News would have died as a limited reform movement in Judaism. If you are looking for proof, the Christian movement came out of Rome and Constantinople, not Israel.
As for the women, they received something more important. Their very lives were redeemed. Through the work of God delivered by the words of Elijah a family was saved. As for the widow of Nain, not only was her son raised from the dead, but in a very real way, she too was raised from the dead.
By the work of God through Elijah, Paul, and Jesus; in the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; changes were made in the lives of these people lives were saved.
Yes, oh yes, there was terror. There was no promise that the terror would not return. The story of the woman in 1Kings parallels the story of the woman in Luke’s gospel. This even after she meets Elijah and is blessed by the Lord God. The fate of Paul is well known, ultimately ending in exile from the Holy Land. Terror, oh yes, but there is salvation in God.
These are interesting texts to use for my first sermons with you as your pastor. They come from the Revised Common Lectionary, a group of readings which ensure that I don’t focus on one book of the Bible or one topic for years on end. So in that way, these readings picked us.
They became special to me because they describe tragedy and turmoil that lead to wonderful changes. These are people who know God is in control and still have to face demons.
I’m sure the widow in 1Kings would have loved Elijah to have arrived well before she was at the brink of passive suicide. The woman in Luke never knew she would meet her redeemer on this side of the tomb. There’s a surprise I can only begin to imagine.
As for Paul, he knew his Lord. He didn’t know he was persecuting his Lord’s people. Now he’s sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ until the people came to know him as a great prophet of the Risen Lord.
As for me, I have faced my share of demons. I have faced horror and turmoil I had rather not. At least if I had to make them I wish there was another way to make them. I seemed to have taken the hard road for a good long time.
I know too there is relief that there is a pastor here in the pulpit, in the office, and in town. That was a long and difficult road to hoe and as the old saying goes, no job is done until the paperwork is finished and that’s not all done either.
Still, here’s the good news.
We have faced these changes.
By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we have survived and thrived in these changes; even when the world was intent on making the road seem like an Everest summit.
In relying on Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are stronger. Our faith is stronger because it is based on the Christ revealed to us through scripture, prayer, and work.
Together these are the things that will take us into the future Jesus intends us to live together.
In Christ, there is hope. That is what we know from our readings and from our experience, there is hope and it is only in Christ.
No, it won’t always be easy. But what it can be is joyful. Glorious. Peaceful. Fun. We don’t have to give into the drama Paul saw in the ways of men.
Rather let us together seek the way of God. Yes, we will do that for one another, and we will do that for our community too.
Above all, the first reason we will do what we do as the Body of Christ is for the Glory of God and the Kingdom of God.
By our hope in God the love of God, in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
With thanks and praise to God and grateful thanks to the people of The Federated Church, this is my first Sunday as Pastor of The Federated Church.
1Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I want you, for a moment, to consider the plight of the family in our reading from 1Kings. At the beginning of this chapter, Elijah declared a drought upon the land because Ahab, the son of Omri the King of Israel had built a temple to worship Baal. At the same time Hiel of Bethel sacrificed two sons, his oldest and his youngest, to rebuild Jericho.
Joshua’s son Nun warned this would happen. These chickens have come home to roost at Bethel. It’s ironic that Bethel is the Hebrew word for “House of God.” This would be the First Commandment, “The Lord is our God” God, not the god Baal. So yeah, ironic. Hence, the prophet has declared a drought.
This also reminds me of wealth distribution like it is today, the powerful cats play, the weak mice pay. While everybody was hurt by the drought, those who were better off weren’t hurt so badly nor so quickly. For the rich things hurt, but not immediately. For those on the fringes of society, the widowed, the single parents, pain already knew their address.
As we read, sometime later the brook died up at Zarephath. Everything dried up at Zarephath. Even hope dried up at Zarephath. In a time when without a man you were nothing, she became less than nothing. She had a son to feed, we’ll never know his age, but he wasn’t old enough to earn his keep. Imagine how she scrimped and saved to get meal and oil for bread.
So here comes Elijah. The Lord commands him to see the widow who has likewise been commanded to supply him with food. So he arrives asking for some water and a piece of bread.
How does the widow prepare for the prophet’s arrival? She’s fetching sticks. Her words, not mine, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
Prepare a meal for myself and my son so that we may eat it and die. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation—poverty caused by a drought caused by men who would not follow the Lord the God of Israel. The powerful curse the prophet, all the while the poor prepare to die.
Take just a moment in her shoes my friends. You know her decision was not made lightly. It’s not that she hit a quick bump in the road and said, “Well,
it’s time to shut off the lights.”
She had a family. She has a son who is dying of malnutrition. All they have left is nothing but one more meal and sticks to heat it up. She has nobody, nobody to fight for her in this life. No husband, she literally has no breadwinner. There is nobody else she can rely upon since there is no other family. If there was a widow’s share from life insurance or the union or social security or food stamps, it’s long gone because the economy has gone to… yeah, you know, the drought.
On death row you can get steak and lobster, she doesn’t even have any more oil to put on the bread.
How distressed is she? How depressed is she? How hopeless does she feel? Verse nine says the Lord tells Elijah the woman has been told to give the prophet food. God has spoken to her and still as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing to do but to have a last supper, curl up and die.
She acknowledges the Lord God lives and she still can only see death for her and hers. Desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation, isolation, desolation.
Elijah cries out, fear not! (Are lovelier spoken in scripture?) Do this for me and the Lord God promises you have meal and oil until rain comes again upon the land.
Now take a walk in Paul’s shoes. The shoes that have lived the life he now shares with the Galatians. How he has changed, and how he hasn’t, is the heart of this part of this letter. Paul who persecuted the church. Paul who was Pharisee Employee of the Month at the Stoning of Stephen is now Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles. Changes don’t get much bigger. This one is so big he isn’t completely trusted.
Paul makes it clear that he is not the disciple of any man. When he received his revelation it came from Jesus himself. He then spent three years on the road before going to Jerusalem. When there, did he go to “All Disciples Temple” to get his teaching approved? No. He did go see Peter (Cephas in our reading), James, and John, and he didn’t seek their approval.
Now it’s time to put on our gospel shoes and walk with the widow of Nain from Luke’s gospel. This reading takes the setting from a step further. Her stresses are raised exponentially when her son dies. This woman now has no family. There is nobody to take her in. Her life is lifeless on a bier carried by bearers.
As hopeless as the widow in Kings was, this woman’s plight was much worse. Imagine the crying. Imagine the wailing. Imagine the horror. Imagine the people thanking God it wasn’t them.
They weren’t thanking God it was her, but they were grateful it wasn’t them.
Burying a spouse and an only child, nobody is prepared to face that change.
These folks have faced changes that are absolutely brutal. Paul’s life was set. He was a learned man from a good family. He could have been head of the Sanhedrin. Instead his life, socially, politically, and economically were ruined. He went from being greatly esteemed by one group and greatly feared by another to being loathed by everyone. Now he is hated by his fellow Jews and not easily trusted by the followers of Jesus.
The women, the widows have faced changes that have taken their lives away. With no other family they have nowhere to go. With no means of support they have no way to put a roof overhead or put food on the table. The widow of Nain also lost any hope of gaining a place in her son’s home in the future. One woman was preparing for death and the other was as good as dead already.
But they had one thing in common, one thing. They had an encounter with the Living God. An encounter that changed their lives. Paul went from trying to destroy the Church to being the its greatest evangelist. It is rightly said if not for Paul the Good News would have died as a limited reform movement in Judaism. If you are looking for proof, the Christian movement came out of Rome and Constantinople, not Israel.
As for the women, they received something more important. Their very lives were redeemed. Through the work of God delivered by the words of Elijah a family was saved. As for the widow of Nain, not only was her son raised from the dead, but in a very real way, she too was raised from the dead.
By the work of God through Elijah, Paul, and Jesus; in the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; changes were made in the lives of these people lives were saved.
Yes, oh yes, there was terror. There was no promise that the terror would not return. The story of the woman in 1Kings parallels the story of the woman in Luke’s gospel. This even after she meets Elijah and is blessed by the Lord God. The fate of Paul is well known, ultimately ending in exile from the Holy Land. Terror, oh yes, but there is salvation in God.
These are interesting texts to use for my first sermons with you as your pastor. They come from the Revised Common Lectionary, a group of readings which ensure that I don’t focus on one book of the Bible or one topic for years on end. So in that way, these readings picked us.
They became special to me because they describe tragedy and turmoil that lead to wonderful changes. These are people who know God is in control and still have to face demons.
I’m sure the widow in 1Kings would have loved Elijah to have arrived well before she was at the brink of passive suicide. The woman in Luke never knew she would meet her redeemer on this side of the tomb. There’s a surprise I can only begin to imagine.
As for Paul, he knew his Lord. He didn’t know he was persecuting his Lord’s people. Now he’s sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ until the people came to know him as a great prophet of the Risen Lord.
As for me, I have faced my share of demons. I have faced horror and turmoil I had rather not. At least if I had to make them I wish there was another way to make them. I seemed to have taken the hard road for a good long time.
I know too there is relief that there is a pastor here in the pulpit, in the office, and in town. That was a long and difficult road to hoe and as the old saying goes, no job is done until the paperwork is finished and that’s not all done either.
Still, here’s the good news.
We have faced these changes.
By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we have survived and thrived in these changes; even when the world was intent on making the road seem like an Everest summit.
In relying on Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are stronger. Our faith is stronger because it is based on the Christ revealed to us through scripture, prayer, and work.
Together these are the things that will take us into the future Jesus intends us to live together.
In Christ, there is hope. That is what we know from our readings and from our experience, there is hope and it is only in Christ.
No, it won’t always be easy. But what it can be is joyful. Glorious. Peaceful. Fun. We don’t have to give into the drama Paul saw in the ways of men.
Rather let us together seek the way of God. Yes, we will do that for one another, and we will do that for our community too.
Above all, the first reason we will do what we do as the Body of Christ is for the Glory of God and the Kingdom of God.
By our hope in God the love of God, in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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