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“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (22nd Sunday after Pentecost, 11/9/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

Today’s readings are, as it were, the soundtracks from three points in our history as the people of God. What is their good news (their Gospel) for us today? Each in their own way are echoing the Gospel as proclaimed in Isaiah 40. That chapter’s first verse: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” Its last verse: “but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (v.31).

In our first reading the prophet Haggai speaks in a profoundly discouraging situation. Some of the Judean exiles are back from Babylon, but the rebuilt temple is a constant reminder of the splendor of the temple the Babylonians destroyed, and Zerubbabel, a Davidic heir, is “governor,” not king. We can sympathize: some of us can remember when the pews were packed and affiliation with a congregation was simply part of being a good community member. So Haggai: take courage, work, do not fear! Why? “I am with you… my spirit abides among you.”

The prophet continues: “Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts” (Hag 2:6-7). With all due respect to George Frederick Handel’s brilliant rendering of these verses, they’re a problem, because nothing recognizably like this happens in Haggai’s lifetime. Centuries later Herod the Great fills the temple with splendor, just in time for Jesus to pronounce it a “den of thieves” and for the Romans to destroy it! It’s an example of something common even to true prophets: the short- and long-term are conflated. God, as we often observe, does time differently than we do.

Nevertheless, “I am with you… my spirit abides among you.” That’s the comfort Isaiah talked about. Not consolation (as in “consolation prize”), but an assurance that God’s still active that strengthens the hearers. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” So Haggai: “work.”

Notice that that line from Isaiah doesn’t read “Those who see the LORD acting” but “Those who wait for the LORD.” So waiting for the LORD is not like waiting for the mail: it expresses itself in the strength Isaiah describes, in celebrating before the final battle. (That is, by the way, one of the fundamental dimensions of the Eucharist. Isaiah (elsewhere) had prophesied: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever” (25:6-8a). Every Eucharist foreshadows that feast, that new world in which everyone is welcome, there’s room for everyone, there’s enough for everyone. We celebrate particularly on Sunday, when our Lord took that decisive chomp out of Death.

If that waiting for the Lord is sustained by remembering God’s mighty acts—preeminently the resurrection—it’s equally sustained by the “God moments” in our past or present, often in the form of particular people. It’s what Paul was talking about in last Sunday’s reading:
“We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing” (2Th 1:3). Yes, Cain, we are each other’s keeper, and the choices we make in our dealings with each other nurture or sap our capacity to faithfully wait.

The ending of our reading from Paul’s letter was the inspiration for associating our readings with Isaiah 40: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.”

That reading started with Paul trying to quash the rumor that the “day of the Lord” had already arrived. He works the problem from two angles. First, he recalls an expected sequence of events, perhaps drawing from Jesus’ teaching as recorded in Matthew (24:1ff), Mark (13:1ff), and Luke (25:5ff). Attempts to make sense of this sequence in the subsequent centuries of the Church’s life have not been encouraging. Second, he paints the larger picture: “God chose you as the first fruits for salvation.” There is a rich harvest coming; you’re the beginning of it. That’s a designation every generation can own: for every generation is in a unique situation, and, in God’s generosity, the first fruits in anticipation of a rich harvest. It’s why Jesus told parables like the sower and the mustard seed. “Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts.”

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.… but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” OK, preacher, how does Jesus’ argument with the Sadducees regarding the resurrection relate to that?

In this way, I think: what makes it hard to believe Isaiah’s words then and now is the same thing tripping up the Sadducees, the assumption that we know how the world works. The Sadducees: if there’s a resurrection it’s a continuation of life as we know it, which leads to absurdities like one woman simultaneously married to seven brothers.

As you may recall, Matthew and Mark also tell this story, and in their accounts Jesus begins his response with “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29; cf. Mk 12:24). Centuries later Hamlet makes a similar point to Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I find Hamlet’s words a useful benchmark: is that therealization that our encounters with Scripture and God’s power are generating? Sadly, there are too many ways of reading Scripture that narrow our focus, confirm our prejudices. Oh, that our readings more often generated the awe and wonder reflected in Hamlet’s words!

God’s future: not the continuation of life as we know it. As we celebrate in the Eucharist, in God’s future, everyone is welcome, there’s room for everyone, there’s enough for everyone. Let us hear again Isaiah’s words: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.… but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Wielding those two-edged swords, imitating the Merciful Father (All Saints, 11/2/2025)

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Readings

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, the last of the Principal Feasts in the Church Year. On the one hand, a celebration. God’s mighty acts celebrated at Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, and Pentecost have borne fruit. We’re surrounded by—as Hebrews puts it—“so great a cloud of witnesses.” Hallelujah? Hallelujah! On the other hand, as today’s collect reminds us, our race isn’t over. “Give us grace—we prayed—to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,” And today’s readings encourage us to think about what that following involves.

Our reading from Ephesians is perhaps the most straightforward. Paul often works with the triad of faith, hope, and love. He celebrates his hearers’ faith and love, and then focuses on encouraging their hope. So the reading and today’s hopeful feast flow together nicely.

Aside from the obvious challenges posed by today’s Gospel, today’s psalm presents its own challenges. It’s probably included because older translations offered “saints” rather than “faithful” in vv. 1, 5, and 9. But there’s no consensus among scholars regarding how it was used, how it was understood. Those beds in v.5: are we to imagine the nave filled with beds? Unlikely. If the beds are in homes, are the two-edged swords metaphors for their tongues? (Recall that in one of Isaiah’s servant songs we hear “He made my mouth like a sharp sword” [49:2].) We don’t know. All we have is the text itself, about which more in a bit.

Our reading from Daniel: older translations like the RSV offered “saints” rather than “holy ones” in the last verse, which perhaps explains its inclusion. I wish the lectionary had given us a longer reading. In the vision itself the four beasts dominate the stage until the “Ancient of Days” cuts it short and gives eternal dominion to “one like a son of man.” Jesus paid particular attention to this vision. He cites it at his trial (he is “coming with the clouds of heaven” [Mk 14:62]), and it’s almost certainly the inspiration for his use of “the son of man” as a self-designation. In the interpretations of the vision that follow in the chapter it’s unclear whether this “son of man” is an individual or collective figure or both, but it is clear that considerable suffering is involved, the fourth beast making “war with the holy ones and…prevailing over them” (v.21). Between this chapter, the songs of the suffering servant in Isaiah to which Jesus also paid particular attention, and the way this world’s politics typically play out, not surprising that Jesus’ faithfulness involved cross and resurrection, ditto his followers’ faithfulness (these saints we’re celebrating).

In preparing this sermon I was reminded of the multiple decisions Jesus had to make. There was that voice at his baptism: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Lk 3:22). And immediately afterwards, led by the Spirit into forty days of temptation, of decisions. How to respond to “You are my Son, the Beloved”? How to enact, for example, today’s psalm (“Let the praises of God be in their throat * / and a two-edged sword in their hand; / To wreak vengeance on the nations * / and punishment on the peoples”)? The Zealots, for whom the only good Roman was a dead Roman, would have been happy to help Jesus figure that one out. Multiple decisions, some of them reflected in our Gospel reading.

The first part of our Gospel reading, the paired Beatitudes and woes: I’d guess that he got it as much from his mother as from multiple Old Testament texts: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, * / and has lifted up the lowly. / He has filled the hungry with good things, * / and the rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:52-53 // BCP 92). Sing that often enough at home and it’s going to shape a kid! So, “Blessed are you who are poor…” That’s good news for our world. We’re getting a better future than we have any reason to expect, one shaped not by Daniel’s four beasts, but by the Son of Man.

The thing is, the Zealots would have been quite happy to say “Amen!” to those verses. It’s in the next verses that things get interesting: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you…” Where is Jesus getting that? “Love your enemies” comes from a careful reading of Moses. From Exodus: “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free” (Exod 22:4-5). That’s love: not an emotion, but seeking the other’s good.

And that command and the rest are grounded even more deeply. On the one hand, the alternative is to simply perpetuate the cycles of violence, pointless reruns of Daniel’s four beasts from the great sea. Paul captures Jesus’ alternative: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). On the other hand, love your enemies because that’s how God acts. A few verses after today’s reading: “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:35-36).

The “ungrateful and the wicked:” in Scripture that would be usually God’s people, as another bit from Isaiah reminds us (God speaking): “I have not burdened you with offerings, / or wearied you with frankincense. / You have not bought me sweet cane with money, / or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. / But you have burdened me with your sins; / you have wearied me with your iniquities” (43:24).

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:35-36). Why that adjective? Not only does it capture what Jesus has been saying, but it’s the first adjective used in God’s self-description to Moses, easily the most important description of the divine character in Jesus’ Bible: “”The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious… (Exo 34:6). ‘Merciful’, in Hebrew raḥḥûm, from reḥem ‘womb’. (For some of us it pretty much takes a lifetime for that to sink in.)

“Let the praises of God be in their throat * / and a two-edged sword in their hand; / To wreak vengeance on the nations * / and punishment on the peoples.” After Jesus, the Zealot reading of this text is a non-starter. But what of those swords that are our tongues? I brought in Paul a bit ago; let’s hear a bit more of that exhortation from Romans 12: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.… Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (12:14-18).

Early in our marriage one of the best pieces of advice I got was from a Jewish friend that went something like this: “When you’re angry with your wife, remember that the next day you’ll probably want to reconcile. Try not to say things that will make the reconciliation more difficult.”

In today’s collect we prayed “Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.” In today’s world, whether in face-to-face conversations or on social media where our words and likes go instantly around the globe, that “virtuous and godly living” is intimately tied to our decisions about that sword that is our tongue. Probably can’t hurt to remember that as we continue our Feast of All Saints.

Faith as Defiance (19th after Pentecost, 10/19/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

Just before today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it” (Lk. 17:22). Discipleship, praying “your kingdom come,” it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Losing heart is a real danger, and Jesus has a parable about that.

If the unjust judge gives the widow justice, how much more will God grant justice to those “who cry to him day and night”! And Jesus continues: “I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.”

“Quickly”? Rather than resolve the tension present throughout the history of God’s people, Jesus leans into it. God and humans do time differently; God’s “quickly” rarely feels like quickly to us. That can be a deal-breaker (“lose heart”); Jesus doesn’t want it to be a deal-breaker. God will grant justice. The real question: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

In today’s collect we prayed that we “may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name.” The widow in Jesus’ parable shows us what that looks like: continuing to cry out for justice as long as necessary.

OK, we could say “Amen” at this point and go on to the Creed. But that could leave us assuming that we had a reliable idea of the justice we needed, and had only to keep praying until God gave us that justice. Our other two readings might want us to wonder about that.

Paul to Timothy: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Paul is speaking diplomatically. Put less diplomatically: “All of us are works in progress. All of us need teaching, reproof, correction, training. “Proficient, equipped for every good work”? That’s the goal, not the present reality. God uses many tools for our salvation; Scripture is one of these tools, an essential tool.

Paul’s words guided the reformation of the Church of England in the 16th Century. The first task: get the Bible into English in the parishes. Then: when and how would it be heard? The monasteries had frequent daily offices for hearing Scripture and praying, but not the parishes. So Archbishop Cranmer reduced the multiple offices to two (Morning and Evening Prayer) and created a lectionary so that every parish could hear most of Scripture over the course of the year.

So our Book of Common Prayer opens with various orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, and at the very end there’s the schedule of Scripture readings. The challenge, of course, is how this works in the 21st century. So Good Shepherd, like many parishes, orders copies of Day by Day, and various smartphone apps put the offices at our fingertips. This is part of our Episcopal identity that could use more attention, so that Coffee Hour is predictably the time when the clergy are besieged by questions (“Why’s Jesus talking about bringing a sword, rather than peace?”).

Why bother? My favorite example comes from the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. We’re introduced to Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, whom Matthew describes as “righteous.” That sounds promising, but on learning of Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s best idea is to dismiss her quietly. So God sends a dream “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and Joseph’s righteousness gets an upgrade. That’s not a bad picture of the people of God. We’re righteous, but our notion of righteousness means that we’re about to dismiss Mary—if we haven’t done so already. We need the teaching, reproof, correction, and training that regular encounters with Scripture can provide.

Then there’s that strange story in our first reading. Jacob—from whom you should never buy a used car—had cheated his brother Esau, and now Esau was coming to meet him—with 400 of his armed retainers. So Jacob prays for deliverance and (in answer to the prayer?) a “man” wrestles with him all night. Jacob remembers it as having “seen God face to face.” In any event, that’s the crisis; the subsequent encounter with Esau goes smoothly.

I wonder about that story. Esau is a problem, but perhaps God’s the bigger problem. Perhaps Jacob got it right and it was God with whom he wrestled all night. Maybe prayer is like that. I pray for justice; perhaps I shouldn’t expect to emerge from prayer unchanged.

In today’s Gospel we heard Jesus encouraging his disciples to “pray always and not to lose heart.” Yet it’s his questions that I often find most haunting. Last week: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Lk. 17:17-18) Today: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” What answer will we give in the coming week?

How do we do community? (17th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/5/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

This Sunday our readings go in quite different directions, so we’ll look first at Lamentations and then at our Gospel.

Lamentations. Since Pentecost our Old Testament readings have had us listening to the prophets’ warnings: if you continue to turn away from the true God and continue to oppress the vulnerable (who, like you, bear the image of that true God), things will turn out badly. In last week’s reading the Babylonian army had Jerusalem surrounded, and soon after that were inside. But rather than a triumphant “I told you so,” what Scripture gives us are five powerful laments.

If you look at them in the pew Bibles, you’ll notice that chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 all have 22 verses, and chapter 3, 66 verses. Why? The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, so we’ve got five acrostic laments, each verse beginning with the next letter in the alphabet, giving voice to grief from A to Z, and then back again. Chapter 3, the centerpiece, devotes three verses to each letter, so 66 verses total.

Grief over the loss of the beloved city, or—poetry is open-ended—a loved one, or a cherished dream: Lamentations knows that that’s hard work, but necessary work, and work in which there are no short-cuts. It’s part of being human. So, grief from A to Z, and then again, as often as needed.

Mercifully, the Bible doesn’t end with this book. There is an “after,” and the Bible explores what this “after” can look like. I could sketch out this exploration, but that might give the impression that grief is something to be moved past to get to the important part. No: grief is just as important as any other part, and we’ll know when we’re ready to wonder about that “after.”

We never want to be in a situation in which we need that book, but it’s there when and as often as we need it.

Deep breath. Our Gospel reading. Today’s reading comes directly after the rich man and Lazarus story we heard last week. That story was part of Jesus response to the Pharisees. Verse 14 in that chapter: “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money heard all this, and they ridiculed him.”

How do we speak truthfully about the Pharisees? It’s clear from the Gospels that Jesus had much more in common with the Pharisees than he had with the Sadducees, the Herodians, the Zealots, etc. When God looked for someone to spearhead the mission to the Gentiles, God drafted Paul the Pharisee. And, pulling back the camera, we acknowledge with gratitude the beauty and holiness that rabbinic Judaism, child of the Pharisees, has continued to produce over the centuries. What drove Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees was the twofold recognition that (1) too many of their leaders were not successfully resisting the temptations of power, and simply stuck, and that (2) his own disciples were too often not even recognizing that these were temptations to be resisted! The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ opposition—written decades later—have more to do with the conduct the church leaders should avoid than with what the Pharisees were doing.

So how is Jesus instructing the disciples?

Don’t be the cause of someone else stumbling. You’re responsible for each other.

If another disciple sins, rebuke. If that disciple repents, forgive—as often as necessary.

Following these instructions isn’t a matter of having more faith/trust. As Yoda put it “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

If you’ve followed these instructions, don’t give yourself airs. You’ve just done what needed to be done. (By the way, we don’t want to misuse that “worthless slaves” as a starting point for our self-definition. Jesus is happy to use hyperbole to help us avoid fatal mistakes, as in the prayer that starts “God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” [Lk. 18:11])

OK. Jesus probably doesn’t get the warm-and-fuzzy award for these words. And as we look at these instructions, I think we see that Jesus is envisioning a more cohesive—and, frankly, riskier—community than we often settle for. The “safe” way of doing community is through a general hands-off pact: I’m OK, you’re OK, and we’ll leave it at that. “If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender.” But rebuke only works if through experience I know that the person rebuking me is doing so out of concern for me, not as an exercise in one-upmanship. That is, Jesus’ vision of community is of one that’s nurtured over time, not one that comes into being overnight.

A community that’s nurtured over time: that’s also behind “And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” We’re slow learners. Sometimes my first “I’m sorry” is “I’m sorry I got caught out,” then, later, “I’m sorry that my action didn’t produce the result I intended.” Hopefully I eventually get to “I’m sorry that I even thought that was a good idea.” So seven times a day may be at the low end of the possible scenarios.

Pulling back the camera, how well have we attended to Jesus’ instructions? Too often, not very well, with results that periodically go sideways very publicly, the abuse scandals being simply the latest example. “She weeps bitterly in the night, / with tears on her cheeks…” We have Lamentations also to grieve over these failures.

So why does Jesus even bother? There’s a new world to be created. And God/Jesus, ever hopeful, who prefers to redeem rather than replace, doesn’t choose folk well-suited for the task, but folk like the disciples, folk like you and me, folk like Paul.

Speaking of Paul, what does our second reading contribute to all this? Perhaps this, that Paul really cares that Timothy get it right. It matters to Paul. And so, in a bit, when we pray “joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven,” we’re not talking about a crowd that doesn’t care how the game goes, constantly at the concession stands or doing the wave. They care and intercede, and, supported also by their care and intercession, we’ll again go forth to “love and serve the Lord.”

Live like this God: generously (16th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/28/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

One of my favorite sayings about optimists and pessimists runs like this: the optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist agrees. In that context, we might hear Paul’s words as hopeful: there are alternatives.

On the one hand, Paul tracks with the cynic and stoic philosophers: choosing contentment is key to happiness. Then and now that means swimming upstream in a culture that constantly and stridently proclaims that happiness depends on always having more. (It takes effort to swim upstream, hence our collect’s “running to obtain your promises.”)

Notice that the problem is not wealth, but the desire for wealth. Good work can produce wealth, but when the desire for wealth replaces a commitment to good work, it’s never pretty, as in the typical grocery store: too many products that are simply bad for our health, produce like tomatoes that retain the name, but not the taste.

But Paul sets his invitation to contentment in the context of our confession of God as generous Creator (“God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment”). Luke Johnson puts this provocatively: “human existence is in itself a gift from God that cannot in any significant fashion be improved by material possessions.”

But preacher, doesn’t “contentment” mean “boring”? Well, notice how Jesus does contentment, spending so much time at the table that his enemies: “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt. 11:19). OK, preacher, but doesn’t “contentment” mean stagnation? Here the historian Lynn White Jr is helpful: technological progress—harnessing water and wind power—is driven by the monastic commitments to find an alternative to slavery (the source of this power in the classical world) and to live out Paul’s injunction “to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.” Contentment—Paul thinks—frees us to mirror God’s creative generosity.

“God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” That’s deeply rooted in the opening chapters of Genesis, and it’s easy to forget how counter-cultural it was/is. Israel, remember, lived between the two cultural powerhouses of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Egypt, with Mesopotamia being more relevant in this context.

The creation stories in Mesopotamia ran something like this: sowing, harvesting, keeping the canals dredged: that’s backbreaking work, and finally the minor gods had enough and revolted. The major gods solved the problem by creating humankind—to do the work no one else wanted to do. So if you’re wondering why life is the way it is…

In that context—and that’s the context in which these chapters of Genesis took their present shape—one of the big surprises is that we humans aren’t created to solve a divine problem. So if we weren’t created for that, what were we created for? Genesis—and the rest of Scripture—wonders about that question.

But back to our reading. Living like the gods is a common human dream. And Scripture happily encourages it—as long as we remember how the Living God lives. “God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” So go and do likewise: “do good…be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.”

Jesus’ story in our Gospel reading covers much the same ground as our second reading. No surprise: Jesus and Paul are drinking from the same wells. We might notice the last bit: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” As Christians our faith is properly centered on this someone. But if “they” aren’t listening to Moses and the prophets, that “someone” isn’t going to be convincing. Moses and the prophets: to hazard a summary: the generous Creator expects us to live generously. If “they” find that unbelievable Jesus isn’t going to register. This is why the quality of our parish life is so important: the world badly needs to be able to see what living generously looks like. Our common life is an intrinsic part of our message.

We can imagine responding to Jesus and Paul in good weather; what about in nasty weather? I’m thankful for Jeremiah. In the middle of the Babylonian siege Jeremiah’s cousin comes to him asking him to buy up some family property—a field. The timing could not be worse, for that field is almost certainly currently occupied by some unit in the Babylonian army. Responding to the request and to the divine word, Jeremiah buys the property and dots all the legal i’s and crosses all the legal t’s so that the family’s ownership will remain undisputed. Even in nasty weather by God’s grace Jeremiah is able to act generously, in imitation of this generous God.

Now, a sidebar. While today’s texts have a lot to say about what we do, our images of God are equally important. Jesus is not the Son of just any god, but of the God revealed in Moses and the prophets, the generous God who digs very deep for our healing. Do I believe in that God? Most days that’s a work-in-progress. And what image of God reigns in my gut profoundly shapes what I feel, think, and do.

We might wrap all this up by noticing that the story Jesus tells is open-ended. On the personal level it challenges us: how are things around my gate? On the local, state, and national levels, who are getting our votes? Those concerned that the rich man continue to feast undisturbed, or those concerned that Lazarus not lay at the gate indefinitely. We pray “God bless America;” what are we doing to encourage God to think that’s a good idea?

It turns out that imitating God and encountering God dovetail in surprising ways. “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?… And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’” (Matt. 25:37-40).

“You got to know when to hold ’em…” (15th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/21/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

“You cannot serve God and wealth.” That’s a statement that seems perfectly obvious when applied to other people, whether to the Spanish conquistadores who brought the cross and the sword —not necessarily in that order— to the Americas or to the occasional well-heeled tele-evangelist who practices creative bookkeeping. But the same statement seems unnecessarily limiting when applied to us. There really ought to be a way to do it!

Where did Jesus get “You cannot serve God and wealth”? He could have gotten it from the Decalogue: when wealth is the bottom line it’s a god and “no other gods before me” kicks in. This is another form of the duck test: if it walks like a duck & quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. If it drives my decision-making, it’s my god. He could have gotten it from reading prophets like Jeremiah. But I don’t think he came to it without carefully examining the alternatives. His career would have been a lot less frustrating and a lot less painful if he’d found a way! That may be what the 40 days in the wilderness were about. Recall the temptations. The devil invites him to turn stones into bread, to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, to worship the devil in exchange for “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” These are also ways of trying to serve God and wealth.

Now, sermons are supposed to contain good news, and “You cannot serve God and wealth” doesn’t sound very good newsy. It can, however, be useful information. It’s like the first rule of the hole: if you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the first thing to do is…stop digging. To the degree that we take “You cannot serve God and wealth” seriously, we save ourselves all the futile work involved in trying to serve both.

But “You cannot serve God and wealth” does more than this. Once accepted, it opens up some new possibilities, possibilities that Jesus explores through his story. But before diving into that story, a few words on our first two lessons.

Jeremiah is directed, broadly, to the leaders of the Kingdom of Judah at the end of the 7th Century bc. God had brought Israel into being about 600 years earlier —about the time of the fall of Troy— as a place where God would be loved and the neighbor loved —the two halves of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue. Measured against the Decalogue the leaders’ conduct was suicidal, particularly with respect to the love-your-neighbor half. And so God sends Jeremiah to announce the end of the Kingdom —exile. And from that time Jeremiah’s words are passed down from generation to generation so that Israel will remember that God really is serious about both halves of the Ten Commandments, that one cannot serve God and wealth.

Now one way of responding to Jeremiah would be to retreat into a strict legalism that wrote off everyone on the outside. Something like this was what Paul was responding to in the letter to Timothy. Rather than writing off everyone on the outside, pray for everyone —supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings— including the kings and folk in high positions who are as corrupt as Israel’s leaders were. Why? God desires that all be saved. God, desiring the salvation of all, has supplied a mediator between God and humankind —Jesus Christ— and appointed Paul —and many others down to ourselves— as witnesses of this. So —Paul to his audience— if God desires everyone to be saved, the least you can do is pray for everyone. In other words, don’t use “you cannot serve God and wealth” as a reason for writing off your neighbor—God hasn’t.

Another way of responding to Jeremiah would be to retreat into a sort of quietism, maybe to retreat into the desert and wait for the Messiah. Here’s where Jesus’ story comes in. It’s a strange story. To get into the spirit of it a soundtrack might help. As a sound track we might use the country-western song Kenny Rogers made famous back in 1979 called The Gambler. You may recall some of the lines… “Ev’ry gambler knows that the / secret to survivin’, / Is knowin’ what to throw away / and knowin’ what to keep. / ‘Cos ev’ry hand’s a winner, / and ev’ry hand’s a loser.” And the chorus: “You got to know when to hold ’em, / know when to fold ’em, / know when to walk away, / know when to run.”

So, keeping that song going in the background, recall the story Jesus tells: out of the blue a rich man gives his business manager notice. It’s a crisis: business as usual just isn’t an option. The business manager faces the crisis, and responds by calling in all the rich man’s debtors and reducing their debt, thereby making them indebted to him. (It’s not clear if he’s cheating his boss, or simply forgoing his cut.) His boss commends the manager for acting shrewdly. And Jesus glosses the story: make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. Parenthetically, the phrase “dishonest wealth” or “unfaithful mammon” is probably a shameless pun, since “mammon,” the word for wealth, is probably derived from the Hebrew root for “faithfulness.” As Luke tells the story, Jesus is returning to a theme we’ve met before: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” This doesn’t mean that every Christian is called to sell all their possessions —not even Luke believed that. But every Christian and every Christian community is called to recognize that God’s coming Kingdom means the economic arrangements of this world’s kingdoms will become obsolete and to use their resources —shrewdly. We can’t serve God and wealth, but, serving God, we can use what wealth we have to serve others, and—Jesus’ words, not mine—make purses for [our] selves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, (Luk 12:33). If the financial planners only knew…

This homily, you see, ends up being about stewardship —not simply what we give to the church, but how we steward (manage) all our resources.

The standard is God, who, in Jesus’ brother James’ words “gives to all generously and ungrudgingly” (1:5).

The surprise is that Jesus is quite happy to urge generosity for selfish motives—“an unfailing treasure in heaven.” Generosity for selfish motives—better than no generosity for selfish motives. And what can happen, of course, is that the generosity transforms—slowly—the motives.

The obvious question: just how generous do I have to be? I think Jesus would say that’s the wrong question. What might be the right question? Do I think that this generous God is worth imitating? If my answer is yes, then I sort, or continue to sort—that out within the web of relationships in which this God has placed me.

Ev’ry hand’s a winner, and ev’ry hand’s a loser. The secret to survivin’, is knowin’ what to throw away and knowin’ what to keep. Kenny Rogers’ gambler and Jesus’ business manager have something to say to us. Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser, so with every hand it’s possible to act shrewdly with what we have for the glory of the Lord. May God give us the grace to continue to see and act shrewdly.

This is what we do (14th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/14/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

One of these Sundays we’ll have a Gospel reading that doesn’t remind us of our current polarized context—but it’s not this Sunday. Luke sets the scene: “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” So Jesus tells three parables, the two we heard this morning, and the third, the Parable of the Two Lost Sons, a.k.a. The Prodigal Son, which we heard the fourth Sunday in Lent.

I mention the Parable of the Two Lost Sons because it addresses something that might leave us uncomfortable in the first two parables. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin don’t question our assumptions about what it means to be lost or found. The Parable of the Two Lost Sons does: the younger son is clearly found; but the parable ends with the older son—who never left home—undecided about how to respond to the father’s plea to join the party. The older son: transparently a stand-in for the grumbling Pharisees and scribes, all facing the same challenge: join the party or not? Never having left home can mask an even more intractable way of being lost. But that said, what of the text we did hear?

“All the tax collectors and sinners…” Scholars argue about whether “tax collectors” is the best translation. But whatever the translation, what isn’t argued is that folk bid to collect taxes and tolls, and then farmed the work out to local subcontractors. If profit were to be made, it had to be on top of what the Romans figured they were owed. Abuse was pretty much inevitable. “Sinners” was a more nebulous category, but would easily have included those whose life choices showed little interest in observing Torah, e.g., raising pigs. So it’s not just the Pharisees and scribes who would have been grumbling. As we’ll hear a few weeks from now in the story of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, nobody’s happy that Jesus is eating with him.

How is Jesus going to respond? If his opponents have a valid point, it’s that he isn’t shunning the wicked. Most societies practice shunning as a way of maintaining social cohesion (lately ours has been calling it “canceling”). The opponents could have appealed to various psalms (“I do not sit with the worthless, / nor do I consort with hypocrites; / I hate the company of evildoers, / and will not sit with the wicked.” [26:4-5]). But there are dangers. It can too easily encourage self-righteousness. The goal can too easily shift from encouraging repentance to elimination. Later we hear Paul trying to avoid these dangers (“Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers.” [2 Thess. 3:14-15]). But it’s not part of Jesus’ toolkit. Jesus, more, understands his role as gathering Israel—all Israel, definitely including the tax collectors and sinners, and even (recalling the third parable) that stubborn righteous older brother who’s refusing to come to the party. And in his companion volume to the Gospel, Luke narrates the widening of the gathering: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

But rather than wade into the sociology of shunning, Jesus tells some parables. The sheep and coin parables build on what we do. They’re brief, but dense, prodding us to wonder about multiple things. First, the actors lose the sheep, the coin. So there’s some implied responsibility. When what is lost is a person, the responsibility is shared, but probably doesn’t disappear. Cain’s “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9) is probably not a line we can safely echo. So Jesus’ opponents might wonder about their responsibility.

Second, the sheep, the coin, have value. Jesus to his opponents: do you really want to say that these tax collectors and sinners have no value? [Cf. 4 Ezra 7:[60-61]!)

And so the shepherd and woman seek. The parables echo the prophet Ezekiel’s words: “For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries” (34:11-13).

Then there’s Jesus’ commentary on the parables. First, straining the logic of the parables a bit, the focus on repentance. Jesus seeks it among the tax collectors and sinners—among the Pharisees and scribes, for that matter, but we have to wait for the third parable to hear that play out.

Second, the joy, God’s joy. As a good Jew, Jesus is using circumlocutions to talk about God, so speaks of “joy in heaven” and “joy in the presence of the angels of God,” but it’s God who’s rejoicing. Again from the prophet Ezekiel: “As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live” (33:11).

This, Jesus says, is what we do. We seek out the lost. And, implied, this is what we do because this is what God does. Even Ecclesiastes notices it: “And God looks after what is driven away” (Eccl. 3:15 CEB).

Listening to all this in our current polarized context doesn’t require much fancy footwork on the preacher’s part.

Whatever else the parables are saying: we don’t write people off.

And, recalling our first reading and the leadership roles of the Pharisees and scribes, this is particularly important for our leaders. Recall our first reading, Israel has acted perversely—just after formally entering into covenant with the Lord at Sinai. Moses has the option of becoming the new Abraham (“and of you I will make a great nation”). But Moses gets it right: when the people are at their worst, that’s the time to plead for mercy, not justice. Our armed forces have this baked into their creeds: leave no one behind; we need it from our leaders.

Equally important: we don’t write people off because God doesn’t.

One of the stranger portraits of God in the popular imagination is God as Judge, uncaringly doling out rewards and punishments. ‘Stranger,’ because it has nothing to do with Holy Scripture. Recall Hosea’s portrait of this God tied up in knots over how to effectively respond: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (Hos. 11:8). This God, Jesus’ God, continually seeking us out. “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life” (Ps. 23:6) sang David. This God, as we’ll hear in next week’s Epistle, “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).

One final observation. The parables raise issues of responsibility and worth. When we pull back the camera and ask what drives God’s action these pale in comparison to love. “God so loved the world…” Is our capacity to love growing, our capacity to translate that love into action growing? That’s perhaps the most profound of the challenges the parables pose to Jesus’ opponents, to us.

Edema, Gratitude, Generosity (12th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/31/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

We’ll start this morning by recalling the first part of today’s collect:

“Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works…”

What’s worth noticing about this and many of our collects—the prayers that collect our thoughts and intentions at the beginning of our worship—is that it implies a story. There’s a past: God, “the author and giver of all good things.” There’s a future: “the fruit of good works” which have yet to ripen. We’re in the middle of the story. And who we are, what we should do, what we can hope—all of that is determined by what story we’re in the middle of.

We’re in the middle of a story. We’re not at the beginning, so there’s no question of starting with a blank sheet of paper. And we’re not at the end, which is why despair is never an appropriate response.

The “author and giver of all good things” in our collect also points to a theme that runs through our readings: gratitude and its proper expression.

Today gratitude is seriously under-rated as a virtue; we may even think of it as a sign of weakness. Other times and places got it right: The Roman politician and philosopher Cicero claimed “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” The modern psychologist Abraham Maslow: “[The most fortunate are those who] have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.” And Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

The “author and giver of all good things.” If that’s who God is, if that’s what God has done, if that’s the story we’re in, then gratitude is the fitting response. And, conversely, it’s the failure of gratitude that regularly gets us into so much trouble.

Creation invites us to gratitude. Many of our psalms give us words to express this. “All of them look to you / to give them their food in due season.” Or we can attend to the conversations in the hard sciences. It turns out that a good number of physical constants like the strength of gravity need pretty fine tuning for life to be possible. The fine tuning of our world is so improbable that to avoid thanking the Creator we have to postulate a virtually infinite number of universes, with us happily in the one that holds together. (Google “John Polkinghorne” and “anthropic principle.”)

Equally, as Christians God’s project of restoring all creation elicits our gratitude. From the First Family on, God has responded to our rebellion with ever more daring attempts at reconciliation, culminating in taking human flesh in Jesus. So our word ‘eucharist’ is simply the Greek word ‘thanksgiving.’

The theme of gratitude runs just below the surface in our second reading from Hebrews. On the surface it’s about what worship is pleasing to God. If we think of worship as primarily what happens in the sanctuary, we’re surprised, because the text talks about what we do out there as worship: mutual love, hospitality to strangers, holding marriage in honor, contentment, sharing what we have. All this can sound rather much if we’ve forgotten what came before our reading: “since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks!” Gratitude.

Our Gospel reading: the lectionary prescribed verses 1 and 7-14, eliminating the man with dropsy in vv.2-6. The Pharisees would have been happy to eliminate him; with apologies to the lectionary editors I’ve left him in.

Jesus has gotten an invitation to eat with some leading Pharisees on the Sabbath. And “just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy.” Today we use ‘edema’ rather than ‘dropsy’, swelling caused by the retention of fluid. There’s a predictable argument about what work is lawful on the Sabbath, and Jesus heals the man. Jesus then shifts the conversation to what he’s watched the Pharisees doing and starts giving them some unwelcome advice: don’t keep jockeying for the places of honor, stop limiting your invitations to those who can reciprocate. God’s in the business of humbling those who exalt themselves and of exalting those who humble themselves.

So we’ve got a healing and Jesus admonishing the Pharisees. Outside of it all happening at the same meal, is there anything else that holds it together? Turns out there is, for in that culture edema—various parts of the body all puffed up with extra water combined with an insatiable thirst—served as a metaphor for greed, the sort of behavior the Pharisees are exhibiting, the antithesis of gratitude.

Most groups have a pecking order: who defers to whom. We all learned this on the playground. As we get older, negotiating that pecking order gets more subtle, but rarely disappears. In 1st Century culture, meals were prime opportunities to display the pecking order: who’s closest to the host? Who’s at the head table? So, predictably, a lot of jockeying takes place. Likewise, lunch and dinner invitations are a prime opportunity to cement and maybe even augment one’s rank. It’s very easy for it to become a form of greed, not for food or for money, but for status.

As you may have noticed, the man with edema is introduced abruptly: “Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy.” It’s surprising, and commentators wonder about how he got there. Well, once we realize that the Pharisees are suffering from their own form of edema, we can see that the surprise is intentional: we don’t expect someone who’s ritually unclean in the home of a leading Pharisee; we don’t expect the Pharisees, spiritual athletes every one, to be so afflicted with greed for status. But there we have it.

The text as Luke’s given it to us is a gem. It turns out to be about what Jesus can heal easily and not-so-easily. Jesus can easily heal the man with the physical edema; he finds it harder to heal the Pharisees’ greed for status—they don’t think they’re sick. It turns out to be about what sorts of work are appropriate for the Sabbath. Healing, just like pulling a child or even an ox from a pit, is appropriate for the Sabbath; the work of jockeying for status is not.

The text is a gem, but there’s also a sharp pointy end to notice: “He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’” We usually think of gratitude as a sort of reciprocity: we receive something from someone; we reciprocate. Here Jesus breaks it open: don’t confine your generosity to those who can pay you back: include those who can’t pay you back. That’s where Jesus’ vision of God’s generosity has been heading. God gives generously to us, but not to set up another closed circle! Recall God’s words through Isaiah: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats” (1:11). God gives generously to us so that our gratitude is expressed in giving to others.

What we’ve got here is the logic implicit in Jesus’ joining of the two commandments to make the Great Commandment. “Love the Lord your God” alone can be—well, is often—misunderstood as setting up a closed circle: just me and Jesus. “And your neighbor as yourself” reminds us that loving this God is about creating open, ever-expanding circles.

So, to try to pull all this together! The story we find ourselves in has as its center a breathtakingly generous God, to which our proper response is gratitude. Because strong currents in our culture discourage gratitude, we often need to be intentional in nurturing gratitude. But—here’s the sharp pointy end—we’re not talking about generic gratitude, which can settle into a comfortable closed circle, but a gratitude expressed in generosity toward those who are currently in no position to reciprocate.

As we prayed in this morning’s collect “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.” Amen.

What encounters with God’s power are we capable of seeing? (11th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/24/2025)

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Readings (Track 2)

As our first reading reminds us, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of the Sabbath in Jewish faith and practice: “If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, / from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; / if you call the sabbath a delight / and the holy day of the Lord honorable; / if you honor it, not going your own ways, /serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs…”

In the Ten Commandments: “you shall not do any work.” But what counts as work? That question generates considerable interpretive attention. Judging by the rabbinic writings, when it comes to healing, the general principle is “saving life overrules the Sabbath” (b. Yoma 85b), so, for any particular case, is it a question of life or death?[1]

So the synagogue leader’s response is understandable. Were anyone but Jesus involved we might be inclined to agree.

There are a couple ways we might understand Jesus’ response. Jesus asks: “Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?” This sounds like Jesus’ response when challenged about another healing on the Sabbath: “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (Lk. 6:9) Jesus thinks the meaning, the intention, of the Law is very much worth discussing, and in that discussion the prophet Hosea’s “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. 9:13; cf. Hos 6:6) plays a big role. “Very much worth discussing”—which perhaps makes Jesus’ warning that we heard last Sunday a bit more understandable: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Or there’s Jesus’ appropriation of Isaiah at the beginning of his public ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). If that’s Jesus’ commission, that does shift the interpretation of the Sabbath law. Something new is happening; someone new is onstage.

Whether Jesus’ response is based on giving more weight to texts like Hosea’s or reflective of his now being onstage—or both—in his eyes setting that woman free was profoundly honoring to the Sabbath.

In this morning’s collect we prayed “Grant… that your Church… may show forth your power.” And today’s Gospel gives us multiple ways of thinking about how our merciful God might respond. There is, first and foremost, the healing itself. “Release to the captives.” This daughter of Abraham matters. And her healing: a foretaste of the healings for which we all hope.

Another way our merciful God might respond: Jesus coming among us to ask what our traditions are about. The Sabbath stories were passed down also because the Church faced similar interpretive problems. How should the Gentile believers be received? Which laws apply and how? Jesus’ appeal to Hosea (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”) remained—remains!—relevant. God’s power: shown forth in our continuing to listen to Jesus’ questions (“I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?”) What questions is Jesus asking us?

Another way our merciful God might respond to the petition in the Collect: the choices that woman continued to make over eighteen long years. Why keep attending synagogue for eighteen years when nothing is happening? But she’s a true daughter of Abraham. If Abraham could continue believing despite being childless for decades she could keep showing up. And then that Sabbath Jesus is there, and her presence allows that Sabbath to be properly celebrated! The faithfulness of so many in our parishes despite chronic infirmity: a precious witness to God’s power.

Then there’s the leader of the synagogue. We heard his response to the healing. He could have played it differently: “Let’s pray together the Hallelujah psalms at the end of the Psalter!” Or: “Jesus, Jacob over there lost an eye a few years back. Can you do something for him?” But how we play it depends on who we are, and—as is not often enough observed—“We see things not as they are but as we are.”[2] The synagogue leader’s responses are limited by who he is at that moment. All he can see is Jesus trampling on the Sabbath.

And this is perhaps where today’s text connects thematically to its immediate surroundings in Luke’s Gospel. The previous verses—like most of last week’s reading—urged repentance. Repentance: not just for them, but an ongoing project for every Christian. Recall our brother Martin Luther and the first of his 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” ‘Repentance,’ or, in common speech, that toxic word ‘change’ (“How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change?”). Our brother John Henry Newman nailed it: To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.[3]

“Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples.” This is where the Holy Spirit needs to roll up the sleeves: what conversations are we capable of having with Jesus? Jesus says or does something unexpected: are we right there with the synagogue ruler? (“Change? Not on my watch!”) That depends on who we are, who we’re becoming. And so we keep coming to the Table asking that the Holy Spirit will continue to do both the work we know needs doing and the necessary work about which we’re clueless: “Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.”

[1] See Marcus Mark 1-8, p.248.

[2] Anaïs Nin (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9268209-we-see-things-not-as-they-are-but-as-we, accessed 8/18/2025).

[3] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_henry_newman_159078, accessed 8/18/2025.

The problem isn’t that Jesus might be the Messiah; the problem is how he choses to be Messiah (10th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/17/2025)

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Readings (Track 1)

Today’s Gospel reading is downright puzzling. What are its various parts doing? How does it relate to what Luke’s been giving us in the last few chapters? Why—for example—does Jesus address the crowd as “You hypocrites”?

Well, what has Luke been giving us? Arguments between Jesus and the religious leadership, extended teaching about God’s generosity and the folly of greed. The seventy Jesus sent out to announce the Kingdom came back encouraged, but that doesn’t seem to have moved the needle. So today’s text, primarily a call to repentance. (That repentance theme continues into the beginning of the next chapter, which our Lectionary had us reading back in the third week of Lent!) Repent!

But why that strange combination of stories of arguments between Jesus and the religious leadership and teaching about divine generosity and human greed? We encounter one clue when a Pharisee criticizes Jesus’ omitting the ritual handwashing before the meal. Jesus responds: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed (ἁρπαγή) and wickedness” (Lk. 11:39). Later, as Jesus talks about dealing with opposition from the authorities, there’s that request from the crowd that prompts Jesus’ warning against greed (πλεονεξία; 12:15). Luke wants us to wonder about greed and opposition to Jesus—so let’s wonder!

A few chapters back in Luke:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.…
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep… (Lk. 6:20-26)

Early in the Book of Acts Luke tells us “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7), so we’re not talking about all the religious leaders here. But for the religious leaders who oppose Jesus and end up seeking his death the logic may have been simple: “yes” to Jesus means no more business as usual: the unending contest for status with its accompanying wealth, readings of the Law that just happen to feather one’s own nest.

In other words, their problem isn’t that Jesus might be the Messiah. Their problem is that Jesus’ way of being Messiah makes it impossible for them to hitch their wagon to his apparently rising star. That had long been the pattern. Whether with the Persians, the Greeks, or the Romans an accommodation was always possible as long as everyone’s greed was taken into account. But Jesus with his “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mk. 10:43-44) or “And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying” (Lk. 12:29)? Impossible.

Which is why, I think, we hear Jesus’ “You hypocrites!” in today’s Gospel. The problem isn’t that those good at reading the weather can’t read the “present time” (“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” [Lk. 7:22]). The problem is that they refuse any reading that might disturb the status quo.  No additional signs from Jesus would move the needle because Jesus’ way of being Messiah is simply unacceptable.

This helps us appreciate Jesus’ troubling words “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Peace isn’t neutral. Recall the Roman historian Tacitus, who gives us this speech from a British leader—one of Jesus’ contemporaries—prior to battle: “They [the Romans] plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.”[1] Would any of us have been happy with Jesus bringing a peace that fit comfortably within the Pax Romana?

That was then; what about now? We might return to Jesus’ word to his disciples: “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy” (Lk. 12:1). As long as Jesus is around, accommodation to the status quo is impossible. Once he’s offstage, possibilities emerge. Paul’s letters: they’d be considerably shorter if their recipients weren’t already trying to merge confession of Jesus with their ongoing pursuit of status and wealth. The Roman Empire, that well-oiled machine of plunder, receives quite unflattering treatment in the Revelation, but by the early fourth century the emperors are Christian.

Over here, we have the prosperity gospel, in which greed pretty much moves from the “vice” to the “virtue” column. And Christian nationalism, in which the image of God is effectively reduced to those of the right skin color and culture.  Yes, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy.” Beware of the constant temptation to adjust Jesus or “Messiah” so that nothing need change. As our brother Martin Luther put it in the first of his 95 Theses: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Or, to put it in positive terms, from our reading from Hebrews: “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” or, better, from the Common English Version, “and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter.” Fix our eyes, not only because it’s easy to get distracted, but because there remain parts of us that want to get distracted. Jesus doesn’t always tell us what we want to hear: pioneers and perfecters are like that. Sometimes the immediate effect is division, not peace. But Hebrews has it right: “who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus would share that joy, so, however the past week has gone, he again invites us to his Table.

“Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.”

[1] Cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus, accessed 8/6/2025.