The Judge

Proper 24 C—Text: Luke 18:1-8

A while back I was in Best Buy, looking through CDs, and if given the time, I will look through each section diligently. If you asked Rose, she’d tell you. Once I venture in, there’s no coming out for at least half an hour. This occasion was no exception. I started at the A’s and moved down the row and then moved back up the next, going through the E’s and up into the I’s. I noticed a woman nearby in the video game department. She had been there when I first got to the section, and she was still there ten minutes later. I only took notice because she was in her late 30’s and had three kids with her: one tugging on her pant leg saying “Mommy, look at this!”; the second was holding her mother’s leg like a tree trunk saying “Mommy can we go soon?” to which her mother responded “in a minute” each time; and the third, the youngest, was sitting in the cart, staring at seemingly nothing.

So I walked down the backside of the aisle, looking through the CDs again. This time, I was a bit distracted. Who is this woman, and why isn’t she responding to her kids? She was still there when I finished and went up to the registers.

I’m not a parent yet, but I know that if I capitulate to a child’s request he or she will stop asking that question. They no doubt will find something else to talk about, but that one request can be simply answered.

Our gospel is about Jesus instructing his disciples, but it includes this parable about the unjust judge. This guy doesn’t seem very nice, right? There are many names we could call him, but let’s settle on jerk. He’s a jerk. He doesn’t care about God and he doesn’t care about other people. And worse, he admits it. He knows this about himself. He recognizes his jerkiness and seems unmoved by it. But we also gather that he is shrewd and self-absorbed. He is thinking of himself only and that this widow’s pleas for justice are not ringing at all with him. If only there were a way to shut her up? I know, I’ll give her what she wants, he says.

We know how often we are pulled in various directions. Requests are made that deserve a no, but making the person stop seems to override it. It seems like a valid option—conscent. Yes, I will give you justice we say.

But this gospel isn’t about being practical and it isn’t about getting so annoyed that we capitulate. Because if we look at what is written, Jesus attributes this judge’s position to God: “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?”

Can God truly be this unjust judge?

Well…yes and no.

Just take a second to look at the clues that Jesus is leaving for us:

1. The judge is “unjust”
2. “A widow who kept coming”
3. “Grant me justice”
4. “cry to him day and night”

Jesus is giving us an inverse of the real story because we get the judge’s perspective—a persepective in which we cannot count. This widow that comes isn’t annoying. She isn’t a child repeating the same question incessantly or a boss like Michael Scott on The Office, whose just ignorant. She has come to the judge, the one person that can change things and is crying out for justice and he is ignoring her.

He is that mother who answers her daughter’s question with “in a minute” but doesn’t move in twenty. Worse, his job is justice. His whole world is justice, and this widow could be anyone. Beaten by an abusive husband, mugged coming home from the store and now too frightened to leave the house, or she may have been stripped of all of those things in her life in which she holds most dear. And the judge, in his leather chair, expensive suit, and his election victories ignores her.

More often than not, we’re that judge.

Protest away. I know. We love God. We do great things. And we love one another. But how often do we ignore that voice that cries for justice? Charles Hoffacker suggests that we play the judge and God plays the widow. God calls us over and over to do justice and we ignore her. We say “I’m too busy right now.” Or “I’m already collecting clothes for Siren.” Or “I’m on vestry and ECW and on and on”. We listen to a God that preaches love and patience and kindness; a God that grants us mercy and strength. And yet we ignore the God that cries to us “day and night”. The God that elsewhere in Jeremiah suggests that we “Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed”. We seem to have a pretty selective hearing.

On the way home from Saginaw yesterday, I was listening to a song I have listened to many times before, but this time was different. In “Choked and Seperated” by Hot Water Music, singers Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard seemed to be speaking directly to me:

I'm sick of standing with my hands in my pockets, I'm coming in.
Been broke down, choked out, not speaking, not breathing in.
Are we gonna fix it?
When are we gonna start?
If it's really too late, I guess I'm looking back.
If it's really just time, you can have all of it.
If that's where we think straight, I'll do anything to keep us from feeling choked and separated.
'Cause it's all the same things again and again.
fall down, repeat, fall down, keep falling down.

And then repeats two questions:

Is this what we're doing?
What are we doing?

Our gospel shows us a grace that we take for granted. God will grant justice and wants us to do the same. Our pain and confusion and anxiety and fear and mistrust and all of those things that keep us choked and separated are God’s. And we are God’s. And we are invited in.

We’re invited into this circle of justice that allows each of us to watch and listen and feel and speak. We are granted a regular audience with God through our prayers and wherever two or three are gathered. Jesus assures us that God doesn’t ignore our cries and we are given the opportunity to answer God’s and other people’s. “I'm sick of standing with my hands in my pockets, I'm coming in.”

Putting God First

Proper 16 C--Text: Luke 13:10-17

This gospel depicts one of the most controversial visions of Jesus in the New Testament: Jesus encourages the breaking of a covenant with God. On the surface it seems to be pretty simple: worship God first, ignore the rules. We’re naturally drawn to Jesus’ side on this. Obviously the woman needed healing, so what does the day matter? And it’s in God’s name? Sabbath? So what! Do it anyway.

But what we have is not a case of the leaders ganging up on our poor guy, Jesus, but of Jesus flaunting his disregard for the Law. He, as a Jew, is flaunting Torah. In Exodus 20:10-11 it says:

The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son, or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

Or Leviticus 23:3:

Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation; you shall do no work: it is a Sabbath to the LORD throughout your settlements.

Jesus, in healing on the Sabbath, is going against the interpreters of the Law, who all agree that this woman in question could have been healed the day before or the day after. They’re essentially saying: “Pick any other day, Jesus.” And Jesus could have waited; he wasn’t in any hurry. Every other Jew would have waited, including his own disciples. They would have waited. Jesus put himself in conflict with the Pharisees and church leaders on purpose. He intended to make it difficult.

Though this particular conflict only appears in Luke, there a variety of similar conflicts over the Sabbath that appear in all the Gospels, beginning in Mark chapters 2 and 3, which Matthew and Luke maintained in their writing. Jesus treats the Sabbath law as he does laws governing purity and divorce: in confrontation with legalism. In each of these instances, Jesus appears to be providing rank order for Mosaic Law.

What laws do you elevate or subordinate? What do you make most important? Are moral laws more important to you than civil laws? Or even state laws above federal? Personally, I tend to believe that complete stops at stop signs and red lights are more important than driving the speed limit. What’s five miles over when not stopping causes confusion and disrupts the flow of traffic? Or does it really matter if you drive your bike on the left side of the road? Who is it hurting? It reminds me of the famous quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

We already interpret some laws as more important than others. In a postmodern world, our actions and our thinking are constantly informed by relativity. One of the popular icebreakers we use to spark conversation is the medicine scenario: most of us are familiar with it. What if your spouse is terminally ill and the only way to save him/her is to get medication immediately but you can’t get any for him or her [you don’t have enough money, for instance]. Is your adherence to civil law more important than a moral imperative to save your spouse: will you break into a drug store or let him or her die? We love these questions, and as Americans, we are innately rebellious [come on, admit it: we are]. The vast majority of us will say “yeah, break in: Life is more important than the law.” This same sense of natural law causes us to hear Jesus as rejecting the Torah in favor of a higher law—a better and more convenient one.

But Jesus isn’t rejecting the Torah, he is embracing it. He is embracing it with a gusto that none of the Jewish leaders can match. He is not throwing out the Sabbath law as much as placing a greater law above it, from within it. Remember in Mark 12 and Matthew 22, when Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment, and Jesus responds with: ‘the first one’? He says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He holds it up suggesting that upon it “hang all the law and the prophets.” His response is taken from the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…” and so on, which is among the oldest most beloved Jewish prayers, repeated by Jews twice daily for centuries. Because everybody would know this, Jesus is demonstrating his Jewishness by highlighting his devotion, his sensitivity to custom, and by showing how that relates to everything else! What happens when you do love your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind? What is it to really put God first? In saying this, Jesus’ stance on Sabbath, purity, and divorce is more extreme and demanding than the Pharisees’ and even the Sadducees’ stance. The apostles, the gospelers, and even Paul felt the need to temper Jesus’ position; to justify a position that was even too extreme for them.

I have to admit that I’m glad the What Would Jesus Do craze is long-dead. It makes it easier for me to do things that Jesus wouldn’t. But more important, we can return the gospel to a frame of reference that is much more helpful and Christ-centered. Jesus said “follow me” not imitate me. We can certainly learn a lot from doing the things that Jesus did and believing the things that Jesus is reported to have said. But each of us is called to interpret what that is to be. The beauty of Jesus’ teaching is that there are things that are more important than others. That you acted on the Sabbath is less important than that you acted in faithful devotion to God. Paul rightly interpreted this for the church in Corinth over the question of idol meat. So we must interpret this for ourselves today in the midst of a society interpreting civil laws, an international community interpreting human laws, and church leaders that interpret our Christian laws.

I am excited for this time—a time in which our church is actually discussing doctrine, discipline, and adiaphora [things essential and unessential to salvation] and they are at the center of our national and international discussions right now.

Our gospel today tells us that “the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.” Jesus isn’t being a jerk, but gives the people a freedom they had never before understood: a true, multi-faceted freedom. A freedom, not from the Law, but from narrow-mindedness and legalism. In short, Jesus gave us a way to worship God that is at once unfettered and full-bodied. May we learn to follow Him in this way.

Anxious times don’t call for anxious measures

Proper 14C—Texts: Luke 12:32-40; Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

A thief? A master with slaves? Are these the roles that Jesus is laying out for God? What happens to our God if we take away benevolence? What a frightening thought! Occasionally, when I play with my friends and we toss around our theological musings, I try to toss around these ideas to see how they affect faith. Certain images, including the follower as slave hit a little too close to home. Because this exposes a latent insecurity in me: what if God isn’t very nice. What if God is tying us up? That one worries me a lot.

But that’s nothing compared with the anxieties, the worries, the fear shown by the disciples and shown by the early church.

Imagine that you’ve been following this guy around. You leave Mary and Martha’s and come to “a certain place” and you ask Jesus about prayer. Soon after that [this is between that gospel and last week’s], you watch Jesus’ public display of exorcism and his response to the demand of proof of miracles. You’re there for some more religious teaching, including last week’s story of the greedy farmer. What a strange life you have been living! Wouldn’t you be a little worried about this guy? You’ve devoted yourself to him, you’ve given everything up to follow him, your feet are in constant pain, and you just want to stop walking. You think about giving up, settling down with a family, and just relaxing. Wouldn’t you be a little afraid of what’s coming?

Now imagine the Lukan community that’s responsible for the gospel. It’s probably sixty years after Jesus’ death on the cross and they gather in secret in a house church, worried that any knock at the door could be someone looking to shut them down. What must fear be like for them? Even the very baptismal rite inherited from John the Baptist serves as a means of discerning a person’s intentions! It’s an oath to God and to that same frightened community, gathered to proclaim the Good News.

How little has changed! We are a fearful people still! We’re still obsessing over ‘viable numbers’. We come to church and look over our shoulders to make sure that we haven’t lost anybody or to see if we’ve picked somebody up. And what happens when we do? I’m not sure; I haven’t been here long enough, but I’m pretty sure that we start talking. Actually, probably whisper. “Did you hear about Betty? Can you believe what he said to her? No wonder she’s not coming anymore; I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t come back either.” And that same little monster that lives in the brain comes back the next week. “Betty was so right. This place is going to hell in a hand basket. Look, the Davidsons aren’t here either. It’s all his fault.” And don’t forget the newcomers: we do the same in reverse: “Who’s that? What is he doing here? Do you know him?”

We don’t start out to be petty. In the south they’d add “bless his heart” to the end to make sure you knew that it wasn’t ‘really’ gossip. But we’re afraid of so much, and this church that we love becomes the center of all that we fear. ‘My kids were baptized here: what if it’s not here to bury them.’ ‘If you change one thing, you must be willing to change anything.’ And I haven’t even gone into the comments we hear about “the young people”! But we use pettiness as a self-defense mechanism because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of a lot of things, and I’ll tell you what, it really isn’t change.

We’re afraid of scarcity. We’re afraid we don’t have enough. We’re afraid that we aren’t doing enough. We’re afraid that we’re wasting our opportunities.

We’re afraid to do what we’re called to do. We’re afraid to actually be the children of God, because if we do it, and really mean it… Why risk everything? Why do it? Why follow Jesus? Why “sell your possessions, and give alms”? There’s a part of you that says don’t risk it—don’t do it. That little brain monster. That’s the fear talking. And what does Jesus say: “Do not be afraid”. He even calls his disciples a “little flock”. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Jesus is reassuring those fearful disciples as he reassures the Lukan community and in turn reassures us. “Do not be afraid”. It’s such a common refrain in Jesus’ ministry. As often as Jesus speaks of love, he also instructs to not be afraid. The reason? “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus puts the idea of attachment on its head—it isn’t just getting rid of stuff and receiving a reward for it—it’s moving that attachment from your stuff to your relationship with God! What a profound way to destroy your fears! A profound way to destroy your main source of anxiety—to deflect its power!

The second part of the gospel lesson, clearly the first half of a different, though related lesson, brings urgency to that faith. Less eschatological, less end of the world and more about the urgency of faith in Christ—replacing that concern and anxiety, and all of those emotional roadblocks with an equally powerful insistence to faith. For Jesus, this urgency is essential to our faith. Like the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah suggests, the call is to urgency, not anxiety. There it says in triplicate couplets

1. Cease to do evil / learn to do good;
2. Seek justice / rescue the oppressed,
3. Defend the orphan / plead for the widow.

These, all double actions: stop doing bad and learn to do good things. Don’t just seek justice, but rescue those oppressed in the world. Both defend the orphan and plead for the widow.

In fact, all of our lessons call us to urgency. In Isaiah, it is urgency in action. In Hebrews, it is urgency in faith. In Luke, it is urgency in readiness. This same urgency is present in action and faith and to be prepared to act at a moment’s notice—to be able to drop everything and love. Jesus is telling us that we can’t do that if we’re afraid. We must be ready to give up those anxieties; those things that comfort us about our environment. We find such comfort in that anxiety, that feeling of certainty that allows a misguided captain to go down with the ship rather than fix the breech in the hull. What warmth comes from such arrogance! But greater is the rejection of that brain monster. Greater is the rejection of that wall that keeps us from embracing the faith that removes anxiety.

“Do not be afraid”.

Our greatest asset is community and the beauty of the community; the beauty of this community is here; right now. It is this very moment as we gather ourselves together, listen to the Word of God, pray for others, and then prepare ourselves for the feast. That is the currency of faith.

Jesus instructs us to check our anxiety at the door for a minute. I know that we’re all capable of this. We can unburden ourselves. We are called to remove that mantle of fear; that mantle of doubt; that mantle of self-deception that keeps you, that prevents you, that shackles you. Jesus wants nothing more than for you to be free of it. And there isn’t a proper order—no snaps or buckles in sequence—to remove this weight. Just get it off! Take it off, throw it to the ground and embrace who you are: the children of God.

A Bowl of Sugar

Proper 12 C--Texts: Hosea 1:2-10 & Luke 11:1-13

Our gospel lesson is pretty simple, isn’t it? Ask God for something, and you’ve got it! Whatever it is, ask away. God is that generous. Why stop at healing Bob after his surgery? Why not ask for eternal life? He promised that too! Think harder than that! You’ve got to really push it! How about a new car! That’s good thinking. A new car, some nice clothes, a big house without any neighbors…what’s that you say? You asked for a new car and God didn’t give it to you? Didn’t we just hear Jesus say

Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ?

I just read that a minute ago…

We all know that this patently absurd. God isn’t a car dealer or a clothier or a realtor. But what’s going on here when we read Luke’s gospel and Jesus tells us to ask? What happens in real life when we ask and it isn’t given? What do we do with that? And this is the same God that told Hosea to go out and marry a whore and have children of whoredom. A God that promised to reject Israel.

That whole first reading sets up an allegory that shows what God has planned out for Hosea. His relationship with his wife, this whoredom, which is a traditional Biblical attack, bears a daughter, whose name, Jezereel, is a thinly veiled reference to Israel; all that stuff. Imagine that God has said to you, go and do something for me that will cause me to reject you—and that’s an order! That’s what God has done for Hosea. The insults keep coming: God tells Hosea that he will have a second daughter, who will be named Lo-ruhamah [low rue-hah-ma], which means “Not Pitied”. And then a third, Lo-ammi, which means “Not My People”. First screw up, then receive no pity from me, then get rejected. These aren’t terribly rosy prospects, are they?

How often do you feel called to rejection? How often do you fall into that Catch-22 of following God’s orders, only to receive rejection? How often are we are told to speak out, but our words are thrown back at us! How often is our character under fire and how often do we attack each other the same way!

How hard we struggle to make things make sense! We know better; we come to church, we listen to the Scripture, we pray together, and we know that God has great plans but all we want is to be “in on” our own lives—we’ve got ideas about what we should be doing and all we want is to have some say. We pray to God and we say “God, I know we don’t talk enough, and I know I promised that I would stop swearing in the car, and I’m workin’ on it, but all I’m asking for now is to know what I’m supposed to be doin’ here. I know I don’t have a right ask, I know I screwed up that other thing, but I’m good for it, so what do you say? Just a hint—give me a clue.” Or we need answers and we ask God to explain Himself. We don’t think that a just God would give us hurricanes or murder. We don’t think a just God would spoil a 4^th of July celebration with a house fire or that God should prevent us from attending a wedding or a funeral. We want God to answer for Himself. And the funny thing is that we even know our own audacity in even asking. We think it, we acknowledge our irrationality, and we keep moving anyway. We threaten our relationship and put it all on the line. We say “God, if you’re so awesome, prove it! Change my life!” And then nothing happens. You’re still sitting in your living room or your office or on your porch in the backyard and all of those problems are still there and so you conclude that God isn’t listening to you. To many of us, that’s prayer.

But Hosea knew what was to happen, because God promised him this. Amid all of this rejection that God has promised Hosea, and if he is able to persevere, they can achieve something truly great: restoration. This isn’t redemption, Israel isn’t to be redeemed, this isn’t humanity’s failure and begging for forgiveness; proper order, proper relationship is to be restored.

And in our gospel, we are shown what that relationship looks like, in Jesus’ parable of the generous friend. He ‘calls out’ those listening and he says essentially this: “Who are you to reject your friend?” That’s it. It’s that simple. “Who are you to reject your friend? Your friend comes to you and it isn’t life or death or anything, and it isn’t because he couldn’t afford any food to serve, he comes over to borrow that proverbial bowl of sugar.” And so Jesus says “he’s coming over for the sugar, and you’re naked, you’re half asleep, your kids are asleep, and the dog’s going to wake ‘em up if you let this guy in: you are so desperate to refuse…but…you won’t. It isn’t going to happen.”

And he’s telling his disciples this, right? He’s telling them this right after the whole Mary/Martha affair. They know better than to complain! They don’t want to get a little bit of what Martha got, so they keep it zipped. But mostly because it isn’t about them: it’s about God!and it’s about who they are with God. It’s about the perseverance people are to show in prayer and in waiting and hoping. It’s about the perseverance people are to show in maintaining and reconciling relationships. The disciples started by asking about prayer, and what they got was no less than a treatise on grace.

When we call upon God, we like to ask for things. We want healing. We want strength. We want the Tigers to beat the Angels today (that one I mean). We forget that the words aren’t only “ask and you shall receive,” but it’s “search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” This is active relationship stuff, on both of our parts.

God isn’t reminding us today of His generosity and isn’t being boastful. God is reminding us whose we are. We are being reminded of that relationship we have with God.

And that reminder extends, of course, to our friends, those people that wake us in the middle of the night, or upon whom we call for help. Being in right relationship with others is right relationship with God. We are generous to our friends, even if it’s helping them be a good host. But Jesus doesn’t put the onus on friendship; he doesn’t place the burden of friendship on our right behavior, but on persistence and perseverance. We don’t pray to fulfill our selfish desires, but the persistence with which we pray brings its own reward.

Jesus illuminates here what our relationship with God can look like. In this way, Jesus isn’t anyone’s ‘homeboy’, buddy, or co-pilot, but the one who responds to our persistence and perseverance. Through prayer and sincere effort, God might let us in on what’s really going on; and in our lives right now, that’s real grace.