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For Those Who Want Answers, Let Us Pray

Job 19:23-27 Luke 20:27-38 When I was a young child, I have been told, I asked questions all the time. “Why” questions. It drove my mother crazy. She felt like she had this little mosquito following her around, buzzing in her ear night and day. Why? Why? Why? It was like a form of torture that she would try to endure, offering answers as best she could, but eventually she would cave and say, “I don’t know.” She didn’t have all the answers like I expected her to. Later, I got married and I transferred all my hopes and expectations to my wise husband. I asked Kim all my questions, but it turned out he didn’t have all the answers either. I have spent much of my life pestering the people closest to me with unanswerable questions. I might be an unusually irritating person, but doesn’t everybody want to have […]

The Blessing and the Woe

Luke 6:20-31 This week our book discussion group gathered together to talk about the most recent book we have read: Ordinary Grace. A man named Frank looks back on one particular summer in his childhood. 1961 in a small town in Minnesota. He was 13 years old, his brother Jake was 9. And in that summer, they confronted death for the first time. It wasn’t as though they knew nothing of death, actually. Their father was a minister, and they had been to plenty of viewings and funerals in their childhood already. But this summer was different. There were four deaths for these young boys: lives taken by tragic accident, by violence, by unknown causes. Four deaths they met at close proximity. All four, lives taken too soon. And throughout the story there is the question of faith – and grace. How does faith carry us through times of loss? How […]

Toxic Faith

Luke 18:9-14 There is a scene in the movie Beaches, with Bette Midler. Some old friends have come to see Bette Midler’s character, CC, perform on stage, and they go backstage to see her after the show. CC just can’t stop talking about herself and her performance. But finally she turns to her guests and says, “But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do YOU think of me? So we have another parable from Jesus today, and he tells this one for the benefit of those people who tend to think they are better than everyone else. It’s left to us to figure out who those folks might be. Do you think they are the Pharisees? Maybe…maybe not. He tells a story about two characters – one who spends his prayer time thinking about how pleased he is with himself and disparaging the other guy, the one who spends his prayer […]

Not to Lose Heart

Luke 18:1-8 Let me tell you a parable. There was a man who had two daughters – one was Tenacious and the other was Gracious. When Tenacious wanted something she went to her father to ask for it. He would say, “give her what she wants so she will get out of here. When Gracious wanted something she would go to her father, also. However, the father was not so quick to grant her wishes, because he enjoyed her conversation so much he would prolong it.[1] Think on that for a while. Parables are hard, and Jesus used parables an awful lot. I think it might have been because there was a lot of competition for the people’s attention. There were other teachers around, not least of all, the Pharisees. There were other freelance prophets and wannabe messiahs wandering around looking for an audience. You know, if one man’s message […]

One Foot In, One Foot Out

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 Luke17:11-19 In one of our recent Bible study classes at the church we talked about all the many words we have to express being on a trip, a journey. How many ways to be a traveler: Sojourner, migrant, immigrant, vagabond, refugee, pilgrim, fugitive, exile. So many, and all meaning something different. Aren’t we all, somehow, travelers on a journey to or from somewhere, anywhere, or nowhere? In our travels we encounter borders, lines which, when crossed, tell us we are no longer in one place but now in another. Some people, with a spirit of adventure, want to cross borders while others do not. Some want the border lines to be erased while others want them fortified with impregnable walls or fences. There are others, still, who prefer neither of those things. They like the borders and they like to be able to wander back and forth […]

Hope for the Rich

Amos 6:1, 4-7 Luke 16:19-31 Some years ago I was talking with some people about what the Bible says about wealth. We had just read a passage from Luke where Jesus says, “Woe to you who are rich.” We wondered if he really meant that. Because, is it really that bad being rich? Most of us who are not rich would like to be, if we had the chance. I can hear your objections already. “I’m not interested in being wealthy. I’m not the kind of person who wants big fancy houses and yachts and cars.” And maybe you are not. But it seems to me the most appealing thing about having wealth is to not have to worry about money. The thing that most of us would probably like the most is to never have to worry about whether we have enough money for the things we need […]

For Those Who Squander

Luke 16:1-13 Luke’s parable of the dishonest manager is my pastoral penance to pay every so often, when it comes up in the lectionary. And I am, apparently, not the only one who has misgivings about it. In one of my study Bibles it has a footnote saying, “there is no satisfactory explanation for this parable.” It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were on a journey with the heroes of our faith – the great cloud of witnesses, the saints that have gone before us. And now we face this dishonest manager, a character who hardly seems a viable candidate for the faith hall of fame. Although Jesus might not agree with my assessment. He certainly didn’t make the preacher’s life easy, though, with this parable. Because, on its surface, it just doesn’t seem right. “Be like this dishonest manager,” Jesus says. And I […]

Pillars of Faith, Part 4: Faith Waits

Luke 14:1-11 It’s curious that, after just having put his opponents to shame, the leader of the religious leaders, the Arch-Pharisee, invites him over for dinner. Why might he have done that? He might have been invited because the Pharisees thought this had gotten out of hand and they wanted to try to reconcile. Good intentions. So, maybe that was it. He might have been invited because the Pharisees’ professional reputation was on the line. Their credibility was at risk because the crowds of witnesses were cheering Jesus on while he was humiliating the leaders. He might have been invited because they decided to take the high road. They would show that they could “turn the other cheek” with the best of them. Or, he might have been invited because they were keeping a close eye on him. Remember that they have been trying to catch him in a serious […]

Pillars of Faith, Part 3: Faith Facing Opposition

Luke 13:10-17 Alice Hoffman wrote a story called Seventh Heaven. It’s about a suburban community in Long Island, near Levittown. It’s the kind of community that popped up all over America after World War II, like Levittown. Tract homes, affordable for first-time homeowners. Streets that never go straight, but change directions, winding around in loops to make sure you won’t drive too fast, but also ensuring you will get lost. Sidewalks everywhere for strollers and tricycles, to keep the kids safe. All the houses look alike, so newcomers driving into the neighborhood get confused about where they are. Neighbors can walk into each other’s homes and know just where everything is, because it is exactly the same as their own house. The story takes place at the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, a time when the world is on the verge of change. And the people […]

Pillars of Faith, Part 2: Faith Sees

Hebrews 11:29-12:2 Luke 12:49-56 In the well-known story by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince falls from his far away planet in the sky down to earth. He wanders the earth in search of meaning, and in his wanderings, he encounters a fox. There’s something charismatic about this fox that draws the prince in. He wants to play with him. But the fox tells the prince to be careful, to not get too close. “I’m not tame,” he says. We could say the same thing about Jesus in this passage from Luke. Don’t play with him. He’s not tame. He wants to bring a fire to the earth. He will divide households, three against two, and two against three; father against son, and son against father. He speaks with anger and impatience as though he wants to get out of this place and go back to the planet from which he […]

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