Archives for September 2016
Contented Life
There is no longer a chasm between us and God, or between us and our neighbor, for God has filled in all that divide through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ our Lord.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 26 C
Texts: Luke 16:19-31; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
There are two great, fixed chasms in this story, not one.
There is the chasm between Abraham and Hades, which Abraham declares is fixed and great, and can’t be crossed in either direction. The rich man – so intertwined with his wealth, he has no name; Jesus just calls him “rich guy” – he feels the pain of this divide separating him not just from Abraham’s bosom, but from God.
But there was another chasm in his life, also fixed and great, that also divided “rich guy” from Lazarus, a poor, sick man who begged outside his door. Like the other one, this chasm, separating him from a neighbor in need, was never crossed. Lazarus may have sat outside his door for years, but could have been miles away for all “rich guy” could see him.
Amos rails against this second chasm. He decries the wealthy relaxing on their nice couches, enjoying wine and music and parties, and not even noticing or grieving the ruin of their own country. Their nation is collapsing under infidelity to God that builds a tremendous divide between rich and poor, an ethical failure that deems religious activities sufficient for faithfulness instead of caring for God’s world as God does. Meanwhile the wealthy enjoy their Cabernet.
Amos wonders how anyone could be content in their lives while others suffer. His audience, like “rich guy,” are living on the other side of the Grand Canyon from God and from their neighbor, and trying to make themselves content with that situation by seeking wealth and comfort.
That’s the problem God’s Word places directly in our path today.
It makes us uncomfortable to talk about being wealthy or rich, but it’s such a critical problem with our human nature that the Scriptures come back to it again and again. Our problem is we see the 1% in our country, the wealthiest of the wealthy, and know we aren’t among them. What we avoid is that we’re actually the 1% ourselves when it comes to the rest of the world. Comparing ourselves only to the ultrawealthy lets us hide from God’s claim that our relationship to wealth is destroying us. Our love for money is at the root of all kinds of evil in the world and our lives, from war to poverty to injustice we permit to continue.
Today we hear that wealth tempts us to be content with our lives while others suffer terribly. That wealth, our wealth, blinds us to these chasms that exist. That wealth doesn’t lead us to God; it helps us set up our couches and parties on the edge of the canyon in hopes we can pretend the divides between us and God, and us and neighbor, don’t exist.
We hear that wealth, our pursuit of it, our defensiveness that we aren’t wealthy, our need to protect what we have, all of this means we are not living a real life, a truly contented life. We were designed to live in love with God and with our neighbor. As long as chasms divide us from those relationships, no amount of enjoying ourselves on the edge is going to truly fill our empty hearts and our discontented spirits.
It’s good that Abraham is wrong about one thing, then.
He says those who want to cross the chasm in either direction, can’t. But God’s Word witnesses that the Triune God absolutely can and does cross over, and it is so massive a movement of grace that the chasms are filled in forever.
One of the greatest mysteries of our faith is why God bothers to try and heal our world after all the evil we have done to it and to each other. Surely God has earned the right to relax on a heavenly couch, enjoy wine and music, and not be grieved over the ruin of this earth.
Yet God could not rest, would not be content while this world suffered. The Incarnation reveals to us God’s sleepness nights over our brokenness and sin. Unable to let us go, God chooses to become one of us, and the Trinity sends the Son to take on our flesh and cross the great, fixed chasm between humanity and God. God has crossed, and reached out into our lives to restore us into the relationship of love God always wanted.
The other chasm doesn’t exist in Christ, either. In Christ Jesus, the Triune God does exactly what we sang with the psalmist today, and what we prayed in our collect: God looks with compassion on this troubled world, and comes to give justice to those who are oppressed, food to those who hunger, freedom to those who are captive.
Jesus’ ministry is the embodiment of the Scriptures’ hopes for God’s healing life in this world. Even when he didn’t want to distract people from his preaching by doing miracles, Jesus couldn’t walk past the Lazaruses sitting in his path, hiding in the corners, unseen or unloved. In Christ, the chasm between us and our neighbor is utterly removed.
That is, of course, if we wish to be found in Christ. If we want the chasms gone.
“Rich guy” worried about that, now that he saw the truth. Who would warn his brothers about these chasms?
It’s a fascinating question. What does he want to warn them? Does he want them to care for the Lazaruses outside their own doors? What warning will help them?
Whatever he wants, Abraham says “never mind.” They’ve got Moses to warn them, they’ve got the prophets. Prophets like Amos today. They can see truth there.
When “rich guy” says that’s not enough, have someone come back from the dead, and then they’ll believe, Abraham says something that breaks this all open: “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they’re not going to be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
This might be the second time Abraham’s wrong in this story. Because someone will rise from the dead, and the Risen One will change everything. Even if we’re not convinced by Scripture, by Moses and the prophets, we need to pay attention to this One who died and rose.
Christ’s resurrection isn’t about warning, like Moses and the prophets. It’s about ending the chasms permanently.
Christ Jesus, in dying and rising from the dead as the Incarnate Son of the Holy and Triune God, shatters the fabric of all things. Christ’s resurrection fills in the chasms between us and God and us and neighbor with all the rubble of death and evil that was broken by divine love that overcame all the powers of this world.
A new land now lies before us, a gift of the Risen One, an unbroken, filled landscape, where we are able to walk with God as we were created to do, and where we are brought out of ourselves into the reality of God’s love. Where we see all our neighbors as Christ does, wrapped in the same love of God, and see how we are connected deeply to them.
This is the “life that really is life” Timothy speaks of, because in Christ this is not just the world yet to come. It is abundant, contented life we can know now. Pain and suffering still exist here, but shaped and fed by this love of God, we become Christ, chasm crossers, agents of God’s healing and grace to every Lazarus we encounter, even as others are the same to us. There is great gain in this, Timothy says. Not gain of wealth, but the gain of godliness combined with contentment, a life of love, faith, gentleness, righteousness.
Compared to such a life, the tiny, self-centered life of taking care of our own needs, our own ego, our own accumulation of wealth, looks worthless and cheap. This new reality can fill us with contentment and peace right now, in this place, and change this world.
The Risen Christ isn’t trying to convince us of anything, only invite us to follow.
Christ would have us rejoice that there is no divide between us and God or us and neighbor. Christ would draw us deeper and deeper into God’s love until we are utterly transformed, until we see as Christ sees, act as Christ acts.
The greatest news we could ever know is that these chasms we thought were enormous and permanent no longer exist in the resurrection love of God. That seems like an excellent reason to get off our couches and enter into the life that really is life, until all Lazaruses, even we ourselves, are healed and whole and living in the love and life of the Triune God.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
The Olive Branch, 9/21/16
What the Master Wants
We know whom we want to serve: the God whose love for us cannot die, who gives us the power to serve with the same kind of love.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 25 C
Texts: Luke 16:1-13; 1 Timothy 2:1-7
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
The remarkable thing about this manager is there’s no inner tension; he knows exactly what to do.
His world makes sense when he is comfortable, wealthy. Serving that interest gets him into trouble, but he handles it in stride. He doesn’t reconsider his ways or admit wrongdoing. He simply shifts gears and starts a new plan to be comfortable and wealthy, without missing a beat. He knows who his master is, and exactly what to do to serve that master and get the rewards that master offers.
That’s what Jesus admires, that clarity. Jesus isn’t advocating cheating and embezzling, in fact it’s the opposite. He’s saying those behaviors are appropriate to those who serve wealth and comfort, to get what they want. But Jesus notices that those who claim to serve God somehow lack that clarity, to know what to do and when to do it.
Instead, we’ve got tension inside between what we know God would have us be and do and what we often want to be and do. That tension reveals we’re serving two masters, Jesus says, and that’s not going to end well.
We find the tension in our divided loyalties nearly every time we hear God’s call to our lives. Like in Timothy today.
“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.”
The author of Timothy is clear about whom he serves, and from that clarity comes this exhorting: pray for everyone, everyone in high positions. In this election season, that means everyone running for office, even for the highest one in this country. In this divided nation, that means everyone who serves in office, even those we disagree passionately with.
This is what our Master asks of us. How often do we live in prayer for all these people, everyone? To look at our political landscape, most of us divide ever deeper into our camps, and struggle to find civil words to say, much less prayers to make. We talk to our friends, share with them on social media, because they agree with us, and we can get as angry and nasty about things as we want to.
Timothy isn’t arguing not to care about this election. That’s not God’s way, either. He’s just saying that people who follow the true God are people who pray for everyone in authority, who wish them all peace. And that causes us tension. Like many other things do.
There’s virtually nothing about the Christian life that doesn’t challenge some god or master we have.
Jesus actually called for something harder than Timothy. Jesus told us to pray for our enemies and to love them. But we sometimes serve a master who says we need to protect ourselves, we need to be right. That master will always give us reasons why loving our enemies isn’t practical. Which master will we serve?
Jesus challenged our use of wealth a lot, not just here. He told us to be careful of holding so tightly to things that ultimately don’t last, he warned us of the dangers of wealth to pull us away from God. But we sometimes serve a master who says we need to be sure we have enough before we can let go. This master will always give us reasons to say that Jesus didn’t really mean let go of everything. Which master will we serve?
Jesus commanded us to love one another, love our neighbor as ourselves. But we sometimes serve a master who reminds us that sometimes our neighbors aren’t very nice, and sometimes they aren’t very much like us. This other master tells us that the people we might think of as neighbor really are too far away to count, or their lives don’t really affect ours, so are they really our neighbor? This master will always help us find ways to define “neighbor” so we don’t have to really love them all. Which master will we serve?
Martin Luther taught us that our god, our master, is that one to whom we turn for our greatest good. The one whose voice makes us move, the one whom we listen to when we have choices to make. By gathering here today, we claim to serve the one true and Triune God. But in practice we’re not so sure who it is we serve.
Jesus is pointing out this tension so we can be honest about our divided loyalties. That’s all he needs to do. Because ultimately we don’t need to decide who we want our true Master to be.
We belong to the God who has claimed us in love that cannot die, who loves us even when no one else will. Whom else would we serve?
Once we’ve heard that God’s love for us was so powerful God became one of us, and loved us even to the point of death on a cross, what other master would do? The best our worldly masters can offer us is some kind of security in this world that we know won’t last through death. The only one who can offer us life now and life forever is the true God, our true Master, who died and rose to bring all to life.
The problem is that our true Master wants us to follow the same example. Our Master’s instructions to us are, follow me. Go, and do likewise. Love God, love neighbor, even if it costs you your life.
There’s our dilemma: we want to serve the God whose love has made all the difference in our lives, and who can bring us even through death. We’re just not always ready to make the hard decisions that service asks of us.
But our good news is found in the very Master we serve.
In taking on our life, the Triune God has said our lives are worth living. God repeated the words of creation, “This is good.” We might be a mess, we might have all sorts of tensions and struggles to follow faithfully, but God took on our flesh and blessed us, so we might be made new.
And God does just that by filling each of us with the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit gives us strength to become true servants of our Master and servants of each other. When we feel tension as we struggle between masters, part of that tension is the voice and pull of the Holy Spirit, calling us to be Christ, helping us find the right path.
Timothy tells us clearly what our Master wants: “God our Savior desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” No one gets lost, no one gets left behind. And the Triune God will give whatever is needed to make that happen.
You see, Christ came to serve, not to be served.
So Christ continues to serve us by helping us become servants ourselves, giving us the will do to what we know we want to do, what we know God wants us to do. Giving us the courage to choose what we know we want to choose, what we know God wants us to choose. Joining us to the life of the Triune God so that we become like our Master.
This is the Master whose love first won us over, and now works within us to shape us into the same love. We can’t serve two masters, and we don’t want to. Thanks be to God who gives us what we need to serve the only Master we know is our life, our love, our hope, our joy.
In the name of Jesus. Amen