God invites us into a relationship of prayer that is like wrestling, where we are privileged to fully engage in the life of God and are changed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 C
   Texts: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; Luke 18:1-8

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

When was the last time you did what Jacob did, spent a whole night wrestling with God?

Jacob was utterly alone. On his way to meet his brother Esau after twenty years of estrangement, having fled due to Esau’s death threats for stealing his birthright and inheritance, Jacob fears what tomorrow will bring. Esau has 400 men with him. For all Jacob knows, Esau plans to kill him the next day. Jacob has sent his family across the river, wives, concubines, children.

So this night he’s alone. And he meets a stranger who wrestles him until sunup, gives him a new name, “God-struggler,” and a limp. The text never identifies the mysterious opponent. But after this encounter, Jacob says in wonder, “I have seen God face-to-face.” Jacob, who struggled with everyone, spent the night trading moves with the God of his father and grandfather.

Maybe some here know Jacob’s struggle. But judging by how we tend to talk about prayer, we’ve domesticated the experience to a shadow of what Jacob knew. We endlessly discuss God answering prayer, as if prayer was some kind of ordering service like Amazon. We box prayer into specific times and places – at meals, first thing in the morning, last thing at night – and go on our way. But we don’t often hear people describe their prayer life as all-night wrestling matches with God.

Jesus has words of comfort today for those who do live into their relationship with God in a vigorous, constant, persistent way. If prayer is only our mild, carefully proscribed version, Jesus’ words won’t help much.

Also, when was the last time we took Psalm 121’s words about God seriously?

Have we stopped believing God actually cares about this world, means to participate in the life of this world, will keep us all from evil? We don’t often talk with each other as if we believe this.

Have we not only domesticated our prayer, but also domesticated God? Christians can talk about mission for hours without considering or naming God’s investment in it. I’ve been in conversation with pastors about issues of peace and justice and wondered whether we had confidence that God not only sought the same justice and peace but would strengthen and bless us in this work.

Apart from our prayers of intercession each Eucharist, in which we actually do call upon God for healing, intervention, strength for many people and many situations, do we sometimes shy away from asking God for help ourselves? Do we fear God might not want to help? Rather than struggling with God, do we back away and keep our prayers to ourselves?

Well, what if we emulated Jacob, and took heart from Jesus?

We might find joy in wrestling with God even as we took God’s promises to care for us seriously. We’d bring anything and everything to God in prayer, trusting in God’s unsleeping love our psalm sang about, and willing to stay in that conversation, struggling with God for understanding and hope.

Jacob reminds us wrestling requires two participants. When our prayer life is only us talking to God, we’re not there yet. In a wrestling prayer life we persistently struggle with God and God struggles with us, and both are changed, each learning the other’s heart and need.

A wrestling prayer life also means wrestling with God’s Word. Keeping at this gift God has given, digging, probing, reading, contemplating, wrestling with the words and with God in prayer to understand what God is trying to say. We learn things when we wrestle, we hear God’s voice. It might take all night, it might take years, but in that struggle we, too, see God face-to-face.

A wrestling prayer life means wrestling with each other, learning from our life together about God. When we struggle with each other’s pain, with the deep questions our world raises, with God’s involvement in our world, together we find greater insight than we could by ourselves. And a stronger faith.

And a wrestling prayer life means wrestling with ourselves, when God says things counter to what we want. It means struggling with our tendency to be self-centered. It means wrestling with the reality of our sin and willingly facing that struggle rather than ignoring it.

Such wrestling prayer helps us understand God and ourselves.

It’s astonishing that God wants such a relationship. That God gives us the invitation to pray, to struggle. That God meets us on the riverbank. The joy is that this gift teaches us so much.

When we struggle with God in prayer we learn that God does hear the cries of this world for justice and peace. That God hears all cries for help. That God is constantly working in this world for good. But we also learn God wants us to deal with this world. Ever since the first command in the first Garden, God has said, “this is your job to do.”

This isn’t arbitrary or capricious. The more we struggle with God the more we learn this is the only way we can become who God means us to be. We need to deal with the unjust judges of the world, with the unjust systems, with our unjust neighbors, with our own unjustness, because it’s our job to do so. We’re meant to deal with all that makes this world broken and evil and unsafe. We’re designed to care for this world for God.

 That’s what God needs from us. To help us become fully human.

Much of the Word of God we heard throughout the summer could easily take us to guilt and anxiety. But God doesn’t mean to teach us to feel guilty for not doing enough, guilty for not serving and loving as we are called to do.

We learn through persistent wrestling with God that God means us to grow through struggle. If we are to become fully human, God can’t learn our lessons for us, take our conflicts for us, magically solve all our problems for us. Imagine a parent of a baby praying, “God, you take care of this child for me and raise it.” Or someone at a job saying, “God, you do this work for me.” Only by trying, working, doing, will we grow and become the people God made us to be. We see this in Jesus, who easily could’ve avoided all he faced, but modeled true humanity in becoming fully human, facing struggle, even to the point of death.

Wrestling with God in prayer helps us grow and learn about God and ourselves. Struggling to live faithfully in this world changes us, too. It’s how God created us.

But over all this remember: Jesus’ words are so we “do not lose heart.”

That’s why he told a parable of persistent, wrestling prayer. Because it can be discouraging to realize that prayer isn’t about getting easy answers or everything we order up, it can be frustrating to seek understanding from God and know it might take years.

But remember Jacob. As the sun rose, he still faced uncertainty and danger. He didn’t know if he’d survive the day. It turns out Esau welcomed him in love, but at dawn Jacob didn’t know anything would change. But he knew he’d met God face-to-face. He’d learned from God and taught God, and he was different. He had a new name, and he was more than he was before. And he knew he wasn’t alone.

You see, the joy is in the wrestling, because we are with God. We’re not alone by the side of the river, afraid, wondering. We’re with the Triune God who loves us enough to die for us, and the more we wrestle, the more that love enfolds us. When we’re wrestling with God, we’re never alone.

So we do not lose heart. We rise in the breaking dawn and rejoice that we have a new name from God, “Child of God,” “beloved,” and we face the day knowing whose we are and who will always be with us, in all our going out and our coming in, from this time forth and forevermore.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We come to Christ together, wounded, seeking healing and love, and are bound together in Christ in our salvation and life, and to the whole of the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 28 C
   Texts: Luke 17:11-19; 2 Kings 5:1-15c

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 were ten lepers. That’s the wonderful thing.

Leprosy was a terrible disease. It maimed your body, filled you with pain, took away flesh. It was horrible suffering. It was also contagious, so you couldn’t live with your family, those who could love and support you. Since leprosy’s destruction was so visible, there was no hiding and hoping to stay in your life.

But there were ten lepers in this village. Ten people who found each other, walked with each other, made community with each other. Ten people who understood suffering and pain, loneliness and rejection, sadness and fear, and who shared that life with each other when no one else could.

Naaman also had a community. Maybe because he was rich and important, maybe because his religion didn’t have the same taboos on uncleanness that Judaism had, it appears he was still in his household, and with people who loved him. He didn’t travel to Israel alone, either, but with people who cared for him.

But these communities did more than support. They carried each other to the healing love of God.

Naaman’s servants, who could have hated him for their life, shared their suffering with his, loved him enough to want him well. Even the Israelite girl, stolen by his army from her family, wanted him to know about the power of the God whom Israel worshipped, and a prophet who could offer healing from that God. When Naaman balked at the method of healing offered, his servants gently urged him to follow the prophet’s instructions. They carried him to God’s healing with kindness and wisdom.

The ten lepers did this together, too. They banded as a group of broken, suffering people and were stronger as a result. But when Jesus came to the village, this little community did what they most needed. Together, they turned to the Son of God and asked for mercy, for healing, for hope. Together, they cried out to Christ and sought the healing of God.

There were ten lepers. Naaman wasn’t alone. This is our truth.

Like every community, our community here is made up of people suffering from many different things, people who also have joys and hopes. What is remarkable about our community is that we have a deep sense that no one here is normal. We have no expectations there are people here who have it all together, people without sin, people without pain, people here who have never suffered rejection or loss or sadness. I’ve never heard anyone say about another member of this community, “That’s just not normal.” We expect we’re all in need, and we love each other because of it.

This is remarkable because the thing about leprosy is you can always tell if someone has it.  But what ails all of us isn’t always so evident. It takes years of a community learning to love those who are hurting, those who have been turned away elsewhere, those who suffer silently, to understand that one of the things that binds us is that what is normal is our woundedness. We don’t have to pretend we’ve got it together, we don’t have to lie to ourselves that people won’t love us if they knew the messes we had, we don’t have to fear that if our truths were told we’d no longer be welcome.

Those ten lepers never had to be embarrassed to look at one another, worried about how they appeared. When all are wounded, it’s not a big deal to admit one’s wounds. We are a band of lepers, gathered together in the grace that we can be of help to each other, we can love each other, we share a reality we don’t need to be ashamed of.

It’s not only our shared woundedness that binds us, though. That’s the real Gospel here.

In both these stories today, the community led those in need of healing to the healing love of God. We are, of course, members of the same family in our baptism into Christ. But often that hasn’t seemed enough in the world for Christians to love each other. Here we recognize Christ’s family as the wounded family, just like Christ Jesus himself. Our shared sense of need for God has led us to this place because here is where we are healed. Here we meet Christ at this table and are given love and life, together. Our little band of lepers shows up here on a Sunday morning and together says, have mercy on us, God! Hear our prayer, O Christ! Come to us and heal us!

And the healing we receive in this place, the welcome of God, the love and forgiveness of God, has taught us to love each other, to band together with each other, to be Christ to each other, and to always be ready to welcome others into this group of wounded, sinful, needy people who come here for healing and life.

In this community, Christ is teaching us a far deeper meaning to salvation.

“Salvation” in the Greek of the Gospels is a word that also means healing. To be saved is to be made well, made whole, healed. Our community of faith stretches back 2,000 years, and those who were wiser than we are and thought even more deeply than we yet do, have witnessed to us that being in Christ is always being in each other. They have said salvation is healing when it’s shared. They’ve witnessed that such healing and wholeness is possible even when individual pains aren’t taken away, because in Christ and in each other we find healing of our souls together.

So St. Paul can be content in any and all circumstances, even after praying that his suffering be removed and not having that happen, because he has become part of Christ, part of Christ’s family, and Christ moves in him and in those who love him, and he knows peace the world can’t give.

And so we, who know so many whose physical or mental illnesses aren’t removed, who know that each of us struggles with sin and a need for forgiveness daily, who know that everyone here is wounded, inside or out, find salvation and wholeness not as individuals but in the deeper healing of God’s love that has made us one and whole in Christ. And yes, a love that also broke death’s power and promises to restore us all into the community of the healed wounded ones who surround the throne in the life to come.

But Christ is also teaching us a deeper meaning of community.

In Christ, the Triune God would draw all people and all creation into the life and love of God. The Risen Christ whom we turn to for life wants all to be a part of this group of healed lepers. Our community is more than Mount Olive. It’s the whole creation.

Imagine we looked at everyone with the same understanding as those we know here, with the same compassion, expecting them to be wounded as well, wanting to walk with them and help and be helped. Some are so far away we can only do this in prayer and political action. Others live in our city and are part of us. Their joys and their pains are ours, as much as any here.

When we understand this breadth of God’s love, that salvation not only isn’t individual to us, but that it’s not even limited to this community, that God’s healing is meant for all, all sorts of teachings of Jesus become clear. We understand why we’re commanded to pray for our enemies. Praying for them admits they’re part of us, they belong, so they are no longer enemies. And our compassion for their pain leads us to pray for the removal of their hate, so they can be whole and healed in God as we are.

We haven’t talked about gratitude yet. Maybe we don’t need to.

Naaman overflowed with gratitude for his healing. One of the ten lepers broke from his group and ran back and gave thanks to Jesus. We don’t know about the other nine, what they did or felt, but it’s not the point.

The truth is that when we understand the amazing gift of healing and wholeness that we have by being in Christ and in each other, the last thing we need to worry about is whether we’re going to be grateful for it. Not a day goes by without me being thankful to God for all of you, for this community of wounded people who walks with me in my woundedness, and are Christ to me, who, with me, gathers at this Table seeking forgiveness and life and wholeness. I don’t need a reminder to be deeply grateful for that. And the more we understand the connectedness God has made between us and everything else in creation, the more we find joy and hope in that, too, and again, being thankful is pretty obvious.

We are blessed to be joined to each other in Christ, who heals us of our deepest need and brings a wholeness to our life together and to this world, a peace nothing else can. The more we know this, the more our gratitude to God will pour out, trust me.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In the dark waiting, we have hope our faith embers will rekindle anew.

Vicar Kelly Sandin
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 27 C
Texts: Luke 17:5-10; Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4, 2 Timothy 1:1-14

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

How long, O Lord? “Destruction and violence are before me,” and justice can’t be found. When are you going to do something God? Answer!

Habakkuk was deeply troubled with what he saw, as we are today. The times have changed, but the violence remains. We’re still hoping God will fix all that is messed up and broken. We’re still begging God to stop the negativity that comes from all directions. We’re exhausted from the media reporting tragedy after tragedy, where innocent people are murdered and corruption is on every corner. And, sadly, we’re not too surprised. We know tomorrow will bring yet another story of human bloodshed and injustice. We want to trust in all this, but how can we? We want to give another the benefit of the doubt, yet we’re so aware of people taking advantage of others that it’s too hard to do. How do we walk without fear when darkness is all we see? Is there anything good in this world?

And so, like Habakkuk, we watch and wait for God to answer.

In this despair we’re rather like the apostles who cried out, “Increase our faith!” We want to believe all will turn out right, but will it? We want to trust God and love our neighbors despite what we see, but how? Even with Jesus right by their side, the apostles still felt utterly inadequate to live the life of discipleship they were being called to. They just couldn’t fathom how to live out what was being commanded.

“How are we going to do all this?” they cried! “We obviously need more faith. If you just give us more faith, Lord, perhaps we can live up to what it is you’re asking us to do.”

The great part about this gospel is the apostles weren’t afraid to ask for help. They weren’t too proud to be vulnerable and show who they really were before God and one another. They felt something was deeply missing within them to actually live out this life God was calling them to and more faith seemed like the solution.

Now, it would be wonderful if Jesus gave an easy response to their demand. They wanted immediate relief. They wanted rest from their anxiousness. Instead, Jesus talked about having the faith the size of a mustard seed – which is ever so small. You might miss it if it was right in front of you. But the smallness of it didn’t matter. What mattered was that this thing called faith was in them. What mattered was they already had it. Their little bit of trust in God was there. Their little bit of commitment to God was already planted inside them. Within that little seed of faith was power beyond themselves.

Having more faith isn’t what they needed. They had enough.

Of course we, too, feel the inadequacies of our own faith. We don’t think we have what it takes. We talk about needing more faith. We cry out to God with pleas of “Give me faith, Lord! Help me to hang in there, Lord!” This anxiety isn’t foreign to us. We live in a world full of pain and suffering and we want relief, for ourselves and for the world. We want God to fix it.

When we want increased faith, what we’re really hoping for is God to take care of it all. We’re praying God will make all things better. That we’ll have rest. That we’ll have peace. That the world will be a better place. That all things will be made right.

Isn’t wanting more faith the idea that what it is we worry about will no longer be a worry? That our children will always be safe? That a loved one will come through their illness? That our pain will go away? That there will be no more suffering?

The hardest part in this life of faith is the waiting. We desperately pray while we wait, while we’re anxious, and while we’re in fear. We wait on God because so much is out of our control. What else can we do?

Nonetheless, even in our most depressed moments we still somehow manage to cry out the smallest whimper. “How long, God? How long?” Somehow within us we have enough to at least do that.

It’s not about needing more trust or more belief or more commitment. We already have it. It’s there. But in the dark times, when a whimper is all we’ve got, we simply can’t sing a note of praise. In those times, riding on the praise notes of one another is often our only way to cope. Until, finally, the embers of our faith rekindles again.

Timothy, in our text today, needed that kind support. The author recalled his tears and reminded him of his faith, the faith that was first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. And now lived in him.

Like Timothy, it’s not that we’ve lost our faith. It’s that sometimes the darkness gets so overwhelming we simply can’t see. And in that darkness we need others who, on that day anyway, can see a bit more clearly. Who can hold our hand and help us through with their strength and prayers. Knowing that tomorrow they may stumble, too, and will need someone else to help bring them through.

This little mustard seed size of faith is there to be in service to God and neighbor. It’s a gift to see us through this thing called life. God wants us to do what we can with what we’ve been given. It may be a small seed of faith, but the size doesn’t matter. The apostles had enough and so do we. The impact from this little bit of faith on someone else is something we may never know. But, if you think about the encouragement you’ve been given from others, it’s often the tiniest gesture of caring that makes all the difference. It rekindles the embers of our faith so we can see again.

Serving the other in whatever that may look like has a promise of becoming more because God is at work in it. It’s not about us. It’s not about getting praise or for being noticed for what we’re doing. It’s about acting on the command to serve others so God can do what’s needed in this world. God wants us to be in relationship with one another because God knows what’s best for us.

In loving God and neighbor, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are intertwined as brothers and sisters in Christ. We’re not alone. With this connection we notice suffering in the world and try to do something about it. We feel each other’s pain and pray. We rally around one another with support and strength. We ride on each other’s praise notes until we can sing praises, too. And through it we are given hope that in the darkness of life our embers of faith will rekindle anew. And for that we must say, “Amen.”

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

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