Paul’s letter to Philemon gives us a picture of what Christ has done for us and what it costs to be a disciple. In Christ, God has set us free from our possessions so that we might live as Christ in the world.

Vicar Emily Beckering; Time after Pentecost, Sunday 23, year C; texts: Philemon 1-21(22); Luke 14:25-33

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

It is an uncommon and even illegal practice in our country to read other people’s mail. And yet, here today we find ourselves reading the personal correspondence from Paul to Philemon and to the church of Philemon’s house. Because it is personal communication regarding very specific circumstances, the letter might seem cryptic to us today. Questions arise: How did Onesimus come to Paul and what exactly is Paul asking Philemon to do?  How does this private conversation regarding a specific situation in one household apply to us?

The Church decided to add it to our canon of scripture, most likely because it was circulated between the early churches, and in those communal readings, Christians found the gospel to be at the heart of Paul’s argument. As such, this letter gives us a picture of what Christ has done for us and what that means for how we are to live as his disciples. When we listen in on this letter, we, like early Christians, might also hear Paul’s words to Philemon as God’s words to us.

Paul, who has been instrumental in Onesimus’ and Philemon’s conversion, is writing this letter to Philemon from prison. Onesimus is a slave in Philemon’s household. Because the letter does not explicitly tell us, we cannot be sure as to whether Onesimus is a runaway slave, or if Philemon found him useless and sent him to serve Paul who was dependent on his friends for food and resources while in prison. Nor can we know with certainty if Paul is asking Philemon to free Onesimus from slavery. It is clear, however, that the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus is strained, and that Paul seeks to redefine that relationship. This relationship is no longer what it once was. Before, Onesimus was useless to Philemon. Now he is useful to both Philemon and to Paul. Before, Onesimus was a slave. Now, he is no longer a slave but much more: a brother. The term brother signifies a very different relationship than master and slave, for now Onesimus and Philemon are to treat each other as equals who love one another as deeply as brothers.

What has occasioned this change? Christ. Christ has changed everything between Philemon and Onesimus, and everything between them and Paul. By naming them each as a “brother,” Paul challenges the ordering of the traditional familial structure in the Greco-Roman culture in the 1st century and smashes it together: in Christ, there is no longer a hierarchical ranking, but a sibling relationship. The Old Structures—master and slave, have and have-nots, dominator and submitter—these structures that once defined Philemon and Onesimus and their relationship have passed away and no longer hold any power over them. Christ has transformed their identities, their relationships, and their obligations to one another.

If they are faithful to Christ and what Christ asks of them in this new relationship, then there is also risk. As a brother in Christ, Onesimus cannot lord his new identity over Philemon. Discipleship requires him to seek reconciliation with Philemon on the basis of love. At the very least, he risks chastisement and rejection. If he is indeed a runaway slave, he risks his life because Philemon would be entitled to punish him physically or put him to death.

However, Christ also requires something new from Philemon. As a brother in Christ, Philemon cannot use his status to dominate Onesimus or treat him like a possession. Discipleship requires him to receive Onesimus as his beloved brother. If he does so, he risks giving up the security of his position as the dominant overseer of the household and risks ridicule from his peers for treating a slave as a family member. What is more, I had the lector read verse 22 today so that we could also hear that Philemon is accountable to Paul, for Paul hopes to return to them once he is released from prison.

Not even Paul is free of responsibilities. As a brother in Christ, Paul cannot keep Onesimus as his possession or use his apostolic authority to control Philemon. Discipleship requires him to send Onesimus back, to appeal to Philemon on the basis of love, and to trust Philemon to do the same.

And so we see that Paul’s letter to Philemon is a real-life example of what it costs to be a disciple. Being liberated through Christ does not mean that we have the freedom to do whatever we want. Discipleship is a costly path that has real consequences for how we must live. What God has done in Christ for Philemon and Onesimus determines what they must do for one another. In the same way, what Christ has done for us changes everything about us: our identity, our relationships, and what is expected of us. No longer are we slaves to sin: we are free and reconciled with God. As a result, no longer can we be captive to the patterns of this world where we advance our own interests at the expense of others. Instead, we are called to align ourselves with God’s vision and God’s purposes.

This is precisely what Jesus calls for in today’s gospel. By using the hyperbolic expression, “hate,” Jesus calls for uncompromising loyalty toward himself and his Father. To hate our possessions means letting go of the world’s empty promises and instead clinging to what we have been promised in Christ. The call to hate our father and mother, brother and sister—even our own selves—does not mean that we cut our families out of our lives or that we abuse or neglect ourselves or those whom we love. No! Instead, Jesus’ call to “hate” is a call to turn away from the old ways of measuring ourselves according to wealth, prestige, praise, and how valuable we are to others, and instead to turn towards Christ, who Christ would have us be, and what Christ would have us do.

This turning is what God demands of disciples, and yet God has found a way to make it possible for us to hate our possessions. God has found a way to set us free from their grasp on us: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Through our baptism into his death and his resurrection, we too have died to those possessions and their powers over us and have risen to new life in Christ.

This new life isn’t promised to be easy or without the pain of persecution, rejection, or ridicule; these we will experience if we are living like Christ. But what Christ does promise us in this new life is that all of those things that we once perceived as risks—even death itself—do not threaten us for they have power over us. Just as Christ offered Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul freedom from fears about reputation, retribution, and self-preservation, so too have we been freed from the burden of our possessions: our reputation, our financial security, our intelligence, our talents, our credentials, our academic or athletic achievements, what other kids at school think about us, our value to others, or our power to influence. All of these things no longer define us: we are defined by Christ alone and Christ’s love for us. We are freed to do what Christ would actually have us do, which is to listen to his voice and respond to his call. This is discipleship.

Because God has done all of this for us, it is evident that in writing his letter to Philemon, Paul follows in the way of our Lord, for our God also appeals to us out of love: a love lived out unto death on a cross. Rather than overpower, punish, or destroy us for our waywardness or force us to obey, God has instead chosen the way of love: a self-emptying love through which we have been given God’s own self.

And now, having listened to Paul’s letter to Philemon and to Jesus in today’s gospel, I wonder if we might hear their words as God’s words in a letter to us. Could it possibly sound like this?

Beloved, 

I know well of your love for all the saints and your faith toward me. The faith that you have been given will deepen your understanding of all the good that belongs to you in Christ. I indeed have much joy from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my children.

For this reason, though I am bold enough to command you to do your duty, I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love, and I do this as your Father. I am appealing to you through my child, Jesus. Formerly, you did not know him, but now he has changed everything for you and for me. I sent him, that is, my own heart, to you in order that your good deeds might be voluntary and not something forced. This is the reason he was separated for you for a while, so that you might have him back forever. Now you are no longer a slave. Do not live as one, but much more than a slave, you are a beloved child, especially to me. 

So, if you consider me your Father, your savior, your partner, welcome others as you would welcome me. If you come to me but do not listen to my voice or if put your reputation, your money, your security before me, you cannot be my disciple. Give up all of these possessions. Take up your cross and follow me. 

If you have been wronged in any way, or if anyone owes you anything, forgive them on my account. I have written this on your heart and in my own hands for the world: I have redeemed it. I have made you new and set you free; you owe me even your own self. 

Yes, child, let me have this benefit from you. Refresh my heart as my disciple. Confident of your obedience, I say all of this to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

One thing more, prepare room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you. 

Amen.

The gift of belonging to Christ is that we are given eyes to see as the Triune God sees, and to see in the face of all others the face of Christ, which is the loving and gracious face of the Triune God for us and for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 22, year C; texts: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14; Proverbs 25:6-7

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

I love the image of secret identity that flows throughout literature.  Superheroes who are ordinary people among us, but special and gifted to help the world.  Or secret kings, like Henry V who walks among his troops the night before Agincourt, disguised so he might share this night with them free of royal honors, and honestly hear their true, unfiltered thoughts.  Sometimes not recognizing that identity leads people to act badly, to their regret, as in the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast”, where the arrogant young prince turns away a poor old woman on a stormy night and she is a sorcerer who enchants him as punishment.

But the theme is always the same: you never know whom it is you are meeting, so take care.  The person might be a queen in disguise, or a hero, or even God.  So it is that Leo Tolstoy tells the beautiful story of Martin the cobbler who is promised that Jesus will visit him on a certain day.  All day long he waits for the visit.  Throughout the course of the day several people cross his path who are in need and he helps them with love and grace.  And that night, as he prepares for his bed, disappointed that Jesus didn’t come, Jesus comes to him and says that he was there all day, in those people.  They were his visit, his coming.

All of this makes what Hebrews says today very compelling.  We are invited to show hospitality to the stranger, because, we’re told, “by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  This is something to consider.  A stranger, just as in all the stories, might actually be an angel of God.  Suddenly the wisdom about not putting ourselves above others that we hear from Proverbs and from Jesus makes good sense.  We don’t want to elevate ourselves above another: she might be an angel of God.  We can’t know who the other person we are encountering truly is, and we need to respect that, honor that, just in case they are someone special.

But are we missing something more profound here?  Jesus told other parables than this one, and there are a couple in particular that suggest that we are on the verge of a wonder we perhaps haven’t fully appreciated.  A wonder that has the possibility of transforming our lives as children of God, and connecting us to the life of the Triune God in ways we’ve not known before.

In fact it is Tolstoy who understood a deeper truth in this mystery.

It’s not just that sometimes angels of God visit us and we don’t recognize them.  It is in fact Jesus’ promise that in the other person we meet we will always see his face.  That in the economy of God, there is no such thing as “other.”

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the return of the King, the story we better identify as the one about the sheep and the goats.  And what is significant about the people in that story is that those who did not feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, care for the sick, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, did not intentionally neglect the Lord Jesus, the King.  Had they known he was in all those people in need, those strangers, those “others,” they would have helped willingly, joyfully.

And the whole point of the story for us is, now we know.  Now we know where Christ is: hidden in everyone, everyone we meet.

And so with another of Jesus’ parables: instead of considering the place of Christ to be in the person of the good Samaritan, we realize in light of Matthew 25 it’s different.  Christ Jesus is the half-dead man in the ditch.  Serving him is serving Christ.  Loving him is loving Christ.

Do you see how this brings us to the edge of a new world?

We are invited by our Lord Christ to see all others as if we were seeing him, his face, his needs.  Franciscan priest Fr. Richard Rohr has said this: “If God is Trinity and Jesus is the face of God, then it is a benevolent universe.  God is not someone to be afraid of, but is the Ground of Being and on our side.” [1]

This is a wonder to embrace: Christ Jesus is the face of God, and shows us that the Triune God is benevolent, loving, and “on our side.”  If this is so, and we proclaim it is, what then of seeing Christ’s face in every “other,” in all?

Do you see how this changes everything?

If our eyes are opened to see in all others the face of Christ, which in turn is the benevolent and loving face of the Triune God, then we cannot but fall on our knees in the presence of anyone.  If the Incarnate One, God-with-us, now claims that this divine incarnation extends into all people, all God’s children, then we have a new reality.

But that’s not often how we’re used to thinking of this.

You see, we too often take this parable Jesus tells as a call to be “humble,” and we think we know what that means.  Too often we consider humility to be something we need to learn, something we need to assume.  We read Jesus’ words as telling us not to think too highly of ourselves, and to consider others as more important.

The problems with this are many, but let’s consider a couple.

First, some of us have more difficulties with pride and needing to be reminded not to push to the front of the line than do others.  There are people all over the spectrum, even in this room.  Some who feel they’ve never measured up as important, certainly not in comparison to others.  And others who feel that it’s a burden Jesus places on them to have to put others first, that they truly are special and worthy of notice.  And all of us are somewhere in between those two poles.  So taking Jesus’ words as a “one size fits all” pithy statement cannot work.

Second, Jesus is inviting a change of vision here, not a change of mind or attitude or action.  He’s inviting us to consider what it would be to look at others as if they were important.  Not put ourselves down, not force ourselves to stand back, not remind ourselves to act humble.  But actually see others as important in God’s eyes.  That’s a huge difference.

Humility is not about feeling bad about ourselves, or even proud that we acted humble once.  It’s actually seeing the light of Christ in the other and honoring that.  It’s a completely different thing Jesus invites, especially if we consider Matthew 25 alongside this.  We don’t take the better seat because we quite literally see in the other person the face of Christ, which is the face of God.  So of course we move lower.

It may be helpful for us to consider what we know in this room and see how that might carry beyond these walls.

When we gather for liturgy, we come here expecting to see the face of the Triune God.  We see God’s face in Word and Sacrament, in each other.  We love the silences because in them we hear God’s movement in our hearts and minds.  We love the Word, the music and song, the people, because through these gifts we are brought literally, literally, into the presence of God.

Not everyone always experiences this in worship; there are times when we do not.  But if we experience it at all it is because our eyes have been opened to it.  Much of what brings me into the presence of the Triune God in this space comes from my experiencing worship with all of you.  You have taught me that you expect God to be here, and in that I, too, have come to see God’s face.  That’s how communal worship works.

And once our eyes are opened, we see God more and more.  Yes, there are dry spells, times when our vision is less clear.  The life of discipleship, even worship, wanders through deserts as well as lush landscapes.

But we help each other in those times: those who are seeing more clearly stand with those who are not.  And together, we experience the grace of the presence of the Triune God who made all worlds, right here as we worship.

So what if what Jesus is telling us is that if we continue to open our eyes in the world, not just when we think we are “worshipping,” we would see his face, Christ’s face, there, too?  Do you see how different that feels?

Just as we have learned to see God here, to expect to see God here, we might also learn that “out there.”  And then everything we do in this world is worship, because we are constantly finding God and seeing God’s gracious, benevolent face of love for us and for this world.

And once we see Christ where he is, we will be led to act in a couple different but important ways.

First, we will love all others not out of false humility, not out of a patronizing sense of obligation, and certainly not because we think there’s an off chance they might be special.  We will love others because they are special.  They are Christ to us.

So living in grace and love toward others is like living in grace and love toward the most important people we know in the world.  Consider the people you love most, honor most, admire most.  How would you want to be with them?  How would you want to care for them?  We quite naturally want to love them, care for them, offer them the best place.

That’s how you care for all others, Jesus says.

When we see Christ where Christ has promised to be, we become people who live in the world with a joyful awareness of everyone’s secret identity, and who treat all accordingly.  Unlike those in the parable, we care for all because we know who they are.  Not because they might be angels.  But because they are Christ.

But second, it seems that if Christ is in all others, then we also come to others as we come to Christ, expecting blessing, grace, life.  When we come here and expect to see the face of God, we come hoping for the blessing only God can give us.  We experience grace, forgiveness, love, full acceptance, no exclusion.  We see in each other in this room that grace and love of God.  In fact, for all of us one of the most important ways God actually touches us with grace and love is through our fellow believers in this place.

But now we go out these doors and we are told we can expect Christ to be looking at us from everyone out there, too.  So we look at others not only seeking to love them as Christ.

But we look at others expecting they will be the Triune God’s blessing for us, to us, in us.

Think of that woman who visited our worship earlier this summer and bathed at the font.  It was clear she had many issues that tormented her, and I was deeply grateful that literally every question I had from members afterward was directed at her well-being, at hopes for her health and her future.  People loved her in Christ’s name here, loved her as if if she were Christ.

But what if we also consider that she was not only Christ to be served but Christ who blessed?  I don’t know what that might mean fully, but I can see important ways she brought the blessing and grace of God to us that day.

That’s the new vision to which Jesus invites us.

We must pray about this.  Consider this together.  And most of all, seek the grace of the Holy Spirit to give us new eyes for seeing.

Because if Christ Jesus really is out there, really in literally every person we see not only in this room but everywhere we go today, tomorrow, and beyond, then everything is changed.

Then liturgy becomes the actions of our lives and worship becomes our living and breathing.  Then music in praise of God becomes our daily voice and prayer our every word.  Then welcoming becomes our way of life and hospitality our heart and soul.

Because when we see another person we see the face of Christ, the face of the loving Triune God.  And there is no one on earth or in heaven we’d rather see.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] https://cac.org/dm-themes 

The worship the Triune God desires of us is one where our lives are centered on God, our rest, our care for others, our work for justice, and when all that happens, our lives will be a watered garden in the presence of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 21, year C; texts: Isaiah 58:(6-9a), 9b-14; Luke 13:10-17

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

We live in a broken world, a world where people suffer, where the creation itself suffers.  Where we suffer.  A world where evil seemingly thrives in more places than we can deal with, where we often feel powerless.  A world that we ourselves have divided into things sacred and things secular.  A world where we wonder where God is, and why God doesn’t do a better job.

We live in a world of our own making.  It is not the Eden of old, and that is certainly our fault; much as we would like to blame our forebears, we are thrown out of the garden by our own doing, our own actions, our own inaction.  We know this.

Yet when we come here in this place, on the Lord’s day, for a brief time we feel as if we are truly in a different world.  A world of beauty and grace.  A world where God’s word is “yes,” where healing truly is possible.  A world where we know that we are loved by God and that all are loved by God.  And we wonder: “why can’t this occur outside of here?”

We have a word of God from Isaiah that suggests God actually intends to make this world as it was meant to be, that what we experience here belongs out there, everywhere.  That what we see “out there” is not what is meant to be, that what we experience is not God’s will.

Because the LORD God, through Isaiah’s words, is telling us that part of our problem is that we have divided our world inappropriately.  That we call what we do in here on a Sunday worship, and what we do out there in the world something else.  That we seek God in this place but rarely expect God out there.  For God, according to this word of Isaiah, worship is far greater than we imagined.  And the way back to the created beauty of such a place as Eden is through true worship of God for whom there is no sacred or secular but only one existence in which the true God is moving and calling to us, and to all God’s children, who in turn live their lives in healing, restoring worship.

The people of Israel are sorely misled, Isaiah boldly shouts, if they believe that true worship of God is unrelated to their whole lives.

I asked the lector to start the reading from Isaiah a few verses before what was assigned so we could get a fuller context to our reading, but we could easily have gone back to the beginning of this chapter.  The LORD tells Isaiah to shout out the rebellion of the people, that they pretend to be a people who seek the ways of God, people who delight in the LORD, but God says they are not so.  They fast, they practice the proper religious rituals, but they don’t understand why God has seemingly abandoned them.  This is prophetic word from after the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.

What is clear from the prophet in this chapter is that there is a disconnect between the worship of the people and their sense of God’s blessing on their lives and their world.  They complain, in verse 3, “Why do we fast but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, and you do not notice?”  In other words, we’re worshipping faithfully here, and you don’t seem to care, God.  Life still has problems, pain, suffering.

What follows is the rebuke of the LORD toward these people.  In the verses preceding our reading this morning, God says that the people look to their own needs and interests on the LORD’s day.  Worse, they oppress their workers; they fast, but then go off and quarrel with each other.  They even fight and “strike with a wicked fist.”

Why on earth would God consider this worship and faithfulness? Isaiah asks.  What we heard this morning is God’s answer as to what true worship really is, what God is seeking from the people.  And, we must say, from us as well.

And it’s a lot more than we thought worship was.

“Is not this the fast that I choose,” says the LORD?  (It’s hard to be clearer than that.)  There are two elements to this “fast,” this true worship.  Both are non-negotiable.

The first element of the fast the LORD chooses, the true worship, is centered on our relationship with others.  Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It’s a powerful vision that God’s sense of true worship begins with our care for others, in three specific areas.

First, true worship begins with the breaking of the yoke, the removing of the yoke.  Using an agricultural image, the prophet speaks of a tool placed on draft animals that draws on their energy to make work happen.  So we are told that when others’ lives and energy are used for our profit, our benefit, when others suffer so that we might enjoy what we have, we are using them as slaves, as pack animals, beasts of burden.

True worship of God begins with removing such injustice from our society, from our institutions, from our world.  We cannot pretend to be free, we cannot pretend to be delighting in God, when we participate in structures that bind, oppress, and harm others.  When we take advantage of other people.

Second, true worship begins with the ending of evil between us and other peoples, when we stop pointing the finger at each other, at friends, at enemies.  There is no way we can consider ourselves truly in line with God, truly worshipping, if in our lives we point blame at others instead of ourselves, speak evil of others, and act as if we are blameless.

It’s hard to find a more direct and appropriate prophetic word about our culture and our lives than these two, both the yoke of oppression and now this “pointing of the finger” Isaiah names.  So long as we refuse to consider our participation in the evil of this world, the evil of our lives, even the oppression of others, so long as we speak ill of others, we are not truly able to worship God.

Third, true worship begins when we “offer our food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted”.  When we bring the homeless poor into our homes, share the abundance of bread we have with those who cannot find food, and clothe the naked.  Little wonder Jesus told the parable of the sheep and the goats: it is in meeting such needs, even Isaiah says, that we truly worship God, truly see God.  Or as Jesus would say, “when you do this to one of these, you do it to me.”

The second element of the fast the LORD chooses, the true worship, is centered on our relationship with God.  Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”

This Sabbath worship Isaiah speaks of is not the same as the rule-loving Pharisees speak of in our story of Jesus today.  For them, keeping Sabbath is following the form, the rule, more than the spirit of Sabbath.

Isaiah, rather, speaks the word of the LORD that when we spend seven days a week year round on our own interests, our own needs, our own priorities, we leave little to no room for God.  It is remarkable that in this passage keeping a Sabbath rest, taking one day in seven to focus on God, on living in the love and grace of God’s priorities, is as important as caring for the neighbor.

Isaiah’s people are “trampling” on the Sabbath.  They’re not just ignoring it.  They’re willfully doing their own things, caring for their own needs, even on Sabbath.  But Isaiah says that cannot be worship.  Until they, until we, take time for Sabbath rest every week, time to focus on God and not ourselves, we cannot truly worship.

This is part of what we are all doing here this morning, to be sure.  But it is so much more.  There is a sense in these verses of a life that is shaped and fed and described by weekly rest with God.  When you call the Sabbath a delight, when you find the holy day honorable, then, then, Isaiah says, you shall truly take delight in the LORD.  It’s hard to love the LORD your God if we never take time away from our own interests, and nigh on to impossible to care for God’s concerns if we focus only on our own.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Isaiah’s order is different than we are used to hearing: here neighbor is first, then God.  But both are necessary for the promises to be revealed, fulfilled, lived, experienced.  Because that’s the real joy of this word of God in Isaiah today: if we do these things, then wonderful things will happen.

Now, let us say this clearly: “If and then” is not a question of conditional love of God; it is a statement by the Triune God that if certain things happen, there will be wonderful consequences.

The unconditional love of God for us and for all people is not at risk here by our self-centeredness and lack of love for our neighbor or for God.  Rather, what the LORD God is saying to us in these verses is simple cause and effect: if we live in such love of neighbor and love of God, we will see amazing things.

There will be a unity to our lives where we do not see part of our lives as “ours” and “secular” and part of our lives as “God’s” and “sacred.”  All things become holy, all our lives become God’s, and everything, everything becomes worship.

When we break the yoke, stop pointing the finger, stop speaking evil, and start sharing food and caring for the needs of others, the world becomes a beautiful place, the LORD says.  Light shines into our lives and into the world.  Our bones, and the bones of our neighbors, will become strong, God says.  Ancient ruins will be rebuilt, roads repaired, safe streets created.

It couldn’t be simpler: caring for others and dealing with all that entrenched evil is the pathway God says leads to a world as God intended it to be.

Likewise, when we take our Sabbath rest and focus weekly on our love of God, we not only are filled with that love.  We actually begin living in such a way that we are children of God, sharing all the delight that means.  We take our inheritance alongside Jacob and all the other ancestors of faith, Isaiah says.

Our lives become one with God and with each other.

When God’s people see their entire lives as worship, their entire lives as shaped by love of neighbor and love of God, things in God’s world will dramatically improve.  That’s the promise.  The world will become one with God’s will and intent.  And God’s healing will begin to flow everywhere.

The image that seems to come to my heart the most in these words is this line: “You shall be a watered garden.”

Our whole lives of faith begin with the sense of the loss of Eden, the loss of intimacy with God and with each other.  Ever since, humanity has fought with each other, fought with God, separated our lives from each other and from God, and lived as if we were in charge.

And we wonder why things are so horrible.

Now we know: if we find true worship in God’s answer, we will find our lives and this whole world becoming like a watered garden, and we will find God restoring the creation through us, through all, into the world God has intended from the beginning.

And all things will be full of the knowledge of God, all our lives, everything will be worship, and we will see things we only have dreamed until now, for “the mouth of the LORD has spoken this.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Following Jesus, according to Jesus himself, according to our forebears in faith, according to the reality of life in this world, is fraught with challenges, divisions, pain and suffering at times; yet we follow Jesus who walked it himself, and will bring all to completion and heal all the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 20, year C; texts: Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Note to the reader: 
This sermon begins with a retelling of a story first told by Jack Hitt, on This American Life, National Public Radio.  I read it from a transcript of the 500th episode, which was a compendium of previous shows, and which aired July 12, 2013.  It is truly an oral story, and will likely have more impact if heard first and not read.  At the transcript on the show’s website, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/transcript, there is also a link to the audio of the whole show: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/500.  This segment begins at 35:35, a little over halfway through the show.
Listen to him tell it.  You’ll be glad you did. – Pr. Crippen

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

I heard a story on the National Public Radio program This American Life a month ago and I’d like to share it with you.  I’m going to read the actual transcript since it isn’t my story, and since I also couldn’t retell it any better than the speaker.  It’s a story by a man named Jack Hitt, and he tells it about his four year old daughter. [1]

“It all began at Christmas two years ago, when my daughter was four years old.  And it was the first time that she had ever asked about what did this holiday mean?  And so I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus.  And she wanted to know more about that.  And we went out and bought a kid’s Bible and had these readings at night.  She loved them.  Wanted to know everything about Jesus.  So we read a lot about his birth and about his teaching.

“And she would ask constantly what that phrase was.  And I would explain to her that it was ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  Then we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.

“And then one day, we were driving past a big church, and out front was an enormous crucifix.  She said, ‘Who is that?’  And I guess I’d never really told that part of the story.  So I had to sort of – ‘Yeah, oh, well, that’s Jesus.  And I forgot to tell you the ending, yeah.  Well, you know, he ran afoul of the Roman government.  This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him.  They came to the conclusion that he would have to die.  That message was too troublesome.’

“It was about a month later after that Christmas we’d gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant.  And it was mid-January, and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools.  So Martin Luther King Day was off.  And so I knocked off work that day and I decided we’d play, and I’d take her out to lunch.

“And we were sitting in there, and right on the table where we happened to plop down, was the Arts section of the local newspaper.  And there, big as life, was a huge drawing by, like, a 10-year-old kid from the local schools, of Martin Luther King.  And she said, ‘Who’s that?’  And I said, ‘Well, as it happens, that’s Martin Luther King.  And he’s why you’re not in school today, because we’re celebrating his birthday.  This is the day we celebrate his life.’

“And she said, ‘So who was he?’  I said, ‘Well, he was a preacher.’  And she looks up at me and goes, (excitedly) ‘For Jesus?’  And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, actually he was.  But there was another thing that he was really famous for, which is that he had a message.’  And you’re trying to say this to a four-year-old.  It’s very – this is the first time they ever hear anything, so you’re just very careful about how you phrase everything.

“So I said, ‘Well, yeah, he was a preacher, and he had a message.’  And she said, ‘What was his message?’  And I said, ‘Well, he said that you should treat everybody the same, no matter what they look like.’  And she thought about that for a minute.  And she said, ‘Well, that’s what Jesus said.’  And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess it is.  I never thought of it that way, but yeah.  And that is sort of like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”’

And she thought for a minute and looked up at me and said, ‘Did they kill him too?’”

Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided.”

We have so much difficulty hearing these words.  Too often we inwardly wish that we could skip them and read past them.  We’d like to dodge any suggestion that Jesus asks something of people that doesn’t unite but divides, that might even break up families.

Yet this little girl, who apparently from the story at any rate had little religious upbringing, this four year old child heard of Jesus and what he taught and what happened to him and knew two things intuitively and definitively about Martin Luther King, Jr.: One, what Dr. King said was the same as what Jesus said.  And two, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was killed for it just like Jesus was.

Why is it so hard for us to take Jesus seriously here?  Why do we pretend he was this innocuous, easy-going person?  He was killed for what he taught: does that tell us nothing?

Do we want to forget that the reason he’s so anxious and even angry in this story is that he knows he’s heading toward his death, something that will be brutal and horrifying, something that he wishes could be over and done with?

We are too often like Simon Peter, who prompted this whole little tirade by his oblivious and blind question a few verses earlier.  After the parable we heard last Sunday, about being good slaves who are always ready for the master to return, even as a thief in the night, Peter asks, “Are you telling this parable for us, or for everyone else?”

In other words, “you’re really worried about all those other people not being ready, right Lord, not your beloved inner circle of disciples?”  The verses between last week’s Gospel and today’s are Jesus’ blistering response to Peter.

He tells another parable about slaves being ready, but with a twist.  In this parable, there are some slaves who know their master is returning, but when he’s delayed they decide to party, eating and drinking until they’re drunk, beating their fellow slaves.  When the master returns, they are horribly punished.

But the punch line is that because they ought to have known better, they are worse off than those who ignorantly aren’t doing the work of the master.  “To whom much is given, much is required” comes at this point.  And what Jesus would have us and Peter know is this: for those who know what discipleship is, who know what the master would have us do, and choose not to do it, for those it will be far worse than for those who never heard.

It’s likely that if we do fail at our service, our discipleship, our faithfulness, it is because we’d rather avoid the consequences Jesus speaks of for those who follow, consequences even a four year old child can grasp.

The letter to the Hebrews is no less honest or difficult than Jesus today.  Same with Jeremiah.  In that amazing laundry list of heroes of the faith in Hebrews the terrible things that happened to those who were faithful is astonishing.  I’m no expert in advertising, but if you’re trying to attract believers, talking about tortures, being sawn in two, and living in holes in the ground is not likely to win converts any more than promises of division within families.

And the LORD says through Jeremiah that prophets who talk dreamily to people might win the favor of the people but not of God.  Yet speaking the word of God is always going to get the prophet in hot water with everyone else.

Gideon, on the Hebrews list, was a hero of mine as a child, but there’s a part of the story we often forget.  Right after he is called by God to lead the Israelites against the oppression of the Midianites, the first thing he is asked to do is tear down his father’s altar to Baal, and the sacred pole next to it, using his father’s second best ox.  Then he’s to chop up the altar and the pole, and burn that second best ox on the wood as a purifying sacrifice to the LORD.

It turns out his father defends his actions to the enraged townspeople, but how do you think Gideon initially felt about that request?  To follow the LORD is to potentially stand against even your closest family.

We cannot pretend either that these are ancient anomalies or that they are not so.  The history of the Church, the history of our own lives, is riddled with divisions and pain caused by people seeking faithfully to serve their Lord and Master Christ Jesus.

The whole church on earth is split into two parts, and a thousand years later we’re still divided.  The western part of that church is split into hundreds of pieces and five hundred years later we’re still divided.  Congregations kick people out for professing their understanding of the Gospel, congregations split, denominations sever ties with other denominations and self-implode over questions of true discipleship.

We don’t need Jeremiah, Hebrews, and Jesus to tell us this is so.  There is a harsh reality that following the way of Christ is not only hard, individually and collectively, but that it leads to divisions, pain, suffering and all sorts of difficulty.

So what are we supposed to do?  Three things seem to rise before us.

First, we might wish to learn that avoiding division is not a worthy goal as we seek to be faithful.  Jesus and the others aren’t being prescriptive here, saying that the hope of following Christ is that divisions occur.

At the same time, what is clear is that if we are making our decisions so that no one is offended, so that all are always unified, we’re probably not being faithful servants of Christ.  We may not want to disagree with each other, or other Christians, and we certainly don’t try to do things that cause division.

But if Jesus is describing reality here, which all evidence says he is, we also cannot let our fear of division or setback or suffering keep us from doing what we believe our Lord and Master is calling us to do.

Second, this means, obviously, that we are better off when we follow where our discernment tells us God is leading, regardless of consequences.  This means that we need to learn how to discern faithfully the calling of the Triune God.

We need to learn how to understand when we are at a crossroads, where to look for guidance and advice, how to listen to other believers and each other and to the Church, and how our Lord Christ speaks to us.

But when we have done that to the best of our ability, and when we feel we know where the Spirit is leading, we’d best do it, rather than play the part of Peter and say, “this is really for others to do, right?  We’ll play it safe, if you don’t mind.”

And this applies individually and collectively, to our own personal faith journeys and spiritual lives, to the life and journey of this and every congregation, and to the life and journey of all the ways we are joined to other believers in this world.

Third, when we look back at what Hebrews says, we find that division and pain are not the end, that there is something more.  “Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” Hebrews writes, “let us look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”.

Both words are critical.  Jesus is the pioneer, we see that in today’s Gospel.  He goes before us into the world, facing what is often a hard road, with people seeking to destroy him because he embodies the love and grace of God for all.  He is our pioneer, today rather frustratedly and urgently calling to us, but always calling us to follow, even though the road is likely to be hard.

This is a great promise: whatever we might face in being faithful, our Lord has faced worse, and so walks with us.  Even to death, so there is nothing anyone can do to us that is worse than what the One who leads us experienced.

But Jesus is also the “perfecter,” which literally means the “completer,” of our faith.  Hebrews says that the faith journey of those heroes listed was not perfected, that is, completed, without the current generation.  Therefore, says Hebrews, salvation is never completed until all are brought together as one by the Christ who on the cross draws all people to himself.

Whatever divisions we have, whatever pain we suffer, whatever problems come from our faithful discipleship, they are never the end, never the final word.  The final word is always that through the cross and resurrection Jesus has in fact brought peace, not division, and has perfected, completed the salvation God has begun in him.

Make no mistake, the life of discipleship Jesus envisions requires courage of us.

We know that we will receive that courage as a gift of the Spirit when we pray, and so it is meet and right that we so pray.  Let us do that.

But let us also resolve that we face Jesus and his call honestly and openly, without dodging or ignoring, without seeking an easy way around.  It will not be easy for us.  It never is.  Even a child can tell us that.

But we have our Pioneer who goes before us and who in his death and resurrection completes the plan of God which will bring all into the life and grace of the Triune God.

“Yes, Peter; yes, all of you at Mount Olive; yes, all my children,” Christ says, “this parable is for you, not just everyone else.  But be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.  Come, follow me.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/transcript

The titles the Church has given to St. Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, suggest not only who Mary is but speak a truth about who we are, and the honor given her by God is an honor we also share.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the feast of St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord; text: Luke 1:46-55

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

 “O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: ‘Alleluia!’
Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious, magnify the Lord: ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!’”

The English Hymnal of 1906, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Dearmer, is a seminal and important work in the life of the Church at large, not just the English church, and has given us rich hymnody in our own Lutheran worship books.  These words, which we sang at the start of our liturgy, were first sung from this hymnal, and were composed by J. Athelstan Riley, who was the chair of the hymnal’s editorial board.  Riley, in turn, based this particular stanza on ancient Eastern Orthodox prayers to St. Mary, the mother of our Lord, prayers which are still sung in Orthodox churches today.

There is something subversive about these words when they are included in Lutheran books of worship, as they have been since 1958 in this country, and when they’re sung by Lutherans who are dismissive of giving any special honor to Jesus’ mother, who might consider it too Roman Catholic, whatever that means.  Because this entire second stanza is about Mary, calling her “higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” and inviting her, now, to lead the heavenly host in praise of the Triune God.  The hymn assumes she holds an elevated status, reminds us that she bore the eternal Word, and works on the premise that she now leads the praises of God in heaven.

That we sing such praise of a human being leads us to consider what we mean by it.  The Church, especially in the East, names Mary “Theotokos,” God-bearer, for she carried the very Son of God in her womb.  Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, when they pray to her, call her “Mary, full of grace,” and around the Church, save in most Protestant circles, she is thought of as “Regina Coeli,” the “Queen of Heaven.”  All of these names are referred to in our hymn stanza which perhaps many of us have sung without knowing what we were singing.

In our tradition we have only recently been coming back to an understanding of why the Church in so many places has honored Mary above all others, a sense which the Lutheran Reformers always had, but which subsequent generations of Lutherans in many places let fall to the side of the road.

Those same reformers suggested that the saints are a gift to us in at least three ways: they cause us to give thanks to God for showing us such examples of divine mercy; our faith is strengthened when we see the grace of God acting in their lives; and lastly, we learn to imitate their faith and any other of their virtues. [1]

In these three things, our question deepens.  What do we mean when we sing such praise of Mary?  And what does it mean for our lives, our faith, our discipleship?  The answer seems to be circular in nature: when we praise Mary thus, we eventually come to see ourselves in her, and our lives as hers.

We begin with Theotokos, God-bearer, “thou bearer of the eternal Word.”

There is a profound reality about Mary that is almost impossible for us to comprehend and that is utterly unique: she is the only human being to have been physically joined to the Triune God, carrying in her very womb the child who is fully human and fully divine.

Whatever we might think of her, this truth, that she is Theotokos, has to be central.  There is in Mary a human being like no other.  Little wonder that the Church saw in her a link, a connection with God: one of us, yet one with better inroads.

While her son, Christ Jesus our Lord, is the Incarnate Word in our midst, and the One who brings humanity into relationship with the Triune God, Mary is the first of us to experience this relationship, the first of us to know this, and the only one of us to physically live this.  And for that we rightly honor her and think well of her.

In her “let it be with me according to your will,” she welcomed God’s grace into her humanity and brought the possibility of life in Christ to us all.  This generosity of sharing, this gift to the world is forever to be praised.

And yet, as we look at her and consider what her son has taught us and brought to us, we realize this truth: she is not the only God-bearer.

The witness of Christ himself, the witness of the Scriptures, and the witness of the Church for 2,000 years is that we are baptized into Christ so that we in turn bear Christ in the world.  Not physically, growing a child inside our bodies through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  But physically, living with the Holy Spirit transforming us literally from within into people who in our bodies, words, hands, lives, love, grace are Christ, are divine children, are, like Mary, invited to generously share Christ with the world.

In Mary we see ourselves: we are God-bearers to the world, we bring the news of God’s love which death cannot destroy, God’s grace which is sufficient to cover all our brokenness, God’s life which is for the whole world.

And Mary is also “full of grace,” “most gracious” in our hymn.

There is an obvious reference here: in carrying Christ Jesus in her womb, she was literally full of God’s grace, God’s Incarnate Grace.

But in her person, her willingness to do this, her hymn of praise which not only magnified the Lord but the Lord’s gracious overturning of the world, she models for us a life of grace.

She feels the pain of a family who isn’t wealthy enough to have enough wine for their party and brings it to her son, that he might do something.

She feels the grace of God in coming to this world through her and sees the possibility of God graciously raising up the lowly, feeding the hungry, and bringing justice through her work.

And she lovingly brings this child to adulthood that he might be the Life of the world in his death and resurrection, facing that horror and subsequent joy alongside us and waiting with his disciples for the coming of the Spirit 50 days later.

But of course as we see all this grace in her, we are reminded that it is ours as well, that God has so filled us with grace.  Just as we are bearers of Christ, we are vessels of grace in this world.

Blessed by the presence of God, we become that presence in the world.  Overwhelmed by the forgiveness of God, we offer that forgiveness to the world.  Transformed by the grace of God, we are part of God’s continuing gracious transforming of the world.

In Mary we see ourselves, full of grace, given to the world.

And because she is who she is and did what she did, she is “higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” we sing.

We are not privy to the mysteries of God’s heavenly domain, though we live in the kingdom as it lives here with us on earth.  But we cannot help but think of Mary as this hymn does.

Is there any other human being or angel who did what she did, lived what she lived, gave what she gave?  If in fact there are people who are lifted up in praise around the throne of God, which we cannot know for certain, we likewise cannot think of another who would be higher.

And yet when we sing the words of Psalm 8 we are reminded that David saw all of humanity, all of us as a little lower than the angels.

So in one sense when we sing this of Mary we sing it with a little confusion.  It is truly a noble place to be just lower than the angels: who are we, we say with the psalmist, that God would so honor us?  Yet higher?  Can we say that?

Yet what Mary teaches us most of all is that we do not claim such honor, nor does she.  It may be well for the Church to sing it of Mary: it would be unseemly and ungallant not to honor her.  But her gracious “yes” to God, her hymn of praise, her life lived in service to her son, our Lord, was not a life of being above others.

Everything about her that we know from Scriptures is that she lived as she sang in those words which formed our Gospel tonight: she saw herself in this call of God not an exalted queen but a humble servant through whom she was blessed to bear God’s healing for the world.

And in Mary we see ourselves, not as exalted, but as lowly, not as higher, but as servant.

And so the mystery of Mary is the mystery of us.

In living as humble servants of Christ, bearing God’s love and presence into the world, we, like Mary, are privileged to see the wonders of God come to pass through us.  We are astonished to see that as flawed and broken as we are we are not only healed and loved, but through us God is reaching the world.

For us, on this day we honor Mary what we sing of her calls us to our true selves.  There is deep mystery here, much we cannot grasp.  Even as Mary needed to ponder things in her heart, so too do we.

Yet our sister Mary shows us a way to unutterable joy, that in us God is coming to this world, and through us, mystery of mysteries, wonder of wonders, God will continue to heal and save this world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1]  Article XXII, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), and parallel article in The Augsburg Confession (1530)