Christ has shown us that God is with us now and always, and when God is here we rejoice, we serve, we focus on God whom we love, and so are reconciled to each other in Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 16, year C; texts: Luke 10:38-42; Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:15-28

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Let’s hear that once more:

“Now as Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.  She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.  But Mary was distracted by her sister’s serving; so she looked at Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister is working to prepare a meal and will not sit beside you and listen, as I do?  Tell her then to come sit down.’  But the Lord answered her, ‘Mary, Mary, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Martha has chosen the better part, which will not be taken from her.’”

Does that make a difference in how you hear this story?  It does for me.  I’m tired of how easily this story has been read and interpreted to abuse Martha and her focus on serving, and to make it a story pitting two sisters against each other.  Such a quick and easy take falsely positions the contemplative life against the active life, the thinker against the server, and simply doesn’t do justice to the facts of the story.  Imagining Mary as the complainer opens up the reality that the problem Jesus is addressing has nothing to do with the different activities of the sisters.  But that still leaves us with the question of what problem Jesus is addressing, then, doesn’t it?

We don’t easily understand the point of this story.  Beyond the common interpretation critical of Martha we usually hear lies the complicated problem that it is not a particularly complete or well-told story.  There is much detail we, the listeners and readers, want to know that the narrator does not tell: Who else was at dinner?  What was the history between these sisters?  What did Martha say, or better, feel, after Jesus’ remarks?  And most of all, what in the world did Jesus mean?

This story has all the markings of a remembered event that was passed down but not fully understood.  Some listener present, or listeners, saw this moment, which would have been awkward for any of us to witness, wouldn’t it?  You’d remember the time Jesus and Martha had words and everyone felt like slipping into another room.  What was remembered was the precipitating comments by Martha, and the enigmatic comment by Jesus.  People knew what he said was important, but if this Gospel is a fair indicator, they didn’t seem to be sure why it was so.  Luke doesn’t embellish anything, or add any commentary or further description.  He simply relates the brief episode and allows successive new listeners to try their best at what the first disciples likely weren’t sure they understood themselves.

One thing we can say for certain: the ultimate question in this story, the thing we most need to consider, is what Jesus means by “the better part,” the “only one thing”.  That’s the big question.  If we know the answer to that, we can begin to seek it and live.

What is clear from Scripture, and even from the immediate context of this event in Luke, is that both the sisters are doing “needful” things.

The mandate to be hospitable was not only cultural, it was biblical, and Martha is doing exactly what needed to be done.  She has a guest; it is her home, Luke says, so she’s likely the eldest.  It’s her job as host to serve her guests.  Not because she’s a woman; because she’s the householder, the host.  Remember when Jesus, a few chapters ago in Luke, was guest at the home of Simon the Pharisee, and the so-called “sinful” woman came and washed his feet with her tears?  Not only did Jesus bless her activity, he chided Simon for not doing the requisite hospitality when Jesus arrived for the meal.  It was Simon’s responsibility, as householder, and he failed it.  And earlier in this same tenth chapter of Luke from which we read today, Jesus sent out the 70, telling them to accept hospitality and food when offered, and bless those who give it.  Martha’s doing what she must do, as host, to say nothing of her love of Jesus.

Look at Abraham and Sarah in Genesis today.  They rush around getting a meal ready because they have visitors.  It’s not clear at first that they know it is the LORD God.  They just see three men, and Abraham and Sarah jump into action.  Meat is prepared, bread is made, feet are washed, and a place in the shade to rest is offered.  This is what you do.

But Mary also is doing the needful thing: she is listening to her Lord.  How many times have we heard Jesus invite people to listen, to hear?  How often does he teach, hoping some will listen, and then do, act on his words?  Mary knows what to do when the Lord is present: she sits at his feet and hears all she can hear, as eagerly as she can.  She is where she must be.

And so we see with Abraham and Sarah.  They also listen, as well as serve.  God speaks, and Abraham knows now who his guests are.  And some of the most powerful conversation between humanity and God that we know of happens because Abraham listens.  He is told that he will have a son in nine months’ time.  Sarah also hears this.  A promise made decades ago is now given immediacy and will be fulfilled, a marvel.

And then Abraham and the LORD go walking and have that awe-inspiring conversation about Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham models that in prayer we can argue with God and call the Triune God to account for what we know to be God’s grace and love.

So there is this truth today: when the LORD God is in our midst, there is our focus, our hope, our joy.

When we are in God’s presence, we are called to serve God, and to listen to God.  We feed and care for others in many and various ways because our Christ has said he is in the other, the brother, the sister in need.  We offer our best in worship because the Triune God has become one of us and now we know in whose presence we gather and are fed with grace.  We are called to be Martha and Abraham and Sarah, offering our lives – not just dishwashing – in service to the God who has made us and loves us and who has redeemed the world.

But we also are to listen to God, to the words of the Living Word of God, Christ Jesus, who reveals the heart and will and mind of the Trinity to us.  We are struggling with this story this morning because we know we must listen to our Lord and try to understand him.  To sit at Christ’s feet and listen is our true calling as well, to be Mary.

What this suggests is that the one thing, the needful thing, is to be in the presence of the Triune God and fully be there with our gifts and our lives.  Abraham, Sarah, Martha, Mary, all have the amazing joy of being in God’s presence.  All have gifts to offer, all need to listen as well.  As do we, which is the great joy to which both these stories point for us: God is also in our midst.

So for us, it becomes not a question of which activity is more pleasing to God, not a question of dismissing those who are most comfortable serving with a dishcloth or a mop and lifting up those who serve by thinking and pondering God’s Word.  Rather it becomes a question of using those gifts each of us has and focusing them, and our lives, wholly on our Lord Christ and the relationship with the Triune God he brings in his death and resurrection.

What remains for us to consider is the distractions, the occasion for Jesus’ gentle yet firmly pointed critique.

When we hear the story flipped around, with Mary complaining instead of her sister, it becomes clear to see that the action of the complaining sister – whether listening or preparing – isn’t the problem.  It’s the attitude toward the action, and the lack of graciousness and love for the other.

Martha’s distraction with her tasks is the problem, not the tasks themselves.  She is not serving the Son of God fully with the gifts she has, she’s serving and wishing that Mary would join her in that serving.  Worse, she drags Jesus into her distractions and asks him to side with them.

And do you see what he does?  He’s not making some grand, declarative statement that people who work in the kitchen to serve others have to do it without help and others get to sit on their rears and listen to Jesus.  And then be praised for it.  No, he many times has affirmed and honored the kind of things Martha is doing.

What he’s saying is, whatever you’re doing for me, for God-in-your-midst, do it fully and joyfully, and focus on me, on Christ.  When Christ is present, bringing the grace of the Triune God into our very lives, that’s our focus, not any quarrels we might have with each other, or resentments of each other, or wishes for different gifts than the ones we’ve been given, or differing ways of service than the ones we do best.

This leads us to consider what Paul is trying to tell the Colossians.  It’s Paul’s statement of what the one thing, the needful thing is.  Christ is, Paul says, the image of the invisible God, the creator of all things, ruler of all things, head of all things.  If we dare believe that Christ is present with us through the Holy Spirit, as we do claim and believe, Paul says then know this: the eternal, Triune God is present with you as well.

And if that’s so, then all we’ve said about what to do when that happens, all we learned from Abraham, Sarah, Martha and Mary, all that applies.  We serve, we listen.  Because God is with us.

But then Paul speaks of a deep wonder: in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, who is all those things, the image of the invisible God, ruler of all, all that, in Christ’s death and resurrection God is reconciling all things to himself.

That’s the wonder.  When Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, is with us, and when he is our focus, our one thing, our needful thing, we are reconciled with each other, and to the world, and the world itself is reconciled to God.  Our forgiveness received from God of necessity opens up forgiveness and restoration between us.

Being distracted by our envy of others, our jealousy of others’ gifts, our concern about whether we’re getting a fair shake, all this is a sign of our not being reconciled.

I think Paul would say that Jesus is saying this to Martha: “When I am with you, you and Mary and I are one, and there is no room for this fighting, this bickering, this distraction.  Mary knows this, Martha, and I want you to know it as well.”

There is only one needful thing, and the joy of the Gospel is that we have this: the Triune God is present with us in love and grace and in the world, bringing healing to all.

What Christ would have us do is do what each of us does best.  Find our ways of serving that we can offer joyfully and without complaint; find the gifts we’ve been given that we can share; and always, always listen to the Word of God.  Serve God, and the people of God in Christ’s name, and listen.

Because when Christ is with us, we are reconciled to each other and the world is healed.  When that’s not happening, we know we are distracted, and now we know what to do.  Stop, take a breath, and look once more to Christ Jesus and know once again that we are with God and nothing else matters.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Being neighbor to each other is the way God intends to have us break down all that would divide people, the way God intends to heal our hearts and lives, the way God intends to heal the world.  It’s actually pretty simple.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 15, year C; texts: Luke 10:25-37; Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

I remember my mother’s difficulties with leaving behind our hometown after our family moved to St. Paul in the early 80s, when I was already in my junior year of college.  Specifically, how much she missed knowing people and being known by people.  The television show “Cheers” was on the air, and the words to the show’s theme were especially poignant to her: “Sometimes you want to be where everybody knows your name.”  She didn’t know the parents of my siblings’ friends, and they didn’t know her; and that bothered her.  She felt as if she was, and our family was, almost anonymous.  She missed feeling part of a community.

We live in a strange time, a time of great mobility where people rarely live in the same place all their lives anymore.  So unless you live in the same small town for a great many years, your experiences are from time to time going to be like what my mother experienced.  There was nothing intrinsically wrong about Mendota Heights.  There may even have been people living there for decades who in fact felt as if they knew others and were known.  But for the most part, we can live our lives with pretty serious boundaries between us and those who live near us.  And it’s worth asking if even in small towns does that idyllic, nostalgic view of “neighbors caring for neighbors” still exist any more?  Did it ever?

This is how we live when we hear this story: we live in a busy, hectic world, in a large metropolitan area, where people have back patios or decks or balconies instead of front porches, and get into cars inside garages, only opening the outer door from inside the vehicle, and exiting inside that sealed box.  Many neighborhoods don’t even put in sidewalks on either side, let alone one side, unless you live in the city where the sidewalks of old still exist.  This is our world as we hear Jesus tell us this story yet again.

What I wonder, though, is if the reason we need to hear Jesus again is that we might actually like having some space between us and our neighbors.  We might like that we don’t live where “everybody knows your name,” because we don’t necessarily want people to know everything about us, or think they know everything, or believe they should be involved in our lives.  That’s led to lots of pain for people over the years.  What’s the line, in other words, between intrusive nosiness of another person and honest care and concern?  Between our need for privacy and our need to know we are not alone?  Between wanting to help someone who’s in need and being afraid of becoming obligated to continue that help?

There is in this story, at least for me, the question of desirable and undesirable intimacy.

We’ve all heard the thought that in Jesus’ story the priest and the Levite might not have wanted to touch the almost-dead man for fear of becoming unclean.  If he was, in fact, dead, which they wouldn’t know until they touched him, they would be unclean, unfit for service to the Lord until they followed the rituals and times which brought them to religious cleanliness again.

Whether or not we think that absurd today is hardly the point.  It was real enough for them.  Though it seems clear that the Hebrew Scriptures would also have challenged these two to do the just and righteous thing and help, and let the consequences be what they might be.  But at its core, their actions as Jesus tells his tale show two people who do not want intimacy with this man.

To help is to risk a lot: the possibility of being a victim of an attack themselves; the possibility of becoming unclean; the possibility of having to spend money; the possibility of having to be inconvenienced because they’ll have to follow through and get this man to safety; and the certainty that this contact will be by its very nature an intimate one.  Ignoring the person makes life run much more smoothly.

We’ve also often heard, with regard to this story, of the difficulty the Samaritan overcame in helping, because he was considered an outcast to Jews.  As Jesus tells it, the two Jewish leaders ignore this clearly Jewish man, and the outcast Samaritan admirably does not.

But I wonder what the guy in the ditch thought.  I have it on pretty good authority that people who are near death tend to accept help from anyone who offers; however, we have all read of people who are perhaps not hanging by a thread who are able to summon enough energy to reject the services and help of someone whom they consider unacceptable – racially, morally, ethnically, whatever.

So at first the man in the ditch likely doesn’t have a need or an ability to resist.  But what happens when he comes to himself, and realizes that a dirty, outcast Samaritan not only helped him, but touched him, put him on his filthy beast, and brought him here?  That he is obligated now to someone he’d rather not be within 50 yards of?

That’s a drastic example Jesus portrays.  But it seems true to our lives.  There are just some people whose help we don’t want, whom we’d rather would leave us alone.  People who mean well, but who, for whatever reason, we don’t want knowing such things about us, or trying to help.

Intimacy is, well, intimate.  And though there are doubtless infinite variations in how close or how far away any of us build such boundaries and fences around ourselves, it is more than likely that we all have people we’d prefer didn’t know enough about us to be able to help us.  That is, people with whom we don’t want such neighborly intimacy.

And the difference for us from the man in the ditch is that we can far more easily hide our wounds, our pain, our problems, than can a man bleeding from multiple injuries and lying half-naked in the weeds.

So maybe we need to stop saying “It’s not just your neighbor next door Jesus speaks of,” and say, “What about those people next door?”

You see, when we do what we commonly do with this parable, and extend the category of “neighbor” to beyond our geographic neighbors, we conveniently, and probably unintentionally, allow ourselves to ignore those who are greater risks to us.

The Levite and the priest both could likely think of distant people whom they believed worthy of aid and assistance, of someone acting in God’s grace.  It was the one close at hand they didn’t want to know and touch.

And the man in the ditch likely could at least not feel threatened by Samaritans who lived in a town he never went to anyway.  It was the one who touched him and to whom he now owed his life that he didn’t want to think of.

So what would happen if we started to know those people we see every day, or at least who live next to us every day?  Not that we’d open our veins to them and pour out all our fears and concerns of life, but just get to know them.  See them, and be seen by them.  Know them, and be known by them.

I’m sure there are many here who do that, but I’m also pretty sure there are many who do not.  To worry about starving children in the Sudan and actually do something to help is far easier than to engage a neighbor who lives next door in the need they have.  With the latter, you never know when you’ll be done with the care you are giving, or how intrusive in your life they might become in turn.

Jesus is describing to this lawyer a way of living in community which is simultaneously giving and receiving, one which is open in both directions.  It implies great risk, of being vulnerable with other people and therefore having the possibility of being wounded even more deeply.  And even if the person is actually helpful to us, we need to be willing to risk letting others help us, not feeling like we have to slog through this life alone, that it’s OK to ask for and receive help.

But it’s also a way of life where we don’t ask “who is my neighbor?” as did the lawyer, rather, “how am I a neighbor?” the way Jesus changes the question.

I recently read of a congregation, if I remember this correctly, which challenged itself, members to members, to have each person intentionally get to know the 8 people or families that lived closest to them.  The impact this made on all these people’s lives was beautiful; people were able to help and care for their neighbors where before they never would have known enough of them to help at all, and in turn were helped and cared for by these former strangers to them.

It also shouldn’t escape our notice that barriers and walls between people break down not from a distance, typically, but when we begin to have relationships with them.  Horrors like the Holocaust and other genocides aren’t able to happen in places where people actually see their neighbors, know their neighbors, even those different from them, and have relationships with them, begin to care for them.

Rachel Held Evans, a popular Christian writer and blogger, says this about what it means to begin to see and be seen, to know and to be known by our neighbors, by others.  She writes:  “Our relationships have a tendency to destroy our categories, to melt black and white into gray, and I don’t think God is disappointed or threatened by this.  I think God expects it.”  [1]

I think she’s right.  Once we have a relationship, vulnerable and real, with anyone, they cease to be “other” and become “neighbor,” and all abstract stereotypes and prejudices begin to disappear.  We begin to see a world emerge where people truly are neighbor to those with whom they live, and “neighborhood watch” takes on a very different feel from someone stalking an unknown person in their neighborhood, shooting and killing them, and then being declared not guilty by the law.

To understand Jesus’ parable and to live it is to see a way for the healing of the evils and destructiveness which pervade our world and cause so much death and pain and grief.

It shouldn’t surprise us by now, but Jesus in this simple story is actually showing us a path which not only brings life to each of us, but, if lived fully, would heal this world and bring us all closer to the love God desires us to know.  In love of neighbor, both given and received, we are immersed in the glory of God’s grace.

I suppose the only thing we need to ask is, are we willing to do this?

Because we can’t hide behind the defense that Jesus is too unclear about things, that the will of the Triune God which Christ reveals to us is vague, and that life in this world is more complicated than a simple answer.  Moses, in Deuteronomy today, delightfully destroys that bulwark: “Surely this commandment . . . is not too hard for you, or too far away,” he says.  “You don’t need to find someone to go to heaven and get it, or cross the oceans to find it.  It’s in your mouth and your heart for you to observe.”

We can squirm about the uncomfortable reality that following Jesus’ call to love our neighbor – literal neighbors and others – will inevitably create in our lives.  We can resist letting others be neighbor to us, letting them into our lives enough to be God’s grace to us.  We can directly refuse to seek a life which is defined by love of God with all our hearts and lives and by love of neighbor.

What we can’t do is say it’s too hard to understand or know.  Then we’re just like the lawyer, trying to justify ourselves.

Jesus says today that we know “the right answer.”  “Do this, and we will live.”  And so will the rest of the world.  It is as simple as that.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1]  http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/literalist-gluttony

We are baptized into a community that exists for each other and for the world, preparing the world to encounter Christ and the infinite, welcoming love of God Christ brings.  Faith is only lived fully when it is lived in community and when all are included in God’s grace.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 14, year C; texts: Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In one of her reflections for our spring hymn festival of the National Lutheran Choir, which we repeated again last weekend, Susan Cherwien quoted a familiar friend of Mount Olive, Jewish teacher Earl Schwartz, when he said that if the Hebrew Scriptures repeat something three times one would be wise to pay attention.

The lectionary’s plan of readings may not carry the same weight as the Old Testament itself when it comes to repetition, but we could go ahead and say that if the lectionary repeats a theme three times we might at least want to consider that there is something to which we need to pay attention.  Last week from Paul’s letter to the Galatians we heard his declaration that to love one’s neighbor was to completely fulfill God’s law.  Next week we will hear Jesus’ paramount “neighbor” parable, his story of the Good Samaritan.  And in the middle today, Paul once more talks about fulfilling the law, this time the law of Christ, and says that is done when we “bear one another’s burdens.”  So it looks like we need to consider this question of neighborliness a little bit, or at least try to pay attention to what we might need to learn.

I suppose the question is whether or not this is old stuff for us.  We all know we are called to love our neighbor; goodness knows I’ve preached about it here, because God’s Word has spoken of it so often.  Is there anything new here for us, any value to paying attention?

Well, there seems to be an obvious answer to that.  The reason it comes up so often, even apart from this three week stretch, is that it is a pervasive and important theme for Jesus, for Paul, and really for the rest of the New Testament writers.  To say nothing of the Hebrew prophets, for whom it also is a deep concern.  The somewhat obvious answer is the great frequency with which this theme is repeated in Scripture suggests this is a message either we need to hear a lot or one in which we struggle to live a lot.  Apparently the early believers needed this reminder early and often.  So unless we’re certain that we’ve learned this lesson, incorporated it into our psyche and our faith and our actions as individuals and a congregation, we could at least hear Jesus and Paul out today.

There seem to be three key areas where we are asked to pay attention today, and so learn more about our discipleship.

Today we learn that we are paying attention to Christ Jesus when we recognize that salvation is only complete when all are welcome, all are included.

Luke is the only evangelist who tells of a second mission Jesus sends out, this time with more than the twelve.  Seventy are sent out, and seventy was the traditional number for the nations of the world.  So in effect Jesus is sending his followers to the whole world, and their job is to prepare people for their coming encounter with Jesus.

They are sent out with his authority, and they bring his gifts: healing, driving out of demons, and proclaiming the coming reign of God.  As they go, they are his official envoys, almost as if he’s a head of state sending out diplomats; Luke even uses language which is suggestive of that status.

There’s great urgency to the sending, too.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and his death.  And, in his words, the harvest is great.  There are many who need to meet him, hear him, follow him.  So the consistent message here is that this reign of God is not what it is supposed to be until all are included.  And Jesus’ urgency shows how important it is to him that all are reached.

And that’s Paul’s point, too, as he concludes his letter to the churches of Galatia.  There’s much he is saying in this letter, but what becomes clear in his conclusion is that life in Christ is not and cannot be lived alone.

To love one’s neighbor is to fulfill the law, he said in the part from last week.  Now he spends time encouraging his congregations to stay together, to bear each other’s burdens, to not grow weary in doing right, even if it looks like things aren’t working.

Whenever we have the opportunity, Paul says, we work for the good of all.  And especially for the family of faith, he adds.  But isn’t that interesting?  Working for the good of all is clearly bigger than the local congregation or he wouldn’t have to add that on.  The family of Christ is called to be neighbor to all, and to each other, not either/or.

And this is the letter of grand inclusion, as well, isn’t it?  Earlier Paul has declared that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.  Like Jesus, Paul envisions a faith that is not individualistic but communal, where it is only lived fully when it is lived together.  The community of faith is not an insider’s club, but a sign of God’s grace for the whole world.

We should pay attention to that.

We are also paying attention to Christ Jesus when we bear one another’s burdens.

Paul echoes Jesus when he claims in these last chapters that the only sign of discipleship is love of the other.  Paul’s spent this letter describing new life in Christ, where all are included, and arguing against fulfilling an Old Testament law as way to be right with God, that is, circumcision.  In the previous chapter Paul has said that the only thing that counts is faith active in love.  Love of neighbor is the only sign of discipleship, Paul suggests, not any outward observance of God’s laws.

So you don’t follow Jewish law to be made right with God, Paul says.  You are already made right with God, and the only thing that matters is that you live as if that’s the truth.  This is because we are given new life freely in Christ, and are freed from the law of God, another great theme of Galatians.

It is in that new life that we find life lived according to God’s reign, a life where we are called by God and given the fruits of the Spirit to love our neighbor, and bear one another’s burdens.

In our Gospel we also have a reminder why the disciples and we need to hear this message again and again.  Remember last week, when the disciples and Jesus are rejected by a town of Samaritans and James and John want to call down fire from heaven on those people?  Luke says Jesus “rebuked them”.  Three years into his ministry and they still aren’t getting him.

So today Jesus needs to make it clear when they go out on their own, the twelve and the other 58: do not punish those who reject you.  Go into a town and proclaim the good news of the coming reign of God.  Heal.  Bestow God’s peace.  If they welcome you, good.

If they don’t, then do two things.  First, shake the dust off your feet as you leave, a symbolic prophetic gesture.  Some who read Luke’s Gospel might imply from this that this town is seen as ritually unclean.  But perhaps we might read something else into it: don’t carry away anything of this town to your next visit.  Let it go and move on.

Because the other thing they’re supposed to do as they leave such a place is to once more solemnly declare that the reign of God has come near.  They may have rejected Jesus’ envoys, but they are to hear once more the Good News before the envoys leave.

So the center of our life in faith is bearing the burdens of others, loving others in Jesus’ name, and nothing else.

We should pay attention to that.

And we are paying attention to Christ Jesus when we rejoice in the right things, and remember who’s really bringing life to the world.

This is kind of an interesting part of the Gospel, the disciples’ joy on their return, and Jesus’ correction.  They come back from this mission thrilled that even demons submitted to them.  Jesus’ authority in them had done what he promised it would.

Jesus turns it around on them, however, reminding them that it was he who gave them that authority.  In effect, the reason they were successful is that Jesus’ power was with them.  So they aren’t to rejoice in their skills, their brilliant mission, their saving power.  That all belongs to God.

Rather, Jesus says, rejoice that you’re also someone who belongs to God.  Your names are written in heaven.  He focuses them away from the success of their mission after they return as much as he focuses them away from potential failure of their mission when they go out.  In neither case are they to worry about results.  They should simply continue to be glad they belong to God, are part of this new reign.

There’s something important in this for us.  It can be easy for us to assume we know what it looks like to be successful as a Christian congregation, or even as individuals.  And conversely, what it would look like if we failed.

That person, perhaps even a beloved member of our own family, who doesn’t see the need or joy for regular participation and mission in the life of a congregation, whom we just can’t seem to convince to come, or even to find their own church.  Or that person whom we touch with an action of grace and who comes to faith as a result and whose life is changed, an occasion of great joy.

Neither ultimately are our concern, Jesus seems to suggest.  They’re both God’s concern, God’s work, God’s salvation.  Our job, our call, is to seek the fruits of the Spirit to become changed children of God who live a mission of love of neighbor in the world preparing the world for their encounter with Christ Jesus.

And in our own bodies and lives, they are in fact encountering Christ Jesus.  That’s our joy: we belong in Christ and we have a mission to share.  The rest is up to God.  Which is why we can rejoice in our own salvation: it’s not our doing, so we can completely trust that it is real and true.  And continue to do our calling in the world.

We should pay attention to this.

Maybe, in the end, Jesus and Paul and the others are repeating themselves a lot.  But maybe, in the end, they need to.

Until we are able to embrace our true calling to be neighbor to the world and to each other, to be signs of God’s saving grace which includes all and which is not complete until all are included, until we are able to do that as second nature, we’ll need this message.

And so we pay attention to it, as to light in the darkness.  And we pray that Christ our Lord would fill us with the same Spirit as the seventy, that we might go out into the world bringing healing, bestowing peace, and telling the world of God’s coming reign in which all are welcome and loved, all.

Because when that happens, there will truly be cause for rejoicing in heaven as well as on earth.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In crossing boundaries to be with us, Jesus destroys every human construction in order to bring God’s grace and mercy into the world.  By doing so, the Triune God makes we who are many one.  

Vicar Neal Cannon; Time after Pentecost, Sunday 12, year C; texts: Isaiah 65:1-9, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

One thing that never really grabbed my attention until someone pointed this out to me as an adult is that really young kids (think pre-school or younger) don’t particularly care about the accuracy of their drawings.  For example, if you give a kid a blank piece of paper and have them draw, most likely what you’ll end up with is a bunch of scribbles that if you were to give it a name you would title it “Chaos Cloud”.  But if you asked the kid who drew the picture to tell you what it was, they might tell you that it’s a princess unicorn named Sparkles.  The funny thing is, little kids don’t have a care in the world whether or not their drawing looks like a “real” unicorn or not.  They are perfectly content with their outside the lines, imperfect rendering of a mythical creature.

To a really little kid it doesn’t usually matter what they’re drawing on either.  Whether it’s a blank piece of paper, a coloring book, or construction paper, really young kids are happy making their scribbles and imagining what those scribbles could be, rather than concerning themselves with what it is.

So all this brings up the question, why do we give little kids coloring books?  I mean, if little kids are content with making scribbles, why do we give them books where they are asked to color within precise boundaries?  One reason, of course, is so they don’t draw on the walls.  But another reason we give kids coloring books is for us, so we can understand what they are drawing and be able to say, “What a nice bird”, or “Cinderella”, or “princess unicorn”.  We give little kids coloring books to help us understand what we’re looking at.

You see, as adults we have an insatiable (innate) desire to define things.  We get immense satisfaction from drawing careful and precise lines in coloring books and in the world.  We draw maps of the world’s national borders.  We carefully divide our country into red states and blue states.  And we create all sorts of social boundaries, norms, and etiquette that help us to draw lines in the sand that help us define what we’re looking at.

In many ways, this is a good thing.  It is a God-given gift to be able to name and identify things in our world as they really are, or as Luther would say, “to call a thing what it is”.  But sometimes boundaries only serve to divide us and misinform us about each other; creating all sorts of stereotypes and presumptions that serve us in negative ways.  Regardless, boundaries can be a source of comfort for adults, which is precisely why Jesus can make us a little bit uncomfortable at times.

Just before our Gospel lesson today is the story of Jesus calming the Sea of Galilee.  At the beginning of this story Jesus says to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake”.  Now in many ways, this seems like a throw away line, much like the line, “Now they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee,” which begins today’s Gospel lesson.

But to the ancient hearer, these words contain important significance because they give the context of where Jesus is.  Most scholars believe the city that Jesus and his disciples land in is either Gergesa or Gedara, both of which were on the “other” side of the Sea of Galilee; both of which were gentile, or non-Jewish cities.  In other words, Jesus, a Jewish man and teacher, chooses to go into Gentile land where there were all sorts of unclean things that a Jewish person would be forbidden to touch according to law.

One such law that many of us may be familiar with is that Jewish people aren’t allowed to eat pork or for that matter even touch a pig.  Yet the land that Jesus enters is full of swine and swine herders.  What’s more, in this story we’re told that Jesus is approached by a man with an unclean spirit, who is naked, and has been living in the tombs among the dead.  For Jesus to be in the country of the Gerasenes as a Jewish person is to risk being unclean himself and outside the boundaries of the Jewish religion and the Jewish people.

Our reading from Isaiah reflects the discomfort many in the Jewish faith had towards this Gentile region.  Isaiah says, “I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels.”  This verse in Isaiah tells the story of a people who live in opposition to God and do all sorts of things that God hates.  This is the story of a people who are actively turning away from God, refusing God’s mercy and justice.

In this land that Jesus goes to, he is spiritually and religiously out of bounds.  So one might ask, what is Jesus doing here?  Jesus is literally in country which is ‘opposite’ to many of the laws and practices that that are acceptable to Judaism.  As if to confirm that Jesus is not supposed to be here, as soon as Jesus arrives on the other side of the Sea, a man who embodies the Gentile uncleanliness found in Isaiah, approaches Jesus.

Even this demon-possessed man thinks that Jesus shouldn’t be there.  The text tells us that this man says to Jesus, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I beg you, do not torment me.” What have YOU to do with me?  That’s the question that we overlook as a modern audience because we forget that Jesus isn’t supposed to be here.  Holy people aren’t supposed to be in Gentile territory, even demons know that.

It’s clear that Jesus knows something that we don’t and sees something that we don’t see.  Maybe Jesus understood what immediately follows our text in Isaiah today which says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating.”

God is doing something new; God is creating a New Heaven and a New Earth and changing the boundaries along the way.  So when Jesus comes into the country of the Gerasenes, maybe he doesn’t see what is, that is, the Old Heaven and the Old Earth.  Maybe Jesus sees what could be in the New Heaven and the New Earth.  Maybe Jesus is there to create hope, and love, and grace for all who would have it, not just for those within the boundaries.

This sounds like an amazing proposition, to be remade by the grace of God.  But our struggle with this is that for the new to come in, first the old has to pass away and sometimes we’re pretty attached to the old.

After the demon possessed man speaks to Jesus for the first time the text says, “for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man,” and it sounds as if Jesus had already commanded the spirit to come out.  Yet the demon didn’t come out of the man right away.  If Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man before the demon spoke, which the text seems to indicate, why didn’t it happen right away?

One way to look at this is to say that maybe this man is pretty attached to his demons, unwilling to let them go.  Think about this from the perspective of the possessed man.  This is a man on the fringes of society.  This man can’t function normally, he can’t interact with people, he can’t live within the city because he’s a danger to those around him.  This is a man who doesn’t fit into Jewish society, he doesn’t fit into Gentile society, and really he doesn’t fit in anywhere.

He’s all alone, so what friends does this man have other than his demons?

Now, this may sound strange but in a way this isn’t too far-fetched from our modern experience.  People cling to their demons because it’s all they know.  Think of this in terms of addiction.  People with drug, alcohol, or any form of addiction aren’t addicts because they think that their drug of choice is good for them and will really benefit their lives and careers.  They’re addicts because they’ve become chemically dependent on their drug of choice and can no longer cope in the world around them without that drug, regardless of how their addiction affects others.  And so to an addict, the thought of life without the drug is scarier than the thought of life with the drug.  In a way, the addict’s demon is their only friend too.

This is true for all of us.  Our demons are sometimes our best friends.  They are those things in our lives that we hold onto despite the fact that they harm our relationships, our neighbors, our families, our friends, and ourselves.  And despite the consequences, we think we cannot cope without them no matter how much they divided us from God and from the world.

For us, the thought of following Jesus is scary because holding onto Jesus means letting go of our demons and the status quo.  Unfortunately, we’re comfortable maintaining the status quo because even when the status quo is bad, at least we’re used to it.

But by crossing the sea into a Gentile land, Jesus comes to this tormented man who by law is unclean and out of bounds and casts out his demons.  And through Jesus the man is able to embrace a new love, hope, grace, and friendship that says, “God is with you, you don’t need your demons anymore”.

And by following Jesus the boundaries that divide us are destroyed.  As St. Paul teaches, Jesus crosses every barrier, boundary and human construction in order to bring healing, salvation, and forgiveness into this world.  Jesus crosses the boundaries of divine and human, Gentile and Jew, male and female, slave and free, Democrat and Republican, Garasene and Galilean with the power to make us one.

What an incredible promise to be made one; especially to this Gerasene demoniac named Legion, who was many but was alone.

And what an incredible promise this is for us too – that in Christ our demons are sent out so that we too may embrace a relationship to God.  And in this beautiful friendship, the barriers that made us many come tumbling down so that we may be made ONE also and live as a part of God’s new creation.

Thanks be to God.

Broken humanity spends a lot of time and energy trying to cover up their scandal, sin, and shame.  But when Jesus comes into our lives we are exposed as imperfect creatures.  Exposed as we are, Jesus loves us anyways and clothes us in his robe of righteousness.

Vicar Neal Cannon; Time after Pentecost, Sunday 11, year C; texts: 2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:10, 13-15; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36 – 8:3

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Have you ever had that dream where you’re about to do a presentation, or a speech, or a sermon, or you’re in the middle of a crowded hallway and all of a sudden you realize that everyone is looking at you?  “What could they be looking at?” you wonder.  Is my hair messy?  Do I have something stuck in my teeth?  Is my makeup on funny?  You start feeling really anxious because people are pointing and laughing at you. And then all of a sudden you look down and you realize you’re naked!  If you’re a preacher you think, “Thank God for pulpits!”  The rest of you might not be so lucky.

Dreams can often be complicated things but it doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to diagnose what is happening here.  No, we regular arm-chair psychologists and Google experts can pretty easily identify that this type of dream is about more than our fear of being naked.  These dreams are about our fear of being exposed.  They are about our deep and inner fear that people will see us fully as we are and we’re scared to death of that.  After all, nakedness symbolizes scandal.  Nakedness symbolizes sin.  Nakedness symbolizes all the things that we feel ashamed about and if people see us as being naked, how could they love us?  How could God love us?  We barely love ourselves.

This is an age old fear, Adam and Eve old.  Adam and Eve’s first instinct after eating from the forbidden tree was to be ashamed of their nakedness and cover it up with leaves and hide from God in a dark place.  It seems like ever since then we’ve been ashamed of our nakedness to the point where we subconsciously fear and dream about our sins, faults, and failures being exposed.  We love the light, but the last thing we want is for the light to expose our sins leaving us vulnerable to public ridicule and judgment.

In our Gospel lesson today, there is a woman who is a known sinner.  We are not told what her sin is, but apparently this is a publicly known sin.  This woman’s sin is exposed.  It’s out in the open for everyone to see like a reality TV star.  We’re not sure if she is a servant or if she is supposed to be at the Pharisee’s house in any way, but when Jesus arrives at the party and sits at the table, this sinful woman approaches Jesus with an alabaster jar of ointment.

Now at the time it was customary to wash your guest’s feet, but quite frankly what happens next is a little bit obscene.  She begins to weep and wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and dry his feet with her hair.  Imagine if this happened in one of our homes.  We might be a little embarrassed by what was going on or at the very least, feel very uncomfortable because this is a really strange public display of affection (we’re not too into PDA).  This “sinful” woman is intimately close to Jesus, weeping and carrying on.  This is above and beyond regular hospitality.  This seems more like love.  One might wonder, “Did she ever hear Jesus speak? Did she ever speak to Jesus directly?”

Simon, overlooking this spectacle, concludes that Jesus must not know her because if Jesus really knew her he wouldn’t associate with her.  He thinks, “What is this guy doing?  If he was really a prophet he would know that this woman is a sinner.”  And by doing this, Simon distances himself from the woman and from Jesus.  After all, Simon expects that Jesus would associate with him, a Pharisee, but doubts that a true man of God would associate with a known sinner.  In other words, Simon creates two categories of people; a category for sinners, and a category for religious people like himself.

Categorizing people and distancing ourselves from “them” is something this culture does frequently.  We experience this phenomenon through reality TV.  Shows like Jersey Shore, Toddlers and Tiaras, Hoarders, and Bridezillas, are or have been popular shows based on the premise of exposing the inner mess of people’s everyday lives.  These shows are designed to make us judge this bizarre human behavior, and like watching a train wreck as its happening, we can’t take our eyes away.

Reality TV can be addictive because watching people act in obscene ways makes us feel a little bit better about ourselves and our lives.  Reality TV can be a way to cover up or lesson our own scandals, our own sense of sin and shame and say, “Well at least I don’t do that.”

And if you don’t relate to this particular example because you don’t watch reality TV, keep in mind that this is the exact same thing we do when we gossip about others, or mock/make fun of/or lessen other people for any reason.  When we do these things what we’re doing is pointing out other people’s sin and thereby distracting or covering up our own.

Unfortunately, this is often a religious problem too.  The problem almost all religions have is that religious piety can be a tool to expose other people’s sin while at the same time acting as a cloak to hide under.  Religious self-righteousness can be the garment we wear to hide our nakedness, to tell ourselves we are not sinful and that we have nothing to hide.  The scary thing is that if we do this long enough, we can actually come to believe that we are without sin.

And this is exactly what happens to both David and Simon in our stories today.  Out of a sense of their own self-righteousness, David from being a king and Simon from being a Pharisee, they thought they were above others; above and thus not subject to the law.  And acting as men above and beyond the law, David and Simon spend a lot of time and energy trying to expose others while covering up their own sin.  Simon wants to expose this woman as a sinner and he wants to expose Jesus as a fraud.  David wants to expose the man in Nathan’s story.  Both cover themselves in self-righteousness while doing so.

So, Jesus tells Simon a parable.  Two people owe a creditor.  One owes a lot, and one owes a little, but the creditor forgives the debt of both these people.  Which person loves the creditor more?  Simon knows the right answer (David probably would too): the one who owed more is the one who will love the creditor more.  That’s the obvious answer.  But I wonder if Simon picks up on the subtle part of this story.  Namely that Jesus’ question is not about debt.  Jesus’ question is about love.

Jesus’ isn’t preoccupied with who owes the creditor more money and he doesn’t create a scale of holiness based on the debts of each person.  He doesn’t categorize the debt.  Instead, Jesus essentially says that before God, before our Creditor, all our debts are wiped out.  Jesus question then isn’t about our debts; it’s about our relationship with our creator.  Jesus’ question asks us how we respond to a God who doesn’t keep track of debt.

After all it was the “sinful” woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, she’s the one who extends her love and gratitude and hospitality to Jesus, and she’s the one who recognizes the extravagant and free gift that she has been given, not Simon.  Simon seems to think that his sins are somehow less than this woman’s sin and because he doesn’t think he’s been forgiven much, his sin of not loving much is exposed.  David can’t get off the hook either.  After committing adultery and murder God sends David a prophet with a parable that exposes everything that David has done.

One of the Apostle Paul’s greatest realizations is that we all sin and that all fall short of the glory of God.  We can’t cover up our sins with religion.  Piety does not actually make us more holy.  We cannot judge our sins in comparison with others.  Paul writes, “And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”  Put another way, being religious doesn’t justify us, it actually exposes us.  It doesn’t cover up our sins, it unveils them.  Before the Triune God, we are exposed and our sin cannot be hidden.  And this is one of the oldest and deepest human fears, as old as Adam and Eve, to be naked and exposed before God and the world.  When we feel naked we try to hide because we are afraid that if God sees us as naked people, then we won’t have a relationship with God.

Ironically, hiding is precisely the reason we don’t have a relationship with God.  By hiding we take ourselves away from God and don’t trust that God loves us.  We fear being exposed because we fear God’s judgment so we withdraw from God.  In response, God, like a shepherd seeking out the lost sheep, sends his only Son into the world and the judgment that the Son proclaims is found on the cross.

It’s on the cross that we realize that our scandal is forgotten, our shame taken away, and our sins forgiven.  On the cross God’s judgment is love and it’s on the cross that we no longer have to fear our nakedness because Jesus clothes us in garments of righteousness.  Isaiah says it best,

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.

When Jesus sees us naked, exposed, ashamed, Jesus gives us his robe and says, “You’re debts are forgiven.  There’s no reason to hide.”  This is good news for us all that causes us to respond with faith, hope, and love to the point of weeping because we were afraid of our nakedness and Jesus clothed us in righteousness.

When Jesus comes into our lives he sees us as we are.  We can’t cover it up, we can’t deflect attention elsewhere. Jesus sees us as we are and says “you are forgiven.”  And in this we remember our right relationship to God.  A relationship based on love.

Thanks be to God.