Waiting for the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-10)

When we think of Jesus, an image enters into our minds.  Perhaps the most familiar is the one of Jesus in profile.  He is generically Caucasian wearing soft robes.  His hair and beard neatly trimmed, his gaze tilted upward in an otherworldly reverence.  You’ve seen this Jesus, haven’t you?

The image might appear above the family mantle, part of the woodwork of your home growing up.  He was one of the constants, handed down from a grandparent to your parents, keeping a constant watch over the household, through times thick and thin, dinners heartily enjoyed or times when the tears flow.  He’s there through it all.

             Or Jesus is there, gazing at heaven above, keeping faithful company in a nursing home resident’s room.  Family pictures, greeting cards from a recent birthday take up much of the space, yet for this picture, the cards and pictures part and leave a little space, giving pride of place to this holy image.  He’s not just another picture of a grinning relative or the frontispiece of a card with a syrupy little verse sent on the occasion of her 93rd birthday.  Jesus is here because the old woman, sometimes not sure who she is some days, has grown quite fond, some would say even trusting, of his company.

Elsewhere, Jesus appears, not in a pride of place setting but where he is meant to look out of place, the effort of some hipster wanting to appear ironic (the goal of all hipsters, yea verily).  It’s amusing to him to keep the mass-produced image of Jesus in his loft.  It’s “Jesus on crushed velvet”.  He bought at a Goodwill store a couple of years ago for a buck.  It usually elicits some sort of smirk or snark when people drop by.  Yet, every once in a while, when he’s by himself, he looks over at the image and feels something about seeing that face that he cannot quite place.

This image of Jesus is like any other image of Jesus we know.  It’s not meant to be a Polaroid, though we can’t help but see that old image in our mind, can’t we?  We know that Jesus did not look like the images we paint or draw or simply gaze upon.  Generally, anybody in first century Palestine who made it past age thirty had lived a pretty hard life already.  As our New Testament professor liked to say, Jesus was like any other male of his age and culture: Jesus didn’t have “dental”.  We tend to “posh” Jesus up a bit out of our devotion and reverence, yet we cannot help ourselves. We like to create images to help us connect to our belief. 

Look around even in the type of Protestants who claim to carry on the tradition of eschewing icons and statues, and you will find somewhere in the church a framed print of Jesus.  He is welcoming the children gladly or kneeling in prayer in a garden.  There is something about an image that helps us “connect”. 

Likewise, the gospel of John offers up this splendid image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  Jesus describes himself as the faithful tender of the flock, who cares intimately for each and every sheep, who looks out for the welfare of all in his care, to the point of laying down his life for the flock.  I keep an image in my office of Jesus the Good Shepherd, as it reflects what Jesus means to me.  I also keep it around in case others visiting my office, especially to speak of matters troubling the soul, might find this Jesus, holding a lamb as one that helps them know that “Church” is a place where the flock can be tended.

Back in the first century, the shepherd image struck a chord with the early Christians, who lived in very uncertain times.  When under persecution or other forms of adversity, they could gaze upon such an image and take strength.  Many of the earliest depictions of Jesus by his followers recall this image frequently.  When in times of challenge, images of the Shepherd’s benevolent care and presence spoke of the care and presence of Jesus being remembered in the lives of early Christian believers.

As time passed, the Good Shepherd image began to fade away.  By the fifth century, it became rare for “new” art among Christians to include a “good shepherd” type image.  This shift away from the Good Shepherd can be seen in artwork created around 430 CE.  In that year, in Ravenna, Italy, Christians created a martyrium, a type of holy mausoleum in honor of St. Lawrence, a Christian martyr who tried to protect holy books from burning.  (He is the patron saint of libraries, and I believe he was well honored this weekend with the library sale in our fellowship hall.  Unfortunately, he does not protect book readers from gluttony.) 

In the ceiling of the martyrium, you will find the Good Shepherd staring down at the Christian pilgrim.  He

sits on a pile of stones in a shrub-covered, rugged landscape.  His beardless, boyish face, framed by wavy shoulder-length hair, turns across his right shoulder toward a sheep who gazes at him, one of six arrayed around him on the rocky outcroppings.  With his left hand, he holds a shepherd’s staff in the form of a cross-shaped labarum, and his right hand extends to touch the uplifted face of a sheep.  (Nakashima Brock and Parker, Saving Paradise, p. 87)

To clarify:  The depiction of a more youthful, beardless Jesus is common in the imagery of early Christian artists.  (The “Barry Gibb” look would catch on later.) The gentle image of the Shepherd caring for his lamb seems ordinary enough yet the scene’s tranquility is offset by what Jesus bears in his left hand.  One expects to see the shepherd’s staff, but in the form of a “labarum”, which looks like a tall cross, yet labarums function as a “royal standard”. 

A century prior, the Roman emperor Constantine had adopted Christianity as the state religion.  In turn, Christianity began shifting into a new era of existence.  No longer “barely tolerated”, the officially recognized religion of the Empire began taking on the trappings of royal favor.  Images of Jesus were not immune.  Rather than the simple garb of a herdsman, Jesus is given finer robes.  One hundred years after Constantine, the shepherd’s crook becomes “gold-plated”. 

The Christian claim to Jesus’ royalty is certainly within the scope of the New Testament, yet the history of Christianity’s shift into imperial religion left some less than desirable marks on church history.  Christianity became part of the royal court’s interests and less about claiming the humility inherent of being part of the Good Shepherd’s flock. 

Ironically, as the Church became “mainstream” we see in church history the problems of a religion becoming vested in its own power and agendas.  Hence the history of saintly types in Christian history often turns on their embrace of simpler lives and values, often moving against the grain of the church’s status quo of the day or suffering all manner of guff from the protectors of orthodoxy.  More often than not, after Christendom got underway, we found ourselves waiting for the “Good Shepherd” to reappear. 

The biblical texts speak of the “good” kind of rulers being those who did not take advantage or exploit the people.  The prophet Ezekiel takes a good swing at royals gone bad, casting them in the role of shepherds who have lived sumptuously at the expense of the people, or the flock for whom they were responsible.  Reading the Bible, you find no “great” good rulers and most of them fall into the “epic fail” category.  In placing the labarum in the Good Shepherd’s hands, a certain loss was experienced by Christianity over the coming centuries.  The Church became “state religion”, keeping Jesus enthroned in the heavens more than in the midst of the world, tending and feeding the faithful and their needs.

Ironically, the Good Shepherd teaching in John’s gospel came about when “establishment religion” got in the way of religion at its best.  Go back to John 9, where Jesus healed a man blind since birth, only to find out that the religious authorities have reacted poorly to this healing.  They have badgered and questioned the healed man.  They have turned him away from communal acceptance, a particularly cruel act as the man had spent his life as a blind man relegated to the edge of society. Now that he is healed and made whole, the man finds that the religious leaders have pushed him back to the margins. The religious leaders here are the type that look for ways not only to control the fate of the flock, they also have a padlock at the ready for the gate of the sheepfold.

John 10 is the response of Jesus to religious folks vested too much in control and power. We are offered a shepherd who is only interested in being “good”, at the ready to serve and to tend.  This shepherd works hard to raise the best flock possible and goes above and beyond.  This shepherd knows each of the flock by name and would not have it any other way.  Jesus sees the folly of what happens to the man healed of his blindness, and he offers this alternative vision for what we ought to be claiming God is doing in the midst of the world.

Throughout its narrative, the gospel of John celebrates that Jesus brings abundant life.  To follow Jesus the Good Shepherd is to be on a pathway that runs through the midst of the world, yet aims to live by the counter-rhythms of the gospel.  We learn where we need to go, how to live by what God, not worldly power, has offered us, from which waters to drink deeply.  We begin to see where God is at in fray of existence, and learn how to live in the fullness of resurrection faith and with ardent trust.

So we learn to speak of Jesus, the one who is not removed from the times in our lives when tears flow and challenges bedevil.  So we learn to speak of the church, the gathering of people who understand their true calling only when they claim their identity as the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd.  So we learn to gaze upon images of Jesus that bring us closer to the gospel faith, seeing the Christ who reigns in glory, yet is best known as if a Shepherd to his flock.

AMEN.

Dealing with Death (John 11:1-45)

            Fresh off the plane, I made a decision.  If I was going to have any “free time”, I had to make my own before the conference started.  Just outside the airport, I found the trains leading into the city and headed in.

            Dreadfully jetlagged and not quite for certain what time of day it was (my body would much rather still be sleeping), I managed to make my way into the heart of the city.  Hopping off the trolley, I found myself in the line of people waiting to get in to the place I wanted to go.

            What would motivate me to do this?

One word:  Rembrandt.

            When I was in the Netherlands two years ago for the Baptist World Alliance annual meeting, I knew that if I did not go to the museum in Amsterdam first thing on the first day, I would miss seeing the Rembrandt collection.

            It seems counter-intuitive, going to museums when you’re far from home, operating on lower energy, or on a tight schedule.  Somehow, over the years, Kerry and I have made it work out to visit museums.  We go because we enjoy, even if time is scarce, seeing the great cultural treasures.  Even if I need a gallon of coffee to stay upright, it would be a shame not to go and experience beholding a great work of art.

             Today, we encounter a great passage from John’s gospel.  If we were to invite leading New Testament scholars to speak about this passage, they would speak for hours on the importance of this text and the role the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead plays in John’s gospel. 

            Instead, churchgoers on Sunday morning quietly pray that we won’t listen to a sermon that covers every single verse of this lengthy scene. We’ve come to church this morning after a long work week, loads of laundry still to be done by the end of the weekend, and wondering if it’s worth fighting the crowds at the grocery store later this afternoon. 

We feel more like the bedraggled tourist on vacation, bleary-eyed and wondering which end is up.  Standing before the vast canvas of John 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead can seem a bit overwhelming.  Do we just look for a minute and then head to the next thing on our list of things to do?

 Despite a love of telling stories about Jesus in lengthy scenes, the gospel of John aims to be a story set in the midst of the world.  Jesus talks in lofty language, yet as the gospel unfolds, the reader begins to see why John’s gospel is oft-quoted, especially passages like John 3:16.  In his own way, John is fulfilling what he sets out to do:  to tell the story of the Word that became flesh and dwelled among us.  

John writes such vivid characters:  Mary, the mother of Jesus, brings a bit of family drama to the scene as she gives Jesus a hard time that he hasn’t made with the water into wine yet.  The Samaritan woman at the well is in the midst of her daily routine, taking care of household needs when she encounters Jesus.  Theology (belief in God, Christ, and the Comforter who is promised) is expressed in terms of “vines and branches”, “water” that quenches thirst and “bread” that fills one’s needs now and forevermore.  Lofty language, yet the gospel according to John is told in terms so familiar, so ordinary and so able to dwell in the midst of us, so much so that even the most common experience in all Creation is not left out:  death.

             This past summer, I got on another plane and several hours later found myself in a different time zone, feeling exhausted as I made my way to the baggage claim.  Why did I drop everything to get on a plane with just the briefest of warnings to book a ticket and head out?

            A death in the family.  It’s the only thing that stopped me in my tracks.  Work kept at a high pace all summer.  I felt like I was lucky to sleep some nights, just trying to keep up.  Yet when that call came, I knew that all of the stuff piled up would have to wait.  Death makes us pause and realize that we may have grand plans or goals, yet when death comes for a loved one, you cannot help but be stopped by news of its coming.  The pretensions of what’s important just dissolve.  It’s time not for spreadsheets and schedules.  It’s time to cry.

             If you were to stay for the longer, guided tour of John 11, I would love to show you around.  The brushstrokes of the gospel’s narrative are fine and masterful.  There is such artistry in John’s weaving together themes and motifs to be celebrated.  But I can tell you are drawn to the same thing that everyone who beholds this story, even for the briefest of glances:  the spectacle of a dead man walking.

            It’s near Easter, when we tell the story of an Empty Tomb and befuddled disciples hearing words about resurrection they cannot quite comprehend, let alone believe.  It’s not quite time for Thomas to have his most famous of appearances, insisting on placing his hand on Jesus’ wounds in order to see proof.  The story of Lazarus’ raising from the dead seems pre-emptive, a teasing image of what is about to be told in two weeks. 

Again, the scholars lingering around John 11 would talk at length about how this story is placed here for good reason.  Before the Lazarus story, the gospel builds up as Jesus performs sign after sign, showing his power and claiming such things in the name of God’s glory.  Then after Lazarus has been raised, the story takes an increasingly somber cast, as Death prepares to come for Jesus himself.

Despite the spectacle of the signs, despite the teachings that reveal the mission of Jesus, sent to the world by God who so loved the world, despite the recurrent talk of the gospel bringing the light to the world, there comes this great crash in the midst of it all. 

Word comes:  Lazarus is ill.  Then: Lazarus is failing, could you please come?  And finally, as they prepare to travel, Jesus himself tells it plain:  Lazarus is dead.

 I know many grew up in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School with this emphasis on memorizing scripture verses.  (Usually, the kid who memorized the most verses by the end of VBS got some sort of prize.)  We all knew that one verse:  John 19:35—“Jesus wept”.

We thought it an easy addition to our list, where far more complex and challenging verses awaited.  Yet, as I come back to it, I wish we had not been encouraged to trivialize such a short verse.   Now as I look at, with eyes somewhere between that of a person trained by New Testament scholars taking delight in John’s artful way of telling a good gospel and that of a person who has now lived a few years, experienced a few of what will be many bumps along the way called life, I turn to that verse and its brevity speaks volumes. 

            In the midst of his work for God’s glory, in the midst of his mission to share his word with the people, in the midst of escalating religious disagreement, the one called “Word made flesh” weeps.  He weeps for a dear friend buried.  He weeps with a family overcome by grief.  He weeps because “the Word made flesh” means just that.

              The raising of Lazarus captivates people (or prompts them to wonder if biblical mythmaking is in progress) as the story ends differently than we know it should.  When Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, the gospel writer does not leave much to the imagination.  Dead is dead.  (Jesus even agrees with Lazarus’ present state.)  The tomb is sealed.  The characters acknowledge what happens to a body after four days in absence of our modern penchant for embalming and cosmetics. 

            The New Testament scholars again gather around and point to the dialogue between Martha and Jesus.  Jesus lays claim to his identity:  “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  And Martha offers up a confession of faith:  “Yes Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”  Scholars also point out that later Martha is the hesitant one when Jesus asks the stone to be rolled away.   Nobody, save Jesus, is really prepared to accept that the story as they know it is about to be revised.

             The story as John tells it continues:

 ⁴⁰Jesus said to [Martha], ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’

⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

Here, we find ourselves transported from the obituaries to what is surely the lead story that grabs the headline.  The life that we race through, yet find ourselves eventually and equally at finitude’s doorstep, has been given an unexpected plot twist.  Striding (as best you can while tangled up in burial clothing), the dead man walks away from his final resting place. 

Is this story fanciful fairytale or wish fulfillment in Sunday school guise?  What do we make of a story that is decidedly unlike the story about death that we eventually must concede our understanding?   This story has a dead man walking, yet still wrapped in the burial cloths.  Later, this same gospel writer will depict Jesus dying by the hand of religious and political powers. 

Jesus is said not to remain in his tomb.  Indeed, the story claims something even more challenging to our modern sensibilities:  resurrection, not just “raising up”.  Jesus will be described as fully overcoming death, surely bearing marks of his wounds, yet the burial cloths are left completely behind.  

The gospel leaves Lazarus’ eventual fate vague, capable of dying again.  The only other appearance Lazarus makes is in the next chapter, still in his burial cloths. When the disciples find the tomb empty, John’s gospel notes that the only burial cloths are left. 

Jesus walks free of death on Easter morn.  

The Simple (?) Way of Faith (Luke 17:5-11)

Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Simple:  it is a word that we sometimes embrace, sometimes yearn to understand, and sometimes try to avoid altogether.  Simple can be a “bad” word, as in a label we hope people don’t use about us.  Simple can be that idyllic way of life that we want to have in our lives, yet things just keep too busy to be ever simple or easygoing.  Simple can be a word that we make our own, living by the grace of being low-key, low-fuss.

The prevailing culture, however, places little value on the simple path.  We Americans tend to value a bright and noisy way of life.  There are those who endeavor to make a simple path, working out ways to live their daily life with less.  Here in Vermont, you very likely know someone who has chosen to live a different rhythm to their life, taking considered effort to live in a “green” friendly house or keeps a disciplined way of living, eating, or spending.  It goes against the grain of American habits, given that we consume a disproportionate level of the world’s resources, all the while living it up in our bright and noisy way. 

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen wrote extensively on Christian spirituality.  His books sold well, and he was never without speaking engagements.  One time, Nouwen was speaking about the ways of faith to a large crowd.  The event planners had so many people attending that they had to place some of the crowd in another room.  They could sit in the room and listen to Nouwen over a PA system speaker. 

As the crowd listened, they heard Nouwen speak about temptation, that which distracts a person from the spiritual pathway.  Nouwen was Dutch, so English was a second language.  To me, he sounded a lot like Henry Kissinger, that deep voice with a heavy accent.  Nouwen spoke about “the temptation to be relevant” (in other words, when we feel as if we must “be” important or powerful if we are to be of any worth or use).  For the people who listened in the next room, the crowd misunderstood his English.  People claimed that he was calling Christians to avoid “the temptation to be an elephant”.  Avoiding the temptation to be relevant, to want power or authority, pride of place or high praise takes a great deal of commitment, learning how to say “no” when those around us more readily say “why not?”   Such a way makes us much smaller than perhaps our egos or drive would care, much less relevant or even “elephant” in our way of living.

It is no easy matter, ironically, to be a simple person.  To live a simple life, you have to work hard to make do with less.  You have to stretch resources rather than “just buy more”.  When true simplicity is gained, you have “bowed and ben[t]” your way through a lot of difficult choices, taking leave of habits, saying no to what others might claim as an easier path if you would just use something that your values say you should not.  Simple takes work!

Following Jesus is a lot like simplicity.  When we commit to being followers of Jesus, it will not be “easy”.  The longer I follow Christ, the more challenging the path becomes, not because it is steep, but rather just taking the basics seriously is hard work. 

Have you spent a long time in prayer?  Christians are called to pray, yet if you were to pray any length of time, you realize that prayer takes practice and discipline.  Getting your body and mind quieted down is task enough.  Now imagine how tough it is to pray in a way that lets your “inner voice” quiet down long enough to listen and just “be” in the moment of prayer.  The basics of faith are really not “basics”.  Prayer, forgiveness, giving praise to God, serving others—Christianity is not built upon “easy”.  The faith should keep you on your toes, no matter how long you have been following the pilgrim way of Jesus.

In the reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus does not let the faithful off the hook.  This brief parable he tells about a master calling out to his servants is a bit unsettling.  The master does not tell the slaves to come in and take it easy.  The parable might leave us with an uncomfortable image of God:  God as the taskmaster who does not reward his servant much at all.

I imagine this image rings a familiar (and likely fearful) resonating note with some of us.  The authoritarian or stern image of God (big dude, flowing robes, flowing beard, and a bit of an eternal grimace) is how some imagine God, the authoritarian with a great deal of disappointment with the world.   Such an image is not merited here in this text.  Jesus images God as a master who gives no praise for servants simply being who they are expected to be. 

The lectionary omits the “lead in” to this parable, as Jesus offers these words of instruction to his disciples:

“Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! ²It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. ³Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. ⁴And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.” 

This passage balances a word of accountability alongside a word of grace.  God expects the faithful to keep the faith, to live as part of this Kingdom/Reign that Jesus is heralding through his teachings and ministry as surely coming and already at hand.  At the same time, Jesus recognizes that following these teachings and living them out well is challenging. 

For example, to seek repentance for mistakes is hard enough.  To be the one who forgives is remarkably more difficult.  In the Reformation era, a Christian was brought before the city authorities in Geneva, accused of being silent when the congregation was to pray the Lord’s Prayer.  (Calvin’s Geneva was a bit too theocratic for its own good….).  The citizen admitted he did not pray the Lord’s Prayer, as he did not wish to pray the part about “forgiving those who trespass against us”. If he did so pray, he knew he must forgive a person who “trespassed against” him, and he was not ready to forgive another.          

This Reformation era story offers a helpful insight into Christian discipleship. We are called to live out some basic beliefs and practices that may appear to be “easy”, but they are best understood as beliefs and practices that take a great deal of dedication to live out.  The person who balked at praying was at least honest about praying.  He knew that if he prayed and believed these words, he would have to live them out.  Just as someone who is a servant of another, so the Christian believer receives no extra reward for following the Master’s teaching.

In this teaching of Jesus, the challenge is not to “please” God in some ingratiating manner, or to fear that God only accepts “A+” disciples and we know that God knows we’ll never measure up.  Grace abounds in this parable inasmuch we are called to be faithful and earnest followers, willing to put in a day’s earnest work, and not seeking effusive praise. 

So it is, when Jesus’ followers cry, “Increase our faith”, Jesus wryly smiles at how we still need more schooling in the gospel.  Faith is not about our ability to keep ahead of the competition, appear relevant, or even to excel for the sake of excelling.  Faith is about the long haul:  consistent, sometimes tangled up in the messiness of life, and committed to day to day consistency, not racing ahead, not about puffing oneself up for the cameras or the headlines.  Faith is being content that God asks difficult things, but does not expect greatness.  God expects each of us to be faithful keepers and doers of the Word.  AMEN.

Lost and Found (Luke 15)

        Have you ever lost something? 

         It can be an aggravating experience.  You reach for something on a shelf and it’s not there.  Why isn’t it there?  It was just there the other day! 

        So the hunt begins. You start looking around this room.  No luck!  You move around the house, at first just sort of looking casually.  But still no luck!  You move things around, moving papers and knickknacks, then as exasperation kicks in, you start going through the house, and then you find…it’s not what you’re looking for, but it’s something else that you haven’t seen in awhile.  (In my case, it’s usually a book, so I wind up stopping the search to read, until of course, the irritation that I was experiencing creeps back in….You start looking around again, this time you’re not just moving this sofa cushions.  You’re picking the sofa up to look underneath.  You’re taking drawers out of the cabinet to see if that thing somehow got way in the back. 

        Pretty soon, your house looks like a warzone, as you’ve been digging and digging.  Now entering hour three of the great search, you’re beginning to think this missing item is thoroughly lost.  

Then you look up, and on that shelf where this whole mess started, you see that the item you were looking for was there all along….on a lower shelf.

Does this sound familiar?

It’s the middle of March, and a package arrives from home.  The package is addressed to you, by what looks like your mother’s handwriting.  Inside is a sweater, an odd thing to receive when winter’s nearly over.  The note inside explains, “Dear son:  I bought you this back in November. Just found it last week.  Merry Christmas!”

Does this sound familiar?

Jesus gives three parables, of lost things:  sheep, coin and son.  You heard the first two this morning, and the one not read is the most remembered of the parables: the story of the “prodigal”. 

Just like the prodigal, the stories of a lost coin and a lost sheep are fraught with drama.  The woman searches her home, so desperate to find this coin.  She turns the household upside down, trying to find it.  A shepherd has a missing sheep, so he takes a gamble, leaving the other 99 sheep, and searching out over hill and dale for one sheep.   A father stands out at the end of the driveway every night, just staring at the horizon, wondering if the lost son will appear on the horizon.

Jesus tells us God’s just like that.

    Does this sound familiar?

         These parables revolve around characters that just won’t say “no” or give up when others think it’s not worth it.  Their friends shake their heads, and say,

“Sheila, forget the coin. It ain’t worth tearing your house apart!” 

“Charlie, just give it up and take a loss on the sheep. It’s just ‘one’ sheep.” 

“Roger, you should just forget it.  Write off that son.  He wrote you off.”

  They don’t listen.  They keep seeking. They keep looking everywhere. They hold fast to a hope that the lost will be found.  In other words, no matter what happens, God doesn’t forget you, and most assuredly, no one is ever “written off” by God.   

            Unfortunately, the Pharisees never got the memo on this.  They see Jesus spending time with, heavens, even eating with people who the Pharisees know to be “sinners”.  They stand there aghast at how (yet again!) Jesus befriends those who ought to be kept at arm’s length.

            A lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son: each of them might seem fruitless to search for, yet the woman, the shepherd, and the father never give up.  The Pharisees are told these stories as they see Jesus sitting among people they have considered “lost”.  To Jesus, these folks may be conflicted, may be rough around the edges, but as far as Jesus is concerned, they are “found”.  These people are not “those people”, that infamous phrase oft-heard when one group thinks another group inferior, suspect, or of little worth.   The parables point to this dinner crowd not as “undesirable riffraff” but beloved children of God.

         At the start of Luke 15, before the parables start rolling, one after the other, the Pharisees are off in the corner, grumbling.  The Greek text uses a word that harkens back to the days when Israel wandered in the wilderness and did not like much of their life, not least Moses’ leadership or the manna provided by God.  The Pharisees are not only grumbling to themselves, they are grumbling hopefully in the earshot of any passersby. 

        Ironically, their chief grumble (“This person welcomes sinners and eats with them”) is exactly what Jesus wishes to be caught doing:  welcoming.  You see, the Greek word for “welcoming” or “to welcome” (prosdechomai) appears elsewhere in Luke’s writings when people are looking forward to God’s own visitation, when they are yearning to see God bring about comfort, hope, and an end to the woes of life.  The Pharisees see Jesus welcoming the seedy and unclean.  Jesus sees a group of people who really need to hear God’s welcome.

Now, here in this story of “a dinner party for the unwelcome and the written off” appears this word where “welcome” means hospitality as well as hope.  When Jesus welcomes the sinners in, it is the gospel he preaches being acted out.  Indeed, he does welcome people, to table as well as to hear of the Kingdom of God.  As one Baptist New Testament scholar observes,  “Place Jesus at a dining table filled with all kinds of folk whom the religious tradition had rejected, and you will see Luke’s [gospel] clear and undiluted” (Linda McKinnish Bridges, The Church’s Portraits of Jesus, Smyth & Helwys, 1997, p. 68).   

          A few years ago, the American Baptist educator and evangelist Tony Campolo traveled to England for some speaking engagements.  While on an early morning train, he noticed a young man slumped in a seat.  The young man was traveling back from Glastonbury, a big music festival in the United Kingdom.  The fellow looked a bit “out of it”, just staring off in his own little world. 

Campolo noticed the man was wearing only one shoe.  He said, “Sir, have you lost a shoe?”  The young man said, “No, man. I found one.”

  Read any of his books or listen to many of his sermons, and you’ll find this type of story abounds in Tony Campolo’s ministry.  He tells these sort of stories to help Christians remember that we tend to ignore or forget persons who don’t fit our own understanding of what “good” or “proper” is all about.  Some folks would look at the stoner on the train and think, “He’s lost his way.”  Campolo sees someone able to be found.

For the Pharisees, they could not believe such people around Jesus were redeemable.  The religious and social maps they followed said these people were beyond good and decent.   They were “lost”. Case closed.

The behavior of the Pharisees lives on in religion and society today.  When I was a child, the little church we first attended had a little motto:  “The little church with a BIG welcome”. As I grew older, I wondered if the church knew itself to be truthful about this motto.  Children pick up a lot when they listen to the adults talk.  During the social time after church, people sometimes talked about things, and I lament some of the stuff I overheard “the grown-ups” saying.  As I became a teenager (and likely in the moodiness that comes with it), I used to look at that motto around the church and think, “Yeah, right.  A ‘big’ welcome, as long as you fit in.”

Like the rest, these parables press home questions that challenge as well as chasten.  How do we understand the call of a congregation?  Is it a household of faith where boundaries abound or the household where the marginal can find full welcome?  Do you see in the life of the gathered people some foretaste, some promise of the welcome given freely to all by the God who never stops seeking the lost?

         Each of these three parables offers very little instruction about how one repents.  Each parable avoids moralizing, instead ending on a celebratory note.  The shepherd invites his friends to celebrate, the woman claims the angels dance in heaven above with joy, and the father throws one of the wildest parties the neighborhood has seen.  The lost are found by the God who is like a shepherd searching, who is like a woman diligently seeking, or who is like a father long pained by a child’s absence and now overjoyed at receiving the prodigal.

    Jesus comes up to you and says, “I’m glad you are here.  I have some last minute details to work out.  I have some folks decorating the room.  I have other people laying out the food.  I really need some help with someone to hold up this sign.   Could you stand over there by the door and hold it up when they come in?”

            You look at the sign and say, “Sure, I will. Of course.”  And you go over to the doorway and take your place.

            And what does that sign say?

The Named Nameless (Luke 16:19-31)

It’s a fairly straightforward parable:  a rich man lived well, and a beggar named Lazarus barely lived.  When both of them died, the beggar was cared for in heaven above, and the rich man found himself hoping somebody would adjust the thermostat.  Okay, end of story.  Let’s all lay our heads down on our pews for the next twenty minutes.

As tempting as it might be to say this is a pretty quick story (and as tempting as it might be to have “nap time” after the work week), this parable does not go quietly into the little box we try to put it in.  Reading this parable is one thing.  Letting our brains get around the implications it has for us as the listener, well, that might just keep us up at night.

Like many short stories the parable is brief in length but delightful in little details that add some texture to the story for attentive readings.   Reading the Greek text, the words used to describe the rich man and Lazarus the beggar pop on the page.  The rich man dresses well (purple and linen served as high end fashion for the era), lives well (swimming pools, movie stars—oh wait, that’s The Beverly Hillbillies….), and eats well.   You could barely see the gate from the rich man’s banquet hall windows, but somewhere, down the rolling hills and the long driveway (a fountain or two dotting the path), there was the gate.  Just outside its locked doors, slumped down in a corner, is a beggar named Lazarus.

In his rags, Lazarus is covered in sores.  He yearns for even the most trivial of scraps from the rich man’s table.  Unfortunately, his likely competition, the dogs of the neighborhood eat up the trash faster than he can get to it.  Adding insult to his condition, the dogs worsen his sores by licking him.  The Greek text adds a nuance our English translations miss, stating that he is placed at the gates, perhaps by a friend.  Lazarus is disabled or barely ambulatory.  He slumps there at the gates, weakened by his lack of food, health, and wellbeing. 

What a contrast between these two persons!  One is dying for a morsel of food.  Another gorges himself to pass the time.  One barely leaves his table.  The other one can barely move.   As we say today, the two men are separated by a great divide. 

These two could be said to have nothing in common, save what is often called the greater leveler.  Death comes for both of them.  While one is likely buried with great fanfare and memorialized with tributes and grand parties, the other is barely remembered, let alone mourned.  Again, the parable spins its contrary-minded worldview:  the rich man is in hell, asking for at least a cup of water to ease his suffering for a moment.  Lazarus has no reason ever to want again, nestled there in the bosom of Abraham.  There’s still a great divide between the two, though this time (and forevermore), the rich man realizes the errors of his ways too little, too late.

At this point, a pop quiz question:  What is the beggar’s name?  <   >  Good, and can you tell me the rich man’s name?

Ah, the parable adds another little detail by leaving a detail out.  The rich man is known for his wealth, but he goes without name.  Lazarus, who could be considered among the many nameless of society, is given a dignity by this parable that the rich man and the economic and social standards of the day could not be bothered to grant.  That is, of course, until the tables are turned…..

In just three Sundays from now, we will welcome to the pulpit the Rev. Dr. Bill Herzog, a New Testament scholar and American Baptist minister.  Bill’s book on the parables (Parables as Subversive Speech, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994) opened my eyes to the daring and often pointed criticism of “the way things are” found in the parables of Jesus.  He notes in this particular parable the named Lazarus and the nameless “rich man”.  As the rich man is in despair as he receives his fate in the afterlife, he cries out for Lazarus to help him. Bill remarks, “The rich man’s recognition of Lazarus exposes his hardness of heart. Lazarus was not just a nameless, anonymous beggar at his gate; the rich man knew his name. Whatever his sins may be, the rich man was not blind. He saw and knew Lazarus…..” (Parables as Subversive Speech, 123)

Lazarus goes without any dignity in the here and now, yet he is named and the rich man (who could be the Bill Gates or Warren Buffet of his day) is never named. Despite all the riches and power, the rich man is nameless in the parable.  Despite his greatness, the rich man was impoverished in charity of spirit and action alike, not caring one iota for this beggar, even as he knew the beggar’s name.  

Such a parable like Lazarus and the rich man raises the disturbing dimension of the New Testament.  The parable unmasks the flaws of society, as it is known by Lazarus, the rich man, the disciples, the sinners, the tax collectors, and the Pharisees.  Here, we encounter the disturbing questions of the parable, challenges that sting the conscience.  How do we know, yet ignore, the plight of others?  How can some live with a high privilege yet others live in grinding poverty?

Don’t let the parable fool you into complacent reading!  This two thousand year old story raises perennial questions.  We must hear this story as a cautionary tale, especially living as we do in a highly affluent country.  Even during a recession, as many U.S. household struggles to hang on, we have not experienced the level of complexity as other nations where clean water is a goal, not a reality, where malaria kills thousands, for want of medications that cost pennies or nets to ward off mosquitoes while people sleep at night.  We must recognize our commitments to tend and support those near and far is a key part of our faith, not just an optional “add-on” or dismissed “liberalism in religious guise” (if Glen Beck is to be believed).  To ignore this parable and its implications is to miss out on a significant strand of the gospel teachings:  the social responsibility values as found in the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

Thankfully, we hear this parable at First Baptist with ears growing ever more perceptive to the needs of the world.  We have made significant strides in recent years to move our congregational mission into a variety of projects serving basic human needs.  Such work understands that people in our community, our nation, and among the many nations of the world, cannot take for granted that humanity has all of its basic needs being met:  shelter, access to basic food and healthcare, or economic sustainability. Through national and international efforts, especially the “Millennium Development Goals” given by the UN, the international community has established that we never should not let the banquet go on while the poor linger, nameless and malnourished at the gates. 

Closer to home, I note that First Baptist received some statewide recognition at a meeting held this past Thursday.  The Vermont Community Foundation is an organization promoting philanthropy for Vermont-based needs.  The VCF President spoke of how Vermont is blessed with a high number of non-profit organizations interested in improving the lives of Vermonters, however, the VCF is hopeful that these groups can be drawn together more creatively to work together, consolidate resources, and improve the type of services provided to a given community.  First Baptist was highlighted for our leadership in bringing Bennington area non-profits together through our collaborative efforts, particularly by what happens each day in this building.  Daily, over one hundred persons find support services and community activities right here at 601 Main, efforts that the congregation has made possible by saying “yes!” to moving forward into this new territory for churches to be in mission.

Among the many non-profit organizations and agencies supported by the VCF, we are one of a very small number of religious groups to receive VCF funds.  The VCF administration has noticed our work and hopes other communities can benefit from what we are pioneering right here.  They highlight our work with the hope that we can be a sign of hope and a collaborative for communities wanting to address local basic human needs.  With the recent grant of $6,000, we will be upgrading the fellowship hall to provide space for non-profit organizations to find a place for meetings, up-to-date video/sound and online capabilities.  Such efforts enrich the community with assets for the use and good of all.  In the VCF’s language, we are increasing “social capital”.  The VCF President defines the term as “the level of connection and trust in a community, the degree to which people know one another and are engaged with each other, and are supported by each other.  It’s a good thing.  People are involved, and people care.  And social capital doesn’t just make our communities better, it helps us as individuals in so many ways….”  (VCF Presidential Remarks, 09/23/2010)

As we move ahead on these projects, we will be exploring opportunities to grow our congregational and community area “social capital”.  For each Sunday of October, the 11 AM “adult forum” will offer a number of speakers to help us reflect on the local and global ways we can be agents of change and good neighbors.  Next Sunday, Charlie Gingo, a senior state official in human services work, will come and speak about the changing needs of Bennington.  (He’s been at the job for three decades, so he brings a wealth of experience about our community.)  Subsequent Sundays will have Sue Andrews from the Food & Fuel Fund and Free Clinic talking about our critical interfaith efforts to meet local needs, then Bill Herzog, noted New Testament scholar will speak about the New Testament and our gospel calling to serve God and neighbor.   We will also hear from Bert Marshall, a director for Church World Service, reflecting on our ways of helping out with global needs.  Then at the end of the month (Oct 31), our mission board will ask us to sit down and talk about the priorities for our mission budget in 2011.  Our speakers this month will help us see and know persons in need. 

Along the way, we will learn about our community and our global needs.  We will hear stories of persons who live in adversity and what we are doing to address basic human needs, near and far.  At the end of the day, we will have the great opportunity to make a difference and enrich the lives of neighbors, near and far.