August 1  

 

What would make for a GOOD LIFE?  I think that a lot of people might answer that question with, "winning a $295 million Powerball lottery." Be honest. Did you ever find yourself daydreaming about winning it? My I imagination conjures up things like: pay-off our debts, put away a money for retirement, and then start giving it away. I'd give to other funds in the church, and give to my college and seminary. It feels nice to dream that kind of financial security. It also feels good to think about myself as a generous person. I congratulate myself that, given the chance, I would know how to put such money to good use.

Well, those kind of daydreams seem harmless enough, right? Harmless until you read today's gospel lesson and tie it in with the reading from Ecclesiastes.  Do you notice a certain similarity between the kind of daydream I had this week and the rich fool in the parable? I can fool myself into thinking that I'm different from the rich fool by telling myself that I'm not greedy: "Look how much I would plan to give away, after all." That's what I would tell myself. But this is fooling myself, playing myself as the fool. 

In 1985, some of you may remember a song by Madonna called "Material Girl."  In the song she described herself as someone who was only interested in material wealth.  If a boy wanted to court her, he better have deep pockets.  She wasn't really interested in the boy.  She was interested in his money.

Ecclesiastes, the first reading, questions the meaning of life too.  It was written by Solomon, the Old Testament Material Boy.  Even pagan cultures have stories about the wealth of Solomon.  The Bible tells us that Solomon the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.  Solomon had the kind of wealth that it takes to experiment with all the life styles of the world.  What did his experiences teach him?

Solomon gives his report in the book of Ecclesiastes.  In this book, Solomon carefully documents his experiments with every life style possible.  He tried wine, women, and song.  He tried hard work.  He tried hard play.  He tried travel.  He tried education.  If you can think of a lifestyle, he tried it. 

The Preacher in Ecclesastes tells us that he has worked hard and has achieved great success in life and he expected that such material wealth, along with power and wisdom, would bring contentment. In the end, though, these accomplishments mean nothing because both the wise and the fool face the same fate�death.

While the living can enjoy the pleasures of the heart and bask in the glow of fame and glory, they cannot take it with them when they die. All of it is "vanity," a word found throughout Ecclesiastes and used thirteen times in today's reading. The message of Ecclesiastes is that all the things that seem so important to humans are not what really matters.

While living comfortably is a blessing, we should not be focused on attaining worldly treasures, because they do not last. This ultimate conclusion may seem very pessimistic, but it can also be very liberating. In the twenty-first century, so many people experience a constant state of stress from being overworked and overextended as they try to amass the things that culture tells them will bring happiness and wealth.

Ecclesiastes could be considered the most depressing book of the Bible.  Solomon found that our lives are pointless if this world is all that there is.  At one point in the book, Solomon tells us that it is better not to be born if this life is all there is.  By actually examining the possibility of life without heaven, Ecclesiastes teaches us that such an existence would ultimately be miserable and depressing.

But here is the hope in the midst of despair - "Ecclesiastes teaches us that without God there is no meaning to life.�  Solomon and many other wise philosophers have condemned the greedy pursuit of wealth.  And yet, many people have made the pursuit of wealth the sum and substance of life.  The problem with this attitude is that wealth takes the place of God.  Material wealth becomes an idol that stands between God and the sinner.

The entry for the First Commandment in Martin Luther's Small Catechism reads as follows: You shall have no other gods.  What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  Anything else that becomes number one in our lives breaks this commandment.  The temptation to make wealth into our god is especially dangerous.

The story of the Rich Fool in today's Gospel is so sad because not only does the poor fellow never get to enjoy his earthly wealth, but he endured eternal punishment as well: "Fool! This night your soul is required of you."

The problem is not that the man was rich, but that the man was a rich fool.  Jesus had many disciples who were wealthy.  The Magi from the east who came to worship Jesus the toddler had the means to offer Jesus gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Joseph of Arimethea who loaned his tomb to Jesus had the means to construct a tomb for himself in the honored real estate near Jerusalem.  Lydia, one of the early disciples in Philippi and Mary the mother of Mark the Gospel writer were wealthy patrons of the church.  Wealth itself is not the problem. 

The problem is letting wealth become a substitute for God.  It is making wealth the source of our security and comfort.  It is forgetting that wealth, like everything else, is a gift from God and not a god in its own right.  The sin is not in the money, but in the attitude toward the money.

Jesus said, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."  One of the saddest tragedies on this earth is the person who spends money he doesn't have on things he doesn't need because he thinks it will make him a better person. 

 Jesus warns us whether we are on welfare, middle income, or upper class, that the love of money can destroy our souls.  This means that rich and poor alike can be fools about money.  The rich can be slaves to the money and other things they have.  The poor can be slaves to the money and other things they want.  People in all classes can see money and things as the salvation from their problems.

With God there is meaning, there is worth, there is salvation, but the treasure of Heaven is not like the treasure of this earth.  Although forgiveness, life, and salvation are worth more than we could ever pay, Jesus, in His love, offers them to us as a free gift.  Although Jesus deserves our unending service, it is His desire to lovingly serve us.  It is Jesus who makes us rich toward God.

The Old Testament lesson tells us of the emptiness of the godless life.  It says, "All is vanity and a striving after wind."  The epistle tells us to "Set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."  Finally, the Gospel relates the story of the Rich Fool who placed his confidence in the bumper crop stored in his barns instead of in the God who gave him those crops.

Jesus closed the sad story in today's Gospel with these words, "So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."  If we spend our lives getting ahead so that God and religion become a nuisance, the end is eternal damnation.  But the reverse of these words is also true and gives us sweet hope. 

When the Holy Spirit plants the gift of faith in us, we will see that the treasures of this earth are nothing and that God is the true treasure.  We will inherit everything God has to offer.  We will hear the blessed words of Jesus, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."  Amen

            Today we celebrate a baptism (or remember the gift of baptism)!  It is in that gift � being buried with Christ and being raised to new life with Christ that gives meaning to life.  We had a funeral this week � and we remember that it is not the wealth that Caroline could take with her � but she rejoiced in the abundance provided by Christ at the banquet table. 

            God is the center of our lives and gives meaning to our lives � not wealth or power or things � but God.  Amen. 

August 8

Biblical time is God's time. As human beings we cannot create time. We can spend time, but we cannot make time.  And no matter what anyone else says, “We cannot save time.” We live in time just as a fish lives in water; we live in God’s time.  It surrounds us and envelopes us, some times frustrates us, but always we live and move and breathe in God’s time.   

I remember my kids asking me almost as soon as the car would start "What time is it? And Are we there yet?"  Some times the trips got kind of long because they were so anxious to get to wherever we were going. 

As Christians we some times ask those same questions!  Did God’s promises arrive yet?  Where’s God right now?  We live in an age of anxiety.  In our world things seem to be changing and we get anxious for what we dreamed were the good old days – the way things used to be.   It is a human tendency to want to hang on to what we know and what we have. When our world is threatened; anxiety results. Anxious people create and grasp on to security blankets of their own making: possessions, doctrines, ways of living peculiar to one time or place that become absolutes.

That’s why I think the story of Abraham and Sarah is so wonderful.  I’m sure they were anxious about the present and the future, but they had faith and trust in God – even when it took a very long time for the promises to be realized.   

In Genesis, God’s story moves away from the perspective of the whole world, and zooms in on one man and one woman. The promise that God gave to Abraham and Sarah and their descendents was that they would be more numerous than the stars of the sky and they would have a homeland and no longer live as nomads – moving from place to place.

The problem is that these promises are not very quick to come about as Sarah and Abraham imagined.  If Sarah and Abraham were to have many descendants then it required at least one daughter or son as a start.

 That promise was not so strange when Abraham and Sarah were young, but eventually possibility gave way to improbability, and improbability to impossibility. Sarah and Abraham were no longer spring chickens. They were not even summer or fall chickens, for that matter.

Perhaps Abraham could still father a child, but Sarah knew her child-bearing days were many, many years in the past. That is why she laughed so hard the first time she overheard their visitors tell Abraham he was soon to be a father

Abraham and Sarah also held fast to a second promise, that of land. That promise was equally impossible, for these two were wanderers, pilgrims who set out not knowing their destination. Even when they arrived in the promised land of Canaan, they lived like strangers in a foreign country, in tents, always ready to pack up and move.

But they did more than hold fast to this promise. Sarah and Abraham knew that the promise of God was also a call, and so they lived out their faithfulness by moving forward. They did not realize the promise in their lifetime. They knew they were in God’s time – and in God’s time all would be fulfilled.  They lived by faith not by sight. 

So how do we measure up with respect tofaith? Some of us find it easy to "hold fast." We know the stories—stories of the Bible, stories of our congregations, stories of faithfulness and sacrifice. These stories matter because the stories we tell and make our own give us our bearings. They help us work out where we stand, who we are, and what we ought to do, but we find it harder to "move forward" into the future. We are not that fond of tents, and we travel with lots of baggage.

Others of us have little trouble moving forward. We like to camp. We travel light. We ask, "Where is God in this mess?  What is God  doing now?" We are a people on the way, on the move, knowing that the future belongs to God, but we need help "holding fast," learning the story of God's faithfulness to promise. We need to know of loyalty and endurance that persevere even when the path is rough and long.

So we need faith. We need to hold fast to the promises of God and to move forward into the future which is God's. The power of the example of Sarah and Abraham is that in their lives  -  In the midst of change and uncertainty, they found God constant and faithful. Therefore, they too could be full of faith, holding fast to God's promises and moving forward into that future with God.

Jesus, on the road to Jerusalem, teaching his disciples and us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear...Instead, strive for God's kingdom and these things will be given to you as well."

There is one verse that is easy to gloss: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (It is also what God says to Abram in today's first reading.) It is God's good pleasure - God's intention, plan, and delight - to give you the kingdom!

 If this is true, then disciples can resist the seduction of wealth, not fall prey to constant anxiety about worldly needs, share what they have with others, and wait expectantly, even eagerly, for the coming of the Son of Man.

But Jesus does not simply hold out faith as a model and goal, much less as a standard by which to judge us. Rather, Jesus creates faith by announcing a promise: Like a parent loves her children deeply and desperately and wants all good things for them, so also is it God's good pleasure to give God's children the kingdom.

Promises create faith. All of our instruction about the Christian life - whether about prayer, money, watchfulness, care of neighbor, and more – are anchored in the promise that it is God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Remembering this promise enables us not only to have faith!

If we adopt the biblical perspective on time, then human beings are stewards of the time God has given to us. Time belongs to God, not to us. Each Christian community will be held responsible for how we use the time God has entrusted to us.

The Christian community is always somewhere along the way, somewhere on the journey of God's people that began with Abram and Sarai and continues even today. It is a cliche but also true: life for Christians is about the journey, for the arrival of the destination—the reign of God—is in God's hands. The author of Hebrews thought his community was on the cusp of receiving the fulfilled promises. Today, we still live on that cusp.

We are joined to God's community of promise through faith, which is a gift from God. We also have responsibilities in the way we use the gift of faith. We must make decisions regarding what we attend to and what time we think it is.

Abraham, like any spiritual pilgrim, met many challenges. Yet his initial positive response to God's challenge, "Do not be afraid, Abram," gave him a foundation upon which to develop and re-develop a profoundly decisive trust. In the polarity of trust versus mistrust, Abraham had found a positive resolution, a right relation. This right relation God reckoned as righteousness.

God is great. God is good. And it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.  It’s God’s time.

 

August 15

          It would be easier, wouldn't it, if we could just put Jesus on the shelf next to Mom and apple pie and all the other uncontroversial, happy-place things that nobody will disagree with? Like baseball. Disney movies. Handmade quilts. Daisies. Wouldn't you like to line Jesus up next to all those good things? We would see him sitting on that row of things that we love and we'd say, "You look good there, Jesus!" "Thanks for everything."

  If only Jesus would just stay there.  Maybe you've seen those commercials for the Yellow Pages. In that cupboard or drawer where you'd expect to find that big yellow paperback book of telephone numbers, there sits a man. He waits patiently, standing by for your questions.   And he doesn't even mind when the cabinet door closes on him. You just know he'll be there the next time, ready to answer to your every need.

We try to make Jesus like that sometimes. We want to come and talk to him when we feel the need to reconnect. He's our go-to guy when we are in trouble or need reassurance or want a dose of "Sunday" in the middle of the week. If he really could be waiting there, in that cupboard, maybe Jesus would quote scripture for us or remind us how much God loves us. Fortified with that, we could turn back to our own pursuits with energy, trusting that he'd be right there for us the next time.

Today’s Gospel is one that we usually hear at Christmas – Mary’s song of Praise for being chosen as the mother of God.  It’s about the beginning of Emmanuel – God with us.  Jesus who came from God to live with us to show us the way.   

But there is another side of Jesus too.  One that is not as easy to hear as Mary’s song of praise.

Luke 12 says, ⁴⁹I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³they will be divided:
father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

We don’t like to hear Jesus say I have not come to bring peace but division or I have not come to bring peace but a sword.  It is a Gospel that is shrill and shocking and it catches us a bit by surprise.  We don’t expect nor do we want to hear Jesus say thing like this. 

Why does it have to be that way?  Why does Jesus promise division in my house and yours?  Can’t we all just get along?  Why must we have division in our world?   Why can’t we Christians be in harmony with one another and the world and with all the other people in the world? 

Let’s face it left to our own devices we humans can find any number of ways to be and means to be divided all on our own.  We don’t need Jesus help in the matter.  We already have blue states and red states … groups that are pro this and anti that.  It seems to me we don’t need any divine encouragement to promote division these days.

   

The truth is Jesus coming matters.  Jesus coming into the world makes a difference in the world.  Jesus coming to us and for us and staying with us through the thick and thin of life and death makes a difference.  Jesus coming has an impact on how we live, what we value, how we act and what we say. 

           Jesus coming to you matters.  Jesus calling to you matters.  Jesus naming you in the waters of baptism matters.  Jesus’ coming to you in the bread and wine matters.  Your tithe matters.  Our service to our neighbors matters.  Jesus’ death and resurrection matter. Our discipleship and faith both individually and corporately makes a difference and they matter. 

           A commitment to Jesus Christ changes things.  A commitment to Jesus Christ changes the way we approach life, our world and its systems, our neighborhood and our neighbors, and the way we use our time, talent and money.  At minimum it has already changed the way have chosen to spend our Sunday morning as opposed to the options others have chosen.

          We live in a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps culture that only offers three strikes before your out.  That might be the good ole American way but it’s not Jesus way.  We serve our neighbors needs first and if they mess up we forgive them 70 x 7.  There is even a commercialized form of religious zealotry that threatens to leave us behind if we don’t measure up.  That’s a commercialized way to make a profit on fear and anxiety in Jesus name.  Jesus does not intend to scare or threaten us into discipleship.  Jesus invites, encourages, and welcomes.  Our culture tells us that if we don’t or cant keep up with the Jones with the newest, fastest, biggest, and strongest we are out dated, slow, small, and weak in mind, body, and bank account and soon to be by passed along life’s high speed super highway.  Jesus teaches us to jump off the highway and get in the ditch to serve the weak, small, and slow.  Outside of these doors, in our workplaces and yes even in our very households and within our own family systems we are measured by our out put, our income, and our education.  You see the division that Jesus brings cuts us lose from the lies that our culture would have us literally buy into.  Jesus cuts through the worlds lies about who we are, what we should be, and what we could be.  Jesus cuts us loose and sets us free to be Gods good people – saints and sinners in need of Gods grace.  Thank God!!!

We are tempted by all that this world, this country, and this economy have to offer.  We are tempted to throw our sole allegiance to something or someone other than Jesus Christ.  We are tempted to measure our worth and value and the worth and value of others by the worldly standards of “the good life” and living “the American dream”.  We are tempted by our do it yourself world and a myriad of self help programs, techniques, philosophies, strategies, therapies, and yes even religions to become self made, owned, and operated selfish people.

Christ has come into our world and into our lives and into our homes carrying a sword that cuts divides and separates us both from the worlds lies about us and from the world of lies we tell ourselves. 

    The division that Christ brings cuts us loose from the materialism and egotism that so marks our modern life.  We are Gods people chosen, divided, separated, and set apart to love and serve God and neighbor.  We are not children of wealth or poverty, success or failure. We are Gods beloved children cut lose and free to selflessly cloth the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and companion the lonely.  Because of our commitment to Jesus Christ we do not value what the world values in the same way that the world values it.  Our priorities are not the prioritized the way the world would have us prioritize them.  We strive to give 10% first and live from the 90% second because that’s what God asks of us rather than live from the 90% first and then give 10% or less because we feel pity for toward someone or something.

    Yes division and crisis is what Jesus brings into the world.  The crisis that Jesus brings is not a crisis of emergency but it is a crisis of URGENCY.  It’s a crisis that precipitates a division among people in terms of how they respond to Jesus.  The crisis that Jesus presents us with is an urgent call that demands action. It demands our S O L E allegiance and our S O U L’ S allegiance fully. Jesus is that crisis. Jesus is the world’s crisis and Jesus call to us calls us away from locking up, locking down, and bombarding our enemies.  Rather this call calls us wash their feet.  This call urges us to offer hospitality to the stranger and foreigner and the other cheek to the smiter. This urgent call calls us to give away a meal, coat, and drink of water to those who ask.

    This is an urgent call to worship the God of your salvation, follow Jesus your savior and listen to, act on and be empowered by the HOLY SPIRIT      p;

 

August 22

August 29