Saying Hard Stuff (Reflections on Pentecost 5, Year A 2023)

"Jeremiah" by Rambrandt 1630

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me…” (Matthew 10:40a)

 Some years ago I took part in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogues. As I recall, the topic for our ecumenical discussion that particular year was “Ministry to the Dying.” Lutheran pastors and Catholic priests sat around in little groups, drinking coffee, and discussing how our two denominations address end of life issues. In my little huddle we came rather bemusedly to the conclusion that we so very rarely actually minister to the dying. We might minister all the time to the bereaved, but addressing death with someone who is holding a one-way pass to life’s exit door is something we don’t do often at all.

 Why is that?

Because most Americans don’t want to talk about it. When I was doing my CPE[i] as an oncology chaplain at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, our Head Chaplain, a United Methodist pastor named Ralph, lectured my unit on Americans’ attitude towards death. “We all know we’re going to die someday,” he said, “but we think we won’t die today, and we won’t die from whatever we’ve been diagnosed with. Everybody thinks they’re going to beat it. A lot of times they don’t.”

Even we clergy folks have a hard time confronting people about the inevitability of giving up the ghost. We all have a miraculous gift for denial and self-delusion. By the time we’re actually sure someone’s earthly warranty is about to expire, they’ve already slipped into a coma and all we can do is anoint them and pray with their loved ones.

Have you ever found yourself feeling like you’re in heavy boots walking through a mine field—when you don’t know which is better: tactfully denying reality to spare someone’s feelings or sharing a necessary but unpleasant truth? If you’ve noticed, dealing with unpleasant truths hasn’t been America’s long suit lately. There are those who don’t want to know anything about a changing climate. Some don’t want to be reminded—or don’t want their school-aged kids to be reminded—that America has a legacy of racial intolerance and that LGBTQ people actually exist. Some people don’t even want to believe that their favorite candidate actually lost a fair election. They certainly don’t want to be told that the way of the Church which they’ve loved and counted on all their lives is changing and won’t ever be the way they remember it or want it to be.

I guess this is human nature. As we learn from our First Lesson for Pentecost 5, Year A (Jeremiah 28:5-9), folks way back in the 6^th Century BCE would rather hear optimistic bovine excrement (metaphorically speaking) than inconvenient truth. The backstory on our reading goes like this: Judah is at the mercy of Babylon. The Babylonians have already ripped off some of Judah’s temple treasures and taken the king and a bunch of other folks hostage. Now they are demanding more tribute. A “prophet” named Hananiah tells the current king that everything may look bad now, but within two years God will smite the Babylonians, they’ll release the prisoners and bring back the goodies they stole, and everything will be groovy.

The prophet Jeremiah begs to differ. He tells the king the Babylonians are way, way more powerful than the Judeans, and if the king resists Babylon, Judah is going to get the crap kicked out of her. Spoiler alert: the king listens to Hananiah. He chooses to believe what he wants to believe and doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by actual facts.

It doesn’t turn out well for him.[ii]

Fortunately for us, Jesus always gives us the straight skinny. For the last few weeks our Sunday Gospel lessons have been from the tenth chapter of Matthew in which our Lord sends out his twelve disciples to do some serious preaching and healing and demon casting. He’s pretty up-front with them. He tells them (and us) that discipleship will be hard. People won’t always like what you have to say. You’ll get called names. You’ll be laughed at. Your family might get annoyed with you. Your kids won’t want to have anything to do with you. You might get yourself in a mess of trouble.

But somebody’s going to get it. Some life is going to be impacted by your example. Jesus tells us whoever receives us receives him. We are his ambassadors, and people will come to know Christ through our presentation—and they will be blessed. It might be hard for us at times, and it may seem to be thankless. But God has not put us here just to waste our time. You may never know how your witness will affect others.

Or, perhaps, you just might get a small glimpse of God working through you when someone sends you a “thank you” note, or picks up a check, or offers you a bottle of cold water. You will know that your faith mattered, and that will be reward enough.

Keep the faith, my friend. Say the hard, unpleasant things if you must, but say them in love and say them in faith.

God be with you ‘til we meet again.

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[i] That stands for “Clinical Pastoral Education,” a purgatorial three-month internship Lutheran seminarians are condemned to do in hospitals or other care institutions between their first and second years of Godly study, often referred to as Cruel Perverted Experience.

 

[ii] See 2 Kings 25:1-7. It’s pretty nasty.

Splashing into Conflict (Reflections on Pentecost 4, Year A 2023)

 

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

Hot diggity dog!

I’m really looking forward to the Fourth Sunday in Pentecost this year. It’s not because the lessons are so exciting—although just about every reading we get in the RCL during Ordinary Time has some jazzy stuff in it. But, no, it’s not the Scripture lesson. This week I’ll get the honor and privilege of baptizing an adorable little baby girl named Ariana. She’s the first adorable little baby girl I’ll baptize whose mother I also baptized when she was an adorable little baby girl.

I guess this should make me feel old, but, strangely, it doesn’t. It’s weird, but haven’t you noticed how kids grow up but we stay the same? I’m just happy for Ariana’s parents and grandparents, and I’m delighted that this adorable little baby girl is being brought to the Lord’s house to receive the outward sign of God’s inward grace through the sacrament of Holy Baptism.

The problem I’m having is with the Gospel text the RCL assigned for Pentecost 4, Year A (Matthew 10:24-39). It’s not exactly the jolliest text for a baptism. Jesus warns the disciples that he hasn’t come to bring peace but “a sword.” (v. 34b) He tells them they can expect to be maligned by others and that anyone who loves their family members more than they love him is not worthy of him. That’s some pretty harsh stuff, don’t you think? He also tells them that he’s come to set family members against each other, like setting a daughter against her mother. This is not a cool thing to be saying on a family occasion like a baptism.

(Of course, if Ariana is anything like her mom, she just might have a little determined streak in her that could keep Mom up at night. Not a mean or naughty streak I must add, but stiletto-sharp intellect, self-confidence, and a tendency to question authority. Kids like that make their parents proud—and really nervous at the same time!)

I won’t try to put spin on the words of the Lord, but I will point out that our evangelist Matthew probably didn’t take down Jesus’ words with a steno pad. If you read this passage through, Jesus seems to be jumping from topic to topic like a kid with ADD. Most smart Bible scholar folks think Matthew had access to a lot of Jesus’ more memorable expressions[i], and that he glued some of them together in his Gospel to make it sound like a series of long speeches. It probably didn’t go down like that. Nevertheless, the through line here—the point Matthew seems to be making—is that discipleship is hard. If we’re not facing conflict because of our faith in Jesus, we’re probably not doing it right.

I can testify with first-hand knowledge that love of Jesus and the Christian faith can set families at odds. Back in the ‘70’s my sister Maryanne was a real card-carrying Jesus Freak. My parents—who loved the Lord, took us all to church, and said grace at every meal—started to complain that Sis was in church too much. Personally, I think if going to church is the worst thing your kid does, you’ve hit the kid lottery. But we had some real discord in our family back in those days. Today, I’d probably admire my sister for standing up for her new-found faith, but I’d argue doctrine with her because I now feel her new denomination was too focused on “End Times” theology to the exclusion of incarnational ministry; furthermore, and I’d probably argue the same thing with thousands of Americans who are my brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, if my wonderful, faithful, church-going parents were alive today, I bet we’d have lots of arguments over the issues of society, and we’d each cite Scripture to prove we were standing on the moral high ground. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he warned us discipleship can lead anywhere from a frosty silence at the dinner table to a jail cell after a protest march.

But, if you stop to think about it, this is really a good thing. Why? Because even asking our grown kids why they don’t go to church can open up a dialogue which will force both sides to go deeper into what they truly believe. Every theological argument is an opportunity for us to engage more deeply with the Word and with Jesus.

When Ariana is baptized, she’ll be baptized into conflict, but that conflict will have rewards—emotional rewards for her, and, possibly, merciful, healing, and life-affirming rewards for people we will never meet whom she will bless through her faith.

May you engage in some beautiful conflict for the sake of your baptism this week. Thanks again for stopping by my blog!

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[i] There’s this cool thing Bible scholars are pretty sure existed called the Q source. It was basically a collection of Jesus’ sayings, sort of “Jesus Christ’s Greatest Hits.” Most Bible experts think Matthew and Luke relied on this material when they wrote their Gospels. You can read more about it if you check out the Wikipedia entry here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

Help Wanted (Reflections on Pentecost 3, Year A 2023)

 

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:36-38)

Last Sunday my wife and I went for a walk in our neighborhood in the late afternoon and ran into two of our neighbors who just happen to be ELCA Lutherans. I’ll call them “Dick and Alice.” They know I’m a pastor, so they sometimes like to share church news with me. Dick said he’d been told that there might be as many as 1,000 ELCA congregations which are currently without a pastor, and there are only a few hundred recent seminary graduates to fill these vacancies. I’ve been hunting around the internet to see if I can find some more accurate figures on the pastor shortage, but there aren’t any stats on the ELCA website (or, at least, I don’t know where to look for them) and the online articles I found on the subject are out of date. But Dick’s a pretty smart guy, and the information I did find seems to bare out his basic point: we have a ton more congregations than we have clergy to lead them.

As Jesus says in our Gospel reading for Pentecost 3, Year A (Matthew 9:35 – 10:23), “the laborers are few.” Being one of those laborers myself, the question which vexes me at the moment is how can I make this appointed reading meaningful to the shrinking handful of folks who’ll be in church this Sunday? I mean, these people aren’t about to leap up from their pews and sign up for seminary classes. Most of them are retired, so their leaping days are pretty much over. Other than being laborers in the harvest, I see them more as the sheep who are “harassed and helpless.”

My Greek sources are a little confusing here, but the word which our Bible translates as “harassed” could derive from a word meaning “to flay” or “lay open.” If you imagine yourself “flayed,” you’d be very vulnerable, wounded, and cut open like your skin had been ripped off. The word translated as “helpless” literally means “thrown down” like somebody knocked you to the ground. Suffice it to say, Jesus saw that folks were getting really beat up and could really use some help. Maybe you’ve felt that way yourself. I think lots of us are feeling “harassed and helpless” what with gun violence (and Philly is getting really bad!), the high cost of darn near everything, climate change, aging, our families—the list goes on.

So Jesus sounds the call for volunteers. Up to this point in the Gospel story he’s been the only one curing the sick and casting out the demons, but he figures it’s time to call up some reserve troops. He deputizes his disciples—a motley assortment of working stiffs, none of whom have seminary degrees—and sends them out to do some work. You’ll notice he doesn’t send them out to save souls for Heaven. Instead, he sends them out to address the needs the people have in the moment and to tell them that the Kingdom of Heaven is already near them.

I have a hunch that if the Church is to survive in 21^st Century America the message won’t be about saving souls but about expressing love and compassion for all souls. The Church which I see emerging is going to be about mission, not about doctrine. It will be about seeking out the “harassed and helpless” and bringing love and healing to them in whatever capacity we’re able to do it.

The Church which is inspired by this Gospel reading will have to rely on lay people and volunteers. I wonder if all of those un-pastored Lutheran congregations remain un-pastored because they can’t afford to pay a living wage to a seminary trained cleric. If so, we’ll have to expect that, in the future, those who are sent out will be willing to do so without a full-time paycheck. They’ll have to be like the disciples who went into the mission field without gold, silver, or copper or a bag for their money. And they’ll have to go out on faith.

Maybe the new Church will do without owning buildings. They may settle in borrowed spaces or peoples’ homes just like the disciples did. There won’t be an emphasis on utility bills or lawn care. The emerging Church will focus on healing the neighborhood and the world, loving God and loving neighbors.

And, of course, like those first disciples, the disciples of today will get into trouble. They will cause controversy and say things which will aggravate people who just wish these Christians would stick to talking about the hereafter and not mention the problems of the here and now. Maybe some of them will end up in jail as Christians have in the past.

So what can I say to those of us who are harassed and helpless? There is still hope. The Kingdom of Heaven has come near, and whenever we donate to Feast of Justice for the hungry or Caring for Friends for the elderly, or Family Promise for the homeless we are bringing that kingdom just a little bit closer. We may be harassed, but we are not helpless, because we can still be here for each other and we can still pray “thy kingdom come” for the new work God’s people are and will be doing.

The laborers may be few, but God can do a lot with them.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.

A Place at the Table (Reflections onPentecost 2, Year A 2023)

 

Hosea and Gomer from Bible Historiale (French 1372)

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up.” (Hosea 6:1)

The prophet Hosea is a pretty funky dude. It wasn’t enough for him just to prophecy to the nations of Judah and Israel. Oh no. This cat had to come up with a dramatic object lesson. So what did he do? He married “a wife of whoredom” named Gomer[i]. Gomer, by virtue (or lack of virtue) of her chosen profession, wasn’t exactly as faithful as a golden retriever. Hosea claims God told him to marry this trollop to symbolize the relationship between God and God’s people. That is, God is loving, good, and forgiving, even though we all act like a bunch of floozies chasing after false gods. But as often as Gomer plays the field, her husband—poor slob that he is—speaks lovingly to her and forgives her.

Like all the prophets, Hosea speaks to the people collectively as a nation. He’s trying to tell the political leaders of his day they are pursuing a bunch of false values which God doesn’t like. God isn’t inclined to protect them from the consequences of their stupid, selfish choices. God will, however, still love them, forgive them, and restore them once they get their act together and decide to be faithful. This message from the 8^th Century BCE might just as well be preached to us today.

What does God want? God wants to restore us to a right relationship, and God wants everyone to be part of that relationship. The only way to make America great is for everyone to have a seat at the table so no one goes hungry, no one is left out, and no one is despised for who they are.

Jesus in our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 2, Year A (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26) seems almost as radical as Hosea. He may not marry a hooker, but he has no problem hanging out with hookers or others who are on the outside of “decent” society. No one of the disciples could’ve been as reviled as Matthew—a good Jewish boy who was working for the occupying enemy, Rome. That’s like a Jewish boy working for the Nazis. Add to this the fact that, as a tax collector, old Matt was touching Roman coinage all day, coinage which had a graven image on it. This made him not only unpopular (Unpopular? No. too tame a word. The dude was a traitor!), but also ritually unclean. It was like washing his hands in a urinal. Yet Jesus chose him. Note: Matthew didn’t seek out Jesus—Jesus chose him.

Jesus sought out the sinners. In fact, Jesus ate with sinners. This was an act which established a close bond. After all, if you like someone, you ask them to lunch, right? There’s something about sharing a meal which glues folks together. The Pharisees got their Fruit of the Looms in a twist because Jesus was eating with folks on the outside of society. “Sinners” could refer to really notoriously wicked people, but in Jesus’ day it could also mean people who were looked down on because they were not 100% observant of the purity laws. “Sinner” was synonymous with being dirty.  

“Dirtiness” could also be extended to sickness, blood, and death. The logic of the day said, “If you’re sick, it must be because God doesn’t like you. Guess you did something to deserve a sucky life, and good people don’t want anything to do with you.” But Jesus goes and does acts of mercy for the sick, allowing a bleeding woman to touch him (both women and blood were looked on as being impure) and is willing to lay his hand on a dead girl to bring her back to life and wholeness for the sake of her dad.

A real perversion of logic, it seems to me, is the way we “non-sinners” like to think affliction is the fault of the afflicted. For example: the neighborhood around Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia has recently seen an increase in homeless people. Just today I saw a tent on the parkway lawn in front of the local Dollar Tree. We’ve even had a homeless guy sleeping in the outside stairwell of our church building. I’ll grant that these folks probably are “unclean”—simply because they haven’t bathed for a while and don’t have much access to plumbing. But I have to ask if homeless people are homeless because they’re a bunch of irresponsible, lazy junkies, or because the cost of housing in Philly far outpaces the wages?

I will admit that there have been some around here who fit the first description, but I’ve also encountered one old guy whose meager public assistance checks can’t even afford him a studio apartment. The folks at Faith invited him to share a soup supper during Lent and some bagels in our Fellowship Hall on Easter. It might not have helped him much, but it brought him to the table.

I am also astounded by the reaction people have to affordable housing. Like the Pharisees of old, there seems to be a certain aversion to having low-income homes constructed in proximity to not-so-low-income homes. Guess folks don’t want to share their neighborhoods with “sinners.”

Lest you see this essay as your Religious Guy’s treatise on class oppression, I really appreciate the fact that, in these verses, Jesus is just as willing to help a rich guy as he is a poor, sick woman or an outcast tax collector. No amount of prestige can help the leader of the synagogue when his little girl takes sick. There are some kinds of suffering to which we all are prone, and compassion is always appropriate.

Jesus lived in a time and culture that was all about honor or shame, reward or punishment. I’m not sure the times have changed that much. But Jesus was never about those things. His ministry, life, and death were about bringing all of us to the family table.

God bless you this week, my friend. Drop me a line when you can.

[i] See Hosea 1- 2.