Embrace Some Mercy (Reflections on Lent 4, Year C 2025)

 

“…we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15:32)

We all know this story, right? The Prodigal Son? I bet you’ve heard it dozens of times in church. I know there are some folks who hate this parable because it seems so unfair. This numbskull kid pisses away his inheritance, but his old man still takes him back and lavishes more stuff on him while his older brother—who has done everything right, mind you—gets bupkis. But there’s more than fairness at issue here. As I read this story over again, I see a lot of stuff—a longing for freedom and self-determination, despair, repentance, forgiveness, resentment, and family.

For a pretty major chunk of human history having a big family was pretty important. You worked on the land, and if you were lucky enough to have a couple of sons, you’d have a built-in labor force to help you out with the plowing and harvesting and weeding and such. The trouble was, when you died, you couldn’t leave your land to all your boys (figure your girls would get married and get land of their own from their husbands). If you did divide it up, and then your sons did the same, in a few generations there wouldn’t be enough land left to put a porta potty on let alone plant wheat or grapes or whatever you were planting. So? You left the land to your oldest son. He’d take over, and his little brothers would each get a chunk of change large enough to get them started in a new life.

You can see where the Prodigal is coming from, right? This kid knows he’s never going to get Dad’s land unless his big brother dies first. Other than wasting his youthful energy on property which will never belong to him, he elects to cash out now and go find himself. His dad agrees to this because every kid needs to grow up, self-actualize, and be free to explore his options. I recently heard a quote from the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (a good Lutheran if ever there was one) who said, “Freedom does not mean being free of something, but free to do something.[i]” The lad in Jesus’ tale may have escaped the constraints of his father and his father’s land, but what was he freeing himself for?

Every dumb thing we’ve ever done must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. The Prodigal, achieving his freedom but lacking the maturity to know how to use it, blows all his cash in some distant land[ii]. If this kid had stayed home and let his pop teach him how to manage money, he’d be in much better shape.

As things would have it, there’s famine in the land and the bottom falls out of the economy. The only gig this kid can score is feeding pigs—which would be an abomination for a nice Jewish boy. It seems he’s working at less than minimum wage. He’s starving and even pig slop is starting to look good to him. What happens when you have no money and no self-respect left? Jesus says he “comes to himself.” That is, he has his moment of repentance.

I think what’s really significant about this parable is the contrition of this protagonist. The boy knows he’s screwed up. He doesn’t try to spin his circumstances or blame his failure on the economy. He knows there’s no one to blame but himself—which, if you ask me, is pretty mature of him. He decides to go home and ask his dad to hire him and let him work as an employee and not as a member of the family. He’s willing to try to earn his way back. As the Psalmist said, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.[iii]”

And his father doesn’t despise it, either. In fact, this kid doesn’t even get much of a chance to apologize before the old man showers him with forgiveness. Ol’ Dad doesn’t even need to hear the boy’s case because A) it’s his son and he loves him and B) he has compassion for him. I think “A” is the way God sees us. “B” is the way we are expected to see others. Maybe the father saw how shabby this kid looked and felt it was his duty to wash, clothe, and feed him (obviously the boy was barefoot). Compassion does not ask how the poor became poor. It seeks to address the poverty.

But now we get the age-old problem of resentment. Big Bro isn’t having any of this forgiveness or compassion stuff. No sir. He’s one of the vast number of us sinners who’d rather see the deserving go hungry than see the undeserving get something to which they are not entitled. This, of course, begs the question: who of us is worthy to decide who is entitled? We just love to put ourselves in the place of God, don’t we? In his great indignation, Number One Son tells his dad Little Bro has “devoured your property with prostitutes.” I’m not sure just how, exactly, he knows this about his sibling. The earlier text says nothing about hookers—it only says the kid was lousy at managing his money. But resentment and indignation can fire the imagination and create lies. Even if we have no proof of the lies we imagine, we will start to believe them as the truth.

Families are messy. Mistakes get made and wounds are inflicted. Sometimes we enjoy the luxury of being wounded so much we don’t want our wounds to heal. I think what Jesus is trying to remind the Pharisees by telling this parable is we are all family. We are all equally loved by our Father. And we are taught by Jesus and the Holy Spirit that some day all the Father has will be ours.

Thanks for reading this week. Be good to your family. Practice patience, repentance, and forgiveness, and come see me again.

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[i] I heard this on a podcast, so I don’t have an exact citation. However, you can look this quote up online. It is attributed to Frau Merkel.

[ii] The Greek here reads “zon asotos” which is best translated “living wastefully” as asotos is the opposite of “saving.” Asotos is also understood to mean “recklessly” or “immorally.”

[iii] Psalm 51:17.

Stuff Happens (Reflections on Lent 3, Year C 2025)

 

Figs & Foliage

At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. (Luke 13:1)

I’ve often had people tell me everything happens for a reason. Personally, I’m not so sure. I think sometimes stuff just happens[i]. I have to wonder who these folks were in the Gospel Lesson appointed for Lent 3, Year C (Luke 13:1-9) and why they wanted to tell Jesus about this brutal atrocity which the Roman governor had committed against the Galileans. What did they expect from him? Did they want him to feel outrage, so he’d rally the people to rebellion? Or did they just want to hear some comforting words from their rabbi?

Sometimes when horrible stuff happens—like a senseless killing or a natural disaster like the falling of the tower of Siloam or a wildfire or tornado—we want to know why a loving God would permit such a thing. In the world of the text, suffering and misfortune could only be understood as a sign of God’s wrath. But then you have to ask, “Why was God wrathful? What did these folks do to deserve this punishment?” You see, if you can come up with some kind of a reason, you might not feel so scared and out of control. Sometimes we even blame ourselves for the misfortune of others. We say stupid stuff like, “If I’d only been there,” or “If I’d only known,” as if we’d rather feel guilty than feel helpless. But the “what if” questions can only make us feel guilty or impotently angry. They never give us peace or any real answers.

Sometimes stuff just happens. It’s no good asking “Why me?” or “Why not me?” We can’t ever control the things which happen to us. All we can control is how we react to them.

Jesus’ reaction to the news of the Galilean massacre gives us a pretty good clue as to what the people who brought him this news were asking. They wanted to know why God had allowed this to happen. If Jesus could give them an easy answer like, “They weren’t worshiping correctly like you guys do, so God had them butchered,” then they could’ve gone on their way feeling safe and smugly superior. But Jesus didn’t say that. I like to imagine Jesus saying, “They were slaughtered because Pilate is a blood-thirsty tyrannical myrmidon of a rapacious occupying power, and he feels he can do whatever he wants, and they just happened to be on the wrong side of him today. God had nothing to do with it. Oh? And those guys who got crushed under the tower of Siloam? Wrong place, wrong time. It happens.”

But Jesus doesn’t leave them in existential angst. He assures them this was not a sign of God’s wrath because God doesn’t work that way. But he reminds them that the clock is ticking down for all of us. We are called to live out our life of grace actively and productively. To drive home the point—as Jesus is wont to do—he tells them a little story about a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit. The tree doesn’t really thrive, it just sort of exists. The owner of the grove sees it as useless. Just wasting space and the nutrients which could be used by fruit-bearing trees. He decides to have it chopped up for kindling—at least it will be useful in that way. His gardener, a guy who seems to have a bit more agricultural know-how than the owner, suggests giving the tree a reprieve. Maybe, he suggests, the tree is good after all, but its life is missing something. Maybe it needs to have a little cow poop thrown its way before it’s ready to do what it’s supposed to do.

My wife always liked this parable. When she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and had to close her neuromuscular practice, she felt useless like a fig tree that wasn’t producing any figs. She needed a change of direction to see what she was capable of doing. Eventually she became involved with a number of charities, many of which are in support of our veterans.  

I think Jesus is trying to tell us these scary moments which shock us into remembering our uncontrollable fragility are opportunities for us to address things we might actually have the power to do something about. Sometimes having the cow poop flung at us leads us to bear better fruit than we thought we were capable of producing. These are moments for repentance.

The word for repent in Greek is metanoia, literally “change of mind” or “change of heart.” We might tend to think of repentance in terms of contrition for bad acts or living a wicked life, but it could mean that what you’re doing is perfectly okay. It just isn’t the best choice for you.

Rotten stuff is going to happen. Get used to it. But if you live in the light of God’s grace, every day is an opportunity to celebrate your baptism, rejoice in God’s wonderful love, and ask yourself, “How am I of service to the Kingdom of God?” Everyone is called to pursue the Kingdom with urgency because none of us knows the day—and it might just be tomorrow—when the Time Out buzzer is going to sound for us.

I end this post with a note of caution. Don’t let others decide what your “good fruit” is or is supposed to be. They may just be judging by the standards of the world, and not by the standards of God. Don’t look to others for validation or try to imagine how they are evaluating you. And don’t even presume to judge the fruit of another. For all you know, the laziest, most impious slob you’ve ever met might be doing his or her good works in secret, knowing our Father who sees in secret will reward them.

Just be yourself. Follow your path. Do your thing. Love God. Love everyone else.

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[i] Normally, I’d say “shit happens,” but some folks get upset when the pastor uses profanity.

Mother Hen (Reflections on Lent Two, Year C 2025)

 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34)

Chickens get a bad rap. I don’t have anything against them personally. In fact, I rather like them—especially when they’re breaded and served with tomato paste and parmesan cheese. But—alas for the poor birds—they’ve lately become something of an issue here in America due to their proclivity to come down with the avian virus, thereby leading to a rather disconcerting rise in the cost of eggs.

But more humiliating still is the use of the word “chicken” in American slang to denote cowardice. As the Gospel lesson for Lent 2, Year C (Luke 13:31-35) indicates, lady chickens often show tremendous courage when their chicks are in danger. A mother hen will open her wings and shield her brood with her own body to protect them from a fox or other predator. If said rapacious carnivore wants to eat baby chickens, he’ll just have to go through Momma first. He may get her, but while she’s thrashing around the little ones might have a chance to get to safety.

In the Gospel appointed for this Sunday in Lent, some possibly well-meaning Pharisees warn Jesus about King Herod Antipas who, it seems, has put our Lord on his hit list. Jesus, like a good mother hen, isn’t about to be intimidated by the jaws of the predator. He refers to Herod as a fox, and we must assume he’s not using the term as a compliment like we did back in the ‘70’s. He’s got Herod’s number, and he knows that Herod is just like every other tyrant. He preys on the weak, he derives his power by being a puppet to a foreign empire, he flaunts his disregard for the Jewish law, and he takes revenge on anyone who speaks against him (as John the Baptist did). But he doesn’t scare Jesus. Jesus has the poor and the sick to care for, and he’s not about to turn tail and run until he’s done what he’s come to do. He almost dares Herod to come and get him.

Herod doesn’t, however. Jesus leaves Galilee and goes from the proverbial frying pan into the fire—to Jerusalem, the very seat of power, where the prophets are martyred by those who refuse to listen. There he will he stretch himself out on the cross and cover with his own body the sins we’ve committed so we can be rescued form the predatory teeth of our own selfishness.

Whenever I read this passage and think of the self-sacrificing image of the mother hen, I’m reminded of 27-year-old Victoria Leigh Soto, a first-grade teacher who gave her life on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Victoria was one of six staff members killed along with twenty young students by a deranged gunman named Adam Lanza. When the shooting started, Victoria urged her students to hide in a classroom closet, a bathroom, or under their desks. When Lanza entered the classroom, Victoria told him the children were in the school gym. When some of the frightened children tried to run from their hiding places, the gunman opened fire. The young teacher threw her body over the students to shield them from the bullets and was killed.

Victoria Soto’s story, her sacrifice on that horrible day, brings home to me the sacrificial love made manifest on the cross of Calvary. The cross is a reminder of how much God loves us. Our response to this love is our confession that salvation is free, but discipleship can cost all we have.

I often wonder why the composers of the Revised Common Lectionary pair certain passages of scripture together. What does Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem have to do with God’s promise to Abram? Or with Paul’s words to the Philippian church? I suspect it might be that all three of these readings have to do with God’s abundant care. Jesus expresses compassion for the sick of Galilee and equal compassion for the arrogant and scornful of Jerusalem. Abram laments God has not given him the dearest desire of his soul, but God assures him he will be rewarded in the fullness of time and reckons Abram’s faith as righteousness. Paul, writing from prison and knowing only too well the cost of his discipleship, can still express God’s love to the believers and assure them that, as citizens of heaven, humiliation will be turned to glory.

As we go through the weeks of Lent—while this world seems to reel more insanely out of control by the day—we citizens of heaven focus on the cross, rejoice in the goodness God has already shown us, feel the protective wings around us, and go forward in faith.

Thank you for spending this time reading my blog. May God protect your going out and your coming in from this time forth forevermore.

Taking the Test (Reflections on Lent 1, Year C 2025)

 

“It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Luke 4:12b)

I had the good fortune, in my seminary days, to study the New Testament under the tutelage of the distinguished Bible scholar, the late Reverend Doctor John H.P. Reumann. Dr. Reumann was a scholar’s scholar. He had an eidetic memory, was scrupulously detail-oriented, and his examinations were tougher than John Wayne with a hangover. Perspiration still breaks out on my forehead whenever I recall sitting for his final exam on the Gospel of John—an exam which, I’m sorry to admit, I actually flunked[i].

In our Gospel lesson for Lent 1, Year C (Luke 4:1-13), Jesus is undergoing a pretty grueling exam of his own. If you read this passage in the New Revised Standard Version, verse 2 might read, “where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Dr. Reumann would be proud of me (I hope) if he knew I had looked this word up in the original Greek and discovered that the word for “tempted” is peirasmos, which has the original meaning of “tested.[ii]”

I’ve been a teacher in one way or another for much of my working life. Whether it was lecturing to college students, teaching special ed in middle schools, or trying to cram Luther’s Small Catechism into the heads of youngsters in my parish preparing to make their Confirmation, I have had to rely on giving tests. I don’t think I’ve ever met a student who looked forward to taking a test. Tests are, generally speaking, regarded with a certain sense of dread. And yet, they are necessary. The reason tests are given (at least for the one who gives the test) is to discover what a student does or does not know. Tests are a necessary diagnostic. We test something or someone for the purpose of discovery.

Even if test-taking is your least favorite activity, you have to admit there is something to be gained from the experience. When I return a student’s paper and they’ve marked an answer wrong, I always let them know what the correct answer is. In this way, even a wrong answer becomes a learning experience. I don’t give tests to embarrass students or trip them up.

Neither does God.

The tests and trials of our lives, as unpleasant as they may be, are all learning experiences. They are meant to teach us about ourselves. We can also learn a bit from the way our Lord was tested.

Two things are important in this Biblical narrative. First, Jesus might be on a high because he’s just been baptized and named God’s Beloved Son.[iii] Second, he’s been in the wilderness for forty days and hasn’t eaten anything. Both circumstances are great opportunities for the devil to do a little testing. Whenever you think you’ve got the world by the Fruit of the Looms or whenever you think you’re lonely, in a confusing and empty place, or deeply in want—that’s the time you’re going to find yourself tested. Whenever we start thinking it’s all about us, the devil is waiting.

Knowing your scripture is a great way to get through a test. Jesus could quote scripture to the devil and was quick with a rebuttal when the devil started quoting scripture to him.

We also learn here what Jesus really cares about. Jesus didn’t come to rule the world. If he did, he had his chance. As Christians, it’s not our job to dominate everyone in society. We’re called to be witnesses, servants, and teachers, not rulers.

We also learn we can be tested, but it’s not for us to give the test. If we start thinking what we do is going to influence God, we are going to be disappointed. It’s pretty dangerous to start firing questions at God and demanding explanations like Job in the Old Testament. We’d best be on our guard against magical thinking which expects God to answer to us. Whenever we do this, we’ve left religion for superstition. True faith is to let God influence us.

Perhaps the most important lesson is knowing that Jesus has gone through what we go through. God understands what it’s like to be tested. So does everyone else. You are not alone in the wilderness, even if it feels as if you are. You can reach out to Christ and to your neighbor.

Finally, we learn there is no final exam. The scripture tells us the devil “departed from him until an opportune time.” There will be another test after this one. You will do just fine on that one, too. Don’t let your heart be troubled, and do not be afraid. You have Jesus. You have the scriptures. You have your brothers and sisters in Christ. You have faith. You’re going to ace this.

God’s peace to you, my friend, during this season of Lent. May the disciplines of Lent draw you closer to God and to yourself.

 

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[i] Yup. Got a big, fat “F” on this one. Fortunately, so did many of my classmates. Dr. Reumann—a great believer in grace—re-weighted his exam to give more credit for the numerous definitions portion of the test and less to the massive essay on the possible theories of the Fourth Gospel’s origin. I’d managed to remember just enough of the later part to get snuck up into a passing grade.

[ii] I remembered in John 6:6 Jesus jerks Philip around by asking him how he thinks 5,000 people are going to get fed. The verse says, “He said this to test him.” The word peirasmos is used in this passage for “test,” so I’m assuming it’s the preferred reading of the word. I can feel Dr. Reumann smiling.

[iii] Luke 3:22

Who Do You Want to Be? (Reflections on Ash Wednesday, 2025)

 

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

Lent always begins with something uncomfortable. “Remember,” we are told, “that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It’s the same thing God told Adam back in Genesis 19:3 when he and his woman were expelled from Paradise.

On Ash Wednesday death takes center stage. In his classic theology, The Cost of Discipleship, the German Lutheran pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” This annual remembrance of our mortality, the black smudge we receive on our foreheads, shaped in a cross, the symbol of humankind’s obscene talent for cruelty and murder, the recitation of David’s penitent Psalm, are all meant to remind us of what Bonhoeffer called “costly grace.”

Costly grace isn’t some reward bestowed because we’ve piled up enough godly works or avoided anything our world might see as grossly sinful. A reliance on our own merits only leads us to arrogance and hypocrisy. We all know that. But Bonhoeffer wanted more than just a formulaic reliance on the doctrine that God is love and will forgive all our shortcomings as often as we choose to exercise them. As a good Lutheran he believed that God’s law brings death—not because we choose to ignore the Law, but because in our frailty we can never keep it. As Jesus teaches us in the appointed Ash Wednesday Gospel (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21) our temptation to sin overtakes even our most pious actions and intentions. The law reminds us of our hopeless, selfish weakness and forces us to look in the mirror of our souls and see a very unflattering reflection. Our notion of ourselves as somehow special and deserving has to die so we will come weeping back to the arms of our savior in all our brittle neediness and fear. The awareness of ourselves as not being who we really want to be makes us like toddlers lost in a shopping mall, desperately crying for the secure embrace of the parent from whom we have wandered away.

The first of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses reads, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he meant for the entire life of a believer to be one of repentance.” He explained in the Small Catechism that we are to die every day to sin and be raised again to newness of life.[i]

If pondering our own death leads us to ponder our life, I’d ask you to think of the turning points in your personal journey which made you who you are today. I would be willing to wager that there was some kind of death connected to those moments. Perhaps it was the death of one of your parents. Sadly, at times, it’s the death of a child or a close friend. It could be the loss of a relationship, or a job, or a dream.

When everything we think we are is stripped away, when, as Shakespeare said, “nothing can we call our own but death, and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones,” we still return to Christ. It was the death and resurrection of Jesus which made the disciples die to the notion of who they wanted Jesus to be and rise to live as God intended them to be.

There’s a story (perhaps apocryphal, I don’t know) about Luther teaching his Wittenberg students about the power of God’s grace triumphing over the demands of the Law. Supposedly, a stunned student asked the professor, “Doctor Luther, does that mean we can do anything we want to do?” To which Luther replied, “Yes! But what do you want to do?”

What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Who does Jesus say you are? The Gospel text—even for such a solum day as Ash Wednesday—gives us courage. Jesus says to us, “Whenever you give alms, whenever you pray, whenever fast.” He doesn’t say, “If you give alms, if you pray, if you fast.” He assumes we are people willing to exercise the desire and effort of discipleship. He knows we want to die to our old frustrations, selfishness, and guilt so we can rise every day to seek his will through generosity and compassion, confession and forgiveness, and renunciation of those things which curve us in on ourselves and keep us from experiencing a relationship with God.

God’s Holy Spirit be with us during this Lenten season, that we all may say in our hearts with Saint Paul, “…living is Christ, and dying is gain.[ii]”

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[i] See section IV of Luther’s explanation of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in his Small Catechism.

[ii] Philippians 1:21.