Confronting our Blindness

September 29^th, 2013     “Confronting our Blindness”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 16:19-31

          This morning’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus is found only in the Gospel of Luke.  The topic of wealth is very important to the Lukan author, and many of his stories center around this topic of money.  From Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Plain, to the parable of the rich fool, on into Acts and the many lessons on money in the community; Luke spends a lot of time discussing the right approach money and possessions.

          In this morning’s story, we meet an unnamed rich man.  He dresses in purple and fine linen, a sign of his great wealth and a hint that he might even come from a royal family.  He lives in a gated community, walled off from his neighbors, and more importantly, walled off from the poor.

          The counter to the rich man in the story is of course, Lazarus.  (No relation to the Lazarus who rises from the dead in the gospel of John.)  Lazarus lies outside the rich man’s gate, hoping for a scrap of food from the rich man’s sumptuous table.  He is so weak that even the dogs lick his sores, which is not only disgusting but also makes him unclean.  In more ways than one, Lazarus is an outsider in the Jewish society.

          Common thinking in the time of Jesus would lead one to believe that the rich man was a good man.  He had been blessed by God and so he enjoys great comfort in this life.  By contrast, Lazarus would have been considered to be a sinner.  His multitude of conditions; from poverty, to whatever medical condition causes his sores, to the fact that he is literally and religiously unclean, would all be signs of his sinful nature.  Lazarus has been cursed by God.

          So, listeners to Jesus’ parable would have been greatly surprised to find that after death, while the rich man is simply buried, Lazarus is transported into the presence of Abraham by a multitude of angels.  In Hades, where he is being tormented, the rich man looks up and spies Lazarus by the side of Abraham.  Though he seemed unable to notice or even see Lazarus during his lifetime, the rich man suddenly sees him now in heaven.  The rich man calls out, not to Lazarus, but to Abraham, and requests that Lazarus come down with a drop of water for him.

          When Abraham declares it impossible, the rich man continues to make requests.  “Send Lazarus back to my family so they don’t make the same mistakes I did.”  Not possible.  The rich man’s family probably is no better than him, and they will not listen to the word of truth, even if someone rises from the dead.  Here we find Luke clearly hinting to the end of the story he is telling in his gospel.

          Many of the parables that Jesus tells are lost in our modern American culture.  From lessons on farming, to reinterpretations of Jewish law, to trying to imagine wedding feasts in ancient Israel; a lot of these stories are a stretch for us.  But not this one.  The story of the rich man and Lazarus hits frightfully close to home.

          If we back up a bit, we read in verse 14 that Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees who were, and I quote, “lovers of money.”  Who here is a “lover of money”, raise your hand.  I’ll be honest, I know I am.  I spend a lot of time thinking about money in my daily life; from grocery shopping, to bill paying, to wondering about the church budget I am confident you can put me in this category.  I love money, and I know I am not alone.

          Throughout the gospel of Luke, Jesus warns us against this love of money.  I think the point of the story of the rich man in particular, is how blind money can make us.  Though they are living within yards of each other during their lifetimes, the rich man is never able to really see Lazarus.  Sure, the rich man might notice Lazarus enough to step over him on his way to the town square, but he never really sees him there.  The rich man never really considers Lazarus as a fellow child of God.

          This is even more evident after they die.  Even though it is clear to the rich man that he is suffering and Lazarus is not, the rich man is still blinded by his wealth.  Though his money is gone and he is in hell, the rich man still thinks that he is better than Lazarus.  He still thinks that he is above Lazarus in the social order.  That is why he insists on bossing Lazarus around and sending him on errands.  “Lazarus come to hell for me, Lazarus rise from the dead for me, Lazarus do this and that for me.”  He doesn’t even talk to Lazarus about it, he just orders him around through Abraham.  The rich man still doesn’t really see Lazarus.

          I think that is the true chasm that separates them.  It is a chasm of blindness.  And it was there before the two men died and so it is there after they die. 

          I see this chasm of blindness show up in many ways and in many places in our modern American culture.  Think of the real life parable of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.  Blindness caused Zimmerman to shoot a neighbor, while ironically on neighborhood watch.  He obviously couldn’t have been watching the neighborhood that closely, if he didn’t even know who his neighbors were.  Clearly, even though he was on watch, he couldn’t see.  He was blind.

          Think of the way that whenever there is a tragedy in a neighborhood, especially domestic violence or child abuse, all the neighbors they interview on TV say, “They were such a nice person.  We didn’t see this coming.”  We don’t see it coming because we are not really looking.  I think part of us senses the trouble, and in the name of self-preservation, we ignore it.  We are blind because we have closed our eyes.  Like the rich man, we can’t see our neighbors.

          Think of the growing gap between the rich and the poor in our nation.  The income gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99% is at the greatest it has been in over 100 years.  The great recession hit the rich the hardest, because they had the most money to lose, but when it comes to economic recovery, they are the biggest gainers.  Between 1993 and 2012 the incomes of the 1% grew by over 86% while the rest of us saw 6% growth. In think that chasm is even bigger than the one between the rich man and Lazarus in our parable.  Blindness is certainly an issue whenever we are talking economics. 

           The sad truth is that many if not all of us in the 99% are also blind to the suffering and situation of others.  In the commentary “Feasting on the Word” Scott Bader-Saye says that;

“This parable challenges us not simply to share wealth but to become attentive to the poor and suffering persons who are before us, who dwell at our doorstep or, more likely, in another part of town where we do not see them if we do not want to.  Where is the invisible suffering in our world: the suffering of women and children in sweatshops, who are invisible behind the labels we buy; the suffering of animals in factory farms, who are invisible behind our fast food; the suffering of the suspect who is tortured behind locked doors to calm our cancerous fears?  We live within political and economic systems that feed upon the sufferings of others, all the while keeping those sufferings invisible.  The call of Christ is to refuse to live any longer by those convenient fabrications.”

The call of Christ is a call to open our eyes to the world around us.  It is the call to confront our blindness, to admit to all the things we don’t see because we aren’t looking.  The great difficulty is found in the cost to us personally as we open our eyes.  It will cost us to spend the energy needed to truly look at the world around us.  Like Neo peering behind the matrix, we need to look behind our systems that feed on the suffering of others.  And once we really look, it will be very hard to enjoy the comfortable lifestyles we have crafted for ourselves on the backs of other people.

          The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a warning to all of us.  The chasm caused by our own blindness can be deeper and harder to cross in this life than even the chasm of death.  As followers of Christ, and as readers of the gospel of Luke, we are challenged to open our eyes to the suffering around us.  We are challenged to really see our brothers and sisters in this world.  And once we confront our blindness, we are challenged to speak the truth to those we meet, working for God’s justice and peace in this world.  May God open our eyes so that we never again blindly step over a person in need right outside our door.  Amen. 

Never Forget

September 22^nd, 2013       “Never Forget”        Rev. Heather Jepsen

Psalm 79 with 1^st Timothy 2:1-7

          This morning’s psalm is a psalm of lament.  It is a psalm of complaint, of begging and pleading with the Lord.  Even though they make up one third of the psalter, we don’t read lament psalms very much in worship.  They don’t fit the bill for the “good news” that we have come to expect on Sunday mornings.  Psalm 79 is pretty depressing, what with its images of dead bodies and its calls for bloodshed.  It is certainly not one of those happy-clappy psalms that we like to turn into praise music.  And yet here it is, smack dab in the middle of our holy word, showing up in our lectionary readings, and demanding our attention for this week at least.

          Biblical scholars mostly agree that this psalm was probably written around 587 BCE.  Around that time the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and made captive the people.  This is a song of national lament, for all the people of Jerusalem, and you can hear the heartache in their prayer to God.

          “The nations have come into your land, your inheritance, O God!  They have defiled the temple, they have made the city into ruins.”  All that was once holy is lost.  The psalm is graphic in its depiction of violence, so many have died that the bodies have been left lying out under the sun.  “The bodies have been left as food for the birds, the flesh of the faithful as food for wild animals.  The blood of God’s people has been poured out like water on the earth.”  It’s a pretty miserable and God-forsaken picture of suffering.

          The psalmist pleads to God for mercy, and for an end to the violence.  “How long will you rage, O Lord?”  Following the common theme that destruction and suffering are punishment for sin, the Psalmist looks to God for an end to the violence.  Or at least an end to the violence against the people of Israel.

          As soon as the psalmist prays for the end of God’s anger, the writer turns around and asks that that very anger of God be kindled against the neighbors of Israel.  “Pour out your wrath on the nations who don’t know you.  Let vengeance for the blood of the people of Israel be known among the nations.  Pay back our neighbors seven times over.”  The psalmist urges the Lord to deal with the people of Israel with compassion, but to avenge Israel’s enemies with violence and bloodshed.

          While we may look down on this as a primitive way of thinking, it is not that far from our modern American experience.  Just over a week ago, this nation paused to remember the terrible acts of September 11^th.  All over the newspaper, internet, and local communities folks repeated the mantra of “never forget” throughout last week.  I often wonder what that really means, for I don’t think that any of us who lived through such a scary and powerful experience are likely to forget it any time soon.  To tell you the truth, I am actually quite bothered by such statements. 

Let me explain.  I am sure that many of you remember the after effects of the September 11^th attacks.  Yes, the nation was brought together in a time of solidarity and mourning, and that was a powerfully good thing for us.  But we were also brought together in a call for vengeance, and that wasn’t good.  Like the people of Israel in Psalm 79, many people of the United States looked to God after September 11^th and called for vengeance.  As we thought of the bodies at the World Trade Center, we called for bloodshed in other nations.  We called for the bodies of our enemies, and we got them.

 As you know, we lost around 3,000 Americans on September 11^th.  Since that time over 100,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and we have lost over 6,500 of our own American soldiers.  We called for bloodshed, we called for bodies, and then we made it happen.  The price we have paid with our own sons and daughters is high.

       And so, as September 11^th rolls around year after year and people tell me “never forget” I want to ask what it is exactly that they want me to remember.  Do you want me to remember the way that we banded together as a nation in our suffering?  I can get behind that.  Do you want me to remember all the people that died that day and that have died in conflicts brought about since that terrible day?  I can understand that.  Do you want me to remember the communal cry for justice and bloodshed, the thought that God was on our side in this fight against the Arabs, this rallying for violent revenge?  I am afraid that many calls to “never forget” are calls to reignite this righteous fervor.  And I don’t want to remember that.  I don’t want to rekindle that.  That, I am ready to forget.

So often we have an us against them mentality.  And it is a common, natural, human experience.  We read all about it, here in Psalm 79, and I am sure people will use and have used this scripture as a justification for such violence.  But I think that is wrong.  I think the sentiments of the psalmist here, while natural, are misguided, and wrong.

Just as we have come to reject the idea that suffering is a punishment from God.  So, I have come to reject the idea that we, or anybody, is a favored people.  I reject the language and the sentiment of the psalmist here.  He writes “Pay back our neighbors seven times over, right where it hurts, for the insults they used on you, Lord.  We are, after all, your people and the sheep of your very own pasture.”  That kind of writing makes me sick and I hear it so much even now in America.  We are your people, we are a Christian nation, the Christian nation, God Bless America.  That kind of elitist language and thinking is just plain wrong.

I am of the opinion that God created and loves all people.  I am of the opinion that God values all life.  I am of the opinion that we are the same as our enemies.  Do we not both have hearts that beat with love?  Do we not both cry when we see death and destruction?  Do we not both bleed?  People are people, no matter where they were born.

Believe it or not, I get these crazy ideas, from the same place that I got this psalm I don’t like . . . from the Bible.  In our reading from 1^st Timothy, we are told to offer prayers for everyone.  Paul writes, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone.”  That’s not just our friends, not just people we know, not just Americans, but everyone.  Paul encourages us to pray for all people.  I don’t think that you can pray for people, and then kill them.

Paul goes on to call us to pray for “kings and all those who are in high positions of authority, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.”  Pray for all leaders, of all nations, so that we might live a peaceable life, here together on our one Earth.

The mess that is Syria is all over the news every day.  Like hell on earth, there are no answers to the violence and destruction there.  With over 100,000 dead and over 2 million refugees, the situation is pretty much hopeless.  There is very little chance of Assad leaving power, and there is very little chance of bringing him to justice for the violence and terror he has wrought upon his own people.  Should we bomb him?  Should we negotiate?  Do we even have the power to do anything?  These are the questions I ask myself as I read the morning paper and I know I am not alone. 

The only answer I have is to call on God.  The only answer I have, is prayer.  “Pray for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”  Pray for Assad, pray for Obama, pray for Putin, pray for all those who have the power to make the decisions that affect the lives of so many people, of so many children, of so many sheep in the pasture of the Lord.

I believe, that when we call on God for violence and vengeance, then we are calling on God from a place of hopelessness.  When we are grasping for vengeance and justice in the form of more bloodshed, what we are really feeling is powerlessness.  I don’t want to be that way.  I don’t want to feel that way.  I don’t want to call on God for more violence.  I want to call on God for peace.  I want to spend time praying for other people, other nations, other leaders, not in hopelessness, but in hope.  I pray in hope, that their hearts will be moved, that they will know God and know mercy, that we will come to see that we are all brothers and sisters, beautiful creations of a loving God.  There is power in that type of prayer.

       From the past violence of September 11^th to the current unrest in Syria and beyond, there is no end to the ways that nations and people hurt each other.  My answer to this terrible world is prayer.  And in many ways, that was the approach of the psalmist as well.
      
       “God of our salvation, help us for the glory of your name!  Let your compassion hurry to meet us because we’ve been brought so low.  Let the prisoners’ groaning reach you.  With your powerful arm spare those who are destined to die.  We are, (all of us), your people and the sheep of your very own pasture.”  May God hear and answer our prayers and may we never forget to pray.  Amen.

Come to the Party!

September 15^th, 2013   “Come to the Party!”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 15:1-10

          We find Jesus this morning once again in the presence of tax collectors and sinners.  These people represent those on the outside, those on the margins.  Here is the great new religious teacher hanging out with the people who don’t even go to church.  Naturally, those who do go to church, the Pharisees and the scribes grumble about this.  What kind of holy man is this anyway?  He even welcomes sinners to his table.

          Jesus hears this grumbling and responds with two parables that seek to point to the nature of God and to our nature as well.  “Imagine yourself as a shepherd who has lost a sheep,” he says to the Pharisees.  Now mind you, shepherds are known to be trespassers and thieves.  Jesus’ listeners were surely not pleased to place themselves in a shepherd’s shoes, let alone to imagine God in the role of a shepherd. 

          “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

          Jesus then challenges them to imagine themselves as a woman.  Again, this is another person who is low on the social ladder and not someone the Pharisees would ever consider comparing themselves to, let alone relating their lives to.  It is even more offensive to think that Jesus may be drawing a comparison between God and a woman. 

          “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’”

When we examine this passage we find out that while Jesus talks about sinners and repentance, those ideas don’t really fit with the parables he tells.  A sheep or a coin has not really decided to be lost, nor can sheep or coins repent.  In my reading, I don’t find this passage to really be about repentant sinners.  Rather, this passage speaks to me about the nature of a searching God, and our response to the party God throws.

 “If you have 100 sheep and one wanders off, who wouldn’t leave the 99 and go looking for the lost one?” Jesus asks.  Who wouldn’t?  Well, most of us wouldn’t.  Why would you leave 99 sheep in the desert wilderness to go off looking for one who wandered away?  That simply doesn’t make any sense; and you are bound to loose more than one sheep that way.  But, Jesus implies, this is the reckless way that God searches for us.

          “And imagine yourself as a woman.  If you had ten coins and lost one, wouldn’t you search your house top to bottom to find the lost coin.”  Well, maybe, but I probably wouldn’t go to such effort for one coin.  And yet, Jesus implies that this is the way God searches for us.

          Like the shepherd and the woman, God searches diligently for us.  The shepherd risks temporarily abandoning the 99 sheep in the wilderness and when he finds the straying sheep, “he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”  The woman is described as lighting a lamp and taking broom in hand in her attempt to recover her missing coin.  Neither the shepherd nor the woman has a moment’s hesitation as to what to do; neither forsake the search until the sheep or coin is found.

          God is like that, the stories say, meticulously pursuing confused and lost creatures.  Such searching gives value to those being sought.  They become treasured and significant because they are not left for lost, but are made the objects of divine concern. 

          None of us would leave 99 sheep, go looking for a lost one, and risk the possibility of returning to find less than 99 where we left them.  And none of us would move all of our furniture, rip up our carpet, and push around appliances looking for a lost quarter.  That just doesn’t make sense.  We believe in balance and rationality.  It is not worth it to risk 99 looking for one, and it is not worth it to turn the house inside out for a quarter.  Yet, this is the way God searches for those that are lost.  It is a search that is unbalanced, irrational, and just plain crazy in the way it seeks to bring grace to the world.

And when the lost sheep and the lost coin are found, the person announces to friends and neighbors.  “Rejoice with me, I have found what was lost.”  Once the lost item is found, the party begins.  Such is the way God rejoices over us.  Come to the party!

          I wonder how people responded to these party invitations; our response to God’s invitation to the party is the other important part of these parables.

          Imagine if you had a neighbor with 20 chickens who suddenly knocked on your door and said, “I had lost a chicken but I found it, come celebrate with me.”  You would probably think that strange, and maybe not worthy of celebration. 

Or even still, if a friend came to your house and shouted, “I lost a quarter but I looked in the sofa cushions and finally found it, come celebrate with me.”  We might roll our eyes at such a strange invitation. 

          The Pharisees have rolled their eyes at the parties Jesus was throwing.  Here is the great teacher, whooping it up with sinners.  No thanks, I am not even interested in an invitation.  Everyone knows those people are not going to heaven.

          And yet, heaven had come to them.  Here was Jesus celebrating over one sinner who had repented, and the righteous, the Pharisees, could not even recognize what was going on and so excluded themselves from the party. 

          Think of the way we respond when we hear about someone repenting and coming to faith while on their death bed in the final moments of life.  Do we rejoice?  Or do we grumble at this person who has made it in just under the wire?  Think of the way we respond when we hear that some low life is back in church.  Do we rejoice?  Or do we comment on the side that it will only be a matter of time until that person is back in trouble again?

          In many ways we are like the Pharisees.  We don’t want to go to a party with sinners.  “Where is our party?” we ask.  Like the 99 sheep we may wonder why we were left behind as God focused all of God’s energy on the lost.  Why is there no party in heaven for me?  We are jealous. 

          These parables are Jesus’ response to the Pharisee’s murmuring and they still have the power to expose the roots of bitterness that dig their way into us whenever we feel that God is too good to others, and not good enough to us.  Typically, we want mercy for ourselves and justice for others, but the parables call for us to celebrate with God because God has been merciful not only to us but to others also, even to those we would not otherwise have accepted into our fellowship.   

          A Jewish story tells of the good fortune of a hardworking farmer and it illustrates this point well.  The Lord appeared to the farmer and granted him three wishes, but with the condition that whatever the Lord did for the farmer would be given double to his neighbor.  The farmer, scarcely believing his good fortune, wished for a hundred cattle.  Immediately he received a hundred cattle, and he was overjoyed until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred.  So he wished for a hundred acres of land, and again he was filled with joy until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred acres of land.  Rather than celebrating God’s goodness, the farmer could not escape feeling jealous and slighted because his neighbor had received more than him.  Finally, he stated his third wish: that God would strike him blind in one eye.  And God wept.

          These parables expose the grudging spirit that prevents us from receiving God’s mercy.  Only those who can celebrate God’s grace to others can experience the mercy themselves.

          Today we gather at the communion table, and this is a place that is all about what is lost and what is found.  This is a place that is all about the grace that comes not only to us but to those whom we might consider outsiders.  Everyone is welcome at this table, and it is a table that we come to when we are lost and broken.  For it is the times in our lives when we are wandering lost that we most need to be fed.

          God is like a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep exposed in the wilderness to search for one which has wandered off.  God is like a woman who turns her house over from top to bottom, to find one small coin.  God is full of compassion, and God hunts and searches for that which has gotten confused, or misplaced, until God finds it.

          God is like a shepherd who found his sheep and throws a party.  God is like a woman, who has found a coin, and spent it in celebration.  God is throwing a party, for everyone who is found, for every sheep who returns to the fold, and for every coin back in the money purse.  God is throwing a party for the sinners of the world and we are all invited, including those of us who have remained behind in the fold, those of us who don’t consider ourselves sinners. 

Come to God’s party!  Granted, our friends may not be there, and it may be full of people we don’t like.  But this is God’s party, you are invited, come as you are and celebrate.  Amen.

Intimate Divinity

September 8^th, 2013         “Intimate Divinity”         Rev. Heather Jepsen

Psalm 139 with Jeremiah 18:1-11

          Our texts this morning present us with a very interesting image of the divine.  Rather than the absent God who sets the planets spinning and sits back to watch; this morning’s readings ask us to imagine an intimate God.  The readings invite us to wonder about a God who molds and shapes us; a God who knows our very mind and heart, perhaps even before we know them ourselves.

          Psalm 139 is often thought to be a prayer of defense against the charge of idolatry.  When faced with the accusation of having drifted from the worship of God alone, the Psalmist declares all the ways that they have been familiar with God.  The psalmist pleads for God to examine them and declare them innocent of such misdeeds.  If God knows the psalmist so well, then surely God knows that the psalmist’s heart has not strayed.

          From the microscopic to the cosmic, the psalmist envisions God present in all times and places.  From the cellular level of early life to the far reaches of earth and space, there is no place or thing that is not known to the divine.  God is the one who has created all of life; and the life of the psalmist in particular.  Not only has God knit us together in our mother’s womb, God has seen our very bones as they were being woven together in the center of the earth.  From the known process of gestation and birth to the wonder and mystery of the life of the soul, God has been privy to our every moment.

          In life the Psalmist cannot escape God.  God knows all the actions and thoughts of the writer.  God knows when we sit down and rise.  God knows all our thoughts, deep secrets and prayers.  God knows the plans we have, the hopes we hope, and the dreams we dream.  There is not a word we say, or think, that isn’t already known by our God.  Such is God’s amazing level of intimacy in our lives.

          As the Psalmist writes, “God surrounds us – front and back.”  There is nowhere to hide from such an intimate love.  We cannot get away from God.  The Psalmist imagines heading to all edges of the known world to escape the divine eye.  But there is no escape from God.  If we fly to heaven, God is there.  If we go down to the grave, once thought to be beyond the reach of God, God is there.  If we fly on the wings of the sunrise to the far edge of creation, God is there.  Even if we try to hide in the darkness of the blackest night, God is there.

          We cannot get away from God.  And as the Psalmist tells it, where God is, reading our minds and knowing our thoughts, God is controlling our lives.  Even in our best hiding places, in places where we have hoped to be alone, God’s hand is guiding our lives.  God’s strong hand is holding us tight.  Making sure that all comes to pass as it was written on the scroll of our lives while we were still a twinkling in the eyes of our parents.

          Incomprehensible, vast, overwhelming; such is the knowledge and presence of this God who seeks us out.  As the psalmist says, “This kind of knowledge is too much for me.”  And you know what?  I think it’s too much for me too!

          It doesn’t take too much study of this psalm to start getting uncomfortable.  Who is this smothering God, this creepy God, this watching God?  A God we cannot get away from?   Where is the comfort here?  Like the NSA God is watching our every move.  God knows not only what I bought on Amazon, but why I bought it.  God knows not only who I call on the phone, where I call them from, and what I say; but why I called them and what I was hoping to say.  Like Big Brother, there is no escaping God.  God knew of me before my birth and planned out my life.  God is watching my every moment and like the thought police, God is searching my mind and heart.  God is hemming me in on all sides and there is no escape.  God is smothering me.

          This image is especially frightening when paired with our reading from Jeremiah.  Like a potter at a wheel God is busy crafting.  If we read this like many preachers do, and the pot is a person, then I believe we are all lost.  If this Big Brother God knows all my deeds, all my thoughts, and all my miss-steps then I don’t stand a chance.  If God is crafting me in judgment, then I am lost.  Like all people, I am a sinner.  There is nothing for me but to be squished down and destroyed.  As Jeremiah writes, the clay has become spoiled in the potter’s hand.

          Needless to say, I don’t like that traditional reading.  I don’t think we are the pot, simply waiting to be crushed by the hand of a judgmental and frustrated potter.  No, I think that in this metaphor the pot represents the plan or perhaps the hope that God has for our lives.  In the text God speaks of changing God’s mind about judgment for Israel just as a potter changes their mind about the work they are creating.  It is judgment and blessing that are being considered and re-crafted here, not the people of Israel themselves.

Perhaps, just as a potter has an idea of a work of art, so too God has an idea of a work of art that would be our lives.  A work of art crafted from blessing and suffering alike.  As the potter works the clay, with a delicate or firm hand, the clay responds.  Too much or too little pressure and the clay collapses.  The potter molds and shapes the clay and what appears may or may not resemble their hopes for the piece.  It is a living process between the potter, the clay, and even the working environment. 

          So too, God turns and shapes not us, per se, but a pattern and hope for our lives.  Too much or too little pressure from God and we begin to become misshapen.  Perhaps, the message of the text is not that God destroys the wayward pot, but that God is continually crafting and the pot is never finished.  God is continually adjusting the artist’s technique, learning how best to deal with each separate piece of clay.  Where some need to be pushed, others need to be pulled.  Where some need a firm touch, others need the gentlest of nudges.  When the hands of God push us out of place then we are reworked.  No clay is wasted, no lump is tossed.  All clay is of value and the artist continues to shape each piece into its truest form. God is not afraid to start over again. 

          And how does God the artist work?  Through this intimate relationship with us.  From our first cellular moments to our final dying breaths God knows us and is forming us into better people, into the best works of art our lives can be.  The story illustrates the malleability of God’s plan for us.  The divine mind can be changed, and the creation of a perfect life story is a push and pull between the creator and the creation.  While our stories may have been written before our births, we are constant co-creators of that story with God.

          If we envision the smothering God not as Big Brother, but as an artist, then we can find some hope in what can be a frightening Psalm.  As an artist values their creation, so we are valued by our God.  Not for what we may become or even what God’s hopes for our lives are, but for what we are right now in this very moment.  If we imagine God’s overwhelming presence as a blanket of creative love, rather than an all-seeing eye of judgment, then perhaps we can find comfort and peace.

          When things go wrong and our lives are not what we hoped they would be, this can be a word of grace to us.  Sometimes when we are in tremendous pain and despair, it can be too hard to pray, too hard to speak to God.  In those times it is a blessing knowing that we don’t need to speak at all.  God knows our thoughts and hearts.  God is with us in our suffering, even if we are not able to name our sufferings out loud to God.  Like a warm blanket, God’s presence surrounds us to give us comfort and peace, calming our hearts in a world that so often incites us to fear.

          We find this comforting presence of the divine artist here at the communion table today.  If we believe the words of the Psalmist than we know that God has followed, if not preceded each of us here this morning.  God knows why we have come and what we need.  God knows how we hunger and thirst.  And so, God meets us here at the table in bread and juice.  God meets us here in spiritual nourishment.  “Yes, I know who you are,” God seems to say.  “I know who you really are, and I have gathered you here today so that you may be fed.”

          Rather than an artist who crushes down and throws away clay that will just not cooperate, God is ever patient with our lives.  Forming and re-forming, God is continually working out the plan and hope for our existence.  And together we are discovering just how much pressure is the right pressure for God to apply in each situation.  We are co-creators with God, forming a more perfect creation.

          Yes, God sees and knows our very self, but not in a desire to watch and judge.  God sees and knows us in a desire to be close to us in love.  It is true that we cannot escape from God.  But rather than being a threat, perhaps this is a comfort.  For there are times in our lives where we don’t know or care to know God, and there is grace in the fact that God knows us anyway.  And God loves us always.  Thanks be to God for this intimate divinity.  Amen.

         

         

Hospitality and Invitation

September 1^st, 2013     “Hospitality and Invitation”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Luke 14:1, 7-14

In our reading this morning we find Jesus again at a dinner party.  In Luke’s gospel the dinner party is frequently a scene of important teaching and today’s passage is no exception.  Here, at the house of a leader of the Pharisees, Jesus offers those gathered a lesson on hospitality and the nature of invitation.

          When it becomes time to eat at the party, Jesus notices how the guests jockey for positions at the table.  I am sure it was a mad dash of sorts; the food arrives and there is some subtle pushing and shoving as people attempt to place themselves at the seats of honor nearest the host.  Jesus then decides this is a great opportunity for story telling and starts into a parable.

          “When you are invited to a wedding banquet, don’t sit at the head seat in case you may be asked to move and thereby humiliated.  Instead, choose the lowest seat and then if need be, you will be asked to move to a higher seat, and thereby be exalted.”

          This lesson Jesus places before us led me to think quite a bit about who sits where when we eat together nowadays.  I know that at our modern wedding banquets, seats are commonly assigned.  One would think that this would ease the problem, but anyone who has any experience drawing up a seating chart knows this isn’t the case.  There are often great pains taken when assigning seats so that those who deserve the most honor are placed closest to the newly married couple.  One doesn’t have to attend many weddings to find that even though seats are assigned, there is still all manner of grumbling about position.  Such behavior illustrates that we still have the desire to literally seek the most important seats.  Even at weddings where seats are not assigned, there is frequently a mad dash to claim the tables closest to the couples.  And one is always striving to sit at the table with the coolest people, or at least the people they know. 

          In our meals at home, seating is also important.  It is not hard to guess who sits at the head of the table in most families, and the remaining seats are assigned from there.  Even in my own family growing up, and the family that I have married into, I know where my seat is and that is the one I choose.  Think for a moment about your family table.  Are seats assigned?  Where do you sit?  How does the seating reflect the leadership of the family?

          When considering this Scripture I found that despite the passage of thousands of years and of many cultures, where we sit at the table still has great significance.  Though we often do not literally push and shove for the best seats, we are aware of the rank in which we are placed and we sometimes eye the ranks above us.

          If we expand this seeking for higher status into our society at large the examples are endless.  Who isn’t seeking higher status and more pay in their job?  Everyone wants a higher chair at that big board room table or at the university.  And, who isn’t watching those around them and ranking which families are of greater status?  We all know who the oldest and more powerful families in town are.  And, who isn’t tempted at some times to throw their weight around a bit to show the world how important they are?  Our culture runs on the desire to get ahead, the desire for the best seats at whatever table we may find ourselves.  For everyone knows that everyone else is trying to get ahead.

          As usual, Jesus teaches us exactly the opposite.  Jesus teaches us about the kingdom of God, which takes the ways of our world and reverses them.  Jesus teaches us that rather than try to get ahead, we should instead try to get behind.  Jesus teaches us that rather than trying to demonstrate how important we are, we should take pains to take the lowest seat amongst the crowd.

          “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  It is an interesting phrase.  Jesus has been using the example of the party host asking us to move down, or inviting us to move up.  But in this phrase the verb form used is passive implying the actions of an outsider.  What Jesus is essentially saying is that all who exalt themselves will be humbled by God, and all who humble themselves will be exalted by God.  That really takes all our thoughts about positioning in this world and puts them on their heads.  You can’t do anything about your status, only God has the power to humble or to exalt.

          In the second part of this passage Jesus addresses the host.  “You shouldn’t invite your friends or relatives to a party,” he says “or they may repay you.  Instead you should invite those who cannot repay you, the poor and the lame.” 

          Here Jesus speaks about the nature of invitation.  “Why do you invite someone to your house?” he asks.  “Is it to secure an invitation to theirs?”  It is sad but true that many of us do have this motivation behind our hospitality.  Who hasn’t thought, “I did so much work serving them and they never had me over in return.”  Or even “I sure enjoyed eating at their house; I need to invite them over to mine to return the favor.” 

          We invite our friends and family to our table and we initiate a dance of giving and receiving.  We each take the opportunity to host each other, and frankly I think this is a good thing for relationship building.  I don’t think Jesus is against our friendly back yard barbeques.  But, his story begs the question, of who do we neglect to invite?  Who are the outsiders that do not receive invitations to our houses and to our tables?  How do our table invitations reflect the kingdom of God?

          This is a hard lesson, but Jesus encourages us to welcome the stranger into our house.  In our reading from Hebrews the epistle writer echoes this message, “Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  What are we doing to show hospitality to strangers in our community and in our world?  How are we inviting others to our tables?  How are we inviting outsiders to our table here at church? 

          Jesus’ table manners in this passage make us uncomfortable.  He calls us out from our comfort zones and demands more of us.  He asks us to take the lowest seats and to humble ourselves before God and others.  He asks us to invite the stranger to our table, and to host those who could never host us in return. 

          But, Jesus doesn’t just ask us to do these things for others; he himself does them for us.  The lesson of Jesus has always been the one of a humble servant; he has shown us this path many times.  And similarly, Jesus the King had invited us to his table.  We have been invited to the table in the kingdom of God and it is certainly an invitation that none of us can reciprocate.  Jesus has given us the great invitation, and we are welcome at his table, in the company of our friends and family as well as of the poor and lame.

          As you go out into the world this week, I encourage you to take note of these things in your life.  Where do you sit at the table and why?  Who do you invite in and who do you leave outside?  Who do we as a church invite in to our table?  And, where are you yourself invited in to sit, to celebrate, and to share?  May God teach us lessons of hospitality and invitation.  Amen.