Failed Business, Evolving Faith

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

“Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

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This bit about building a tower you can’t finish had me Googling “failed business ventures” this week to find a contemporary comparison for Jesus’ example. It may not be completely fair, but I found a list of well-known, previously successful businesses that bit the dust in the last 15-20 years. I wondered if maybe their owners/CEOs/Boards of Directors, or whatever, failed to sit down to see whether they could finish or build on what they had started.

Blockbuster Video, of course, got creamed by the digital streaming industry. Places like Toy’s R Us and Border’s Books couldn’t possibly keep up with the convenience and efficiency of Amazon. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey’s Circus succumbed to pressure from animal rights organizations. I don’t know what happened to Dress Barn exactly – do you remember Dress Barn? – but I remember my sister-in-law joking once about refusing to buy her clothes in a barn, which does seem like pretty bad marketing when you think about it.

And more seriously, I thought about Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine when I read that other example Jesus uses about a king who wages war against another king without sitting down and considering just exactly what he might be getting himself into. Putin may have done the math enough to believe he had the numbers to win the war. But he couldn’t have accounted for the immeasurable, intangible will and spirit and resilience of the Ukrainian people – or the support of the rest of the world they inspired – to resist his attacks and defend themselves for as long as they have.

But what do my examples – or the examples of Jesus – have to do with the rest of what he’s trying to preach and teach to the crowds this morning? I suspect many of them were asking the same thing.

For me, this is a “be careful what you ask for” moment between Jesus and whoever’s paying attention to him. These are “fair warning” words from Jesus. All of this sounds like a “don’t say I never warned you,” “cover your behind” sort of proclamation, to me. And Jesus doesn’t seem happy about it.

Because just in the last couple of weeks, we’ve heard about him in the synagogue arguing with the powers that be who were trying to keep him from healing sick people.

Last week he was at the dinner banquet where people were pride-fully, selfishly Boss-Hogging the best seats at the party.

Right before what we just heard, he tells a parable about a bunch of knuckleheads who get invited to another important banquet but who make all sorts of excuses about what they would/could/should be doing instead. And now he’s out and about in the world again, being followed around by God-knows-who … crowds of hangers-on, it seems … looking to get a piece of whatever they believe he has to offer them.

And you get the impression that he’s over it. That he’s had enough. That he’s less than impressed with the willingness or ability or intentions of those who follow him to really follow him; to fully grasp what this discipleship means; to truly wrap their heads and their hearts and their lives around what the new life of God’s grace might do for them – and do to them – if they were to really, truly, fully receive it – and let it have its way with them.

And I think there’s a message for the 21st Century church in all of this, too. And a message for each of us as wannabe disciples of Jesus – faithful followers – just the same. And yes, it’s about money. After all Jesus says we can’t be his disciples if we don’t give up our possessions. Sacrificing our things and our stuff and our money is part and parcel of what it means to follow Jesus. But it’s not all or only about our money and our things and our stuff.

When I was reading about those companies that failed … those big businesses who couldn’t survive … those institutions that are no more…. The thing their respective downfalls all have in common was their failure to innovate; their inability to adapt to the needs of the world around them; their neglect of the desires and longings of the people they hoped would avail themselves of their services.

Netflix was more like Blockbuster in the beginning – renting DVDs through the mail, remember. But Netflix upped their game with the whole streaming thing while Blockbuster kept doing what they always did … and died trying.

Stores like Toys ‘R’ Us and Borders were just unable to offer the same affordable convenience that Amazon could.

I guess Ringling Brothers and Barnham and Bailey’s Circus just hoped people would never find out or care enough about the treatment of the animals it requires to make a circus a circus.

And Dress Barn? Who knows what a simple name change or a more flattering marketing plan might have done for their success and longevity.

So, I think Jesus might be inviting us to think differently, more practically, more shrewdly and simply, even, about what we’re up to as his disciples and as part of God’s Church in the world.

Yes, and again, it is about money. We can’t do what we want and need to do as God’s church in the world without the financial means to do it. But more importantly, the faithful practice of giving our money and our things and our stuff away is about the faithful practice of doing with less; of sacrificing for the sake of something bigger than ourselves; of doing without so that others might have what they need; of practicing generosity for the sake of generosity; of giving back with gratitude what has first been given to us; and of acknowledging our excess and standing in solidarity with the poor.

But, again, while our relationship with our wealth is paramount to Jesus, it’s not all or only about money.

It’s also about innovating and expanding our reach – we’ve done that in the last few years, thanks to the COVID crisis, by going online with our worship, giving, and other ministry options around here.

It’s about paying attention to, being vocal about, and addressing the needs of the world around us. Who’s hungry? Who’s hurting? Who’s being left out of circles of faith? How do we as individuals and as a congregation find them, listen to them, and bring them into our fold?

It’s also about not doing what we’ve always done, just because that’s the way we’ve always done it. Tradition for the sake of tradition is the most dangerous elephant in every church sanctuary this morning and something we should avoid at all costs, if you ask me.

And none of this is about surviving as an institution, just for the sake of surviving as an institution. It’s about following Jesus. It’s about seeking, receiving and celebrating God’s love for us to the extent that it’s not about us any longer. That’s the innovation Jesus calls us to. That’s the cost he warns us about and invites us to count on, to consider, and to plan for – if we want to get serious about this discipleship thing.

The evolution and innovation of our faith as followers of Jesus is about allowing all of this to cease being about us – to stop following Jesus around to see what we can get out of it, but to follow Jesus until our faith is about humbly and generously loving and serving the other.

It’s about being the body of Christ. It’s about changing the world with the kind of grace and mercy, love and hope he came to share. It’s about letting the fullness of the grace we claim for ourselves change us … utterly … to such a degree that the world around us is different and better and blessed and more like the Kingdom of God, because we are a part of it and because we share it – without shame, without reservation, without limits – in his name.

Amen

To Hell With the Rules

Luke 13:10-17

Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” And when he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up and began praising God.

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.”

But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

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I have a new plan for our High School Sunday School this year, which is kind of an extension of what we did last year. Last year, we learned about “Things They Never Taught Me in High School,” so we changed a tire, we tied neck ties, we talked about budgeting our money and managing our time, we tied bows for wrapping gifts and I did my best to connect all of those things to Bible stories, studies and devotions to bring “life and faith together” as we say.

This year’s theme is going to be “Things They Never Taught Me in Sunday School,” and I hope to take some Bible stories to the next level for our young people; to talk with and teach them about the deeper, more grown-up – sometimes even R-rated – meanings behind stories from Scripture that aren’t always appropriate for elementary kids in Sunday School or VBS. We’ll talk about David and Bathsheba differently, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Ethiopian Eunuch, too. And we’ll do more with Creation and the Tower of Babel and David and Goliath, too, than even most grown-ups are used to hearing about those stories.

And I’ll keep it PG for worship this morning, but I want to talk about this morning’s miracle differently than we’re used to, too. Of course, so many people, for so many generations, have been drawn to the miracle of this broken woman being made well. Like so many other healing miracles, we are drawn to the magic of what Jesus does for the woman who’d been sick and crippled for so long. And that’s great – and a good and holy thing, for sure. But that healing is only a small part of the story. And not really the point of it all, in the end.

And I believe that’s the case with most – if not all – of Jesus’ miracles, actually. They are less about the hocus pocus, abracadabra of it all than they are about telling a better story… teaching a larger lesson … proclaiming a wider mercy, love, and grace not just because of what Jesus does in those magical moments – but because of how and why and when and where and for whom, in most cases, God does what God does through Jesus.

Think about some of the other miracles of Jesus with me for a minute. We can start right at the beginning, with the virgin birth, for example. The most impressive thing about all of that – the greatest lesson, for my money, isn’t so much about an immaculate conception. The hope of Mary’s motherhood, no matter how it came to be, is about a young woman who had faith enough to say “yes” to God. The power of that story comes from the notion that God would use a poor young girl to do an amazing thing for the sake of the world. It’s about casting the mighty down from their thrones – by way of a poor peasant girl and helpless baby boy – and uplifting the humble in heart.

And think about the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine, at that wedding in Cana. It could have been milk or honey, Pepsi or Bud Light … the substance of it didn’t matter so much. The point was – the lesson to be learned, the good news to be shared – was that there is more than enough to go around and that God always saves the best for last. (So no. I guess it couldn’t have been Bud Light, after all. That stuff is terrible.)

Or what about the miracle of the guy who was born blind but who Jesus helped see again? His friends and neighbors thought he had been born blind because of something he or his parents did to make him deserve that hardship. So when Jesus restores his sight, it wasn’t about the miracle of Lasik surgery in the 1st Century. It was about showing that God doesn’t punish us with sickness or disability. It was about showing, perhaps that, even if you believed his blindness was the result of some sin, God could and would and does delight in undoing that through the power of forgiveness; and that God will go to great lengths to restore someone to their community.

When Jesus walked on water, he wasn’t proposing a new Olympic sport, he was showing us something about faith. When he calmed the storm, he wasn’t concerned about the weather, he was revealing the power of God’s peace in the presence of our fear. When he cleansed the leper it wasn’t about better skin-care it was about God’s love for the outcast and the outsider among us.

Do you see what I mean? As much as we love a good miracle story, the magic of it is rarely the point. And today’s episode, in the synagogue is no different.

It’s great that this woman who’d been hunched over, crippled, for nearly two decades was “up-and-at ‘em” again without the help of a chiropractor, don’t get me wrong. But in light of what we know about the kind of things Jesus can do, this isn’t the most impressive thing about that day. What we’re supposed to pay attention to – what matters most about all of this in the first place – is that it happened on the Sabbath. The Lord’s day. The established day of rest and for worship.

What I mean is, it wouldn’t have meant as much – this story wouldn’t have made the news – had the woman done what the leader of the synagogue suggested and come back for her healing the next day, right? It would have been great. It would have been no less miraculous had Jesus commanded this woman to stand up for the first time in 18 years on a Tuesday. But, again, the miracle – the healing, itself – is barely the point.

So, miracle, schmiracle. Our faith can’t be just about the miracle or else all we’re left with is the hopeless reality that we can’t do what Jesus does and that Jesus doesn’t do what he can for everyone, in every way we would like. So there must be something more than the miracle here.

And the “more” … Jesus’ greater point and larger purpose … is to heal and to comfort and to share love and offer grace at all costs. In excess of every expectation. At the expense of every rule. Breaking the rule about working or healing or whatever on the Sabbath is Jesus’ larger mission – and our greatest hope – this time around.

The point is that the only rule that matters to Jesus is the one about loving God and loving our neighbor and living in any way and every way possible that brings that love to bear upon the world – so to Hell with the rules. Literally. To Hell with the rules. Let the rules – and laws and limited expectations of those in power – be banished to the outer darkness. Let those rules be subject to whatever weeping and gnashing of teeth it takes to dismember them.

Which is something I can sink my own teeth into and something I can wrap my brain around. That’s something each of us can do something about, too – breaking the rules, I mean – that keep God’s love from being shared in as many ways, with as many people as we can manage.

When someone tells you you can’t or shouldn’t love someone because…

When your own score-keeping, rule-abiding heart tells you you shouldn’t forgive someone because or unless or until they…

When your own fear tries to convince you you shouldn’t be that generous…

When society tells you you shouldn’t extend mercy because…

When your own history and experience tell you you should or shouldn’t, or can or can’t because “that’s not the way you’ve ever done it before”…

In the face of whatever rules or expectations that threaten to limit what God can accomplish by grace – for you and through you – Jesus gets up in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and breaks the rules. He breaks the law so that we can see just how brave and bold and beyond reason God’s love means to be. And how beyond the rules we are called to be, just the same.

Because we can’t heal every disease, but we can love one another through the sickness and struggle and sadness of them all – and that’s a miracle.

We can’t change the weather, but we can trust God’s presence, and we can be the presence of God for someone, when the storms of life in this world show up – and that can be magical.

We can’t undo every sin, or change every sinner, but we can accept and offer forgiveness – and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

We can’t walk on water, but we can extend a hand to an outcast or an outsider and welcome them in – and that will work wonders in the lives of God’s people.

Because the greatest miracle of all – Jesus’ resurrection from the dead – shows just how far God is willing to go to break every rule for our sake. And the miracle of that isn’t just something we wait for on the other side of heaven. In a world full of so many rules, too much fear, and so much sadness – all of which try to convince us otherwise – we are set free from all sorts of bondage, like the woman in today’s Gospel, to live in the miracle that is new life and second chances and amazing grace, every day, for all people, in Jesus’ name.

Amen