photo credit: Annie Spratt (https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt)

John 8:31-36 (NRSV)

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free'?" Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

The task for all Christ-followers this morning, regardless of the location of their churches or the denominational label, is to condemn, mourn, confess, and reform.

Yesterday the world learned the horrifying news that a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg, PA and murdered eleven human beings while they were worshiping the Lord. The attack is believed to be the deadliest on the Jewish community in US history. I, as a representative of Cross of Grace, condemn this violence; I also condemn the sin of anti-semitism and white nationalism that appears to have motivated the man whom has been charged with these hate crimes.

This news leaves us feeling sad, embarrassed, ashamed, and frightened. As a word of pastoral care, pay attention to your emotions in the wake of these deplorable acts of violence. Sit with them. Let them make you feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, and hurt. This is the process of mourning. The primary way for us to honor the victims of this senseless tragedy is by mourning the loss of their lives.

Let us never become numb to the devastating acts of violence in our world. When we close our eyes, ears, hearts, and hands to the pain around us we are not creating a new peaceful reality; instead, we are contributing to the spread of injustice. Sins of omission – that is, sins of not paying attention, not acting, not choosing to be an active peacemaker – are just as offensive to God and just as destructive to our world as are acts of violence.

We are sinners. Sin, rightly understood, is the soul turned in on itself. Our thoughts, emotions, and actions often fail to correspond to the reality that the Kingdom of Heaven is here and now, that God is present here and now, that there is a divine ordering of the world that lifts up the lowly and the humble of heart. The reality is that God’s gifts of love, grace, peace, hope, and love absolutely permeate this world; but our gaze and attention is so inwardly turned that we miss all the opportunities to dwell in those perfect gifts.

Instead of living as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we put ourselves in charge of our own domains. We prioritize our own needs and desires over our neighbors. We let fear keep us from loving. We let fear of others drive us to think of others as less than human and unworthy of love, respect, and protection. God sets a feast before us and we bar the doors after we get inside so that none of those other people can get in and ruin our delightful evening.

The antidote to sin is repentance. Repentance, rightly understood, is changing one’s mind. The changing of a mind is a laborious and lengthy process that is largely out of our control. Fortunately, we worship the God who lavishes us with gifts. One particular gift is the Holy Spirit – the person of the Trinity who works on our head and our heart day and night…softening it, shaping it, making it ready to receive the truth of our forgiveness and ready to receive the invitation to live according to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Repentance – changing one’s mind – bears fruit and shows up in the way we live our daily lives. This is what is known as discipleship; but for our purposes today we can call it reformation.

Today we, like our Jewish brothers and sisters in Pittsburg yesterday, gather to worship the Lord. We gather to worship the Lord on a day we set aside each year to commemorate our denomination’s roots in the Great Reformation of the 16th century. We gather to worship the Lord bearing the inescapable reality that we are a church descended and evolved from the teachings of a theologian whose anti-semitic sentiments are well-documented.

Our church denomination, the ELCA, has committed itself to reforming this haunting aspect of our past. In 1994 the ELCA researched, wrote, and published a statement called the “Declaration of the ELCA to the Jewish Community.” Included in the text were these words:

“We recognize in anti-Semitism a contradiction and affront to the Gospel, a violation of our hope and calling, and we pledge this church to oppose the deadly working of such bigotry, both within our own circles and in the society around us.”

Reformation is an ongoing task; a daily turning toward God. The 1994 ELCA statement did not solve the problem of anti-semitism nor did it erase it from our collective past. Rather, it points us to a truth that guides our everyday actions and attitudes.

Our task today, along with all who profess to worship and follow Christ, are to condemn, mourn, confess, and reform. Reformation comes at the Holy Spirit’s prompting. Reformation comes by doing the hard work of analyzing our heart and mind. Reformation comes by striving to be God’s hands and feet in the world. Reformation comes only by the grace of God who sets us free from the slavery of sin and sets us on the path of righteousness and eternal union with the Lord.

Amen.

Mark 10:17-31

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

I hope you’ll bear with me today, because this might be a stretch and a little bit strange and it’s something I’m still making sense of myself, but this week I feel like I learned a new thing - or noticed a new thing - and I want to share it with you. I found myself drawing connections between this morning’s gospel story in Mark and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, as most people know it, in Luke’s Gospel.

I think most of us know enough about this one without having, even, to break out our Gospels of Luke – the only place in Scripture where Jesus tells that particular parable. There are a million details that matter in this oldy but goody, but the short of the long is this: there’s a father who has two sons, the younger of which comes to his dad and asks for his inheritance, even before his father has kicked the bucket. And the generous, loving father gives the young son half of what he might inherit when the time comes – presumably no small amount of money, stuff and valuable things – and the kid hits the road, spends, uses, and wastes it all on “dissolute living,” as the story goes. (In other words, ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ kind of living.)

And when he can no longer take care of himself – when he’s out of money, things and stuff – when he’s as broke as can be – when he finds himself slopping it up with the pigs – the young son comes back to daddy, broken… ashamed… empty in every way – and asks to be let back in to the family’s good graces. Which happens, because remember the young man’s dad – who plays the part of God in that parable – is a generous and loving Father. It’s a beautiful story about the nature of God’s abundant grace and mercy, love and forgiveness. It points to a vision of what life in God’s kingdom is like, or can be for us.

And, if Jesus is anything like the rest of us, he knows a good story – a good sermon – a good lesson – when he hears one. So I have to think, even though we only hear him tell this parable one time, in Luke’s Gospel, that Jesus probably told that story and taught that lesson more often. And even if he didn’t, Jesus had it in his back pocket and he knew the power and impact of the lesson it held.

All of that to say, I couldn’t help but imagine that this oldy-but-goody is swimming around in the head and heart of Jesus when this strange, rich man interrupts him as Jesus is apparently packing for his next road trip. “Good teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “How do I get my cosmic inheritance.” “What do I need to do – what’s the silver bullet – what’s the magic pill – is there a BuzzFeed list of 12 things that can tell me the way to eternal life?”

Of course, there is no list. Even the 10 Commandments wouldn’t cut it, according to Jesus. The man implies that he’s kept all of those his whole life long and Jesus says, “You still lack one thing. Sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and you will find treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.”

Do you see the connection to that other story?

Something about an inheritance, and then “take what’s been given to you. Unload it. Be rid of it. Empty your coffers until there’s nothing left. And you will find treasure in heaven. THEN come back and follow me.”

The solution is the same for both the Rich Man this morning and for the Younger Son in the parable: we will find out what really matters when we stop pretending that what really matters is money, wealth, things and stuff. We will find our way to the Kingdom – we will inherit eternal life, in this world and for the next – when we stop valuing the things of this world, when we lose our attachment to them, when we remove their power over us, and when we, instead, leave ourselves no other option but to follow and rely on and trust in the ways of Jesus.

(And it’s important to notice that it doesn’t matter one bit that the Prodigal Son lost his wealth to dissolute living and that the Rich Man was commanded to give his wealth to the poor. The common ground for them was not in their righteousness, in their good works, or lack thereof. It wasn’t about whether they did the right or wrong thing with their money. Their common ground – their way to the Kingdom – as Jesus sees it, is found in their poverty, plain and simple, however they accomplished it. Their way to the Kingdom would come through their loss of what they valued most; through their giving up of what they thought would save them.)

See, the power and challenge for me, then, in recognizing that both of these stories come from the lips of Jesus lies in the hard truth that, the more money and things and stuff I have – and whatever safety and security and status they afford me … along with the striving I do to get and hold onto them – all of that actually keeps me from the Kingdom; it removes me from the fullness of joy God intends for me; it limits my access to eternal, abundant life as God hopes I’ll experience it on this side of the grave – not just the next – which is the other reality check for me this morning.

Because, I wonder, when you think of eternal life, what comes to mind? When you consider the Kingdom of God, what do you imagine? When we hear the rich man in this morning’s Gospel ask about how he can inherit eternal life, what do we presume he is asking?

(My hunch is that most of us – like the guy who asks about it this morning – think about eternal life as something we’ll experience or be assured of after we’re dead and gone. My hunch is that most of us think about the Kingdom of God as having an address somewhere up there and out there and on the other side of our tombstone.)

But, we’re meant to believe, with the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that God has already broken ground on the establishment of heaven’s kingdom, right here on earth as we know it. And if that’s the case, we don’t have to wait to experience the joys of that kingdom, until after we’re dead. And we don’t have to wait to start sharing the joys of that kingdom with the world around us until this life, as we know it, is over, either.

So all of this is about getting rid of our money and being generous. It’s not about works righteousness or buying God’s love or earning our way into heaven. This is about going without, doing without, becoming less and relying more on God’s provision than on our own. This is an invitation, if not a command and a double-dog-dare from Jesus, to experience the joys of selflessness and generosity – to practice poverty, if you will – in order to trust in God’s abundance and to experience the very Kingdom of God in our midst – on earth as it is in heaven, you might say.

I think one of the reasons our work in Haiti is so compelling for me – and to anyone who’s been there – is because we get a glimpse of the Kingdom in Fondwa, where possessions are hard to come by; where wealth and riches aren’t even a possibility; and where we are reminded about what we can live with and what we really can and should live without more often than we do.

I think the Kingdom comes to earth for those who participate in our Agape Ministry, too, because when our people serve and sit with the prostitutes on the city’s east side, what we think matters so much about our identity on this side of the tracks – what we do for a living or where we live or what kind of car we drive – couldn’t mean much less on that side of the tracks.

And I think the Kingdom is alive and well in the midst of our SonRise Bibe Study ministry, too, because none of the measuring sticks that matter to the rest of the world mean a lick to those adults with physical and intellectual differences and disabilities, who share in and celebrate the grace of God, just as fully, if not moreso, than you and I are able to a lot of the time.

Jesus dares us to rid ourselves of whatever the world tells us is valuable – our money, our things, our stuff, and our status – and to rest in and rely on what God can accomplish through all that we give up, give away and do without. Jesus invites us to follow him toward this kind of selfless generosity. And Jesus promises us that when we do, we will experience the Kingdom of God, here and now, where less is more; where the last are first and the first are last; where death becomes life, even, in this world and for the next, thanks be to God.

Amen

Condemn, Mourn, Confess, and Reform

The Rich Man and The Prodigal Son