Fellowship Reformed Church of Holland

March 26, 2017
Suzanne McDonald
Luke 23:50-56

On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

That’s it. We have the death and then burial of Jesus on Friday, and then we have…Saturday. Let’s be honest - we normally don’t give Holy Saturday a thought, do we? You could easily overlook it. We actually WANT to overlook it. We all like to move very, very quickly from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday. We don’t want to stay too long in the darkness, the confusion, the agony, or the numbness of the aftermath of the crucifixion because it’s too painful, and anyway, we don’t have to, do we? Not really? Because after all, we know what is going to happen, and we want to get to the joy and light and celebration of Easter as fast as we can.

But that’s Sunday. There is this awkward and uncomfortable day between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday to get through before that. No one wants it to be there. We all wish it wasn’t there. But it stubbornly is there. The first disciples couldn’t skip it and neither can we. If you want to get from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday, there is no other way than through Holy Saturday.

But we can easily miss it when we read the gospels, or when we journey each year through Holy Week. And what we do when we read the gospels, or journey through Holy Week we also do in our lives. We want to bypass Holy Saturday. We want to move too quickly from the cross to the resurrection.

Here’s what I mean by that. I think all of us will have seen folks - and maybe even been the folks - who feel that as Christians we have to hide the struggle, to move very quickly to ‘I’m OK, you’re OK, it’s all OK, because of Jesus,’ whether that’s death, or a major illness, or when you lose your job with absolutely zero prospect of anything else on the horizon, or…. well, you fill in the blank with any number of situations that make you feel as though the bottom has just dropped out of your life.

On the one hand there is a sense in which ‘I’m OK, you’re OK, everything’s OK’ is deeply true - Jesus has won the ultimate victory for us. But trying to reach that place faster than we are ready, or faster than the situation warrants, can place terrible burdens on us, as if somehow we are not allowed to see and name before God and before others the awful reality of things for us right now.

But as we’ll see, the day we all prefer to avoid - Holy Saturday, the day between cross and resurrection - is one of the places in scripture that particularly resonates with exactly those kinds of situations. It’s a kind of holy space in the scriptural story for those times when we have a very, very difficult road to walk, and when we struggle to see any kind of human hope, or when we are called to travel alongside someone else who has to walk that kind of road. Holy Saturday can open up a space for our hardest stories. It’s not a place we want to be. No one wants their story to have to include Holy Saturday. But God’s story does, it’s right there, in Holy Week, and there is grace for us even here, just in the fact that a day like this is there for us in the story.

But have you ever stopped to really think and imagine your way into this part of the story? I wonder, have you ever thought about what that first Holy Saturday must have been like for those first followers of Jesus?

We don’t have much information in scripture about what happened on that day, but we have enough to put some pieces together. So, think about how Jesus came to his disciples after his resurrection - hiding together in a locked room, terrified; or the desolation and confusion of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus - we thought he had been the one…. but it seems like he wasn’t; or the women desperate to get to the tomb on Sunday morning. We can put some pieces together about how they experienced that first Holy Saturday.

And I think it actually helps us to understand the depths of the scriptural narrative much better if we are able to think our way into Holy Saturday in stereo, if you like - yes, knowing how it will all turn out the next day, but also entering into what it must have been like for those first disciples for whom it looked like the Holy Saturday experience would never end. It’s true that Jesus had taught them that he would be raised from the dead, but it’s also very clear that they didn’t get it, and they weren’t expecting anything in particular to happen on Sunday. For them, it seemed like it was all over with Jesus. There was nothing further to look forward to. This Holy Saturday situation would be the new normal for the rest of their lives.

Later today, take some time to imagine your way into the situation of those first followers of Jesus. What might you have thought and felt and why? I’ll throw out a few ideas now, to get you started, and also to start making some connections between that first Holy Saturday and some of the experiences you might have had in your life, or maybe that you are going through now, or that you have seen as you have walked alongside others.

First, and this is a tricky one for us, there is no inherent promise in Holy Saturday. We know how it all turns out, but it’s important to really realize that the resurrection does not follow automatically from the cross. Jesus is dead, dead, dead. The situation on Holy Saturday is humanly hopeless. The resurrection is a mighty, inbreaking, miraculous act of God that transforms everything, and turns the whole situation around. There was no human solution to what happened on Friday. Only God could turn that situation around. And on that Saturday, it seemed as though he wasn’t going to do that. For the disciples at the time, Saturday seemed to point to an endless future of no more hopes and no more dreams.

What had happened also meant that Jesus had lost his identity for them. Who they thought he was, it seemed he wasn’t; or at least it seems that he isn’t any more.  And with Jesus seemingly losing his identity, that shatters their own sense of identity too. They had dedicated their lives to him. They had defined who they were as those who followed Jesus. That’s how everyone else saw them too. And now it seems like as his identity has disintegrated, theirs has been lost with his.

 And I bet there was guilt too - for having abandoned and denied him. For things they wished they had said and done, or hadn’t said and done, but now it was too late to do anything about that.

And resentment - they had dedicated their whole lives to Jesus, and given up a lot for him, and thought they would have a future with him. And now it looks like they have absolutely nothing to show for it.

And fear. That’s why they locked themselves in the upper room. They were terrified that what they had just seen happen to Jesus might happen to them too.

You’ve been there, haven’t you? In that Holy Saturday place. Or you’ve seen people you love there. Or you have been called to walk alongside someone who is there. Or maybe you are there right now.

You lose your job. And you have no idea where the next one might come from. And the money has almost run out. And the house is on the line. And if anyone gets seriously sick, well, just don’t even let your thoughts go there.

When someone you love so much dies, and it feels like at least 2/3 of you has died with them.

When the dark clouds of depression loom up on the horizon of your life and start rolling relentlessly towards you.

When you get the diagnosis, and now you’re dealing with a condition or a disease in yourself or someone you love, that will totally change your life and the lives of everyone who loves you, and rob you, maybe fearfully slowly, maybe fearfully quickly, of the kind of life you wanted, and the dreams you had.

When you see someone you love so much, but don’t know how to help any more, returning to the addiction that is destroying them.

There are many kinds of Holy Saturday places, but in all of them, the situation seems hopeless. If anything is going to turn this around, it’s going to have to be from God, because every direction you look is a dead end. It seems like there’s no way things can get better, only worse and worse, and all you can think about is what you have lost. What has happened has shattered your sense of who you are. You don’t see yourself in the same way any more. Everyone else sees you differently too. The future you had planned out, and that you were so confident that *God* had planned for you, has crumbled before your eyes. And wave after wave of resentment and guilt and fear and frustration and confusion is crashing over you.

Yes, you KNOW with your head that Jesus is risen. You know with your head that he has won the ultimate victory, and that in him we are more than conquerors.

You know that with your head. But your heart and your guts are not there.

And… where is the space for you in all of that? Because it sometimes seems like there IS no space for you. Because it seems like everyone wants you to move as fast as possible from Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday. Everyone wants you to say - you want to be able to say, hand on heart - ‘Yes, it’s rough, but I’m OK, it’s all OK because of Jesus.’ But right now you just aren’t there, and it is NOT OK.

There is a space in the story for you. It isn’t the place we are called to stay for always. But we need to acknowledge that that place in the story is there. And we need to give each other permission to be in that Holy Saturday place. Sometimes there are whole, long Holy Saturday seasons in our lives, where all those kinds of thoughts and feelings we named for those first disciples on that first Holy Saturday are someone’s daily reality.

When we walk with and love and serve those who are in an extended Holy Saturday, that is sometimes the greatest gift we can give. To honor the fact that they are in the Holy Saturday place in the story. To be the safe space for someone to honestly tell you what it is like, without moving too quickly to attempted solutions and reassurances. Holy Saturday is a holy space in the story for lament, and confusion, and desolation and what seems like a dead end, and not being sure what to be or do or think or feel any more.

But here’s something else to hold onto about that first Holy Saturday. It is there in our text today, and it is the only thing our text directly says about this difficult day. They kept Sabbath. Holy Saturday is also a day - a season - to be faithful. Doggedly faithful. Even when they were feeling their most hopeless and desolate those first followers of Jesus were faithful. They kept Sabbath.

They must have been wondering if they could believe in God any more, because their faith and trust in God had been totally bound up with believing that Jesus was the one that God had sent. And now Jesus was dead.  Maybe they kept Sabbath on autopilot, totally numb and hardly knowing what they were doing. Maybe they did it with hearts that were angry and resentful towards God. Maybe they did it because there was comfort in the routine. Maybe they did it because they wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing and they'd be in trouble if they didn’t. Maybe they did it because they clung to faith in spite of everything, and they still loved God and they still loved Jesus. Whatever the reasons why, they were faithful. They did it.

Does that sound familiar, anyone? I’m pretty sure it does. This ‘being faithful’ aspect of Holy Saturday, is so important, not just for those who are living through a Holy Saturday time, but for all of us who walk alongside folks who are there. Even when we are hurting so much, and even when we don't understand, and don’t see a hopeful way forward, just like those disciples on that first Holy Saturday, still, there is the call to be faithful; to discern what that means in whatever the situation is, and in the strength of the Lord and the upholding of the Spirit, to walk on, one foot in front of the other, even when you can’t see very far at all on the road ahead. It’s the Holy Saturday call to be faithful, no matter what you are feeling or not feeling, whatever that looks like on any given day. 

To everyone who keeps on seeking the grace and the strength and the wisdom to discern and do the faithful thing, whatever that might be, day in day out, going through the motions even when you don’t feel very much any more, because it is the right thing to do; or doing the faithful thing, even when you feel heartbroken or volcanically angry about the whole situation; or doing the faithful thing, not understanding, but still loving and trusting - Holy Saturday is your day.

But there’s one more thing too. Yes, those disciples keeping sabbath *is* a call to us to discern what it means to be faithful in our Holy Saturday situations…. but it’s also a call to stop, and to rest in the Lord. They rested on the Sabbath, according to the commandment. Sabbath is much more than simply a command: ‘do not do any work’. It is a call to rest in the Lord, and to surrender our illusions of control, and to trust in him. That is the original intent of sabbath… and that, I think, is one of the huge messages to the disciples that first Holy Saturday.

They were at the end of their rope. Jesus was dead, they were terrified, everything seemed hopeless, and nothing they could do could change anything about the situation. And then the day after their whole world collapsed around them, they had to keep Sabbath. In all their grief and fear and panic and confusion, they HAD to just wait on the Lord, because that was what this Sabbath day required of them. There might well have been a million things that they wanted to do on that Saturday - and we know that the women were so desperate to do the last loving things for Jesus that they set off for the tomb as soon as they possible could on Sunday morning - but on Saturday they made themselves rest in and rest on the Lord.

Part of being faithful that Holy Saturday was that they had to take the focus off themselves and their situation, and what was making them feel desolate and desperate, and they had to focus, as the Sabbath day required of them, on God - the creator and sustainer of all things; the one who set his people free. The focus is on his faithfulness, on the great things he has done, on his steadfast love. Even when the situation they were in made them doubt all of that and wonder where this faithful God who did amazing things was supposed to be right now.

Sometimes in our Holy Saturdays, and as we walk with others in their Holy Saturdays, we also need to stop and take Sabbath. Take Sabbath from doing doing doing, from trying to manufacture solutions to the presenting problems, from revolving in our heads all the what ifs and whys and what nexts. We need to make ourselves pause and refocus on who God is, and what God has done - in our lives, and also in the whole sweep of the scriptural story. We need to remind ourselves of the steadfast love and mercy and faithfulness of God, even when our Holy Saturday situations make us doubt all of that - even if the cancer doesn’t go into remission; even if we still have no idea what our next steps should be or even could be. We need to remind ourselves that it really is true that nothing in life or in death or in all of creation - nothing - can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And we KNOW that is true because God has given us the ultimate testimony of that, and the ultimate guarantee of that, in raising Jesus Christ from the dead.

And that brings us at last to the obvious and decisive difference that sets our Holy Saturday experiences apart from that first Holy Saturday. In all of our Holy Saturday experiences, we do know what happens on Easter Sunday. So as well as allowing Holy Saturday to be a holy space in the story for the pain of those of us who are enduring a hard, hard season, we also want to make sure that we say that yes, even in the midst of all of this, there are glimpses of resurrection joy - glimpses of the promises and faithfulness of God. So as part of our Holy Saturdays let’s also gently help one another to see those glimpses of God’s goodness and faithfulness and love and care.

We do need to be able to be honest about the dark emptiness of our Holy Saturday times. And that is why there is grace for us just in the fact that Holy Saturday is there, in the gospel story. Just like the order of the scriptures, we need to let ourselves have permission, and especially give others permission, to have the time to dwell with the darkness and the pain rather than trying to push too quickly to resurrection light and joy. But we ARE always going to hold the whole picture together - the cross is not the end, Holy Saturday does not last forever, and in Jesus’ resurrection we do have the ultimate promise that sin and death and everything that holds us back from fullness of life will not have the last word. Holy Saturday is the place in the Easter story that allows us all to give full vent to the pain and confusion and desolation that is still very real in our stories, even as it encourages us to wait with sure and certain hope for what the Lord will do -

8.30 - as we will sing in a moment, God *will* take our hand, guide our feet, through the storm, through the night and lead us on to the light.

10.00 - as we will sing in a moment, even as we labor through the storm, until the midnight meets the morning.

Thanks be to God, Amen.

March 19, 2017
Lindsay Small
Luke 15:1-32

There is a particular memory from the first few days in the hospital after our son Micah was born. I remember on the morning when we were preparing to leave….a nurse came in our room with a DVD. She said she was required to show us this short video on ‘how to be a parent.’

The video was 7 minutes long.

Who knew that learning to be a parent would only take 7 minutes? Most of the video was about not dropping your baby, or shaking your baby, or forgetting your baby…all really good stuff…but let’s face it…it takes a lot more than seven minutes to learn how to be a parent.

And so when the nurse announced that we were all set and could go home. I remember thinking…”That’s it??? They are letting us go home with this little creature?” I need more than seven minutes! He doesn’t come with an instruction manual or something?

And really, how could they? Each manual would have to be written specifically for each child. As parents and children alike, we know that one size does NOT fit all when it comes to kids. As soon as you figure out one child, another comes along…and you have to go in search of a completely new manual.

How comforting it is for me to instead read a seven-minute passage from scripture…to remind us that our problems were their problems too. That children are different…that there weren’t instruction manuals back then either…that they lost stuff too. Maybe not keys, but stuff went missing…just like it does for us today…

Jesus draws from everyday things…to remind us that our everyday is not so different from their everyday. Sheep…coins…sons…these are the things that made up life when Jesus walked the earth…and that make up our life today. (Ok, maybe not the sheep as much in this part of the country…but you get my drift).

In the text that was read for us, we are once again reminded that we share in the Scripture story. Because we can all relate to losing something…and we look and look and look…and we just. can’t. find. it. And then there’s always someone who says, “Have you retracted your steps???” So annoying…of course I’ve retracted my steps…and then I go and secretly retrace my steps…

Jesus tells these simple stories because they translate across time…and social class. The crowds are pressing in, but not just any crowds…”tax collectors and sinners” are coming near.

And the Pharisees and Scribes don’t like it. They start grumbling and saying, “This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Can you imagine? He welcomes sinners…and even more…he eats with them!

The parental translation of this verse is, “IT’S NOT FAIR.”

Ahhh…”It’s not fair.” How I wish that 7 minute video would have devoted at least 5 minutes to the virtue and vice of hearing the words, “It’s not fair.” This passage is literally dripping in “It’s not fair…”

Jesus is hanging out with sinners….it’s not fair!

The shepherd leaves 99 sheep behind to seek out one…it’s not fair!

The woman searches all over for one tiny coin…with seemingly no appreciation for for the nine that are in her purse…it’s not fair!

The younger son squanders his father’s wealth and is welcomed back with no consequences…It’s not fair. Because its not.

This is a tough passage, especially for those of us who have stayed in the fold, in the wallet, those of us who have been the obedient child…this is a big ol’ lesson in life not being fair. And I think its okay to name that. A friend of mine shared with me this week that this really has never been one of her favorite stories…because it makes those who have been faithful and obedient feel like it was all for nothing!

This younger son…we’ve all met him before. We know the type. The free spirit…the wanderer…the rule breaker. We first meet him in the heading, “The prodigal son.”

It won’t come as any big surprise to you that the authors of the Bible did not number their sentences as they wrote them…or put titles on their headings. Those were all put in later…and whoever was in charge of dividing up Luke decided to name this section after the son.

Now I have to admit I really didn’t know what prodigal meant…I mean, I kind of got the gist: lost, sinner, privileged younger brother, etc. But in fact, it means ‘recklessly wasteful.” Prodigal is exact opposite of frugal. The son in this passage is named not for his sin, but for his wastefulness.

In Jewish culture, it was customary for fathers to split the family fortune between his sons. The older son would get two-thirds of the wealth and the younger son would only keep about a third. It was very rare to break up the property until after the father died.  Once the father gave up his land, he had no more power or influence over his children. He would become dependent on their kindness. Since there was no Social Security in those days, fathers were obviously reluctant to let go of everything they had.

So essentially in asking his father for his inheritance, he is asking him to the commit financial suicide. Not only that, in effect he is saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead already so that I could get on with my life.” I cannot imagine the pain the father must have felt at that moment. His son had chosen money over him.

Most of us would have laughed in his face and sent him to his room without dinner…but this father is different from the rest of the parents in the neighborhood. Instead he gives his son all his cash and liquid property, so that the older brother can keep the family farm. He is trusting that his boys will stick around and take care of him, but the youngest disappears almost immediately.

Soon, rumors trickle home about how he is wasting the money that the father worked so hard to accumulate.  All the people in town call it a shame:

shameful that the youngest son would act that way; shameful that the father would be foolish enough to trust his youngest son!

We all know what happens…the money is spent, a famine descends, and in a favorite scene that has been acted out in one million youth group skits over the years…the son is left feeding pigs, longing to eat what the pigs are eating…and decides to return home and become one of his father’s slaves.

The Father sees his youngest son returning home and he runs out the door to meet him. You get the feeling that he was waiting and watching for his youngest child. It was inappropriate, even reckless, for the father to chase after his son. Respectable old men did not run in the streets, especially to hug someone who should have been shunned.

You would expect the Father to be waiting at home, arms crossed, with a disapproving look on his face, waiting for an apology. As the son tries to offer that apology, he is cut off by his dad. The son had rehearsed his lines all the way home, and now his Father stops him before he can finish. All he wants is his son back.

I wish we could rename this passage. Sure the son wasted money on wine, women, and gambling. Yes, he was reckless in how he treated his father.

The son was a prodigal.

But his father was too. He is the prodigal father. That’s what this passage is all about. It makes no sense that he would give away his fortune in the first place…he gave up so much. The son hadn’t even earned it…he took his inheritance and squandered it. The father should be furious…make him pay it back, maybe some sort of installment plan…make him work to win back his father’s favor…

But no. He recklessly welcomes him back. He kills the fatted calf and throws a party. Because his son that was dead, is now alive.

He is the prodigal father.

The embrace of his son is unconditional. No consequences, no payment, no debt.

No fair! …the elder son’s words can be heard from a distance.

He heard the commotion from the party as he was coming in from a day of hard work…and when he finds out what happens he mutters what so many of us would mutter…”No fair.”

The older son is understandably angry. His brother has thrown away any sense of family responsibility while he has had to stay at home…he’s been working hard while his brother has been partying hard…and now his brother is welcomed home with open arms.

And so he does what any good oldest child does…dons his best passive aggressive self, crosses his arms, sticks out his lower lip, and refuses to come into the party.

And so he goes out to see his oldest son…who promptly launches in, “I work out the fields all day…and you don’t even appreciate it! You’re doing all this stuff for him…but you have never even given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends…”  AKA…It’s not fair…

But I love the father’s response, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

What the older son did not see was that his father was every bit as lavish with both of his sons….he had given both of them his inheritance…both were lavished on. The older son did not realize the multitude of blessings that were already his.

The problem is…we like to think we deserve it, we earn it, we ‘gold star’ it… and so when we see our lazy, no-good siblings getting the same thing…we cry foul.

Why is it easier to see the bounty of God’s generosity in someone else’s life than in our own lives? Why is it so easy to feel jealousy and resentment?

Why is it so easy to feel like its not fair?

I tried my first hot yoga class a little over a year ago. It’s exactly what it sounds like…yoga in a room around 98 degrees. I was careful to find a spot way over in the corner where people couldn’t see me. I was way too mindful of the fact that the other people in the room shared an average clothing size of around 2 and a half. As I lay on the mat before the class was about to begin, I looked over to a wall where people had written quotes of inspiration. And one in particular caught my eye, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Wise words before a class that would literally stretch me to the limit.

It took away the joy of the older brother: how come he gets so much???

And it takes away our joy too: how come their life is easier? How come she this? How come he that?

What’s worse…we have a tendency to compare our private life to other people’s public life. We put that the perceived perfection of others next to our messy lives…and assume the worst. And it’s not fair…to us.

Comparison feeds off of a ‘no fair’ mentality.

Jesus invites us into a generous posture…one that does not operate out of comparison but compassion. One that calls us to be prodigal—reckless in our love, our embrace, our grace.

Starting with ourselves…and stretching out to everyone we meet…and maybe even first the closest to us…

The older brother didn’t realize that the same grace that was extended to his younger brother was already available to him…not because he deserved it…but because it was freely given.

When we’re in the fold it is easy to miss the grace that is right in front of us.

Grace that has been lavished on the 99…and the one. The ten…and the one. The older brother…and younger brother.

It’s not fair. Thanks be to God.

The fact is…we wouldn’t want it to be.

If God was fair…there would be no room for grace.

God is not fair with us…he is prodigal with us…with his love, his compassion, his grace….it is lavish, it is reckless.

He is the Prodigal Father. And he welcomes us home.

Our call, then, this morning is to be prodigal fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons…

To go in search of those who are lost and lonely…

To be reckless with God’s love…because he was first reckless with us.

It’s not fair. It’s grace.

Thanks be to God.

March 12, 2017
Nate Schipper
Luke 13:1-9

March 5, 2017
Brian Keepers
Luke 10:25-37

There is no such thing as a bad question.

Isn’t this what we’ve been taught by our parents and teachers since we were in kindergarten, maybe even earlier? Isn’t this what we teach our own children?

While that may or may not be true, not all questions are equal. Certainly some questions are better than others, wouldn’t you agree?

Here’s the truth: the question you ask will influence the answer you receive. And learning how to ask the “better” questions in life is hugely important. So often, the question is just as important, if not more, than the answer.

In our Scripture passage today, it all begins with a question. A lawyer—that is, an expert in the Law of Moses—stand ups to test Jesus. Right away we get a window into this man’s motive. He wants to have a theological debate. And so he asks Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

In classic rabbinic fashion, Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a question of his own: “What is written in the Law of Moses? How do you interpret it?” Jesus senses the lawyer already thinks he knows the answer to the question he is asking. So he puts it back on the lawyer.

The lawyer quotes from the Shema—Dueteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” Then he adds this command from Leviticus 19:18: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Sounds good, don’t you think? Love God, love your neighbor. Jesus himself would combine these two commandments and call them “the Greatest Commandment.”

Jesus says, “You have given the right answer; now go do it and you will live.” Do we hear in Jesus’ words a hint of skepticism? An awareness, perhaps, that this man is spiritually prideful. A man whose chest swells with certainty. He is looking for a check list of what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. He gives a good answer, you might even think the right answer, but Jesus says it’s about more than giving the right answer. It’s about how you live. It’s about action.

Then the lawyer asks his second question. “But wanting to justify himself…” Oh, I see. How many times have I done this myself? Wanting to justify himself…wanting to defend himself, make excuses for the way he was living his life. Wanting to prove himself righteous before God (in right relationship with God)…he clears his throat and asks, “And who is my neighbor?”

My friends? My family members? People who think like me and believe like me and look like me and act like me? Even though the Law of Moses was clear in certain parts that God’s people were called to welcome the foreigner, the immigrant, the refugee—the “Other,” the Jewish community had placed limits on their circle of concern. “Love of neighbor” had been reduced to “folk just like us.” And no doubt this lawyer was doing that already…and probably doing it really well!

So here we have the lawyer asking two questions:

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Who is my neighbor?

They’re good questions. But are they the right questions? Or might there be “better” questions?

Jesus answers his questions by telling a story—this famous story of the Good Samaritan. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…” Hold on: Who is this man? What’s his name? What was his race or ethnicity? His religious affiliation? I want details, don’t you?

But Jesus doesn’t say. He just says “a man was going down the road…” The famous and very dangerous 17 mile road from Jerusalem, where the Temple is, to Jericho. He is jumped by robbers who strip him, beat him beyond recognition, and leave him unconscious and as good as dead. Two of the primary ways you identified the nationality and ethnicity of a person in the ancient world was by the clothes they wear and the language they speak.

But here this man lies, beaten and bloody and stripped of anything that would self-identify him or put him in “a group.” It’s nondescript. But could that be the point? Here is a man stripped of everything and shown simply to be a human being. A human being in need.

A priest passes by, on his way home from Jerusalem where he likely just completed his religious duties at the temple. The priest at least sees him, but steers to the side. Perhaps he was concerned that he would be defiled and made unclean by coming into too close proximity with a person nearly dead—and who knows what the nationality of this man. What if he is a Gentile? A sinner? According to religious codes (spelled out in the Sirach), God himself detests sinners and so a “good man” would not compromise his “goodness” by helping a filthy sinner.

Then comes a Levite. The Levite does not have the same religious responsibilities of the priest, but he is still a religious person who needs to avoid being defiled. Unlike the priest, the Levite not only sees the man but actually approaches him. But he does not do anything to help the man. Perhaps even more than the danger of religious defilement, the Levite is afraid of other robbers who may mug him and do the same to him. And who’s to say it’s not a trap? A scam? He fears for his own safety and security. So he keeps going.

Then comes the Samaritan. And this is the real shock in the story. You would expect a Jewish layperson—that would be the right progression: a priest, a Levite, a Jewish layperson. Never would you imagine a Samaritan. Samaritans were “half-breeds”—hated by the Jewish community. They were considered heretics—bad people. There had literally been centuries of hostility between Jews and Samaritans. It’s funny how often it’s the people who are closest to being like us who can become our greatest enemies.

But to the lawyer’s shock, it is the Samaritan who turns out to be the hero. He sees the man (like the priest and Levite), approaches the man (like the Levite), but then does what the other two failed to do. He is moved with compassion (talk about how this is about gut-wrenching response to the suffering of others) and takes enormous risks to help the man. Rescues him. Binds up his wounds, pours oil and wine on them. Takes the man to an inn and generously pays for him to be cared for.

Now, who do you think the lawyer would have identified with in this story? Not the priest. Not the Levite. And certainly not the despised Samaritan. Who’s left?

The unnamed man who fell between robbers, was stripped, beaten and left for dead. The man in the story who is in NEED of being rescued. Jesus confronts this lawyer’s sense of self-righteousness and spiritual pride…as he confronts all of us.

Do you remember the lawyer’s question that got this whole thing started? “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Well, what’s problematic about his question?

You don’t “do” something to “inherit” anything. It’s a contradiction of terms. An inheritance is something you can only receive as a gift because of the relationship you have with the giver.

 The lawyer, confident in his own self-righteousness, thought he could earn eternal life by obeying God’s commands—even a command as important as the greatest commandment. What he couldn’t see, however, is that he was just as much in need of mercy as those whom he looked down upon as “sinners.” Jesus, in effect, is radically redefining the question. Instead of asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” the better question is this:

“What has God done to make me a worthy heir of eternal life?”

The answer: He is the One who shows mercy. How? By sending Jesus. One way to read the parable of the Good Samaritan is that Jesus is casting himself in the role of the Samaritan in the story—the outsider, the one who would be despised and rejected by his own people—who comes to us, and in an act of risky and vulnerable love, rescues us in our place of need, woundedness, death.

This man could not win God’s mercy. There is no checklist of things he must do to gain it. It can only be received as a gift of God’s grace through faith. The lawyer is the man on the road who fell among robbers. And so are you and I. We, every single one of us, are desperately in NEED of God’s mercy in Jesus.

The season of Lent has this recognition at its heart. Which is why the whole practice of confession and repentance is central to these forty days of making the journey with Jesus to the cross and the bright hope of Easter. For centuries, Christians have assumed a posture of humility, especially during Lent, and prayed the simple prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

We all sin and fall short of God’s glory. We are all wounded, lying on the side of the road, spiritually dead, in need of God’s mercy to come and rescue us, forgive us, bind up our wounds and make us whole.

And how does God show us mercy? How does he come to rescue us?

Like this: Jesus is not just the Samaritan in the story, but he also is the man who fell among robbers. In fact, the Samaritan is not the main character in the story. The main character is the man who fell among the thieves. I agree with the pastor and writer Robert Farrar Capon, who insists that the Parable of the Good Samaritan, like the Parable of the Prodigal Son, has been misnamed. It should be called “the Parable of the Man who Fell Among Thieves.”

This is how God’s rescue has come to us in Jesus. This is how God has shown us mercy. Not in success and victory as the world thinks of it. But in Jesus’ own suffering, rejection, and death. Will he not be the one who would fall among thieves—one on his right and one on his left—pinned on a cross, stripped naked, beaten beyond recognition, betrayed by all who loved him? This is what mercy looks like: a Savior on a cross with outstretched hands who says, “Father, forgive them.” In the words of Pope Francis: God’s mercy has a name, and it has a face; and that name and face is Jesus.

To receive such incredible mercy calls for a response on our part. As those who have been shown mercy, we are called, as disciples of Jesus, to show mercy to others.

And so Jesus radically reframes the lawyer’s second question, too. The lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus says, “Here’s the better question: Who became a neighbor to the man who fell among the thieves?”

In other words, the question is not, “Who do I have to show mercy to?” The question is now, “Am I becoming the kind of neighbor, by God’s grace, who shows mercy to any and every person in need?” And to whom am I specifically being called to love with mercy that Christ has shown me?

It is because of Christ’s mercy given to us that we are now forgiven, transformed, and equipped to be a neighbor to all others—to show mercy. We live a life of showing mercy, compassion, caring for others…not to win God’s mercy but because God has already shown us mercy. And this is what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus. This is what it means to be a disciple. How did Dietrich Bonheoffer say it? I remember: “Once a man has truly experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire to serve.”

Mercy changes you. And it changes the way you see, feel and act towards others. Especially those who are most vulnerable and in need in our communities, nation and world.

As we begin the journey of Lent, we’re going to be focusing on Christ’s call, as those who’ve received mercy, to be a people who “henceforth aspire to serve.” To be a people who serve God and others by showing mercy.

And this call is not easy. It is not safe. It is risky. It is messy. And it is uncomfortable. Jesus will lead us to those who are not like us. And he will call us to love those whom are difficult to love, even those we consider enemies.

But the way you become more and more a person of mercy, a Christ-like neighbor to anyone in need, is simply by getting into action and doing it. You practice. You act like a neighbor. Even if you don’t feel like it.

There is no such thing as a bad question. But there are better questions. And sometimes learning to ask the right question is just as important, if not more, than getting the right answer. So let me offer you what I would consider “better” questions for you to ponder and wrestle with today:

In what ways are you trying to justify yourself before God? What would it look like for you today to simply receive this gift of mercy, to acknowledge your need for Christ’s love and grace, and to let him draw near and bind up your wounds?

And secondly, to whom is God calling you to be a neighbor and show mercy? What is one way you can get into action by showing mercy this next week?

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

February 26, 2017
Stacey Duensing
Luke 9:28-45

It was so unexpected.

And maybe that was the problem.

Yesterday, we went up a mountain to pray with Jesus. It was just James, John, and I (Peter). This was not a new ritual for Jesus. We were all comfortable with it. I was so comfortable that I got a teensy bit bored: I fell asleep. But not for long, however; because then something completely unexpected happened.

I don’t know if you will believe me when I tell you this: I opened my eyes and there was Jesus!

Ok, ok, ok… I have already told you that Jesus was there. But when I opened my eyes and saw Jesus he was different. His face had changed and his clothes were dazzling white. There were two men with him: Moses and Elijah.

THE Moses and THE Elijah.

 Do you know who I mean? Moses: the giver of God’s law. And Elijah: the prophet proclaiming God’s promises. Do you know what it meant that that they were there with Jesus? They are the law and the prophets. We have been told that the Messiah will fulfill the law and the prophets. Therefore, Jesus standing there with them meant that he was the Messiah! He’s the one we’ve been waiting for to save us!

A week ago I told Jesus I knew he was the Messiah of God. The crowds following us had been murmuring about who Jesus was. So Jesus asked us disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” We told Jesus what we had heard: some of the crowd thought that Jesus was Moses or Elijah who had come back from the dead.

Then Jesus asked us, “But who do you say that I am?”

And I knew. I, Peter, knew. And I said, “Jesus, you are the Messiah of God.”

I knew then, and I knew now when I stood on the mountain with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. There was no doubt in my mind that that was true. Here he was! Jesus our Messiah! And he was here in glory. This is what a Messiah should look like: glory, power, and victory.

 But then Jesus did something unexpected.

And it messed the whole thing up.

Oh, Jesus! He was talking to Moses and Elijah but he was talking about his “departure”. It was the same nonsense he was talking about a week ago when I first confessed he was the Messiah. Right after I blurted out, “You are the Messiah,” he started talking about how he was going to be rejected, and suffer, and even die.

Jesus said, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

 That’s what Jesus said!

But let me tell you what I think: that’s nonsense! I don’t think Jesus understands what a Messiah is supposed to be! A Messiah is supposed to save people, not suffer and die! Who saves people by suffering and dying?! It just doesn’t make sense! I know Jesus does things that are unexpected, but to say that he is going to suffer and die as our Messiah is just crazy.

 To cap it all off, Jesus didn’t stop there. He decided to drag us into the suffering as well. He said to us:

 “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

 I don’t understand what Jesus was saying. And I know that Jesus does the unexpected. Trust me, I’ve been following him for a while. I’ve seen him heal lepers, and a paralytic. I’ve seen him calm a storm. I have even heard him teach about loving your enemy.

But in all these unexpected things Jesus has done he has brought life to people. So I do not understand why Jesus is suddenly talking about his death. I have seen Jesus bring life by raising a little girl from the dead. I have seen Jesus bring life by forgiving a sinful and broken woman. I have seen Jesus bring life by feeding over 5,000 people by using only five loaves of bread and two fish.

In his ministry, I have only seen Jesus bring life to people. Why is he now talking about his death and calling us to our own? This a whole new way Jesus is doing the unexpected. Can you blame me for being a little confused?

What do you think? Would you follow Jesus into suffering? Come on, tell me! How does it feel to have Jesus saying to you, “Take up your cross and follow me?”

It’s not pleasant, is it?

I didn’t think so.

Well I decided to leave all that unpleasant business behind. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

When I saw Jesus on the mountain in glory, I saw it as my chance to change things. Here was Jesus: fitting all my expectations of who a Messiah should be. He was standing with Moses and Elijah. He was full of glory. It was perfect. And I didn’t want it to change.

I wanted to build a monument to the moment. I wanted to memorialize Jesus and keep him there. I didn’t want him to go to Jerusalem! I didn’t want him to suffer and die!

That is a bad plan, Jesus!

Let me tell you what a good plan is: staying where God’s glory is! Not going into the suffering! We could just stay here in the glory and make it last somehow. We could build houses and have the glory of God dwelling with us forever! That is a great plan! It’s not like it would be that hard to build three houses! Jesus was a carpenter!

It was a perfect plan! But evidently, it was not God’s plan. I was so busy building castles in the sky of my mind that I was not paying attention to what God was doing on the ground beneath my feet.

But, suddenly, I was forced to pay attention. As I was telling Jesus my plans, a cloud descended on us. It swallowed me. That beautiful picture I idolized of Jesus’ glory began to fade from my sight. The weight of the cloud swirled around me, turning the light of glory into blackness. I became afraid.

Have you ever been in a cloud before? Or perhaps a really thick fog? It’s hard to see. Things get dark. You can only see what is right in front of you. When you loose your sense of vision, it can feel like you are lost.

I think I needed that cloud.

I had become so focused on my own vision of Jesus’s glory, that I was not seeing the full picture. I need to un-see, to let go of my own vision, so that I could truly see. So I could truly see God’s vision.

The cloud was a cloud of un-knowing.

That is a vulnerable place to be. Letting go of what you know, and want, and expect can be a debilitating, much like getting lost in the fog. No longer able to see what’s coming, you are forced to be present to what is closet to you.

What was closest to me was God. God was the mist, surrounding me, enveloping me, embracing me.

Talk about God showing up in the unexpected! And God was not even done yet! In the swirling dark mist of the cloud, God spoke.

God said: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

“Listen.”

You know what’s funny about listening? Sometimes our eyes get in the way. We get so distracted by what we see, or can’t see, that we can’t really tune in our ears to what God is saying. I had gotten so preoccupied with the vision I didn’t hear what Jesus was saying.

 Listening involves giving up our expectations and plans. It means letting go of our ideas of who God is and how God will save. Listening takes surrender, and vulnerability, and a deep trust.

To listen to the voice of Jesus is to hear the mission of God.

And God’s mission, much to my dismay, seemed to involve both Jesus’ glory and suffering. Yep, and that means it includes my suffering too.

So I guess the question is: What does it look like to take up your cross and follow Jesus?

To be honest, I don’t know.

·         Maybe it looks like believing that God is with you even in the most dangerous and vulnerable places of your life, and not just on the mountain top.

·         Maybe it’s believing that God is powerful and loving enough to show up in your suffering.

·         Maybe it’s trusting God in the sorrow and pain, that somehow someway, new life will come forth.

I cannot tell you what’s coming ahead. I can only see what is directly in front of me. But I know, oh, I know, that the presence of God is with me in the cloud. That gives me strength to listen. And to follow wherever Jesus goes even if that means taking up my cross. Following involves trust, obedience, and listening when God does speak.

What gives me hope is clinging to what I do know. So far in Jesus’ ministry he has brought life. Maybe, somehow, Jesus will use his suffering and death for a greater good.

·         Perhaps it will be like a caterpillar, who dies and becomes wrapped in cocoon before bursting forth into a butterfly.

·         Or perhaps this looks like a seed that is buried in the cold dark soil before it grows into a flower.

Maybe, somehow, Jesus’s death will be like that. I’m not sure. But whatever happens, I do know that in Jesus there is fullness of life. And I can trust in that, even in the suffering.

I meant what I said last week: Jesus is the Messiah. I just don’t know how he’s going to do his saving work. I know it will not be my plan. I have to follow his.

 In the unknown, I can hold unto what I do know. I can listen for the voice of God in the midst of the cloud: “This is my son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him.”

I will listen to you, Jesus. I will trust you. I will follow you. Because I know that you are the Messiah.

February 19, 2017
Lindsay Small
Luke 7:36-50

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair.

Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,[b] and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus[c] said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” -Luke 7: 36-50

 Scanning a bookshelf at our house recently, I found myself wondering what it would be like to NOT have these stories in my life…

What would my childhood have been like without Barbar and Curious George? Madeline and Laura Ingalls Wilder? What would my adolescence have been like without the The Hiding Place, Anne of Green Gables, and The Baby-Sitters Club? What would my angsty teen years have been like without To Kill a Mockingbird and anything written by Judy Blume?

 What if I had never heard of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth?

What if I had never met Kristina from Vilhelm Moberg’s “The Immigrants”? What would I do without Edmund, Peter, Susan and Lucy?

Imagine your favorite book character…and now imagine that character had never come into your life.

Yeah, no thanks.

Stories and storybook characters hold prominent places in our lives…they teach us so much: how to love, how to be courageous, how to laugh, how to be curious. They bring us to places we never thought we would go…Japanese Internment Camps and Nazi Germany, Colonial America and Modern Day Haiti…just a few of the places I’ve been carried to over the past year.

Good stories…have a way of inhabiting a place in our hearts that we cannot shake…

But admittedly, they have their limits. They are not meant to answer every question and fill in every blank. This is where we the reader comes in…where something is required of us…this is where we are asked to draw on upon our imagination.

To arrange the furniture in Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s Dam…to smell the fire from the fireplace in the Little House in the Big Woods…to imagine what the gardens of Pemberly looked like.

Something is blessedly required of us so that we fully enter in…

The Biblical Story is no different. It is on the one hand so frustrating that the gospel writers were not more comprehensive in their accounts of Jesus…but on the other hand maybe they are doing us a favor.

Something is required of us in the reading of the Biblical story. It is meant to produce as many questions as it is answers. What prompted this? What was the response? What would we have done? And all of sudden, we are swept up. We are in the text.

Story invites us to open our mind, our posture, to something beyond ourselves. Story pulls us out beyond our limits and invites us to have seat at a table that we did not set.

Today’s story, found in Luke 7, literally invites us to pull up a chair…or cushion as it were…and have a seat at the table. But soon after sitting down, we realize this in not your typical dinner party. One of the first problems we soon encounter is that as dinner guests, we are given a whole lotta present, but very little past…

We know that a Pharisee named Simon has a dinner party, and invites Jesus. We know that a woman, whose only distinguishing feature is her sinfulness…finds out about the dinner party and sneaks in with an alabaster jar of oil. We know that she promptly pours the oil over his feet, washes them with her tears, and dries them with her hair.

Oh…and we know that this is not normal behavior.

That’s the present…but what about the past? Well, there’s a whole lot we don’t know…We don’t know what has happened in the past to make this woman’s primary identity her sin. We don’t know what prompted Simon the Pharisee to invite Jesus for dinner. We don’t know what or how the woman had heard about Jesus. We haven’t even had the first course yet and there is plenty here to be curious about…

I can’t seem to shake the woman’s story…She enters a dinner party where she is not invited and makes a huge scene…I mean, there is no way to cry quite literally onto someone’s feet and not have it be a bit of a distraction. I mean, the times that I’ve tried it anyway…

In order for a woman in that day and age…especially one synonymous with the word ‘sinner’ to make such a display in front a group that must have had quite a few men…we can easily imagine that she was absolutely desperate and that her actions were fueled by an enormous amount of pain.

My husband Kyle is known for a saying…that is sad but so true. “There’s a lot of pain in the world.”

He says it so much his colleagues even made him a shirt that says, “There’s a lot of pain in the world.” And there is…there is so much pain in the world. This woman might has well have been wearing Kyle’s shirt…Because the pain she was carrying was palpable…and public.

“A woman, who was a sinner….” There’s two strikes…pretty sure her erratic dinner party behavior will be strike three.

She pours out the oil, and her tears, and her whole life of sin and shame onto Jesus feet…and we’re sitting there at the table…our eyes wide as all the guests present.

Now the story turns to Simon, the host of the dinner. The text says, “He said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touch him—that she is a sinner.”

There are two words in these verses that I find fascinating…”to himself.”

In all the other gospel stories that echo this passage…stories of Jesus being anointed by a woman with expensive oil…the disgust towards the woman is shared by the dinner guests, or the disciples…it is collective. But here in Luke…it’s private. Simon says…to himself.

This is that inner monologue. You know the one, the one where if its to yourself its not that bad, right? Its not like you said it out loud??? And the thing is, I get it…Simon had arranged the dinner, invited the guests, this was his time with Jesus to figure out who he was and what he was about and this WOMAN…this sinful woman…comes in and steals the show…

And so Simon says…talk to yourself And so he says to himself…

And I say to myself…

And we say to ourselves…

And Jesus hears us. And Jesus knows us. And Jesus calls us out. Like he did to Simon…

Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus[c] said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but

from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

I’ll admit there was a bit of enjoyment for me reading about Jesus calling out Simon for his bad manners. “Simon, the stuff you were supposed to do, was done by a woman.”

Simon, the woman, the stuff she’s done before? It is not your concern. Maybe you should be concerned with your own stuff. Maybe work on directing your inner monologue towards me and instead of a cul-de-sac of your own self-righteousness (that’s my loose translation).

Simon…forgiveness tastes better than self-righteousness. This woman…known for her sin publicly, was judged PRIVATELY by the Pharisee. But here’s the beautiful thing: Jesus’ forgiveness is big enough for them both.

As wide as a public sin, as deep as private judgment…there is no realm where God’s forgiveness does not go. Past, present, and future…There is NOTHING out of the realm of God’s forgiveness.

He meets the woman on the floor…he meets Simon at the table…and he meets you and me right here. There is nothing out of the realm of God’s forgiveness.

The ‘future’ of this passage is just as vague as the ‘past.’ There are so many unknowns at the end of this passage…

-What happened to the woman?

-How did Simon respond?

-What was for dessert?

We don’t know because we don’t need to know. One commentator suggests that by the end of the passage, Luke is more interested in how we respond.

The story ends but we’re still at the table, trying to figure out if we embody more Pharisee or Sinner…Who would we move towards? Do we have more public sin or private judgement?

Jesus moves towards both, and I think we are called to do the same. Jesus is willing to sit down at a meal with Pharisees, and sinners, and tax-collectors…and you and me.

Our invitation is the same.

Forgiveness is the invitation. It comes in public…it comes in private. It comes towards others, and comes towards ourselves. It comes from God…and it goes to GOD. Friends, if there is nothing out of the realm of God’s forgiveness, there is NOTHING OUT OF THE REALM OF OUR FORGIVENESS.

I’ve had the privilege to hear many stories over the past seven months, and I’ve heard deep joy and deep sadness. But I know there are many hurts and pains that I have not heard…I know that for some of you…they have followed you into this place.

There’s a lot of pain in the world. I read that on a t-shirt somewhere…

So why should we forgive the parent who mistreated us? Why should we forgive the politician we disagree with, the co-worker who stabbed us in the back, the spouse who cheated on us, the child who threw our values away? Particularly if these people aren't sorry. If there is no repentance, no restitution. It isn't right! They don’t deserve it!

Forgiveness is an offense to our universal instinct for fair play. In Simon’s mind, the woman was a sinner. End of story. But for Jesus, it was the beginning of her story. Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

“Your sins are forgiven.” We offer forgiveness because we first were forgiven. If nothing is out of the realm of God’s forgiveness, nothing should be out of the realm of our forgiveness. Forgiving will release not just the person that wronged you…but you yourself.

Lewis Smedes says, “To forgive is to put down your 50-pound pack after a 10-mile climb up a mountain. To forgive is to fall into a chair after a marathon. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. To forgive is to reach back into your hurting past and recreate it in your memory so that you can begin again. To forgive is to dance to the beat of God's forgiving heart. It is to ride the crest of love's strongest wave. Our only escape from history's cruel unfairness, our only passage to the future's creative possibilities, is the miracle of forgiving.”

Forgiveness is God’s answer to ‘all the pain in the world.” Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven. Go in Peace.”

From our spot at the end of the table, we look to see if Jesus is saying this to Simon or the Sinner…

And then we realize…he’s looking right at us. Thanks be to God.

February 12, 2017
Brian Keepers
Luke 7:18-35

“Are you the One who is to come, or should we wait for another?”

This is the question that John the Baptist, locked up in prison by King Herod, sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus. It’s such a poignant question. But also a strange question--especially for John, of all people, to be asking.

After all, isn’t John the faithful forerunner of Jesus? Jesus’ own cousin, who recognized Jesus’ identity when they were both still growing in their mothers’ wombs?

Isn’t John the voice who was calling out in the wilderness, telling people to get ready because in no uncertain terms the Messiah, whom they’d all been waiting for, was finally coming? That he would baptize them with water but Jesus, the Messiah, would baptize them with fire and the Holy Spirit?

But here we see John, just when Jesus is growing in popularity, asking this question.

“Are you the One who is to come, or should we wait for another?”

What happened? Has John lost patience? Is John confused? Maybe even struggling with doubt?

In the first century, there were a lot of different expectations for what the Messiah would be like and how exactly he would usher in this new age of God’s kingdom. One of the main views was that this Messiah would come and save God’s people from Roman oppression and restore Israel to her former days of glory—a kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. This seems to be what John himself was expecting.

John hears reports about the miraculous things Jesus is doing—healing the sick and raising the dead—but it wasn’t enough. Where was this earthly kingdom he was supposed to be bringing? When were things going to actually change? The world still looked pretty much the same. Rome remained on top. Rome’s puppet, Herod Antipas, still ruled the day. And here John was, still locked up in prison.

No wonder John sends his disciples to ask Jesus this question. “Are you the One to come or should we wait for another?” You can hear the confusion in John’s question. Perhaps even doubt and disappointment.

It may seem like a strange question for John to be asking, but we get it. Haven’t we asked the question ourselves, in some form or another? Maybe we’re asking it today.

We know what it’s like to be disappointed. To feel confused. To wrestle with doubt and uncertainty.

Jesus tells us that he is the Messiah, God’s Son, and he has come to bring God’s kingdom and set things right…and that it is happening now. Jesus tells us that our hearts can be healed and our sins forgiven. That our relationships can be mended. That the world can be a different place. Last Sunday, we had a healing service, and maybe you even came forward to pray for God’s healing in your life or in the life of another.

But here we are, a week later, and it seems like nothing has changed. The cancer is still spreading. The tension in the relationship hasn’t gone away. The depression hasn’t lifted. The guilt and shame haven’t dissolved. That situation at work hasn’t gotten better. The division in our country hasn’t been healed. Those in the world who are vulnerable and in need aren’t getting justice. Where is the justice that is supposed to roll down like mighty waters? Where is the restoration that is supposed to bring healing to the nations?

We find ourselves feeling confused, stuck, maybe even locked up in a kind of prison, asking with John: “Are you the One who is coming? Jesus, are you really who say you are? Or should we look for another?”

Last weekend I went to Grand Rapids to see Martin Scorcese’s new film Silence. It’s based on Shusaku Endo’s beautifully haunting novel. If you haven’t read the novel or seen the film, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I should warn you that it is a hard novel to read, and a hard movie to watch at parts.

Silence takes place in the 17th century, during a time of severe persecution of Christians in Japan. News arrives to the Jesuit center in Portugal that senior Jesuit missionary, Father Ferreira, has apostasized (denounced his faith) after undergoing torture. Two of Ferreira’s best students, Sebastian Rodriguez and Fracisco Garpe, now priests themselves, can’t believe the rumors. So they set out to cross the ocean to go to Japan to find their mentor and teacher, and to join the work of spreading the Gospel in a Japanese environment hostile to Christianity.

Rodriquez and Garpe set out with such strong convictions about their faith. But as they encounter the suffering of the Christians in Japan and endure torture themselves, they begin to struggle with doubts. God seems silent. Unresponsive to their prayers. Unresponsive to the suffering and injustice of these poor peasants who cry out to Jesus. Where is this kingdom of peace and justice? Rodriquez finds himself asking John’s question, in his own way, “Are you the One who is coming or should we wait for another?”

One of the gifts of this story in Luke’s Gospel is that it seems to give us permission to ask such honest questions ourselves about Jesus. We don’t have to hide our doubts and disappointments, dismiss our struggles. We can honestly and courageously give voice to them.

Notice how Jesus responds to John’s question. In a way, you could say that John is slighting Jesus, doubting his legitimacy as the Messiah. But Jesus doesn’t get upset and act defensive. He says to John’s disciples, “Go and report to John the things you’ve seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

Jesus mentions all things he proclaimed in his sermon in Nazareth, when he preached on Isaiah 61. He identified these things as signs that God’s kingdom had arrived in his person and ministry. They’re happening now. John can’t see it. His vision is limited by his circumstances. So his disciples are sent to tell John that though he can’t see it, they have witnessed such things. It is Jesus’ answer to John, his way of saying, “Yes, I am the One who is coming; the One you prepared the way for! Be assured! Don’t lose hope.”

Then Jesus says something strange: “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Is this a rebuke of John’s question? His wrestling and his doubt? I don’t think so. On the one hand, how can Jesus and his ministry not offend us? You could say that the gospel is inherently offensive because it confronts so many of our false expectations about who Jesus is and the way that he is supposed to act. It confronts our own sin and selfishness, our own blindness. When the light shines in your eyes, it hurts. How did Martin Luther say it? “If the gospel does not offend us, then we haven’t heard the gospel.”

So there is something about the way that Jesus doesn’t bend to fit our expectations that will always carry with it a level of offense. But Jesus is really calling John (and us) to trust him, even with our questions and doubts. Blessed are those who put their faith in Jesus, even when they feel trapped and stuck and uncertain.

If Jesus is rebuking anybody in this story, it’s those who pride themselves in their certainty and think they have it all figured out. That would be the Pharisees and the scribes. The ones who are in danger of rejecting Jesus are not John and his disciples, who even with their questions remain open. It is the Pharisees and the scribes who are stuck in a prison far more cramped and perilous than John’s prison: the prison of their own certitude and insistence that they are right.

They insist they know what the Messiah will be like and what the kingdom will look like… and this isn’t it! Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners for goodness sake! And so Jesus rebukes them for their blindness—a blindness far worse than John’s—because they have rejected both John and Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t throw John under the bus for asking his question. John questions if Jesus is the Messiah, and Jesus affirms John as his messenger who prepared the way. And then Jesus says that there is no one greater than John; but the least in the kingdom—those who embrace him—will be even greater than John. For they will be children of Wisdom. What is wisdom? Jesus himself is wisdom. Blessed are those who embrace him, Wisdom in the flesh, and do not reject him.

John’s asks his question, and so do we. Jesus welcomes our questions, our confusion, our doubts and wonderings. And he replies with an assurance—yes, he is the One, even if we may not be able to fully see it yet. This is where faith comes in. Trusting him even when our vision is clouded. Sometimes we can’t see it because we’re looking in the wrong places. God’s kingdom is breaking in right in front of us, but in a way we least expect.

One of the things I find most striking about this story is the way Jesus assures John that he is the Messiah. Jesus doesn’t go to John himself, although he certainly could have. Instead, he sends John’s disciples to give a testimony—to share with John what they have seen and heard.

It reminds us that faith is always about community. Even though faith is personal, it is never individualistic. One of the reasons we need community is because there are simply those times when, for whatever reason, we find ourselves in a place where trust and belief is hard. And it is in those moments when we lean into the faith of those around us. The gift of community is that sometimes we have faith for one another.

I remember talking with a man who stopped coming to church because he said he no longer believed. It felt hypocritical to be in worship. I said to him, “Please, don’t stop coming. You belong with us. Let us have faith for you.”

At the end of Endo’s novel Silence, Rodriguez realizes that Jesus was not absent but was with him all along, suffering beside him and all those who suffered. His life, the lives of the Christians who endured such pain, were a testimony to Christ’s presence. The novel ends with these words: “But our Lord was not silent. Even if he had been silent, my life until this day would have spoken of him.”

Such beautiful and poignant words. Maybe that’s it. We bear witness to one another of what it means to be children of wisdom. We see Christ in the faces of each other. That’s where Jesus is most powerfully to be found. So let us look for him there as we come around the table and receive the gift of the bread and the cup this morning. For even when God seems silent in the world around us, even when we struggle with our questions and doubts, it is our lives together that speak of his goodness, mercy and love.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

February 5, 2017
Brian Keepers
Luke 7:1-17

Last Sunday, Luke gave us a pair of stories—Sabbath stories—and showed us that Jesus is the “Lord of the Sabbath.”   Today Luke gives us another pair of stories. Only this time they’re healing stories.

The Gospel not only has the power to bring life and rest; it also has the power to heal. And to heal all people without partiality or discrimination. In these two stories, we see once again that Jesus is one with authority. This time, we see his authority over sickness and death.

The first story picks up in the town of Capernaum. We meet a centurion, a Gentile Roman soldier who is a man of wealth. He’s a good man, a compassionate man, a man who used his wealth for good. He may have even been a “God-fearer,” which is the name given to a Gentile who worshiped the God of Israel but would not submit to ritual circumcision. The story doesn’t say. But we do know that this man loved and respected the Jewish community. And he paid to have the synagogue built for them.

The centurion has a slave whom he cares deeply about who has fallen deathly ill. He has heard rumors about Jesus and his power to heal, and so he sends some Jewish elders to ask Jesus to come heal his slave. When the Jewish elders find Jesus, they not only pass along his request, but they lobby for the centurion. “He is worthy of having you do this for him,” they say, “for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”

Jesus goes without a moment’s hesitation. But before they reach the house, Jesus is met by another delegation. The centurion is sensitive to the fact no Jewish person can enter the home of a Gentile without becoming “unclean.” And he doesn’t want to put Jesus in that situation. So he sends these friends to tell Jesus, “I’m not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.” This man is a soldier well acquainted with what it means to have authority and give orders. And he sees Jesus as one who has the unique authority to heal, simply by giving the order.

Here we see something fascinating. Jesus is emotionally moved by this centurion’s faith! Over and over again in Luke’s gospel we’re told that, when people encountered Jesus, they were amazed. But this is the first (and only) time where we see that Jesus is the one who is amazed. “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him…”

What amazed Jesus about this man? Was it the fact that this Gentile, who isn’t one of Jesus’ followers, was already living out Jesus’ teaching to love his enemies (the Jews), and doing it better than his followers? Is it that this man attributes to Jesus a great power and authority? Or is it that this man possesses a depth of faith Jesus still hadn’t found in all of Israel?

Maybe all of these things. But here is the main thing I believe amazed Jesus: this soldier asked for what he knows he doesn’t deserve and in faith expects to receive it anyway! The Jewish elders thought he was deserving (maybe even entitled), but the soldier has a different attitude. He shows us a humble and bold faith. And a Roman soldier of all people!

Jesus says to the crowd, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And Jesus heals the servant—from a distance and without saying a single word. “When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.” The Gospel has the power to heal. Jesus is Lord even over sickness!

Then Luke goes right into another healing story. Soon after this, Jesus goes to the tiny village of Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd follow him. As he approaches the gate, Jesus runs into a funeral processional. A man had died—the only son of a poor widow in the village. When Jesus sees her, Luke tells us “he had compassion for her.” Once again, Luke gives us a rare window into the emotional response of Jesus. Whereas Jesus was amazed at the centurion’s faith, here Jesus is moved with compassion at the widow’s sorrow.

The Greek word used here for “compassion” is splagchinziaomai, and it is derived from a word that literally means “intestines.” It is an intense emotional response—a visceral gut-wrenching feeling-- to the suffering of others. It is a deep identification with their pain, a “suffering with,” a kind of empathizing with what another is experiencing and feeling.

Jesus sees this woman—really sees her as a beloved image-bearer of God in pain—and he is moved in a deep, gut-wrenching way. Unlike the centurion who was a man of wealth, power and privilege, this woman has no wealth, no power, no privilege. Now that her son is dead, she has nothing. She is vulnerable and without any kind of care or protection.

Moved by compassion, Jesus approaches her son’s dead body in the casket. And he does what is utterly taboo and forbidden. He reaches out and touches the dead body. Remember that he avoided going to the centurion’s home because it would make him unclean. Well, here Jesus crosses the boundary and touches the dead body, which would have made him unclean.

Here we see that Jesus not only has authority over sickness; he also has authority over death! And he allows himself to “get dirty” so to speak in order to bring life to this dead man. Jesus reaches out and touches him and speaks: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And the young man sits up and starts to speak!

Then there is this beautiful part here: “And Jesus gave him to his mother.” You see the healing in this story is not just about the dead man; it’s also about the mother. Jesus restores not just the man’s life but he restores the relationship between a mother and a son.

Two healing stories. Two very different people who get healed—two people who seem worlds apart. A wealthy, powerful Gentile Roman soldier. A poor, vulnerable, powerless widow and her son.

Here’s the one thing they do have in common: they’re both outsiders. Not the kinds of people you’d expect (or even want) Jesus to heal if you were a good Jew in the first century. And yet Jesus heals them. With his words. With his physical touch. Moved by compassion, Jesus heals them both.

When we see Jesus healing people in the Gospels, it’s for a larger purpose than just that person’s well-being. Jesus heals as a way to give us a sign, a foretaste, of the kingdom of God. It is Jesus way of showing us, in advance, what God will do in all of creation when the kingdom comes in its completion. When “Death will be no more; / Morning and crying and pain will be no more “(Rev.21:4).

This healing won’t come in its completion until Christ returns. But we get a taste of it here and now. Jesus, the Great Physician, touches us all in our place of sin, shame, brokenness and pain. He brings healing to our sin-sick souls, forgiveness of sins. He brings healing to us mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally. Jesus lifts up the centurion as an example of what it looks like to put our faith in his power to heal us, even though we don’t deserve it.

But the power of the Gospel goes further than just our own healing. As those who’ve been healed, we are called as disciples to be agents of healing in the lives of others. Jesus calls us to “see” people—every single person—as an image-bearer of God. And to be moved by compassion— to “suffer with” to the point that we get angry when we see people God loves mistreated, disrespected, forgotten, pushed aside.

And then to act. To reach out, to touch them, to embrace and protect. So that through our compassion and acts of love—they encounter the healing power of the living Christ. I love these words by the 20th century missionary Lesslie Newbigin:

“The whole congregation is called to be a healed and healing fellowship, in which the healing love of God is ever at work to bind up the wounds of its members. And beyond this, the healing work is to spread beyond the congregation into the community around it….Whoever touches the Church—even in the most tenuous fashion, even in the midst of all the bustle and press of our busyness—should find that he has touched the source of healing. The healing that we receive here…is given for the sake of all our neighbors.” (The Good Shepherd, pp.72-3).

The healing we receive here, in Christ, is given for the sake of all our neighbors. Not some…ALL.

It was the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history. When a man went into an Orlando gay night club, the Pulse, and gunned down 102 people as an act of hate. 49 people died, 53 left wounded. Just 10 minutes south of the night club is Iglesia El Calvario, a Latino Pentecostal mega church.

Moved with compassion, the people of Iglesia El Calvario reached out to the victims and their loved ones by handing out water bottles and donating blood as the death toll climbed from 20 to 30 to 40 and on up. They wept with those who were mourning, and opened up their church for a city-wide vigil to remember the lives of those lost and to pray and provide support.

Gabriel Salguero, the lead pastor, joined his LGBTQ neighbors in relief efforts, including offering prayers in Spanish and English at an 8,000 person event hosted by Equality Florida, a gay advocacy group. He and his ministry staff conducted funerals for the victims and grief counseling and ongoing outreach and support for the LGBTQ community. When local reporters inevitably asked about the tension between an evangelical church and the gay community, Salguero responded, “We’re called to be Christ to everybody, and we’re called to love our neighbor, every neighbor.”

In an interview with Christianity Today, Pastor Salguero said this: “There were a lot of tears on every side. If we’ve learned anything it’s that no matter what our disagreements are, God calls us to love our neighbor and to be Jesus and to mourn with those who mourn….We believe in prayer, and we believe the church needs to be a healing presence….A lot of things can divide this nation around politics and ideology, and we are ministers of reconciliation. That doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements. It doesn’t mean we don’t have convictions. But at the end of the day…[it’s about] our capacity to love our neighbors and for the church to be Jesus—not just to preach Jesus but be Jesus to the hurting and suffering. Nobody cares if you’re a large church pastor, small church pastor, or a parishioner; if you speak English, Spanish or French; if you’re black or white; all of us were just trying to heal the city.”

What if the world saw the church in this way? What if our community saw Fellowship Church in this way? As a “healed and healing fellowship”-- a place of healing for all people, for our city, for our nation, for all the nations? A place that not only preaches Jesus but acts like Jesus to those hurting and suffering?

We’re going to create some space this morning to seek Christ’s healing presence…for ourselves…our neighbors…our community…our nation…and our world.

There will be several stations around the sanctuary where elders and pastors will be standing by to offer prayers of healing with oil. You may come and receive prayer on your own behalf, for whatever healing you stand in need of. You also may come on behalf of someone else and “stand in” as their representative. You are welcome to share with the person praying over you specifics, or you can just ask for general prayers and keep it between you and God. If you don’t want oil on your head, you can put it on the back of your hand, or just say “pass” altogether.

Jesus is Lord even over sickness and death. Whatever our pain, whatever our sorrow and heartache, whatever divides and injures, there is One, a Wounded Healer, a Great Physician, who says to us, and through us to the world: “Do not weep. Come to me. Rise, be made well.”

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

January 29, 2017
Brian Keepers
Luke 6:1-16

You don’t have to read very far into Luke’s Gospel to see that Jesus is a bit of a trouble-maker. A rabble-rouser. Somebody who seems to play by his own rules and is not all that concerned about approval ratings or getting others to like him.

We saw it a couple weeks ago when Jesus began his ministry by preaching in the synagogue at his hometown of Nazareth. What he said about God’s kingdom extending beyond Israel to include the Gentiles was so upsetting that the people drove him out of town and tried to hurl him off a cliff.

Then last week Pastor Lindsay showed us how Jesus calls the most unlikely of people—a cluster of filthy fisherman—to be his disciples, his students who would keep company with him. It leaves you sort of scratching your head wondering, “What kind of unorthodox script is this guy following?”

It gets more troubling from here. Jesus heals a leper and a paralytic and tells them their sins are forgiven. This raises the eyebrows of the religious leaders. It’s one thing to heal; it’s another to forgive sins. Only God can do that.

Then he starts hanging around with the wrong people, tax collectors and sinners, in fact calls one of them (Levi) to be his disciple. And he teaches his disciples about important things, like fasting and prayer, that don’t follow the orthodox rules. When the religious leaders confront him about this, Jesus says to them: “You can’t put new wine in old wine skins or the wine skins will burst!”

Huh? Who is this guy? What in the world is he saying?

So when we get to our story (or stories) today in Luke chapter 6, tension is really starting to build between Jesus and the Pharisees. Like I said, Luke shows us that Jesus is a trouble-maker. And now he gets in trouble for the appearance of breaking the Jewish Sabbath laws.

One Sabbath Jesus is walking through a grain field, and the disciples are hungry. So they pluck grain from the stalks in the field and rubbed them with their hands to get to the grain. On the surface, seems pretty harmless. What’s the big deal?

But the Pharisees are stalking Jesus and his disciples (no pun intended), and they are watching. The Greek word used for “watching” is more like “spying with suspicion.” And they throw the flag and yell “foul!” They confront Jesus: “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” (Notice that it was the disciples who took the grain, not Jesus; their axe to grind is really with Jesus, as we’ll see).

The issue was not that the disciples took the grain from somebody else’s field. The Law (Deut. 23:25) commanded that a portion of a farmer’s field be left for those in need. The problem is that they plucked the grain on the Sabbath, and even more so, that they rubbed it with their hands, which constituted labor!

The Sabbath was a day for rest, and labor was prohibited. In fact, the Jewish tradition had specified with 39 rules what was permissible and what was not on the Sabbath. And the disciples are guilty of multiple violations in this simple act: reaping, threshing, winnowing and preparing food!

Jesus responds to the Pharisees by telling them a story they would have been very familiar with. “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?” Jesus refers to 1 Samuel 21 and 22, the story about when David and his companions were fleeing from Saul. When they come to Ahimilech, the priest, David asks for bread. All Ahimilech had was “the bread of the presence” – consecrated bread in the temple that the law said was only for priests. But Ahimilech saw that David and his men were hungry and in need, and so he gave them the bread to eat.

The point: when David was in need, the ritual law was ignored on the basis of human need. In a similar way, the disciples are hungry and in need, and so they should be allowed to pluck grain and eat it on the Sabbath.

But then what Jesus says next is key. It is like a bolt out of the blue! “Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’” This is Jesus favorite title to refer to himself. It comes from Daniel 7:13. “Son of Man” refers to one is who God’s special representative, and it would be used to refer to the Messiah. In essence, Jesus is claiming that even this most sacred observance of the Sabbath comes underneath this authority. In other words, God has given him authority, as God’s anointed representative, over how to understand the Sabbath and how one can act on the Sabbath.

Now let’s hit the pause button on the story. Jesus is not saying that Sabbath observance is bad or it doesn’t matter. Observance of the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments that was given to Moses at Sinai. In fact, as the fourth commandment, it really functions as the linchpin between the first three, which have to do with our relationship with God; and the last six, which have to do with our relationship with others. The Sabbath, at its heart, is really intended to be a gift, not a burden! It is a command to “cease working,” to set one day apart to rest and allow others to rest. The intent of the Sabbath, from the very beginning, was to promote life and flourishing among God’s people. To deepen their relationship with God and with each other.

The problem is that the Pharisees had become so focused on all the rules and regulations surrounding the Sabbath (and other religious practices), that they lost the heart of its intent: to promote life and flourishing. Let me rework an illustration that I once heard Eugene Peterson use to describe the Pharisees relationship to the law. Imagine you had a home overlooking Lake Michigan, and in your living room is a big picture window facing out towards the lake. The law was intended to be like that window. The point was not to look at it but to look through it and catch a breathtaking view of the lake. The law was giving to point God’s people to God and what it means to live in right relationship with God and each other.

But then, over time, you started to notice that there were smudges on the window. People would press their faces up against it, get finger prints on it. And so you became preoccupied with meticulously keeping that window clean, removing all the smudges, keeping it spotless, that you stopped looking out the window and noticing the beauty of the Lake. You were fixated on keeping the window clean, and you missed the whole point.

Well, something like this was happening with the Pharisees in the way they observed the law, especially the Sabbath. They were focused on keeping the window spotless, had 39 specific rules to do so, that they stopped looking through the window to see the beautiful view. As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus helps us recover the heart of Sabbath as a gift for life and healing.

Not only is the Sabbath a gift in which we allow God to meet us in our deepest place of need, but the Sabbath is also a gift for loving others and meeting the needs of others. That’s what we see in the second Sabbath story in Luke 6. Let’s hit “un-pause” and get back into the story.

On another Sabbath, Luke tells us, Jesus enters a synagogue and is teaching and there is a man whose right hand is withered. Once again, the Pharisees are “watching” Jesus, that is they are “spying” on him. And all the more after that last episode in the field.

They’re spying on him this time to see if he will cure this man. According to the Sabbath rules, a person who is not in immediate mortal danger can wait to be healed after the Sabbath. There is no urgency here. They are watching and ready to bring charges against him if he breaks the rules.

Jesus knows what they’re thinking, and so he says to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” Then he asks the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?”

They don’t know how to answer the questions. They’re speechless. Are they supposed to answer, “No, it is lawful to do evil and destroy life?” Jesus once again changes the rules, or re-introduces the intended rules, by pointing to the intent of the Sabbath: to promote healing and life. Whereas in the field it was about God providing for the needs of the disciples themselves, here in the synagogue it is about God providing for the needs of others, especially those who are marginalized and in need of healing.

Jesus turns the table on the Pharisees here and says something indicting: if someone is need, even on the Sabbath (or maybe especially on the Sabbath), and you must make a choice: to help them and do good (which is what the Sabbath is all about) or to refuse to help them and to do evil. The question is not, “Should I or should I not act?” The question is, “How shall I act? To do nothing is to act in a way that does someone harm.”

Jesus then speaks, tells the man to stretch out his hand, and the man’s hand is restored. The Pharisees are once more speechless. The Greek says they were literally filled with “senseless rage”—irrational in their anger—because Jesus breaks the rules. And so they begin plotting to kill him. Don’t miss the irony. The Pharisees, who were outraged a moment ago that Jesus was giving life on the Sabbath, now plot to destroy Jesus on the Sabbath. Who is really breaking the Sabbath rules here?

What can we learn from these two Sabbath stories today? Jesus recovers for us the heart of what the Sabbath is intended to be for. Whereas the Pharisees were consumed with their own rules—and there were so many of them that were burdensome and restrictive—Jesus shows us that the whole point of the Sabbath is that it is about life, healing and renewal. It is about relationships—our relationship with God and with our neighbor. Jesus calls us to act the law of love—love of God and others. That’s how you rightly keep the Sabbath.

The Pharisees were too legalistic about the Sabbath. They had narrowed their understanding to the point where they missed out on the gift of the Sabbath. There may be some of us who had the same experience with the Sabbath growing up—it was all about rules and what you couldn’t do on Sundays. Maybe that is still true for you.

I’m guessing for many of us, the pendulum has swung the other way. Due to the way society has changed and how busy our lives are—between demands of work or kids activities or just getting caught up in the frenzy of constant activity—Sunday really is a day that is pretty much like any other. Of course Sunday doesn’t have to be your Sabbath—it can be any day. But we are so caught up in a culture of productivity and busyness that we don’t really ever rest. And this can be just as harmful as a legalistic approach.

Jesus himself practiced Sabbath and invites us into this healthy rhythm. The importance of taking a day to cease working and worship and rest and be renewed. But rather than giving us a list of 39 (or more) rules, Jesus gives us a simple guideline: what will be life-giving for you? Your relationships? What does your body and soul need? Let God meet that need. One of the most beautiful things about Sabbath is that it reminds us of our limits; that God is God and we are not. And how can you be someone who promotes life and healing in others? How can the Sabbath be a means by which God grows your heart in love for God and love for others, especially those in need? That’s the key question.

That’s really it. Jesus invites us into the heart of Sabbath-keeping so that, by his Spirit, he might create in us a Sabbath heart. A Sabbath heart is a heart that lives every day, not just Sundays, open to the Spirit and oriented in love towards God and others. A Sabbath heart recognizes that every day is holy and holds opportunities for us to grow and participate in God’s mission.

A Sabbath heart is formed in relationship with Jesus. When Jesus says he’s the Lord of the Sabbath, he doesn’t only mean that he is the one who teaches us on what it means to practice Sabbath. He means that he is the fulfillment of the Sabbath, that he himself is our Sabbath--our rest, our life, our healing and renewal. The call to discipleship is a call to come be with him.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt. 11:28-30).

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

January 29, 2017
Brian Keepers
Luke 6:1-16

You don’t have to read very far into Luke’s Gospel to see that Jesus is a bit of a trouble-maker. A rabble-rouser. Somebody who seems to play by his own rules and is not all that concerned about approval ratings or getting others to like him.

We saw it a couple weeks ago when Jesus began his ministry by preaching in the synagogue at his hometown of Nazareth. What he said about God’s kingdom extending beyond Israel to include the Gentiles was so upsetting that the people drove him out of town and tried to hurl him off a cliff.

Then last week Pastor Lindsay showed us how Jesus calls the most unlikely of people—a cluster of filthy fisherman—to be his disciples, his students who would keep company with him. It leaves you sort of scratching your head wondering, “What kind of unorthodox script is this guy following?”

It gets more troubling from here. Jesus heals a leper and a paralytic and tells them their sins are forgiven. This raises the eyebrows of the religious leaders. It’s one thing to heal; it’s another to forgive sins. Only God can do that.

Then he starts hanging around with the wrong people, tax collectors and sinners, in fact calls one of them (Levi) to be his disciple. And he teaches his disciples about important things, like fasting and prayer, that don’t follow the orthodox rules. When the religious leaders confront him about this, Jesus says to them: “You can’t put new wine in old wine skins or the wine skins will burst!”

Huh? Who is this guy? What in the world is he saying?

So when we get to our story (or stories) today in Luke chapter 6, tension is really starting to build between Jesus and the Pharisees. Like I said, Luke shows us that Jesus is a trouble-maker. And now he gets in trouble for the appearance of breaking the Jewish Sabbath laws.

One Sabbath Jesus is walking through a grain field, and the disciples are hungry. So they pluck grain from the stalks in the field and rubbed them with their hands to get to the grain. On the surface, seems pretty harmless. What’s the big deal?

But the Pharisees are stalking Jesus and his disciples (no pun intended), and they are watching. The Greek word used for “watching” is more like “spying with suspicion.” And they throw the flag and yell “foul!” They confront Jesus: “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” (Notice that it was the disciples who took the grain, not Jesus; their axe to grind is really with Jesus, as we’ll see).

The issue was not that the disciples took the grain from somebody else’s field. The Law (Deut. 23:25) commanded that a portion of a farmer’s field be left for those in need. The problem is that they plucked the grain on the Sabbath, and even more so, that they rubbed it with their hands, which constituted labor!

The Sabbath was a day for rest, and labor was prohibited. In fact, the Jewish tradition had specified with 39 rules what was permissible and what was not on the Sabbath. And the disciples are guilty of multiple violations in this simple act: reaping, threshing, winnowing and preparing food!

Jesus responds to the Pharisees by telling them a story they would have been very familiar with. “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?” Jesus refers to 1 Samuel 21 and 22, the story about when David and his companions were fleeing from Saul. When they come to Ahimilech, the priest, David asks for bread. All Ahimilech had was “the bread of the presence” – consecrated bread in the temple that the law said was only for priests. But Ahimilech saw that David and his men were hungry and in need, and so he gave them the bread to eat.

The point: when David was in need, the ritual law was ignored on the basis of human need. In a similar way, the disciples are hungry and in need, and so they should be allowed to pluck grain and eat it on the Sabbath.

But then what Jesus says next is key. It is like a bolt out of the blue! “Then he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’” This is Jesus favorite title to refer to himself. It comes from Daniel 7:13. “Son of Man” refers to one is who God’s special representative, and it would be used to refer to the Messiah. In essence, Jesus is claiming that even this most sacred observance of the Sabbath comes underneath this authority. In other words, God has given him authority, as God’s anointed representative, over how to understand the Sabbath and how one can act on the Sabbath.

Now let’s hit the pause button on the story. Jesus is not saying that Sabbath observance is bad or it doesn’t matter. Observance of the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments that was given to Moses at Sinai. In fact, as the fourth commandment, it really functions as the linchpin between the first three, which have to do with our relationship with God; and the last six, which have to do with our relationship with others. The Sabbath, at its heart, is really intended to be a gift, not a burden! It is a command to “cease working,” to set one day apart to rest and allow others to rest. The intent of the Sabbath, from the very beginning, was to promote life and flourishing among God’s people. To deepen their relationship with God and with each other.

The problem is that the Pharisees had become so focused on all the rules and regulations surrounding the Sabbath (and other religious practices), that they lost the heart of its intent: to promote life and flourishing. Let me rework an illustration that I once heard Eugene Peterson use to describe the Pharisees relationship to the law. Imagine you had a home overlooking Lake Michigan, and in your living room is a big picture window facing out towards the lake. The law was intended to be like that window. The point was not to look at it but to look through it and catch a breathtaking view of the lake. The law was giving to point God’s people to God and what it means to live in right relationship with God and each other.

But then, over time, you started to notice that there were smudges on the window. People would press their faces up against it, get finger prints on it. And so you became preoccupied with meticulously keeping that window clean, removing all the smudges, keeping it spotless, that you stopped looking out the window and noticing the beauty of the Lake. You were fixated on keeping the window clean, and you missed the whole point.

Well, something like this was happening with the Pharisees in the way they observed the law, especially the Sabbath. They were focused on keeping the window spotless, had 39 specific rules to do so, that they stopped looking through the window to see the beautiful view. As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus helps us recover the heart of Sabbath as a gift for life and healing.

Not only is the Sabbath a gift in which we allow God to meet us in our deepest place of need, but the Sabbath is also a gift for loving others and meeting the needs of others. That’s what we see in the second Sabbath story in Luke 6. Let’s hit “un-pause” and get back into the story.

On another Sabbath, Luke tells us, Jesus enters a synagogue and is teaching and there is a man whose right hand is withered. Once again, the Pharisees are “watching” Jesus, that is they are “spying” on him. And all the more after that last episode in the field.

They’re spying on him this time to see if he will cure this man. According to the Sabbath rules, a person who is not in immediate mortal danger can wait to be healed after the Sabbath. There is no urgency here. They are watching and ready to bring charges against him if he breaks the rules.

Jesus knows what they’re thinking, and so he says to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” Then he asks the Pharisees: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?”

They don’t know how to answer the questions. They’re speechless. Are they supposed to answer, “No, it is lawful to do evil and destroy life?” Jesus once again changes the rules, or re-introduces the intended rules, by pointing to the intent of the Sabbath: to promote healing and life. Whereas in the field it was about God providing for the needs of the disciples themselves, here in the synagogue it is about God providing for the needs of others, especially those who are marginalized and in need of healing.

Jesus turns the table on the Pharisees here and says something indicting: if someone is need, even on the Sabbath (or maybe especially on the Sabbath), and you must make a choice: to help them and do good (which is what the Sabbath is all about) or to refuse to help them and to do evil. The question is not, “Should I or should I not act?” The question is, “How shall I act? To do nothing is to act in a way that does someone harm.”

Jesus then speaks, tells the man to stretch out his hand, and the man’s hand is restored. The Pharisees are once more speechless. The Greek says they were literally filled with “senseless rage”—irrational in their anger—because Jesus breaks the rules. And so they begin plotting to kill him. Don’t miss the irony. The Pharisees, who were outraged a moment ago that Jesus was giving life on the Sabbath, now plot to destroy Jesus on the Sabbath. Who is really breaking the Sabbath rules here?

What can we learn from these two Sabbath stories today? Jesus recovers for us the heart of what the Sabbath is intended to be for. Whereas the Pharisees were consumed with their own rules—and there were so many of them that were burdensome and restrictive—Jesus shows us that the whole point of the Sabbath is that it is about life, healing and renewal. It is about relationships—our relationship with God and with our neighbor. Jesus calls us to act the law of love—love of God and others. That’s how you rightly keep the Sabbath.

The Pharisees were too legalistic about the Sabbath. They had narrowed their understanding to the point where they missed out on the gift of the Sabbath. There may be some of us who had the same experience with the Sabbath growing up—it was all about rules and what you couldn’t do on Sundays. Maybe that is still true for you.

I’m guessing for many of us, the pendulum has swung the other way. Due to the way society has changed and how busy our lives are—between demands of work or kids activities or just getting caught up in the frenzy of constant activity—Sunday really is a day that is pretty much like any other. Of course Sunday doesn’t have to be your Sabbath—it can be any day. But we are so caught up in a culture of productivity and busyness that we don’t really ever rest. And this can be just as harmful as a legalistic approach.

Jesus himself practiced Sabbath and invites us into this healthy rhythm. The importance of taking a day to cease working and worship and rest and be renewed. But rather than giving us a list of 39 (or more) rules, Jesus gives us a simple guideline: what will be life-giving for you? Your relationships? What does your body and soul need? Let God meet that need. One of the most beautiful things about Sabbath is that it reminds us of our limits; that God is God and we are not. And how can you be someone who promotes life and healing in others? How can the Sabbath be a means by which God grows your heart in love for God and love for others, especially those in need? That’s the key question.

That’s really it. Jesus invites us into the heart of Sabbath-keeping so that, by his Spirit, he might create in us a Sabbath heart. A Sabbath heart is a heart that lives every day, not just Sundays, open to the Spirit and oriented in love towards God and others. A Sabbath heart recognizes that every day is holy and holds opportunities for us to grow and participate in God’s mission.

A Sabbath heart is formed in relationship with Jesus. When Jesus says he’s the Lord of the Sabbath, he doesn’t only mean that he is the one who teaches us on what it means to practice Sabbath. He means that he is the fulfillment of the Sabbath, that he himself is our Sabbath--our rest, our life, our healing and renewal. The call to discipleship is a call to come be with him.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt. 11:28-30).

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.