Moment of Clarity With Rev. Lorrie Daly-Price

November 10, 2019 | In our reading this week from Luke’s gospel, we find the Sadducees once again trying to make Jesus’ life miserable. These guys were the urban aristocrats and among the religious authorities from their day. They based their understanding of God on only the first five books of the Bible. Since the resurrection was not mentioned there they denied any belief in it. When the Sadducees ask Jesus about the resurrection, they are not really interested in knowing about it or considering what he has to say on the matter. Instead, they pose a riddle that is on the level of “Can God make a stone so big that even God cannot lift it?”

Rationalistic in spirit, the Sadducees doubted the concept of resurrection, the restoration of life to the whole person on the last day. Trying to discern Jesus’ theology of the afterlife – and even in the first century, Jewish intellectuals were well aware of the separation of soul and body and the afterlife adventures of the liberated soul – they ask him a curious question about marriage beyond the grave. Jesus, as often is the case, doesn’t give a definitive answer. He simply places the answer where it belongs, in the context of God’s graceful care for humankind. The dead will live on, God is the God of the living, and we will live on. The details of the afterlife are apparently unimportant; what matters is God’s fidelity and enduring love. God is alive, God is faithful, and it well with our souls.

November 3, 2019 | In the gospel reading this week from Luke Jesus is passing through Jericho and many have come out to see him but so many are lining the streets it’s hard to tell. Zacchaeus, a local tax collector, is curious. He wants to see what all the excitement is about. So he climbs a tree to get a better look at Jesus. And rather than just seeing, he is seen. Jesus looks up and looks right into Zacchaeus’ heart. And what he sees isn’t pretty. Zacchaeus is an opportunist, grown wealthy by skimming and squeezing. He’s despised as a traitorous agent of Rome’s oppression. All in all Zacchaeus is not a likely candidate for God’s grace. But Jesus is the master of the unlikely. As he has done so many times before, he reaches out to Zacchaeus and invites himself into the tax collector’s home.

Why Zacchaeus? Why pick out this tax hustler for special attention? Surely in the whole city of Jericho there are many, many others more worthy of a visit. So not surprisingly the whole crowd begins to grumble. They had heard that Jesus was blessed. He was supposed to be special and here he wants to hang out with the town crook. What’s this all about?

October 27, 2019 | The passage from Luke for this Sunday features a story that Jesus told about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector who went to the Temple to pray. Two characters that are polar opposites.

The Pharisee was religiously righteous, the tax man extorted revenue for the Roman oppressors. The religious expert was smug and confident, the outsider was anxious and insecure. The Pharisee paraded around telling God how good he was and how valuable he was to God. The Tax Collector hung his head standing at a distance and begged God for forgiveness. He could not even look up when he considered what a sinner he was. 

The parable punch line announces a reversal in the end. The respectable, reputable Pharisee, so competent and accomplished, the one who had done everything right was rejected, whereas the disreputable, inadequate Tax Collector went away "justified" because of his humility.

October 20, 2019 | Have you ever felt like giving up? Throwing in the towel? Leaving the ministry or quitting the faith? In telling the parable of the persistent widow from Luke’s gospel Jesus acknowledges that quitting the journey is a real possibility.

 This week Jesus encourages us "always to pray and not give up." He tells a story about a persistent widow who importuned a corrupt judge. The judge’s status, his power, the pomp and ceremony of his lofty position – all have made him into a man who is unworthy of his calling. Yet the widow, who feels wronged and aggrieved, persists in her appeal to this judge. Eventually he relents.

She never gave up despite the many injustices she experienced at the hands of the judge who "neither feared God nor cared about men".

There's no mysterious meaning here. The parable is straightforward. Despite our feelings of fighting a losing battle, of supporting a losing cause, don't give up. Keep praying.

October 19th, 2019 | In this week's gospel it's the day after Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. The crowd thinks they’ve caught the gravy train and they don't want this party to end. After some probing they put in their order: give us a sign to believe in you. How about a regular diet of manna raining from heaven? Jesus seizes on their opening to explain who he is and why he's here, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry”.

In this week’s reading to the disappointment of the idlers, Jesus is not promising an endless buffet of material goodies. He is offering himself as the spiritual food that will fill our deepest needs.

October 6, 2019 | Often in the news we will read about or hear a person being interviewed after a heroic act. An individual who dives into a freezing river to save a child that has fallen through the ice. A person who jumps onto the tracks to save someone pushed off the subway platform. Both individuals who insist “I’m not a hero, I didn’t even think about it, I just did what I needed to do in that moment.”

In our reading this morning from Luke’s gospel Jesus speaks to the disciples about some slaves who have only done what they ought to have done. But we can’t underestimate the enormity, the intensity, the far reaching influence of simple, prepared-in-little-things faithfulness.

So to increase their faith the disciples ask Jesus. Jesus’ reply “you already have all the faith you need. Simply do what you have to do in the moment. The miracle lies inherent in ordinariness.”

Sept. 29, 2019 | In Jesus’ day he would use stories to challenge the power and status of the religious elite. With just a few short lines of dialogue or common images of the time he would narrate what it means to live in the kingdom of God. Our reading this week from Luke’s gospel is Jesus’ response to being ridiculed by a particular group of Pharisees who are referred to as lovers of money.

Jesus has much to say about money throughout the gospel of Luke. This week tells the story of an anonymous rich man and Lazarus, one of the only named characters in all of Jesus’ parables. Throughout the rich man’s life time he does not see Lazarus, a man who lies outside the gate of his home in desperate need. Lazarus was an individual with his own hopes and dreams but was overlooked. If the rich man had seen him, really seen him, then perhaps this story would have ended differently.

When have you not seen another? How was that oversight brought to your attention? When did you see another? And what did that seeing lead to?

September 22, 2019 | In this weeks reading from Luke’s gospel, we hear the story of a rich man who hears rumours that his manager is squandering his resources. This news alarms him so he calls him in to address this issue, threatening to fire him. The manager is desperate. He has no other options. Losing a job would be tantamount to losing any hope of income. And so, he decides to quickly craft a plan. He calls in all of those who are indebted to his master and lowers the amount each one owes. They are amazed and begin praising the master’s generosity. When the master hears about this, he doesn’t fire the dishonest manager, in spite of all the money he lost. Rather, he commends him because he had acted shrewdly.

What in the world is Jesus trying to teach, for the purpose of a parable is to teach something? Surely he wasn’t commending dishonesty? Could it be that the master now enjoys his reputation for being generous, more than he enjoys his money?

September 8, 2019 | 

Our world is filled with warnings and caution flags. This can be experienced with heavy equipment safety signs or road construction signs. We experience this every day with much more insignificant things compared to those even. There are, of course, the user agreements that we have to go through before downloading the latest update for our smartphones or computers. We glance through it quickly…click “I Agree,” let’s get on with it, download already.

I think in Jesus’ time people weren’t much different. They could become numb from all of the warnings. They lived in a rough-and-tumble world filled with precarious situations: dangerous wildlife, high infant mortality, Roman soldiers who could “go-off” any minute and abuse you, not to mention the possibility of contracting any one of a variety of debilitating illnesses. There were warnings, rules, practices and superstitions to follow to keep people safe from harm. It might have been hard to see red flags when so many people were so enthusiastic about Jesus’ teachings. After all, Jesus has been warning them all along, but the people were over his precautions. No, Jesus says, we’re not headed to Jerusalem for a Tough Mudder run over the weekend. There is a cross to bear once we arrive! With that cross comes death—for some of us physically, but for all of us, a death to what was before. So, think about this - Heed the warning.

Caution. Warning. Danger.

Could they measure up to what was demanded of them? Were they willing to be shaped into the had to measure their options. So do we.