Luke 18:9-14

The opening words of this morning’s

The parable that Jesus tells is

The first man is a Pharisee; the

But we need to pause a moment and

And if anyone in the first century

And it’s common in the mind of most

However much success we have in

Nonetheless, we are all broken,

And we know that God, whose

So, I know that what sells in

Amen.

The post Going Home Justified first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

Gen 32:3-8; 22-30; Luke 18:1-8

Unlike some of Jesus’ other parables, we don’t have to work too hard to figure out what he means. Sometimes we’re left to our own devices to figure out what the parable means, and sometimes Jesus tells us at the end of the parable. However, in this morning’s parable, Luke tells us from the start that Jesus told his disciples “a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). As straight forward as the meaning of the parable is, the parable itself is quite odd. The story Jesus tells is about a judge who “neither feared God nor respected man.” Now, in the analogy Jesus is making with the parable, this judge who doesn’t fear God represents God, and the widow who comes to the judge who comes to the judge, again and again, demanding justice represents the behavior Jesus wants to see in his disciples. Her persistence and her demand for justice are how Jesus’ disciples, how we, are to pray.  

It’s odd, first, that the role of God in this analogy is played by someone who doesn’t fear God, and second, that in the story, the judge doesn’t give justice because it’s the right thing to do but because the widow nagged him so much that she beat him down, and finally he gave her the justice for which she was looking. Hopefully, that’s not how things work with God. God is a God of justice who wants what is right and good for his people and for this world, and hopefully, we don’t have to beat him down to get him to finally act and to do what is right.

The parable then ends with Jesus explaining what the parable means in more detail than Luke did, but Jesus adds a significant word. He says, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:7–8). Now, this is not the time nor the place to discuss what Jesus means when he speaks about the coming of the Son of Man. The answer to that question is too complex and nuanced, and that is not the word that interests me anyway. Jesus says, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Faith. That’s the word that interests me today.

I said before that faith is like a

Before we try to answer that

Now, something interesting happens here with the name. The man says to Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Except that’s not what the name Israel means. It doesn’t mean “you have striven with God;” it means “God contends, struggles, fights.” God is the one who initiates the conflict with Jacob in this story and God is the subject of his name as well, and yet the text clearly says otherwise, and this is one of those moments where the reader of the Hebrew Bible is aware that something strange is happening, but we can’t see this in English. The text is drawing out the question, “Is Israel a group of people who are always going to be contending with God, or is God always going to be contending with the people of Israel?” Who is the initiator in this divine-human interaction? It’s God who seems to be the initiator, but it’s Jacob who refuses to let him go until he receives a blessing, much like the widow refused to drop her case before the judge until she received justice.

It seems from the narrative of

Sorry, but that’s not usually how it works. The process of being conformed into the image of God’s Son is a long process that involves Scripture, sacraments, accountability, and a number of other things, but it especially includes prayer because prayer is one of the quintessential places where we become Israel. We strive with God in prayer, and he strives with us, and in that striving, in that conflict, in that repeated request to the judge for justice, we are changed. We are transformed. We are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And that desperate clinging to God, that refusal not to let him go without a blessing, that repeated request to God for things to be made right even to the point that it might seem like we’re beating him down or driving him crazy with our requests, that is all an act of faith. That is looking through the window, seeing God at work in the world, and saying, “God, work here too. Work in this life. Work in this place. Work in this story. Work here and now.” And when the answer seems to be no, when injustice seems to prevail, when all that comes back from the judge of heaven and earth is silence, ask him again. Struggle with him. Fight with him. Contend with him. Beat him down. Imagine if we were a group of people known for beating God down with our prayers. You can’t pray too much. You can’t ask for too much justice. You can not ask too often for a situation to be made right. The God of heaven and earth invites you to struggle with him in prayer, and what you’ll find is that it was the God of heaven and earth who took the initiative in the struggle all along, and you will be transformed.

But let me leave you with this. Be

Amen.

The post Wrestling with God first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

For weeks now it may seem like we’ve talked about the same theme over and over, and that’s because we have. Luke, since the beginning of chapter 15, has been telling a series of stories and teachings from Jesus’ life that, while weaving together various themes, have been focused on the outsider, the outcast, the despised, the ones society looks down on. At different times there have been teaching on self-righteousness, money, and even faith. But now the text turns again to the central theme of the outsider, this time from the perspective of thankfulness and humility.

Up to this point, since chapter 15, Jesus has primarily been teaching in parables, but in our reading this morning we get a miracle story with a lesson for Jesus’ audience and for us. Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem, and he’s going along the borderlands between Galilee and Samaria. He comes to a village, and Luke doesn’t tell us which one. While he’s there, ten lepers come to see him, but they keep their distance from him, which is what lepers were expected to do. Touching a leper would make you unclean and potentially sick. From a distance, these outcasts call out to Jesus for mercy. Like other miracle stories, Jesus doesn’t really do much. He doesn’t even say you’re healed. He tells them to go – to go to the priest, who would have lived locally and been responsible for declaring people healed from this type of illness.

Even though Jesus hasn’t actually

By implication, the others were likely Jews. Jesus even refers to the Samaritan as “this foreigner,” and he’s surprised that only this one, this foreigner has come back. He says, “Is it really the case that the only one who had the decency to give God the glory was this foreigner?” Remember that Luke’s already told a story about the return of the younger brother, and how the older brother was standing outside complaining as the story was going on. We’re given some idea of why the older brother was complaining, but we aren’t told why the other nine lepers didn’t return. And I think that’s the point.

On the one hand, you have the outcast of the outcasts. The ones who are the most desperate are the ones who show the greatest thanks. To most of us, a meal is nothing. To a starving meal, a small meal can be the difference between life and death. To most of us, having a home to go back to is something that we take for granted. To the homeless, a night indoors can mean everything. So, on the one hand, we have the outcast of the outcasts who returns to give thanks to God, and on the other, we have those who fail to show their thanks. And we don’t know why. We can only speculate.

Or perhaps instead, instead of

I think it’s safe to say that we are some of the most blessed, fortunate people in human history. Even those that we would consider poor by today’s standards, by the standards of world-history, are incredibly rich. And that’s not something to apologize for and this isn’t a call to live like St. Francis and give away everything that you have. This is more like a warning, or maybe ‘reminder’ is a better word. Don’t be lulled to sleep. Don’t let your abundant blessings cause you to forget from whom those blessings come. Those of us who have been most richly blessed on a regular basis are at the greatest risk both of assuming that we deserve those blessings and of forgetting to be thankful for them.

But everything we have is a gift

“Always, everywhere, and for everything.” That’s the thanks that we owe to God for creating us, for sustaining our lives, for redeeming us, for blessing us so abundantly, and, on the last day, for raising our bodies from the dead. There’s a subtle nod here to resurrection at the end of this story. You’ll remember that the Parable of the Prodigal Son ended with the Father saying that his son was dead but is now alive again and that the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus too ended with Abraham saying to the rich man that his brothers would not listen even to a man who rose from the dead. So too, in this story, when the man throws himself at Jesus’ feet in thankfulness for what God has done for him through Jesus,  Jesus tells the man, “Arise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” That word “arise” is the verb for resurrection.

We have been blessed abundantly,

Amen.

The post Always, Everywhere, and for Everything first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

The Feast of St. Francis is

This story of St. Francis is often

Sometimes when I hear stories like

Take something as simple as forgiveness. My brother or sister offends, and I say, “No problem. I forgive you; I won’t hold it against you.” My brother or sister offends me again, and I say, “No problem. I forgive you; I won’t hold it against you.” My brother or sister offends me again, and I say after a long pause and a deep breath, “No problem. I forgive you; I won’t hold it against you.” And mind you, this is all on the same day. So, now, before my brother or sister can offend me again, I turn to Jesus real quick, and I say, “Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive my brother or sister in the same day?” And Jesus says, in the verses immediately proceeding our reading, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3–4). Elsewhere Jesus is asked how many times someone should be forgiven, and he says, “Seventy times seven,” or in some translations “seventy-seven.”

And there’s a part of me that

Even with the tiniest bit of faith,

His view through that window

And here’s the kicker of it all.

We are Christ’s servants, called to

Amen.

The post Lord, increase Our Faith! first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

Fr. Michael’s Sermon for Sunday, September 29, 2019 (Year C, Proper 21)

Luke 16:19-31

There are a few verses between

I argued last week that the next

Here are those verses. Let me read

Either way, it is clear that Jesus

So, if you’re the Pharisees, and

Now, I want to remind us again that

So, what is the point? Jesus is

And yet despite this sudden shift

There are two things to note here.

The last parable of the first half

Jesus is claiming that the Kingdom

Jesus himself, when he began his

Jesus is not saying that the rich,

Now, if you know the cycle of

What I am saying is that, as a

Not in every moment, but in my best moments, in the moments where the Gospel is most fully on my mind, I don’t care about how big we grow as a church. I don’t care about our average Sunday attendance. I don’t care about our pledging, and I don’t care about income. Those things are in God’s hands anyway. The one thing I do care about as your priest is this: are we bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned in this area? That should be our priority as a church because if we are not doing that, none of the rest of it matters. So, I am commissioning you to go out and find those people, just like Fr. Luis does. Go out, find them, and tell us how we can help because that it was it means to be the church of a crucified and risen Lord who has turned the world upsidedown.

Amen.

The post The Good News of the Kingdom of God first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

A Sermon for Sunday, September 22, 2019 (Proper 20, Year C)

Luke 16:1-13

The parable before us this morning is arguably one of the most difficult and confusing parables that Jesus ever told. Now, usually, when I preach, I’m not saying that I’m always right, but I usually have a firm handle on the text in front of me and on what it is that I want to say. I might not be right, but typically I’m certain that I am. This morning, I don’t know if I can say the same thing. This parable is complex, and its punchline is frankly disturbing to many people since it comes from the lips of Jesus. Jesus says, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9). What does that even mean?

Well, there are a couple of things to note here. The first is that this is a parable, and as I said last week, parables are meant to be lived in, dwelt in, and pondered. You’ll remember that Jesus told parables because their meaning wasn’t clear. Those on the outside wouldn’t understand them, and those on the inside would, so there is built into parables themselves this sense that they should be complex and they should be difficult to understand.

The second thing to note is that we are still in the general context of the Pharisees and scribes complaining that Jesus was welcoming the wrong kind of people to his meal. Last week we talked about how Jesus ironically said that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. I’m saying that the statement is ironic because the ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance don’t actually exist. Jesus then tells another parable about a lost son and his elder brother who, even as his lost brother returns, is standing on the outside grumbling and complaining. The supposed righteousness of the Pharisees is still very much in view as we come to our parable this morning.

The third item that we need to note is that whenever you hear a story about a master and steward or servant in his house, the bigger metaphor at work is always Yahweh and Israel. Yahweh is the master of the house or the owner, and Israel is the one who has been tasked with keeping charge over the master’s house. But now the Lord has returned to his people, and he has found the ones he placed in charge have not been doing the task that he has given them. They have not been a light to the nations. They have not spread the glory of God across the face of the known world. They have not been people who follow the commandments of God. And now God is calling the manager to account.

In the parable, when the master

You see, Jesus has been saying since the inauguration of his ministry that there was a great trial coming upon Israel. There God had come to them, didn’t like what he had found, and so he was going to bring judgment upon them. This is ultimately what happens in AD 70 with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. And Jesus seems to be saying that the children of this world are better at perceiving the times, perceiving the political machinations around them and responding appropriately than the children of light. He is saying to them that the Pharisees and the scribes should be able to understand the events unfolding around them, but they don’t. Jesus is offering them a way out. With his new meal and his new people, he is providing an escape from the judgment that was to come, but the Pharisees are standing on the outside, both refusing to join the new community that Jesus is forming and being oblivious of the judgment that is to come upon them. They and most of Israel with them are standing in no man’s land, neither choosing salvation nor being aware of the danger that is coming.

It’s in this context that Jesus

And then comes the real twist. The

You see, the Pharisees thought they

So what’s the point of all this? Clearly Jesus isn’t telling us to be dishonest managers or unwise stewards of what we’ve been given. In fact, what immediately follows says just the opposite. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:10). The point of the parable as Jesus tells it is to drive home the fact that people must pick a side. To be with Jesus or not. If we want to be received into his eternal dwellings, standing outside grumbling is not an option. Pretending to be righteous while Jesus shares his meal with the wrong kind of people is not an option. We can get on board with Jesus’ agenda to bring light, healing, hope, good news to the lost, the sick, the dying, the broken, the sinful, and the social outcasts or we can make friends with the rich and powerful and share the same fate as them. The choice is ours. You can’t serve both God and money. That’s how our reading ends, and I’m probably supposed to use this text to talk to you about stewardship and giving to the church, but this warning is bigger than that. Jesus is bringing the Gospel to all the wrong kind of people. He’s bringing the Gospel to people that we don’t want to be friends with. He’s bringing the Gospel to people that can’t help us, to people who can’t give to the church, to people to society has cast aside and forgotten. He’s bringing the gospel to places that we don’t want to go, and we can either go with him, and eat and drink with all the wrong kinds of people, or we can stand on the outside, grumbling, complaining, celebrating our self-righteousness, and making friends with all the right people, and when the end comes, our fate will be the same at theirs.

Amen.

The post How To Make Friends Through Unrighteous Wealth first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.

Fr. Michael’s Sermon for Sunday, September 15, 2019 (Year C, Proper 19)

Luke 15:1-10

Parables are more than just

We have before us this morning two

Now, this has always troubled me. Imagine if you ran a company, and you had one hundred employees. Ninety-nine of them always did what you asked, when you asked it, and they always did it to the best of their abilities. And then you have that one employee. We’ll call him Jeff. Jeff’s always late. He’s always struggling to get his work done. Even if it’s done on time, it’s not done well, and everyone complains to you non-stop about this one employee. Instead of firing him, you keep him around for a while, and he comes to you one day and says, “Boss, I’m really sorry for how I’ve been performing, but I’m going to turn things around, and to prove it, I’ve already done all my work for the next two weeks and I think you’ll find that I’ve done exemplary work.”

You take this employee’s work, you look it over, and he’s done an excellent job. And he continues to do an excellent job, so maybe two weeks later, maybe a month, you call him and everyone else in the company into the largest meeting space you can find, so that all one hundred of you can fit. You say to everyone, once you’ll all gathered, “I want to tell you all that I’m thankful for the work that all of you do and for how long and how faithfully you’ve worked for this company, but despite your hard work, despite being on time, despite everything you’ve done, there is more rejoicing in my office over Jeff’s performance than over all the hard work the other ninety-nine of you have done.” I think if I was one of the ninety-nine, and someone told me that, I’d be a little upset. Wouldn’t you?

In the Parable of the Workers in

Here’s the thing. The easiest way

You see, Jesus opposes the sinner with an impossible category, “a righteous person who needs no repentance.” If you think I’m wrong, show me a righteous person who needs no repentance that isn’t named Jesus of Nazareth. That’s why there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance because that latter category doesn’t exist. The only people in that category are people who have tricked themselves into thinking that they are righteous when in fact they are sinners just like the rest of us. Paul says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom 3:10–12).

There aren’t ninety-nine righteous persons and one sinner. There are one hundred sinners, some of whom have been met by the grace of God and been called to repentance, and if we forget that, if we forget that we are sinners through and through, totally depraved, and that whatever we are we are by the grace of God, then we are no better than the Pharisees, we are no better than people who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are righteous when they are not.

We don’t get to judge people because they sin differently than we do. We don’t get to mistreat people because their brokenness is more obvious and less socially acceptable than our brokenness. That’s not how the Gospel works. That’s not how the cross of Jesus Christ works. We are all broken deep down, and thank God for that because if we weren’t then we wouldn’t have any need for a savior.

The church isn’t a place for

Amen?

The post 100 Sinners first appeared on St. Dunstan's Anglican Church.