The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Lessons: Psalm 72; First Samuel 1:1-20; Hebrews 3:1-6; John 3:25-30

I do not know what it is to trust only or mostly myself.  In fact it strikes me as unnatural to trust mostly or only oneself.  We are all born by the gift of a father and mother and cannot sustain life initially without help.  What happens if this first place of trust is insecure or fragile or abandons one?  I do not personally know because when I look at my life there was always somewhere to turn between parents, siblings, grandparents, and God as others spoke of God. 

And yet I have seen the fragility sometimes beneath toughness in some who lost the network of trust too early in life.  I once served them as a social worker in a children's home.  A children's home with all its efforts to care is in the end a warehouse for those either unwanted by their families or whose families are too fragile to properly care. For all its efforts to create joy and coping, it is a place of sadness.  So much time is spent trying to heal this core sadness.  The principle healing can only come by creating some place where the child can trust beyond the self.

Today is a celebration of places of trust.  The lesson from First Samuel is about how the birth of the Old Testament Samuel came about because of trust in God.  Hannah, so long childless and so humiliated by this state, pleads to God that she may conceive.  We may debate whether any woman should be humiliated by being barren, but like it or not, she is. Can you hear the stigma in that word, barren? So she goes to the only court beyond her husband where she can trust and she pleads to be healed of barrenness. She pleads to conceive a son, whom she is willing to give back to God once he is old enough to be entrusted to the man of God, Eli. To us this may seem too desperate a plea, but for her the sense of her value is caught up in this request and bargain.  She is heard, does conceive, and will give back to God one of the great prophets of Israel.  Samuel must have been schooled on what a great gift he was to her, one from God's interrupting care.    

Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Mary to Elizabeth.  It is a Feast that celebrates the confirmation of God's word to Mary, that in her prayer she heard, that in her body grows the child of God's choice.  This is confirmed by a visit to a cousin considered barren but now fruitful with one who will be called John the Baptist.  While both children will be brought up to know God, and to know God interrupts attentive lives with opportunity to be useful and of abiding worth, today is about two women who spend time together to share the miracles conceived in them.  They were perhaps making sense of their great hope.  They were perhaps assuring one another of the journey to come. They certainly were speaking of God's interrupting voice and care.  One is perceived rather old for the task of mothering, the other too unmarried.  They create an ocean of trust for each other simply by honoring their tales and their hopes.  The world may have its snickers about their state, but here is trust shared and built.

The Gospel for today is a simple one.  It comes from years later when John the Baptist has well entered his preaching and cleansing ministry.  His trust in God is useful to help others review their lives and turn more deeply to God by a right of renewal and repentance, baptism.  His disciples are a bit put off when Jesus has himself been baptized and begun to preach.  Jesus is gathering steam and creating hope in others' lives. This is perhaps deeper than John's message, for he will be seen as Messiah.  John's voice rings a clear note.  "I am not the Christ...I am sent before." As the friend of this bridegroom, "this joy of mine is full.  He must increase, I must decrease."  John remains confident in his role and place.

I am reminded that the gift of parenting, either as a natural parent, an adopting parent, an aunt who steps in to help, a social worker who stand in the breech, or some caring person adopted to this care, is to prepare the way for a young person to increase.  Our task is their growth, their coming into being, their discovery of where they can trust in this world and thus be trustworthy.  This is not insignificant work.  It helps to know God in the midst of it for that is our first parent as we are entrusted to earthly parents.

Sometimes along the way we need to stop, take a breath with another we trust, review our stories with a confirming party, an Elizabeth. Here we can make some sense of our lives and tasks, find assurance for the tasks we lovingly take on yet sometimes feel imposed upon, and listen for how God shows care and joyfully interrupts our lives.

Second Thursday after Pentecost: A Just and Forgiving Wealth of the Heart

Lessons: Psalm 37:1-18; Deuteronomy 4:32-40; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18; Luke 16:1-9

To be most honest, I struggle with this parable in Luke.  Even a quick search of commentaries shows I am not on to anything new.  Of all Jesus' teachings, the story of the Dishonest Steward who defrauds his master to curry favor with his debtors seems oddly confusing.  The man, knowing he is about to be unemployed, reduces the debt of several of the Master's debtors so they will treat him well during his unemployment.  Luke who alone tells this parable concludes:

"And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes."   Luke 16:8-9

As I read this parable there are two takes that are possible.  One is that Jesus is instructing his followers to use their wealth (finances) in a way that will promote God's reign.  Might this be the work of charity, caring for the less financially secure members of society who may proceed us into eternal life?   They then may welcome us to heaven.  Or might it be buying political influence so as to shape the dishonest world toward some righteous and generous end?  I am not convinced this is Jesus' or the Luken author's meaning.

When Jesus here says, "the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light," I wonder if he is not onto a wealth we hold that the world does not see as wealth.  The principle gift Christians hold is the work of gracious living.  I do not mean that as defined by House Beautiful or Southern Living. I mean a life that can build itself on just living and a forgiving spirit. 

I picture that after the Resurrection, those hidden disciples bursting with hope discovered that what was in their modest spiritual purse was a vision of God come to us to forgive our missed moments of extravagant kindness.  God outstripped us with love, "OK you have sinned, you have done what you ought not to have done and you have left undone those things you ought to have done. Here is the deal, begin again forgiven." That is the deep gift, to begin again forgiven.  It is our principle gift, to forgive, to graciously forgive.  And where we cannot yet do so, to tend to what might make the world we occupy more just so we can move on to forgive.  What else is charitable work but an attempt to rectify the selfish wrongs of life and begin in a forgiven place to make life kinder, more reflective of God's universal love.

I grew up in the South where we ran two parallel but unequal public education systems divided by race. As a result of the Civil Rights movement we began again, if with a divided heart. We were forced to be more just and some think to reflect the universal nature of God's love in education reform.  We have not undone the past yet but we have begun.  Some think that the socio-economic inequality throughout this nation is another expression of this inequality haunting us.  Perhaps this is an example of seeking a more just place which will forgive the past so we will find a welcome in the eternal places.

I think to of my father, not an easy man, an often selfish man, a man of some harsh ways of thinking and speaking and acting.  I early realized that I did not want to be him, to reflect his unkindness.  Yet there were moments when I knew he loved. There were moments when even he was instructive, caring, a provider of the essentials of life and some extravagances. I just never knew which one was going to be in charge of the day or moment.

All this came to an abrupt end in the last week of his life.  As cancer worked on him and I suppose some morphine, this gentle man emerged who welcomed us all home.  Forth came this man who even welcomed my sister-in-law whom he had painted as an enemy.  We had never met him before, though if I scratch hard enough he was perhaps always buried there.  He was deeply kind at last and funny. Because finally I met him, I have forgiven him much even if memory does not erase history.  I suppose he forgave me as well.  Certainly he did in those last days, forgave or forgot.

This is all that we really have in our purse, the chance to forgive and be forgiven. We have always the chance to begin again wiser by love. Jesus asks us to use it shrewdly or wisely. Other wealth, dishonest wealth perhaps, will fade away by death, will become without meaning.  Who then welcomes us into eternity.

Whenever we can forgive sooner, we grow in a wealth that heals the heart.  I only regret my father and I did not have more of the forgiven time...but there is eternity ahead...right now.

Second Wednesday after Pentecost: Prodigal Son

Second Wednesday after Pentecost

Lessons: Psalm 38; Deuteronomy 4:25-31; 2 Corinthians 1:23-2:17; Luke 15:1-2,11-32

My elder brother died when he was twenty-four.  He had survived Viet Nam and we had let our guard down when he died on a motorcycle of all things.  He and I had been thick as thieves growing up, though his service in Viet Nam and the thickness he had to build round his heart removed him from me. I always held to the memory of closeness.  I had to puzzle my way through this change and have over the years since.

My younger brother is a different case.  As I look back it is clear we held him at a distance.  Coming as he did two years after me, three after Mike, we did not always let him into our little circle early on. Often Mike and I would block him out of our play.  The two of them were connected by love of snakes.  That is one  place I did not share.  So maybe they had some things of which I remain unaware. 

After Mike's death I found myself away from home and emotionally lost.  The return home for his funeral was, I suppose, a help.  The return to my life was a trial with something majorly missing.  How do you replace the intimacy of family history and a companion of your coming into being?

Over the ensuing years I renegotiated my relationship with my younger brother.  I found myself noticing things I had missed: his ability to create a life with changes and possibilities beyond how I would do things, his sense of adventure, his humor, his deep commitment to those he loved. He had run away several times as an adolescent. I was running toward as an adult.

When I read Luke's story of the Prodigal Son, I see it through these relationships always.  In some ways I am the elder son by always attending to the family emotional system.  In some ways Michael is, being older and the family athlete and my father's clear favorite suddenly deeply missed.  Always Rod is the prodigal who runs away toward adventure, who returns home reluctantly and is offered no fatted calf, no ring, but perhaps clothing. And he helps me see me, that part that ran away with him.  He helps me find my inner voice, my prodigal self, which separates from my father to be an independent self.  He helps me see where I more discretely rebelled or did so in a more hidden way as so many 'good people' do.

Jesus has been criticized for tending to the sinners and tax collectors when he tells this story to those who are religiously uptight, who have done it all by the book as far as they can see.  They are not in conversation with their rebellious side evidently and we all have this side.  They have no room, no belief in a prodigal's return perhaps.

The father gives too much too soon.  Why? He is not obligated to do so but he does.  And then he loves too lavishly, exacts too little a penalty for foolishness.  Why?  Can anyone love so forgivingly?  What does it say of God if this is our portrait?

Jesus ends his portrait of God with these words to those who perceive their loyal following.

"But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." Luke 15:32

If ever you have lost a brother, a sister, a child of your heart, you know how true this is.  To have them back would make your days fairly dance with joy even if they remain themselves filled with contradiction and finding their own way.  Jesus just wants us to know that with God it is the same, here is the origin of our best affection.

We reflect this place when we forgive another, when we release the past, when we look to the Father's face and hear that the festal garment of divine love is ours.  It is given to both the prodigal child in us and the one who stays close to home.

Now it is ours to give away daily to any in need of a bit of forgiving love.  Each time we give it away it brightens the heart of God.

The Second Tuesday After Pentecost: Lost and Found

Lessons: Psalm 26, 28; Deuteronomy 4:15-24; 2 Corinthians 1:12-22; Luke 15:1-10.

We grow tired of the cost of running American life.  It seems to me that is a fairly universal complaint.  Every political race today has the question of what will we fund and at what rate and where will we cut.  Add to that, who should pay what rate of tax to whom, and we have much of the political conversation too simply summed up with no nuance.  At least that is what I observe.  I am not about to propose a simplistic answer.

Every culture has conversations which heat us up.  Sometimes they are more subtle, more nuanced than at other times.  The moral life of Israel was governed by a sense of God's law.  Their first task was to understand who God was and was not,  In Deuteronomy today Moses is reviewing this with the people before they enter the Land of Promise. God is the deep mysterious voice heard in the fire which did not injure the bush, just as God was heard in the cloud which gave the Ten Commandments. Never mistake this God for the reflection of the seasons, the sun or moon or earthly image or self.  This undomesticated God is forever present and mysterious and holds you to account.

It is this understanding of God which governs the social interactions of the religious as Jesus encounters them in the Gospels. The leaders are thus puzzled by Jesus' choice to keep company with 'sinners.'  Why would a righteous man risk being defiled by their thought, actions, ways? Why would we for that matter? "Mind the company you keep," comes to mind.  For often you will be judged by them.

Jesus responds to their murmured thoughts by two parables of lost things found.  There seems to be one sheep grazing separately from the herd.  Does not the shepherd go looking for it since it is in his charge, forms his wealth?  Would anyone of you just offer it up to the wolves?  A woman looses a piece of her jewelry worth a full day's labor.  Does she not light a lamp and seek it?  Will she not examine the nooks and crannies of her home, making order as she goes?  When you find the sheep or the coin, is not your heart so delighted that you call out to your companions, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost...the coin."  

So it is with God. The task is to join God in seeking those who are lost to God or have lost a sense of God. It is not to abandon them. Finding people has also to do with listening to them, seeing their worth in their eyes, sharing one's own sense of God active within.  If there is a connection, notice it.  If not seek it.

I wonder how we might treat every person if we saw each as valuable as part of God's wealth?  I wonder what our priority would be if we took our own wealth, saw its relative worth, divided it by 100 and assigned that value to every human being?  That is what Jesus asks of us.  That is what Jesus asked of himself.  This is where we are assigned religious authority.

It is this worth of each individual seen that aids a nation in sorting out how to be true to God...if this is a priority.  It is not simply assuming the position of a Pharisee, a judge, grasping an important piece of the law and righteously moving on.  The question of Jesus it seems to me is, do our laws and decisions reflect the whole worth of a person, enable it, call it out?  If so, good.  If not, now what?

The Second Monday After Pentecost: Moderate Hate

Lessons: Psalm 25, Deuteronomy 4:9-14, 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, Luke 14:25-35.

‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26 

I remember the first time I took note of this passage.  I was at the end of my teens, taking faith seriously, and wanting to grow in faith.  I remember very clearly puzzling over the idea of having the tension between my father and me justified.  I could see that with a little help I could achieve hate...but it felt wrong.  How do you justify this with, "Honor your father and your mother."  And speaking of mother, I had no desire to hate her or my brothers and sister.  I felt stumped, so maybe it was enough to master hating my father.  Still this felt wrong.

The Greek behind the English word hate used here is "miseo" and it is correctly translated: to hate, despise, detest.  However it has been noted that in the Semitic usage of "miseo" there is greater play.

"We have extra-biblical data that argues that while miseo to Greeks has a more narrow word content, to Semites using miseo, the range was considerably wider, including the sense of 'leaving aside', 'renunciation', or 'abandonment' (cf. F.F. Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, Downers Grove: IVP, 1983, p.592.) A parallel might be how we can say we hate murder or a specific murderer and then say we hate broccoli. For most of us there is a differing degree of meaning.

In Luke we have a not unfamiliar bi-polar use of love/hate.  They contrast commitment and lay before us some real choices.  Matthew is more subtle and for instance, understanding the Semitic use, paraphrases this passage.

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."  Matthew 10:37

Perhaps we are best aided by reading on in Luke: "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:27  Again this is not literal but figurative; making the choice to do as Jesus does.  Here is a call to make deliberate choices which are in line with those of Jesus.  These choices are moral.  They are expressed in how we care.  How we deploy our resources. How we give of self for others' well-being as Jesus did.  We are asked to be sure we look ahead, plan our approach to the will of God and its discernment in the everydayness of life.  We are on a spiritual maturation journey and it will cost in the realm of choice. 

Luke speaks of a builder who will plan his tower so he can complete it rather than end up with merely a foundation. He speaks of a king planning an attack and how he will either muster the right forces or bargain an exit. Then he again sets an extreme choice.

"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. ‘Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?" Luke 14:33-34. 

While the other Gospels speak of choice and being flavorful, salty, they do not make this extreme requirement that we sell all to follow.  They do however hold up choice.

Choice never seems to be easier or less complicated on this journey to follow Christ.  That I believe is the nature of spiritual maturation. We do however grow more accustomed to the process.  One choice worked through is the foundation for the next.

Recently I was talking with a friend about our youth and our freedom to play safely.  We spoke of how it seemed so easy growing up before media and Internet took over our lives.  The day began with the opening of the back door and off we went to play and explore, returning home for meals and out again.  She noted how vigilant her daughter now is with her three children.  Neighborhoods are still welcome places but safety is more carefully watched.  Two of the three have computers from school to work on. Yet Mom insists they only be used in public areas of the house so she can walk by and monitor the places they go on the Internet.  It is all about guiding them to best choices.  It is all about wanting them to be the best of sons.  It has also to do with shaping them to be followers of Christ before they fully conceive the cost. Some places on the Net are safe, some neutral, some damaging.  This is lovingly picking up her cross daily for her family.

Now who could 'hate' a mother like that?  I get how you can hate the limit, but not the mom.

So it brings me back to wonder, what are the choices before me today that will challenge me?  What should I 'hate' in order to love better some key value?  What will cause me to look, to count the cost, to plan a better choice ahead?

Trinity Sunday: Launch of the Ordinary

Lessons: Psalms 146-147; Ecclesiasticus 43:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 1:1-18

As we come to the end so we come to the beginning.  All Christ's earthly revelations now made with the passing of Easter and the fulfilling of Pentecost and the coming of Ordinary time, we begin again.  The long season of ordinary time begins again.  Ordinary time is that firm liturgical season marked not by the progression of Christ's story but our story in Christ.  There is now no biography as if we are tracing the progression of Jesus' life.  Now it is our lives moving in ordinary round integrating what he has taught.

In our prayer this day we return to John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

                                                                               John 1:1-4, 9-10, 14

I am reminded as we enter the season past Jesus' biography of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter, we enter into deeper story.  Now we liturgically enter the daily world again to relearn or learn again what it is to intentionally live in Him.  Having seen the Father create, the Son come as Word of love in Flesh, having heard the Spirit move often but late in the birth of the early Church we come to trace their tracings in us. 

The author of John's Gospel will go on to say, "The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:17

On this Trinity Sunday, this launch pad into Ordinary time I am reminded of a word of wisdom once given as I entered a season of my own intimacy. "Never go to bed angry with each other.  Resolve any anger before you sleep.  That is all I know."  I have not always lived by this word of wisdom which reflects Proverbs 15:18 and Ephesians 29:11.  And when I have failed at this there is no easy sleep, no healing of the breach until we talk. I may be right or wrong (the law) but I have failed at love (grace and truth). 

Put simply, Trinity Sunday celebrates that God is woven all in all.  God who initiated creation, saw to its ongoing process, was revealed intimately in Jesus and his days, remains the Spirit and breath of faithful life.  We can have law and order only or we can have forgiveness and love as well (grace and truth).  We choose.  We choose daily.  We choose best before our head hits the pillow or later when we rise. Law is a help but grace is the healer and we know grace in Jesus.

So now we enter the long contemplation, Ordinary time, "after Pentecost" reminded that the One God can be revealed in our daily choosing.

My Trinity Sunday gift to you is this poem.

In the Beginning  by Dylan Thomas

In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.

In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.

In the beginning was the mounting fire
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower,
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.

In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.

In the beginning was the secret brain.
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Before the pitch was forking to a sun;
Before the veins were shaking in their sieve,
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The ribbed original of love.

Saturday after Pentecost: Don't miss the Banquet

Lessons: Psalm 20-21; Deuteronomy 1:1-8; 1 Timothy 6:6-21; Luke 14:12-24 

We all have things that trouble us.  Sometimes they are relatively minor.  Sometimes they are significant.  Perhaps because all bothers can end up emotional it behooves us to sort them early and address them in some patterned way.  Some of us make lists to be orderly as we shape our days and reactions. Some can keep the flow of care in their head and heart and be attentive.

Then there are the things that do not trouble us and perhaps should.  They are the concerns we overlook without much recognition.  For instance I have never given a banquet for the poor, the blind and the lame.  I have entertained often and with little regard to being invited somewhere in return.  But always it has been with folk I hope to enjoy.  This may be true for most of us.  No one at a dinner party has ever responded to me by saying,

"When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." Luke 14:12-14 

For Jesus life was ever a teachable moment.  I suppose when you move through your days with the reign of God on your heart, you see the contrasts between life as it is and life as it may be, between God's generous gift of life and our response.  Part of Jesus' hope is that if we learn to mirror that generosity early in life we will grow more and more into it. Yet as we age we notice that the things we let slide out of our awareness, slide out of our actions. 

Part of the dilemma of modern life is that we live increasingly by isolated social/economic class.  Notice any urban area and one sees how true this is. When we no longer converse, touch lives that differ from our experience we loose perspective and real honest knowing.

Two things keep me more honest with myself and awareness.  They are both memory now.  One was living in an intentional religious community for a year in my twenties.  We practiced a rule of intentional hospitality in two ways.  We looked out for single people in London who appeared to be by themselves sometimes or often.  Then on Saturdays we planned a large luncheon and invited people to join us for Eucharist and lunch.  As much as we were scraping by economically, this simple shared meal enlarged our awareness.  It marked me when my year was over and I began to live on my own to remain aware of hospitality as an opening to God.

The second was that I twice served a parish in the inner city.  It attracted a broad range of economies.  While we were largely people of a middle economy, we had members who were poorer.  To us would come the really poor as well.  It was not uncommon for the homeless or mentally marginal to show up. My head and heart had to shift. There is a balance to be discovered and maintained as one creates a hospitable environment for this range of economy and personal strengths.  No one was denied the same communion, education opportunity and the same coffee hour, the same dignity.  Help needed was to be a direct and directed conversation that occurred but did not derail the purpose of our being together, to know and worship God.  We practiced a clarity that those conversations of need would be guided to the clergy and a few laity who were urban savvy. We grew clear as to what we could do and where we could refer and when we were limited.

The gift of these places in my life is that they keep me real.  They inform my view of church, nation and self.  The conversations challenge my simple notions of how one becomes poor or challenged, what it takes to rise from the place of too little to more.  I worry that we grow too isolated by economic class and too protected (and thus defended) from places of need.  I do not like the notion of the disserving poor as if there is some magic mark between disserving and not.    

Yet the truth is, being bothered by this does not help me.  What helps is finding ways to be generous and thus reflect a piece of God or the peace of God.  What helps is patterned and deliberate ways of sharing my middle wealth, my tithe paid, food in the food barrel, the poor seen and interacted with in dignity. It also helps to hear my negative inner conversations and question them.  Do I understand enough?  Am I missing some information? Does my inner tone seem overly harsh? Am I rejecting God's reign?  Do I remember that many have overlooked their invitation to God's wedding banquet because they were bothered by the wrong things? Am I?

It helps me to remember that childhood Bible School song:

I cannot come, I cannot come to the banquet,
don't trouble me now.
I have married a wife; I have bought me a cow.
I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
Pray, hold me excused, I cannot come.

(Verse 4)

Now God has written a lesson for the rest of the mankind;
If we're slow a responding, he may leave us behind.
He's preparing a banquet for that great and glorious day
when the Lord and Master calls us, be certain not to say:

I cannot come, I cannot come to the banquet,
don't trouble me now.
I have married a wife; I have bought me a cow.
I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.
Pray, hold me excused, I cannot come.

We sing the song to prevent its outcome.  Who really wants to miss this banquet?

Friday after Pentecost: Sabbath Humility

Lessons: Psalm 16-17; Ruth 4:1-17; 1 Timothy 5:17-25; Luke 14:1-11

When I was first ordained I was single for the next four years. That made me a problem at wedding receptions.
I was expected to attend and say the grace, so I had been schooled. Many times I only knew the couple and perhaps their parents. Where do you seat the young single cleric? Far too often I was seated at a table with a collection of folk no one knew what to do with. There would be an awkward contrast in our ages, our education, our social ease. Conversation was often a labor as we sought some common ground and as they worked through the set apart nature given clergy by the secular world. Too often we were all drowning in laboring effort or disinterest.

I observed that the better I was known by the host family, the more compatible my dinner companions.  Here my being single did not prevent my being seated with couples or several other vibrant singles.  The host had enough sense of me I guess to use me as an asset for conversation.  I was more at ease and not merely waiting for my first escape from the reception. 

Jesus has been invited to a Sabbath dinner perhaps at midday. There is an awkwardness as religious/social elite are observing him as an odd teacher/healer.  A guest has dropsy, a swollen abdomen from liver or renal failure. Jesus can heal with less effort than "pass the salt please," it seems.  Yet healing has been judged on the Sabbath as work.  This elite will judge.  Jesus heals and then wonders out loud.

"Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath, or not?" ... "If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?"  Luke 14:3-5

The silence is deafening. Social disease reigns. Jesus reaches for an image they all know, how they sat themselves today. He goes there by a story of a wedding feast.  Where will you be seated?

In my last parish there was a significant African population. At receptions one was not seated by place card.  Many just chose a seat, for the attendance was fluid. Always there was a high table and those appointed would be called up and seated in a planned fashion of import. If later someone of higher family or tribal importance arrived you might be asked to shift at the high table. This was similar to Jesus' day.  It was far better to take a lower place and be elevated than to over estimate your status.

Here is the connection of the two stories. There are worthy places in our life that must step down or step back.  Even the Sabbath, the time that rests us in God, must step back when an action of the reign of God steps in. A child falls in a well on the Sabbath, you save her. The ox is mired in the ditch you, save him. A person can be healed who will be seen today and not tomorrow, you reach forth and heal.  A life hurts and you know a helping insight, you put off what next is on your duty list and listen. You speak when it is right to do so. You have your eye on a life luxury however humble and a true need in another life comes to your awareness. You reconsider so as to be a help. You are walking down a city street on your way to an appointment and someone who claims to be in need approaches.  If you are in God's reign you respond. 

If you are seated at an awkward table and live in the awareness of God's reign, you make your best effort at being a good dinner companion.  Who knows, perhaps you are meant to be the leaven in the lump?  Perhaps one you judge to be a lump will give you a life insight.

Or perhaps God is offering you a moment to develop. What? Maybe an awareness that you are only as important as the care you offer, as the ego you are willing to surrender. One day maybe you will be worthy of the high table, the reign of God. It will perhaps surprise you to hear,

" Friend, move up higher;"

Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."  Luke 14:10-11

Thursday after Pentecost: Opportunity verses Taking Advantage

Lessons: Psalm 18:1-20; Ruth 3:1-18; 1 Timothy 4:1-16; Luke 13:31-35

There are biblical laws we do not practice anymore. Yet at one time they were necessary for the well being of Israel.  One of these laws is the law of "Levirate marriage".  Under this law if a man dies with no male heir it is the duty of his next of kin to take in marriage the dead man's wife and raise up a son to the deceased man.  There is a further ramification here.  Women could not inherit.  So any land rightfully belonging to the deceased man would be held for his son. The above mentioned marriage would make this land useful to the new husband until the son is born and can inherit or use it. If the land has been previously sold and come on the market the original family of ownership has first option.  It is the duty of the "Levirite husband" to procure it if possible.

All this forms the context for the Book of Ruth and Ruth and Naomi themselves. The family lands are about to be sold. There is no immediate living male heir. Then Naomi and Ruth will be fully destitute.

Naomi helps Ruth understand the possibility before her. A son might provide for them in their old age. Boaz has been kindly intentioned to Ruth and has a right of inheritance. The right actions on Ruth's part of returned interest might spur him to fulfill the needed levirate marriage.  As he rests after a full day's work, the influence of wine might lower his defenses.  She is to go to him as he rests and  "Uncovering his feet" which is a euphemism for his genitals. He might then do his duty.

The beauty in this story is the honorable nature of Boaz.  He knows there is a closer kin who holds the right to the marriage and the inheritance. So while he is flattered that the beautiful Ruth has come to an older man, he will not take advantage of her vulnerable state. He will clarify tomorrow if the nearer relation will do his duty.  For now he cares for her reputation.  "But got up before one person could recognize another; for he said, ‘It must not be known that the woman came to the threshing-floor.’" Ruth 3:14   He sends her home with a gift to Naomi thus further honoring the family. 

This part of Ruth's story reminds us that our character is built when we do an honorable thing.  Ruth and Naomi may seem to us opportunistic.  Perhaps the truth is they are wisely seeking their rights and needs.  After all Naomi says to Ruth that she must let Boaz decide the best actions, "When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do." Ruth 3:4

Boaz is completely honorable protecting Ruth's reputation, giving a gift of honor and care.  He reminds us to choose wisely when we could just chose from our self interest.  We care for ourselves when we guide wisely those of whom we might take advantage.  And we care for them.  Thus a worthy life is built.

Wednesday after Pentecost: Vulnerable care

Lessons: Psalm 119:1-24; Ruth 2:14-23; 1 Timothy 3:1-16; Luke 13:18-30

When the daughter of a good friend of mine was born, his wife needed to stay home for a time to care for their baby.  As was common then, it was the mother who gave up her career for the sake of their child.  It is hard when one has developed gifts and skills in work to let it go.  In time work remained attractive and necessary and a friend gave care to their daughter out of her generous heart. 

With employment, the couple hired a nanny, an immigrant woman from El Salvador, and began the process of sponsoring her citizenship. The relationship between the nanny and their daughter was precious to behold.  It was filled with gentle focused care and playfulness. Their nanny was not afraid of work and was industrious both in their daughter's care and other tasks she did about the house. She shared her story with my friends and they grew in understanding. 

In time the judgement came that their household did not produce enough income to sponsor their nanny. Together they came on a farm worker provision in the law and financed her journey South to the area where this work was organized.  It was a very painful departure for them all.  A year later they would learn that their much loved nanny never made that journey.  Her fear of too many unmarried men on the buses set in.  Perhaps her insecurity born when the junta drove her and others to escape El Salvador set in again. In the home my friends provided her there had been safety, dignity of work and reciprocal care.  

It is through the eyes of this much loved El Salvadorian woman that I read the Book of Ruth.  The kindness of Boaz makes sense this way.  So vulnerable was she as she sought to scrape out an existence. Boaz took note of her, set up safety for her gleaning, saw that extra barley was 'dropped' for her to find, saw that she ate and drank during the day.  We can well imagine his motivation was mixed. In part it was based on the religious/cultural law of care. In part it was created by her industrious care of her mother-in-law, soul attraction.  In part it seems to be physical attraction. Whatever the mix, he goes beyond the letter of the Law to provide safety and care which honor the industrious nature of Ruth, an immigrant tasting poverty.  He also honors God whose tracings are seen in care offered.  Truth is this care costs him little.  It does not radically change anyone's circumstances. Yet, it keeps him open to the Source of care.

It is a prayer when Naomi says, "Blessed be the man who took notice of you," and “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”   Ruth 2:19-20  This is a moment of gratitude which sees God's possibility in a moment of extra care, for it is God who instructs the faithful heart/mind.  Every moment of relief is counted when you are so close to non-existence.

Societies are structured to care or not to care, to care well or poorly.  Some ethical system will guide them.  The Judeo-Christian tradition has guided the West though we may differ on how deeply it should be reflected in government care, it is basic to the world view of the past.  When dealing with God's poor we do well to bless God and ask what care reflects God.  Some lose sight of this value as scriptural and core.

"Jesus said, 'What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.’ And again he said, ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened...Strive to enter through the narrow door;’ " Luke 13:18-20, 24

This Kingdom is built on Godly care, on seeing the hand of God in our prosperity and adversity.  Plant this care in your life and it will grow.  More than you will prosper in its shade.  Massage it into your heart and it will rise.  You will find capacity that will stretch your imaginings.  Let this be your narrow door. Let the law of God's care stretch to include more than you with abundance of care.

Perhaps you will hear one day, “Blessed be he/she by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”   Ruth 2:20 

My friend's former nanny eventually found safety, has a family, has built a free life.  They still think on her with love.  Who cared for whom? Whose care was greater? Does it matter?  Together, they were all part of a greater flow of care.

Tuesday after Pentecost: Hospitality to Strangers

Lessons: Psalms 5-6; Ruth 1:19-2:13; 1 Timothy 1:18-2:8; Luke 13:10-17

 

Decades ago now I left my native South and took a position in New Jersey.  I moved into a largely Italian neighborhood.  Having grown up with mostly blond and blue-eyed people or Black people, I was struck by the new beauty of young Italians with dark eyes and hair.  As I drove home there were corner groups of teens or twenties who presented this beauty as did many in my apartment house.  That apartment house was filled with culture, community and kindness, a spirit of looking out for one another. They even took in this blue-eyed young man.

We will learn that Ruth in the Old Testament was beautiful to Boaz.  Perhaps there was something about the Moabite people that differed from the people of Israel that made her stand out in the field where she gleaned.  To glean was to walk after the reapers and pick up the fallen grain.  This was the legal right of the poor, to glean this way or the ten percent left unharvested for them.

Yet there is a deeper beauty to Ruth that will be told this day to Boaz who owns the field where she gleans.  It is perceived in her willingness to leave her native family for the insecurity of foreign land in order to care for her mother-in-law. 

"She is the Moabite who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, 'Please, let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the reapers.' So she came, and she has been on her feet from early this morning until now, without resting even for a moment."  Ruth 2:6-7

Further Boaz will say to her,  "All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. May the LORD reward you for your deeds, and may you have a full reward from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge!"   Ruth 2:11-12

The effort she shows to secure a new beginning is rewarded as Boaz tells her to feel safe here.  She is to return as she wishes. The young men are not to molest her but provide her the comfort of water.

It can be a vulnerable thing to seek a new beginning.  One must travel with hope.  The hope is you will be well met, that others will show you what you need to know, that you will be seen for who you are and what you bring.  This is the hope of hospitality received.

In the faith of Israel, this is core. The religious law was structured to help men and women of faith remember there was a time when they were no people and had no God and no land.  All this came to them at God's mercy and effort to seek and call a people of religious awareness.  In response it is required that they show hospitality to strangers.

As early as Genesis 18 we see this custom at work as Abraham and Sarah show kindness to three men who come to them on the plain of Mamre.  Food for their journey is provided and in return the Word of God is shared with them.  Abraham and Sarah are blessed.

Part of what it is to be a Christian in America is to be challenged by this rule of hospitality.  We are a mixed people and nation.  We view immigrants variously but increasingly with suspicion and resentment.  We too easily forget that all but Native Americans were immigrants and there is evidence even they migrated.  Our fears are economically housed.  Will there be enough for us?  Isn't that how we have always viewed immigrants? What work and gift do they bring and will it limit mine somehow?  All this is reasonable...but is it generous and if so how?  Does it reflect the generous nature of God and if so how? 

As a nation we are always reshaping policy in this domain.  But that does not relieve me of wondering, what does God expect of me with the stranger?  I can come to only one answer.  Show hospitality. How I imagine it is spiritual work and practical work.  Work with someone with a language barrier.  Listen to stories.  Aid societies that work with the immigrant people. Be polite.  Support those who seek a just system of response. Move beyond fear. See the person behind the accent, complexion, mode of dress.  Seek God in them.

That is all Ruth needed as she sought to scratch out an existence for herself and one she loved, her mother-in-law.  She was blessed to be under the eye of a man who honored his religious tradition.

Monday after Pentecost: The Mercy of Women

Lessons: Psalm 1-3; Ruth 1:1-18; 1 Timothy 1:1-17; Luke 13:1-9

I have often in jest said, "God was in a particularly ill mood the day he invented families."  Face it, the first biblical family did not fare well with husband and wife off to mischief with that apple (fruit of the tree).  The first sibling kills the second over God's perceived favor.  This is quite a beginning.

Psychology has produced family systems theory which seeks to explain some of the dynamics common in families and in role assignment.  This theory helped me see and in fact forgive some of my own family dynamics.  It caused me to notice that my parents' frequent displeasure with one of their children's spouses (all of them in rotation or several at once) was what they had received from their parents. No in-law was good enough for my two grandmothers. 

 

The assignment of tasks common in birth order was exactly my brothers and me.  The first is assigned success as the family defines it, the second the care of the emotional life, the third rebels for the family. We did our roles well.

The gift of this theory was insight and forgiveness.  In some real sense knowing my parents were all but doomed to repeat their parents' taught behaviors, let me take it less seriously, forgive its destructive impact and see my role.  I am the second born and have always followed the emotionality of home.  Perhaps should my daughter marry, I will have enough insight not to see her spouse as a problem to be handled.

The reading from Ruth today is a look at both tradition and a family system.  In the days of Ruth and Naomi, a family system was key to survival.  All roles were well defined.  Women were dependent on men for place even when they were not for ability. The home fires were the domain of women, fields and pastures and hunting the domain of men. There was an assumption that children were there as a backup for parents as they aged. Property passed in the male line so son's were a necessity.

Thus this dilemma of three widowed women all connected by marriage to related men was quite real.  Only by remarriage would their lives be secured. In its absence, their best bet was to fall back on original family who were not always required to take them back in mercy.

When Ruth pledges to Naomi that she will not leave her but be family to her to death it is a kindness unexpected.

But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. Ruth 1:16-18.   

Today I have to wonder what lay in Ruth's background that made this her best decision? Did she understand her family of origin as holding no hope for her? Had she grown up with little affection that beckoned her home in her tragedy? Had Naomi outstripped her parents in affection?  Was she like me a second born, the one who sees the emotional needs about her, who saw Naomi's aging plight and would not let it go uncared for? I do not know.

What I do know is this decision of care is core to scripture.  It is her mercy to Naomi which will make her life. Naomi's ability to recognize not only this loyalty but its depth allows her to receive Ruth's firm decision. The two women together will prove a wise resource, one to the other.  The men who run the world will be wooed into woman craft as they work together not only to survive but to prosper within God's word.

We have this story because they are the foremothers of King David.  Yet we have it also because in this line are three things. The wisdom of women is here told.  The mercy of these women is abundant. In Ruth the Davidic line is impure, she is a Moabitess.  From this impure line the great leader of Israel will emerge.

In this last point in particular, they are to trouble us when our mercy proves limited, not up to God.  Who might we be overlooking in our care?  Who have we judged not worthy of inclusion in our families, our homes, our worship communities, our nation? Have we used some Old Testament measure or even some New Testament measure unworthy of God's mercy to judge someone outside our mercy and care? Might God not rather we were troubled enough to say come and show me how God is in you and then I will share God in me? Notice that while Ruth says, "your people shall be my people, and your God my God."  God's mercy toward Naomi is also in Ruth's determined act to care for the widow.

 

The men who gathered these stories of God's creation and care were troubled enough to include this story of how God steps over God's perceived rule of purity to fashion God's perceived chosen people.

We are but asked to wonder about its meaning for each of us.

The Day of Pentecost: Gifts and yielding

Lessons: Psalm 118; Isaiah 11:1-9; First Corinthians 2:1-13; John 14:21-29

Religion at its deepest is the desire to be occupied by that which is greater than our self.  It is a willingness to yield to our making and becoming.  It holds as a chief principle that we are made to some great end which we are to seek and know.

Pentecost celebrates a break through moment when all that was hoped for and more occurred on the level of religion.  For a moment there is this full experience of being occupied.  Among the prayerfully gathered followers of Christ comes this moment when they yield and are occupied at God's behest.  We find it alluded to in John's Gospel chapter 14 and described in Acts 2.  Paul writes of its many gifts in the Epistles.

I remember being young in the days of the "Charismatic Renewal."  It seems very naïve now, but I so wanted a demonstrative gift of the Spirit.  Speaking in tongues would be my preference.  When finally I shared my disappointment with one I trusted he quietly but clearly said, "Perhaps this is not God's preference for you. You will know it when it comes." 

Yielding is not about demanding. It is not about predetermining.  It is about openness and following.  It is beautifully described in John's Gospel today. 

They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them...Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate,* the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  John 14:21,23-27

We live in a world that so want to know before it happens what is to occupy our days and self.  Much secular success comes form the ability to forecast and act to determine the future.  There is much concern to determine the markets of life so we gain wealth.

Yet if one were to read Stephen Covey's once popular book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, one discovers a more open approach.  Once your principles are set, you begin to work at tasks that also are about being attuned to self with others.

Applied to Pentecost, we chose as a chief end to be attuned to God as God is revealed in Jesus Christ.  That attunement Jesus called here love, Agapan or agape in the Greek.  It is a love that will sacrifice the self to another end.  It emulates Christ's self sacrifice for us all as he achieves God's end.  That end was to reoccupy our hearts with high motivation, to aid one another in deeper living, in kind and compassionate life seeking the good. This is a deeper love than sexual attraction, friendship, or parental love. It is a love that spends the self for another's good because this is God's good. Its purpose is to align with God's being and aid another's finding of this alignment.  It will show you the fruit of peace. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  John 14:27

I was insulted years ago when I learned a bishop continually described me as, "One of the kindest people I have even met."  That seemed a weak description as I sought to move to serve another parish.  Surely he could have focused on my learning, my skills in conflict, my understanding of systems, my prayer and ability in liturgy.  Who wants to hire kindness?

Then one day I awakened.  Here was the gift of the Spirit I had longed to see.  It seems so mundane.  It is no more than yielding to what I know of Christ and it passes the core test. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  John 14:27

What gift of God do you manifest that meets this gentle test: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  John 14:27

If you cannot see it, ask a friend you know in Christ.

Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter: Shaving Cream

Lessons: Psalm 107:33-43, 108; Ezekiel 43:1-12; Hebrews 9:1-14; Luke 11:14-23.

As a child there was a period when I went on a truth journey.  I do not remember what began it, how I decided to try the truth full out, but I did.  Then there was the day I went into my parents' bathroom and discovered an aerosol can of shaving cream.  I gave it a try and shaving cream flew. There is no way to put shaving cream back in a can so I cleaned it up as well as I could. Apparently I missed some. The rule was that room was off limits and messing about forbidden. 

When Dad returned home there was this moment, "Who has been in our bathroom."  My truth journey abruptly ended because I knew he was angry.  Long story short, when I denied being there I was believed and one of my brothers got the punishment. Now I knew I could not recover the truth or I would face twice the punishment. Dad had a heavy hand and was not big on grace and confession resulting in instant forgiveness. A penalty was always paid. 

The Letter to the Hebrews struggles with an image of God where a penalty must always be paid for every non-ethical moment.  The author however has encountered grace as well in Jesus Christ and seeks to make sense of a just God filled with mercy. From the Temple tradition of Yom Kippur when the High Priest, only after elaborate days of preparation, may enter the inner sanctuary but once a year to offer sacrifice for his sins and those of all the people, the author develops an illustration of Christ as the eternal high priest.  Yet Christ is not only the priest. He also functions as the sacrificial animal.  His one offering of self becomes our eternal Yom Kippur.  Never again must the sacrifice be made.

He writes; "For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!" Hebrews 9:13-14

The author knows we live in a world which corrupts us all.   He knows we will do things we wish we had not.  He knows others will pay for our missed moments of good.  He knows, as does Christ, that greed will always leave the poor as a sign of our corporate lack of care.  He knows children will go where they are forbidden and try to escape punishment. He knows moral perfection is impossible even while it remains desirable.  He understands Jesus to have attained this on our behalf. 

He also knows entering into relationship with moral possibility is a deep spiritual healing pool. Thus we enter into relationship with Christ.  We enter the Word in scripture.  We are splashed with his blood in Baptism and Holy Communion, Eucharist.

The author of Luke is clear today that Jesus is not of divided purpose.  He means to heal our lives by entering them, touching the destructive bits, to offer us change and awareness. We are allowed to choose, for or against, collected or scattered.

"Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house...Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." Luke 11:23-17

The offer is not moral perfection but moral possibility as we study and enter his life, as we take our own life and study it in light of Christ.  And when we have pressed where we should not, the aim is not a smoke screen of innocence. The shaving cream will never go back into the can.  The lie will never cover up the event.  Moral perfection will allude us. 

Moral possibility will happen as the healing eye of Christ looks with us at our lives, as we yield to better and better good.  There is grace in him, plentiful redemption as the hymn says.

It was years before I told my brother about the shaving cream.  He did not remember the event, but his laughter forgave what I remembered.  The lesson I learned long ago stays with me.  My lies can hurt others.

The other lesson is in this hymn.

There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?