The Notorious RHE has done it again: hit the nail squarely on the head, Jesus style.
I wouldn’t consider myself a fan and I don’t regularly follow her blog, but just about everything she’s written that’s come my way has struck me as insightful and cutting to the core. I predict that she’ll be one of the primary voices from my generation that gets remembered and quoted for decades, if not longer. In short: she’s good.
In this particular piece, I felt like she had a tape recorder going inside my head. Like her, I exist on the chronological borderline between Gen X and Millennial. To all you pastors, parents, teachers, and church members who desperately want to know how to attract people my age (33) and younger: THIS IS YOUR ANSWER. Read it and read it well.
Let me say it again in no uncertain terms, just so we’re clear: This is what we’re thinking. This is what we’re looking for. If you really, actually want us in your church (and not just to stroke your ego and pad your pews, but because you’re interested in actually doing ministry with us), then these are the values you need to learn and internalize. Here are the highlight’s from RHE’s article…
Reblogged from CNN
By Rachel Held Evans
Many of us, myself included, are finding ourselves increasingly drawn to high church traditions– Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. – precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being “cool,” and we find that refreshingly authentic.
What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance.
We want an end to the culture wars. We want a truce between science and faith. We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.
We want to ask questions that don’t have predetermined answers.
We want churches that emphasize an allegiance to the kingdom of God over an allegiance to a single political party or a single nation.
We want our LGBT friends to feel truly welcome in our faith communities.
We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness, not only when it comes to sex, but also when it comes to living simply, caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing reconciliation, engaging in creation care and becoming peacemakers.
You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around. We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.
The emphasis added on that last sentence is mine because that’s ultimately what it comes down to, not just for us, but for every generation. This is the perennial problem and I’d bet dollars to pesos that you once said the same thing about the church in your parents’ generation and I’m going to hear that same complaint from my own kids one day…
I chuckle to myself sometimes when I drive around and I see bumper stickers and billboards with hokey slogans like “Jesus is the Answer” because that phrase makes me want to say something snarky like, “Could you repeat the question?”
I find that folks who resort to one-liners like that are too quick to boil down the deep, rich complexity of two thousand years of Christian tradition to a cheap, one-sided formula and I just don’t think you can honestly do that if you actually read the Bible and wrestle with the things it says. When I think about the person Jesus of Nazareth and the kinds of things he said and did, I’m frankly puzzled and disturbed more often than not. One of the things that keeps me engaged with Jesus as my Lord and Savior is the way that he challenges me time and time again to grow as person and to break out of old, destructive ways of thinking and living. Most often, he does this by telling stories and asking questions of his audience. So yeah, I laugh when I see signs that say “Jesus is the answer” because, frankly, the one I want to slap on the back of my car would have to say, “Jesus is the problem.”
Jesus is a problem. If you actually read the gospels, you’ll see he’s that perpetual, prophetic pebble in the shoe to those who think they hold all power and know all the answers to every question ever asked. It’s literally impossible to hang around Jesus for any length of time and not get your worldview seriously knocked off-balance in some kind of significant way.
And in today’s gospel reading, Jesus is once again doing just that: knocking things off-balance as usual.
Today’s reading is all about Jesus’ teaching on the subject of prayer. What he has to say about it challenged people in his time and continues to challenge us in our own time, although in a slightly different way.
In the ancient world, the story Jesus tells about one friend begging bread from another friend in the middle of the night would have been heard, not as a story about prayer, but as a story about public protest.
In this story, a friend shows up at his friend’s house in the middle of the night, asking for bread, “Friend,” he says, “lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And the other friend says, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.”
But, according to Jesus, this conflict is preordained to end in the first friend’s favor because “even though [the second friend] will not get up and give [the first one] anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”
Now, the key word in that last sentence is persistence. In some older translations, the word they used was importunity. But the original Greek word here is anaideian, which literally means “shamelessness”. By behaving so shamelessly in public, in the middle of the night, the first friend is demonstrating the abject desperation of his situation and appealing directly to his friend’s moral character. The second friend, on the other hand, is now honor-bound to respond because refusing to do so would cost him respect in the eyes of the village, and remember that respect in the ancient world was at least as valuable as money. So, in the end, Jesus’ parable is really all about the character of the one being asked for bread. Taken as a metaphor for prayer, this parable is about God’s character as the one being prayed to by believers. The question ultimately being asked here is not, “How do I get my prayers answered?” but rather “Who is God?”
Among the religious authorities in that part of the ancient world, they believed that God answered prayer based on a kind of merit system in relation to the Jewish Torah. Only decent, established leaders with proper pedigrees and credentials would dare to approach the almighty God with a request. Jesus, on the other hand, is turning that cultural expectation on its head. He’s saying that it’s not the character of the person that determines God’s willingness to hear prayer, but the character of God. God, according to Jesus, is not a bean-counting judge who’s “making a list and checking it twice” before deciding whether someone’s prayers are worth hearing. Rather, the God that Jesus believes in is a generous, loving presence whose office door is perpetually open to any and every broken heart that comes knocking in the middle of the night, looking for some sign that they matter and they are loved. God doesn’t care whether you have the right beliefs or the right morals. It doesn’t matter whether or not you deserve love, you get it anyway because that’s just who God is. God is love. Full stop. End of sentence. Nothing else matters. There’s nothing you can do about it. Deal with it.
So that’s what the parable means in the ancient world: prayer is about shameless audacity. Prayer is not about the worthiness of the one who is asking, but the character the one who is asked.
Here in the modern world, Jesus’ parable on prayer has just as many challenging things to say to us, although in a different way. Unlike the world of the ancient Middle East, our culture has been shaped by two centuries of industrial capitalism. Our main question when it comes to prayer is, “Does it work?”
We’re obsessed with things working in the modern world. We define reality by what we can observe and measure. If you can’t see it or attach a number to it in some way, then it must not be real. We are the only culture in the history of the human race to think this way. Shouldn’t that strike us as odd? Every other human civilization has left room open in their worldview for some kind of transcendent mystery. Some parts of reality just can’t be measured. Everybody else seems to get that but us. So, statistically speaking, I think we enlightened, evolved westerners should at least ask ourselves the question: Could it be possible that we are actually the ones with the problem?
There can be no doubt that our means-ends rationality has taken us far. We have made unparalleled leaps in the fields of science, technology, medicine, communication, travel, and exploration. The modern mind has obviously been a blessing. But we’ve also caused more death, extinction, pollution, annihilation, and oppression than any other culture in history, so we can’t stay high up on our pedestal for very long. Without an overarching sense of meaning and mystery, we’ve managed to do a lot without knowing what it’s all for. So I ask again: maybe ours is the culture with the problem.
When it comes to prayer, modern westerners have repeatedly come back to that rational question: Does it work? And they’ve typically presented one of two possible answers.
On the one hand, you have some believers arguing that it absolutely does. They say that prayer is like magic. If you pray to the right person in the right way, you will get what you want. If you don’t get the result you want, then you forgot to pray, or you didn’t do it right, or you didn’t have enough faith. This is the ultimate form of “blaming the victim” when it comes to spirituality and suffering. Needless to say, I think this “prayer is magic” philosophy is a pile of baloney.
On the other hand, there are lots of other modern folks who say that prayer is just a placebo: a psychological self-help exercise that just comforts people and brings communities together without making a real difference in the world. I have to say that this perspective makes me just as uncomfortable as the “prayer is magic” approach because it too neatly divides reality into the material and the spiritual, with the material being regarded as the only part that’s really real. In the five years that I’ve been a pastor, I’ve walked with people and families through some really hard times. I’ve seen some amazing things for which I have no logical explanation. One might even call them miraculous. On the other hand, I’ve seen good, devout people face unimaginable tragedy with seemingly unanswered prayers. I’ve seen innocent children suffer and die under the deafening silence of heaven. So, when it comes to the observable, measurable effectiveness of prayer, I don’t have a one-size-fits-all direct answer. It’s ambiguous.
The place I come to when I hear Jesus’ teaching on prayer is that getting things done is not the point. If we’re stuck in that place where we’re asking, “Does prayer work?” then we’re asking the wrong question.
Just like the friend in Jesus’ parable, the question comes down to this: Who is God? Prayer draws our attention to that same loving, open presence that envelopes us all, whether we deserve it or not, whether we believe in it or not. Prayer is not about you and it’s not about getting things done. Prayer changes us, regardless of whether or not it changes our circumstances. Prayer gets us out of our narrow-minded, modern rationality and helps us to grow in our awareness of the great mystery within around us. Prayer opens our hearts and minds to hear and to trust in that silent, inner voice that continually calls out to us, saying, “I love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Landscape with the Good Samaritan by Rembrandt (1638). Image is in the public domain.
There are some passages of the Bible that people have read (or at least heard about) over and over again so many times that it’s hard to look at them with fresh eyes. These passages bear the weight of certain cultural interpretations that aren’t easily discarded, even in the light of decent biblical scholarship. This morning’s New Testament reading is one such passage: the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
The toughest part about writing a sermon on passages like this one is that people think they already know what it means, so they switch on a kind of theological autopilot in their heads and then zone out so that they only ever end up hearing what they already expected to hear in the text. This is a dangerous theological habit to get into, although we all do it. We tell ourselves the same old familiar stories again and again. We never leave our spiritual comfort zone and so we rob the gospel of its radical power to touch and transform our lives.
Well, it just so happens that Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan is all about leaving your comfort zone and being radically transformed. We’re used to thinking of it as a tale about human kindness. We think Jesus was just telling people to do nice things for each other. We call people “Good Samaritans” when they go out of their way to help others in need. Some states even have “Good Samaritan laws” that require citizens to assist a victim when a crime has been committed.
But is that what this story is about? It is certainly a story that has human kindness in it. The image of the Good Samaritan has endured as a symbol for kindness in the intervening millennia since the story was first told. But is kindness the point of the story? I don’t think so.
Kindness is hardly the first word that would come to mind for a first century Jewish person who was hearing this story. Actually, the first word to come to mind would probably be, “Ugh!” or “Eww!” For first century Jews, the only Good Samaritan was a Samaritan that stayed very far away.
Samaritans, from a Jewish perspective, were heretics and half-breeds. They were the leftover dregs of society who had interbred and mixed religious practices with the invading Assyrians in the 8th century BCE. Not quite Jewish and not quite Gentile, Samaritans held a particular place of disgust in the first century Jewish mind.
Even more than that, this particular Samaritan in question appears to have been a trader by profession. He rode a donkey, carried supplies like oil, and possessed a considerable sum of money (at least 2 days’ wages for the average working man). Traders were also looked down upon in the ancient world. They were not rooted down by place or tradition and often went wherever the money took them. Like tax collectors, they were expected to be cheats and thieves.
Finally, this trader Samaritan takes his wounded stranger to an inn. This was even more despicable. In those days, an inn was not what we would call a hotel, it was a seedy dumping ground for the scum of the earth. Nothing good happened there. No respectable person would be caught dead in an inn if they could help it.
So that’s a little bit of background for you. I’m telling you this in order to flesh out just how uncomfortable and maybe even offended Jesus’ listeners must have been when they first heard this parable. It involves a Samaritan trader who books a room in an inn. That fact by itself would seem seedy. In today’s terms, Jesus might as well have told a story about a cross-dressing drug dealer in a crack house. That fact alone would make for a story that you wouldn’t want to tell in mixed company. But does that bother Jesus? Not in the slightest.
So, let’s turn and take a look at why Jesus felt the need to tell such an offensive story to his audience of listeners.
It begins with a conversation between Jesus and a lawyer. Now, the word lawyer here is a little bit misleading. When we talk about lawyers, we usually mean trial attorneys. But in this case, the lawyer that Jesus was talking with was probably more like a biblical scholar: someone who studied and interpreted the Jewish Torah. In today’s terms, this person might be a professor at a theological seminary. On the scale of religious and social respectability, this lawyer would have been the polar opposite of the Samaritan trader.
So, this lawyer (i.e. seminary professor) has some serious doubts about Jesus’ credibility as a rabbi. After all, Jesus was a working-class hillbilly with no formal education to speak of, yet people were flocking to him in droves to hear what he was saying. This scholar probably saw it as his professional and religious duty to expose Jesus, the unaccredited snake-oil peddler, for the fraud that he was.
The fight that ensues between the two of them is a battle of words and wits. It’s all about having the right questions and comebacks. The lawyer starts off with a question, “Teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” In other words, “How do I live a life that’s really living, not just existing?”
Jesus answers his question with a question, “What does the Torah say?” The lawyer then proves his competence by flawlessly quoting two commandments from the Torah, one about loving God and the other about loving one’s neighbor. Jesus gives the lawyer a polite “golf clap” and says, “Bravo. Right answer. Do this and you will live.” But the lawyer isn’t satisfied. He’s proven his own competence, but he hasn’t yet stumped Jesus in front of his followers, so he keeps going:
“And who is my neighbor?”
This is an interesting question. It’s all about how wide religious people can legitimately cast their nets of inclusion. Different religious groups at that time had different standards by which certain people could join and others could not. To use today’s terms again, the more conservative groups defined neighbor in narrow terms while the more liberal groups accepted a broader definition. But there’s a problem with each of these definitions (the ancient scholar as well as modern liberals and conservatives) and it’s this: Asking the question about neighborliness in this way automatically assumes that the questioner is placing him/herself at the center of the circle (the center of the universe, in fact). Everything else happens around and is related to him/her. The lawyer’s question (“who is my neighbor?”) is an inherently self-centered question.
So Jesus, in response, tells this seedy, PG-13 story about a dirty, low-down Samaritan traveler who stays in inns. He holds up the Samaritan as a moral exemplar over and against a priest and a Levite, two Jewish religious leaders.
At the end of the story, when all is said and done, Jesus knocks the ball back into the lawyer’s court with yet another question, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” And this is where Jesus wins the argument. He stumps the lawyer by forcing him to admit something he doesn’t want to admit.
The lawyer’s response is priceless as he is unable to even bring himself to name the dirty, rotten, low-down Samaritan as his own neighbor. That would be unthinkable. All the lawyer can manage to squeak out are the words, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Leaving the lawyer with an invitation to imitate his enemy, Jesus is basically saying, “Let that which you hate become your teacher. Learn from what you despise. Let it throw you off-center, off-balance, and out-of-whack.”
Again, the problem with both conservative and liberal models of neighborliness is that both of them place the questioner at the center as the subject/hero, differing only in how wide they prefer to draw their respective circles of inclusion. Jesus, on the other hand, is inviting the Torah scholar (as well as all present-day culture warriors) to re-center their circles somewhere other than their own egos.
In Jesus’ parable, the Samaritan trader is not just a passive presence who is worthy of inclusion in the lawyer’s circle of neighbors, but an active agent who becomes a vessel of kindness to another (presumably Jewish) person. The disgusting, no-good, low-down, half-breed, heretic Samaritan is now at the center of the circle, graciously including Jewish people in his own circle of kindness. The lawyer’s moral universe has just been thrown off-center and now he has to adjust in order to get his bearings.
In Christian theological terms, this is exactly what God does in Christ. The incarnation throws the universe off-center as the divine Ground of All Being takes on our finite, fallen flesh. God’s own center of gravity has shifted in order for God to be experienced with us, here in the ordinary stuff of this universe. According to the Christian story, God is not content to stay enthroned in heaven but meets us here out of deep compassion and solidarity. In this way, God is more than simply loving, God is Love,as it says in 1 John 4.
As Christians in the world, I believe that we too are called to reorient our lives as our own little selfish worlds are thrown off-center. Christ invites us to dethrone ourselves from the center of the universe and live, as he did, for others. In doing so, Jesus says, we render to God the only kind of service God is really interested in: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
As you go out into the world this week, I invite you to challenge yourself and ask what/who do I truly despise? Who is your disgusting Samaritan?
Let that which you hate become your teacher, let your world be thrown off-balance, and may you discover the Spirit of the God who is love living and breathing in you, in everyone you welcome, and in all who welcome you.
When I was in seventh grade, I used to get picked on a lot. And I mean a lot. It was a really hard time for me. In fact, things eventually got so bad that the Vice Principal of my school recommended that I take Karate lessons for self-defense. So I did just that. And it went really well. It was fun, I was active, and I really liked my teacher: Shihan Jessie Bowen. Shihan Bowen was a 5th degree black belt and the founder of our school. There was even a picture on the wall of him next to the kung-fu movie star Chuck Norris.
I, on the other hand, was an awkward twelve-year-old who was barely good enough for a beginner-level sparring class. So, you can imagine how much trepidation I felt that night at the end of class when Shihan Bowen ordered me to stand up and fight him one-on-one in front of the rest of the class.
It was an epic five-point sparring match. Shihan Bowen and I matched each other blow for blow with everyone watching. In the end, I managed to land the final blow for my fifth point. I couldn’t believe it: I had beaten Shihan Bowen, the Grand Master and the founder of the school, by one point. For the first time in my life, I felt powerful. That’s an amazing feeling for a lanky seventh grader who was used to getting beat up and pushed around. I discovered pride and strength within myself.
Now, I can’t say that this one event solved all my problems at school or in my neighborhood, but I do believe that something of that experienced must have stayed with me because it wasn’t until almost fifteen years after the fact that I did the math in my head: Shihan Bowen was a 35-year-old Grand Master; I was a 12-year-old beginner. It took me that long to realize one obvious fact: he let me win.
By the time I realized it, of course, I was a grown man. I had long since grown out of my awkward middle school phase, but I’m grateful for what he did that night because he let me taste empowerment for the first time in my life. For once, I was a victor, not a victim. Something I did made an impact on the world around me.
This theme of empowerment is an important one, so we’re going to spend some time with it today. It factors rather highly in our reading this morning from the gospel according to Luke.
The story begins with Jesus sending a group of his followers out on a mission to heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the kingdom of God. It’s not the first time he’s done something like this. In fact, it’s the second. Just a chapter earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus sent another group of disciples out with an identical mission: heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the kingdom of God. The first time he did it, Jesus sent 12 disciples out. The second time, he sent 70.
Why do you think that is? Is it just a random number? Was that just the number of people who happened to be hanging around that day? Well, no. It’s not random. Numbers had great symbolic significance for people in the ancient world. Whenever two things or events have the same number in the Bible, you can bet that they’re connected somehow.
Let’s take the number 12, for example. 12 is the number of disciples Jesus had. 12 is also the number of tribes in the original nation of Israel. Are these ideas connected? You bet they are. By sending out 12 disciples, Jesus was saying that his mission was not just for himself alone, but for the whole nation of Israel. All of God’s chosen people had a part to play in what was happening through Jesus.
What about 70? This one’s a little bit trickier. It’s not so obvious to us modern American readers, so I’ll help you out by unpacking it a little. 70 is the number of the nations of the world named in the first part of the book of Genesis. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells the story of the creation of the world and the beginning of all peoples, cultures, and nations. And the final number of nations listed in Genesis 10 is 70. So, when Jesus sends out 70 of his followers to heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the kingdom of God, he’s taking his mission even one step further as if to say, “Hey y’all, what you see going on here isn’t just about me, it’s about our whole nation; in fact, it’s not even just about our whole nation, it’s about every nation. The amazing things you see God doing in me and through me is meant to be shared with the whole world… everybody.” That’s the symbolic significance of Jesus sending out the 70 disciples on a mission.
Now, let’s take a look at what that mission was. What is it that God is doing in and through Jesus, the nation of Israel, and ultimately the whole world? Well, we’ve heard about it already: heal the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus and his followers are all about. But what does that mean for us? Should we all become faith healers, exorcists, or televangelists? Well, probably not. In fact, I would advise against it.
When modern Christians talk about “proclaiming the kingdom of God,” they usually mean “preaching the gospel,” and it usually sounds something like this:
“You’re a real bad sinner but God loves you anyway. So, you should accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, become a Christian, and go to church so that your soul can go to heaven when you die.”
That’s what modern, American Christians usually mean when they talk about preaching the gospel or proclaiming the kingdom of God. But is that what Jesus was talking about in this passage? Is there any talk in this passage about becoming a Christian or going to heaven when you die? No, there isn’t.
Let me say something that might surprise you: Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God has nothing to do with religion or the afterlife. What is it then? Well, let’s look at it.
What is a kingdom on the most basic, fundamental level? It’s the place where a king or queen has authority and is in charge. A kingdom is a king’s territory.
Based on that definition then, what is the kingdom of God? It’s the place where God is in charge.
What does this mean? Whenever we allow peace, justice, and love to reign in our hearts, that’s the kingdom of God. Wherever groups of people organize themselves into communities to care for those who suffer, seek justice for the oppressed, and embody Christ-like compassion in their lives, that’s the kingdom of God.
When Jesus told his followers to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God, he was telling them to plant a flag in the ground. He was declaring war on the way things are. He was saying, in effect, “Hey y’all, there’s a revolution going on and we are the insurgents.” It’s not a battle we can fight with death-dealing weaponry, but with tools that build life. That’s why healing the sick and casting out demons were so important to Jesus: he was announcing a reversal of the cosmic powers that kept the children of God under the yoke of oppression. The forces of sin and evil were doomed to failure. That’s why he said, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.” I’ll say it again: There’s a revolution going on and we are the insurgents.
There are all kinds of examples of the kingdom of God breaking through into this world. I could talk about the falling of the Berlin Wall or the end of Apartheid in South Africa. But the example that stands out most in my mind this week is that of a middle-aged seamstress and a young pastor (age 26) who organized an entire group of people to right a wrong in their community through the power of nonviolent direct action. The seamstress (Rosa Parks) and the pastor (Martin Luther King, Jr.) organized the Montgomery bus Boycott of 1955. For entire year, the African American population of Montgomery, Alabama walked to work instead of riding the bus. Their voices were heard and they paved the way for the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Their movement was one moment among many that marks the breaking through of the kingdom of God into this world. Toward the end of the protest, someone asked one elderly woman whether she was tired out from a year of walking at her age. She famously replied, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”
That, my friends, is the proclamation of the kingdom of God through the empowerment of (all) the people of God. It is the dethroning of the powers of sin in this world, the casting out of demons, and the healing of our sick society. It is the eternal revolution of Jesus and we (all of us) are the insurgents.
The end-result of this revolution is not mere political reform but spiritual transformation as the kingdom of God is established “on earth as it is in heaven.” After describing the revolution to his followers, Jesus told them, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Through this empowerment, we the followers of Jesus wake up to who we really are. All of us are invited recover our dignity as beloved children of God and temples of the Holy Spirit. Each of us bears the image and likeness of God. As Jesus said, our names are written in heaven.
Brothers and sisters, this is the truth I invite you to discover and recover as you go out into the world this week. You may not be called upon to march in the Montgomery Bus Boycott or tear down the Berlin Wall, but there is still plenty of sin and injustice left in this old world. Go out with your mind’s eye and the ears of your heart open to where it is that the Spirit of Jesus is calling you and empowering you to plant a flag as an insurgent in heaven’s revolution. Heal the sick, cast out demons, proclaim the kingdom of God, and rejoice that your name is written in heaven.
I’d like to begin this morning by stating three tragic facts:
First, while you were sleeping last night, around the world, 30,000 children died of starvation or malnutrition.
Second, most people sitting in church today don’t give a damn about it.
Finally, more people will be upset at me cursing in church than they are at the death of 30,000 kids.
Now, I realize that I just dropped a bomb in your lap a moment ago, so let’s press pause and step back to look at what’s going on.
First, I have to cite my sources. This little stunt comes from a guy named Tony Campolo, who is a Baptist minister and college professor in Pennsylvania. Believe it or not, I actually toned the language down from Campolo’s original version!
Second, I want you to pay attention to what happened inside of you just now. Your heart probably skipped a beat and your adrenaline started pumping. You might have been angry at what I said or fearful that a lightning bolt might strike me dead. I certainly hope that it led you to a moment of insight and self-reflection.
What I just did here is employ the rhetorical technique of hyperbole. Hyperbole happens when you overstate something in order to make a point. In this case, the point I was trying to make was a point about our moral priorities. Which issue is more important: mass starvation or bad language? Starvation, obviously. But which one is more likely to cause a ruckus in church? Probably language. Maybe we church folks need to rearrange our priorities?
Spiritual masters of many religions often use hyperbole as a favorite teaching technique. For example, Lin Chi, a Zen Buddhist teacher from the ninth century, is thought to have said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” This is another example of hyperbole. Obviously, a Zen master would not want his students to assassinate the founder of their religion. The point he was trying to make is that they shouldn’t idolize or attach themselves to anything in this world, even a religious figurehead. They should exist in a position of openness to reality, willing to let go of their most precious possessions, ideas, and beliefs. That’s what Lin Chi meant when he said, “Kill the Buddha.”
Don’t we all sometimes use hyperbole to make a point? How about this one: “I’m starving! I could eat a horse!” Are you really? Is your life actually in danger of ending due to malnutrition? Probably not. If someone barbequed up an entire horse and served it to you for lunch today, could you finish it? Probably not. You were using hyperbole to get people’s attention and let them know that you feel hungry and would like to eat food as soon as possible.
I’m giving you this crash course in the art of hyperbole because I think it’s essential to understanding the point that Jesus was trying to get across in this morning’s gospel reading.
In the second half of the passage, Jesus says some pretty offensive stuff to his would-be followers in three separate conversations (that have been conveniently condensed into one by the author of Luke’s gospel).
In the first conversation, the would-be follower says he’ll follow Jesus anywhere and Jesus replies, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
The second person requests permission to attend a parent’s funeral, but Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
The final person just wants to say goodbye to loved ones, but Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Now, that’s some pretty harsh and offensive stuff! In fact, it’s downright rude! We imagine Jesus to be a person of great compassion, so why didn’t he ease up on someone whose father had just died? This is anything but the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” we used to sing about in Sunday School.
Well, Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point. He is being intentionally offensive and overstating his case. What’s his point? That discipleship is hard but it’s also the most important thing in the world.
Think about it: what could be so important that it would cause you to miss your father’s funeral? It would have to be something pretty big, wouldn’t it? You would pretty much have to have a heart attack in the car on the way to the funeral itself. Well, that’s exactly what Jesus is saying: he’s as serious as a heart attack. Following Jesus and proclaiming the kingdom of God is a drop-everything scenario: stop the presses, hold the phone, and pay attention. You’re on your way to your dad’s funeral, you say? Forget about it, this is too important, even for that. Discipleship is hard and it will cost you everything you have, so you’d better be ready to let it all go.
Do we relate to our Christian faith like that? I kind of doubt it. Unlike most of our fundamentalist neighbors, we mainline Protestants don’t tend to use guilt and fear to manipulate people into faith. For the most part, I think that’s a good thing. Real faith should be an honest, authentic response from the heart, not something people do because they’re scared of punishment. But we sometimes adopt a rather casual relationship with Jesus and we don’t always take him seriously. The things he says should offend and disturb us. Jesus is supposed to make us extremely uncomfortable. If we’re not troubled by the things he says, then we’re probably not really paying attention.
Real Christian faith cannot be reduced to an institution, a tradition, or a system of beliefs. Real Christian faith requires a total commitment of one’s whole being to the service of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Real faith, as theologian Paul Tillich put it, is a matter of “ultimate concern.” To the Christian, everything else in life becomes secondary. You have to let it all go, let the dead bury their own dead, put your hand to the plow, and never look back. It’s as serious as a heart attack. It will cost you all you have.
Many of us are already familiar with the idea of total sacrifice. We would gladly give all we have, including our lives, for the sake of spouse, kids, or country. We realize there’s a payoff that makes the sacrifice worthwhile. In this case, when you let go of everything and commit your whole being to following Jesus, what you get back is your true self. Bit by bit, you let go of your false identifiers (e.g. property, money, job, politics, nationality, religion, etc.), you get underneath them and discover who you really are. This is frightening at first because we have been so thoroughly trained to identify ourselves by these things (e.g. I am an accountant, a mother, a son, a Republican, a Presbyterian, an American, etc.). We think we are these things. We’re terrified that if we let go of these things and they are swept away, there will be nothing left of us. But Jesus shows us that this is not true.
Jesus said, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” In other words: when we let go of our egos and our false identifiers, we discover who we really are. This wonderful paradox is illustrated so beautifully in the sacrament of baptism: you go down into the water, where all that extra stuff gets washed away and you are left standing there: naked, wet, and shivering, just like the day you were born. You are now born again. And it is then (and only then), as you come up out of that water, that you are given your first glimpse of your true self: the heavens break open, the dove descends, and the voice speaks to you as it did to Jesus at his baptism: “You are my beloved child.”
Jesus knew this truth about himself. That’s how we was able to walk so freely, securely, and courageously across the face of this planet, unbound by the fetters of attachment to stuff, status, religion, or nationality. Jesus was free in his true self and he lived to show the rest of us the way to freedom. He knew that journey would be long and difficult for us. That’s why he was so urgent and serious as a heart attack. He knew we have a long way to go and a lot to let go of: all that stuff that keeps us bound up and wound up like bedsprings. But he also knew what waits for us on the other side of that process: freedom in the knowledge of who we really are as God’s beloved children. This is the freedom to which Christ calls us. This is the promised land, the kingdom of heaven on earth, the state of being where we can finally hear the words that the Spirit of God is eternally speaking into our hearts: “I love you and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Image by Florian Siebeck. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
As many of you already know, in the years immediately following my graduation from seminary, I worked as a counselor at the Addictions Crisis Center, which is part of the Rescue Mission of Utica. This is a great program. They serve as the “first line of defense” that people come to when they’re beginning their recovery from dependence on drugs or alcohol. They offer food, shelter, medical care, treatment, and counseling to folks in the earliest stages of recovery. Some of them would even show up on our doorstep still under the influence of whatever substance they had been using. As one friend of mine put it, “Basically, [we] meet people on the worst day of their lives.”
One of the most interesting (and often frustrating) things about people in those first few days away from their substance of choice is their adamant (and sometimes violent) resistance to the treatment, which was usually their last, best hope for healing and recovery. They would kick, scream, and test every rule and boundary of our program. Their substance of choice had such a hold on them that they would fight the treatment process, even after they realized they had a problem and voluntarily checked themselves in to our facility.
Working with them for two years gave me a new appreciation for the meaning of the term possessed. My clients’ addictions, their compulsive, uncontrollable desire for drugs or alcohol had taken over their rational faculties so thoroughly that they perceived our attempts to heal them as an attack. The addiction owned them in a manner of speaking and led many of them to do all kinds of destructive things to themselves and others. Most people in our facility had sacrificed money, friends, jobs, houses, and relationships to appease the false gods of their addictions. There are many things worth sacrificing for in this world, but I think we can all agree that recreational substances are not among them.
A lot of people in the general public, people who don’t struggle with addictions, wonder why these folks can’t just stop what they’re doing and make better choices. What most people don’t understand is that it’s not a moral issue. Addiction is not a choice; it is a disease. The electro-chemical processes in the brain have literally been hot-wired and hijacked. And just like an airplane hijacked by terrorists: it’s not going where the pilot (the rational, moral part of the brain) wants it to go. They are not in control. They are possessed and they need help.
This, in a metaphorical sense, is what I see going on in today’s New Testament reading. There is no mention in the text of any addictive, mind-altering substances being used. All we know about the Gerasene man that Jesus encounters is that he “had a demon”.
In pre-modern times, all kinds of things were blamed on the activity of demons (e.g. seizures, mental illness, socially unacceptable behavior, bad luck, other religions, etc.). They didn’t have the kind of knowledge or diagnostic equipment we have today. For example, we now know that a person with schizophrenia doesn’t need an exorcism from demons, she needs anti-psychotic medication in order to make the voices in her head go away. That’s not to say that there isn’t some kind of spiritual element to people’s problems, but I think we have developed a more informed, nuanced, and holistic way of looking at things than our ancestors had.
When people come to me as a pastor, asking for exorcisms (and they do, believe it or not), my first question for them is always, “Have you seen your doctor?” I often end up making referrals, doing short-term pastoral care, praying with, and visiting these people in distress. I find that a combination of medication, counseling, and prayer tends to resolve the vast majority of cases where exorcism was initially requested.
I don’t tend to think of demons as beings or entities in their own right. The image of monsters with horns and bat-wings that take over your mind is the stuff of horror movies. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the reality of the demonic. I believe I encountered a kind of demonic possession every day when I was a substance abuse counselor. The people I worked with were possessed by their compulsive need for a particular substance. The things they did as a result of that compulsion were truly evil, you might even say demonic: They lied, stole, neglected and abused children, some of them had even hurt or killed others. Those who found recovery from their addictions often had to own up to and make amends for the horrible things they had done under the influence.
And the amazing thing is that, in spite of all this harm to self and others, they continue to refuse to let go of their addiction. They cling to their substance of choice as if it were more precious than air. Many of them would refuse treatment and walk out of our program. The average recovering addict has to go through rehab four or five times before they finally get clean and sober for good. Only about one out of every ten clients finds recovery. The rest go back out, pick back up, and continue to use or drink, despite the consequences. That’s what I call possessed.
The Gerasene man in today’s gospel reading was similarly resistant to Jesus’ efforts to heal him. When Jesus commands the demonic spirits to leave the man alone, the man cries, “I beg you, do not torment me”. Torment him? Didn’t this guy realize that Jesus was trying to help him? It was the demons that were tormenting him! But then again, as we’ve already seen today: people sometimes prefer an old, familiar slavery to a new, unknown liberation. Getting over that hump is often half the battle of recovery.
The good news is that this doesn’t seem to present a problem for Jesus. He just keeps at it with this possessed man, this hopeless case, until he has sufficiently separated the person from the problem. That’s a key difference between Jesus and the people of the Gerasene region. They just tried to lock him up and forget about him, but Jesus went out to see and to save the man behind the madness. I think our task, as followers of Jesus in the present-day, is to do the same with those outcasts in our society, those people our culture of achievement has given up on.
Where God is concerned, there is no such thing as a hopeless case.
Now, it would be easy enough to leave things at that: the addict finds recovery, Jesus sweeps in and rescues the man from the demons, and everybody lives happily ever after. But life is more complicated than that.
It would be so easy for us to sit here in our (semi)comfortable pews on Sunday and say prayers for those poor addicts down in Utica, never once taking the time to look hard at our own lives. We tend to take notice of people addicted to drugs and alcohol because (A) those addictions are highly destructive and (B) they’re socially unacceptable. But there are many other kinds of addictions out there as well, many of which don’t involve recreational chemicals of any kind. In recent years, we’ve become more aware of behavioral addictions to things like sex, work, food, exercise, shopping, and gambling. Scientific studies have shown that our brains can’t tell the chemical difference between these behaviors and drugs. Either way, it’s a massive hit from a neurotransmitter chemical called dopamine that our brains get used to having and eventually come to depend on in order to feel normal. The best single book I’ve ever read on this topic is Addiction and Grace by Gerald May. I highly recommend reading it if you want to learn more about addiction from psychological, medical, and spiritual perspectives.
In addition to the aforementioned behaviors, I would go on to say that anything can be an addiction, depending on the place it holds in our lives. Even good and healthy things like family, relationships, church, religion, country, and school can be addictive. Whenever we let just one thing take over our whole field of consciousness for extended periods of time, we are in danger of becoming addicted or possessed in the way we’re using that language today. Spiritually speaking, we are committing the sin of idolatry: worshiping false gods, serving a part of reality at the expense of the whole, or even treating a part as if it were the whole. We can even be addicted to (possessed by) a certain way of thinking or way of doing things. This last one especially applies to groups of people as much as individuals.
I find it interesting that, in today’s gospel reading, the demons themselves ask Jesus to let them stay in the area. They ask to be sent into a herd of pigs that immediately goes berserk and destroys itself. After that, the people of the Gerasene community approach Jesus and ask him to leave. Why? Because, according to the text of Luke’s gospel, “they were seized with a great fear.”
Isn’t that interesting? When Jesus first tried to help the possessed man, the man cried out in terror, “I beg you, do not torment me”. He was afraid of the very person who had come to help him. Now, at the end of the story, that man is “clothed and in his right mind” while the rest of the so-called “normal” people in his community are suddenly terrified of Jesus the healer.
This is another aspect of this story that bears a striking and frankly eerie resemblance to my experience of working with people who have addictions. More often than not, so often in fact that it became a predictable pattern, my clients would return home after completing treatment to discover that their families no longer know how to relate to them. In the years while my clients were active in their addictions, their families adapted in order to learn how to function in a dysfunctional environment. They were used to operating under the assumption that one member of the family would always be drunk, high, or absent. This is what experts mean by the term co-dependency: one person in the family unit is chemically or behaviorally dependent while all the others are “dependent with” that person or “co-dependent”. When the dependent person comes home clean and sober, ready to rejoin the family system, the family suddenly has to rethink their old patterns for relating to each other and learn new ones. This process is difficult and scary because they think they have to maintain the old balance and fulfill their old roles in the dysfunctional family system in order to survive. It’s not at all uncommon for families to go through stress or even break up when someone is in the early stages of recovery.
The solution is for family members to participate actively in their own recovery process alongside their loved one who is getting clean and sober. Addiction is a family problem that requires a family solution. That’s why support groups like Al-Anon exist: to help the co-dependents of alcoholic people with their own recovery
And the same goes for the rest of us in the broader community. Participating in the work of building God’s kingdom on earth is not just about helping those poor, unfortunate souls who struggle with addiction. It’s about facing our own addictions and co-dependencies (even the socially acceptable ones) so that Jesus can liberate us from our own demons and bring healing and wholeness to the entire community.
If we are open to that process taking place in us, if we can trust that Christ is here to help us and not to harm us (even when his healing presence feels scary and unfamiliar), then we can say that we are walking the path of faith toward the promised land of God’s kingdom of heaven on earth.
When she walked into the party, they were sizing her up like a piece of meat. She was that girl: the one with a reputation.
They had all kinds of ideas about her. Who knows if any of the rumors were actually true? It didn’t matter. Somebody had to occupy the bottom rung of the social ladder and it might as well be her.
Those religious folks, the upstanding citizens, made a good show of cutting her down in public. They said people like her were the problem with society these days: no morals and values, no respect for the law.
They said this world would be a better place without people like her. But secretly, she knew: they needed people like her to exist. Without the scumbags and lowlifes, who would they have to look down upon? Their self-righteousness was built on appearances and comparisons. They only seemed high and holy next to people like her because they did a better job of hiding their faults. They put on a fancier show, that was all.
The problem was that everyone else in town accepted the reality of their show. Heck, she almost accepted it herself. That’s the problem with labels: when you hear them enough, you eventually start to believe them yourself.
Maybe I am worthless, she thought. Maybe no one will ever love me. Maybe this world would be better off without me in it.
That’s a pretty thick mental fog to get lost in. It can lead to some pretty severe and irreversible rash decisions. For all we know, she might have been on the verge of one such decision herself.
But then she met Jesus.
No, I don’t mean to say that she found religion, saw the light, or got born again. That’s too easy. Too cut and dry. Besides, those folks in the “upright citizens’ brigade” love that stuff. They eat it up like candy: the wayward sinner reforms her ways and comes back home where she belongs. Classic redemption story. Good propaganda. It reinforces their assumptions about the world and makes them look like loving and gracious heroes to welcome someone so despicable as her.
But this Jesus guy was different.
They didn’t seem to like him very much either. At first, he seemed like one of them: he was a religious teacher, people called him Rabbi, and he had a lot to say about God. He knew the Bible pretty well too. He was always quoting from it, but every time he did, all the religious folks in the crowd would get real red in the face and start clenching their jaws, like he had just said something to annoy them. Didn’t they love that stuff? Wasn’t the Bible kind of their “thing” after all? Then why would they get so mad when Jesus recited parts of it in their presence? I guess they didn’t like what he had to say about it.
Maybe he was making them uncomfortable. After all, he was a rabbi, but he didn’t act like other rabbis. For one thing, he hardly ever went to synagogue. Most of the time, he was hanging out in the streets with folks who wouldn’t be caught dead in a synagogue on the Sabbath… people like her.
Nobody knows how it happened. They just seemed to come from everywhere. Jesus said it was God drawing them, but that didn’t even make any sense. What would God have to do with people like them? Still, something inside of her made her stick around on that first day. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. That same feeling kept her coming back around for as long as he was in town.
The things he had to say made sense to her. He certainly knew the Bible but he didn’t throw it in her face. He knew all about the Temple and its elaborate rituals, but he didn’t seem to care much about it. He kept saying the day would come when “not one stone would be left on top of another” in that place. He seemed pretty irreligious for a religious teacher.
He said, “The place where God lives is within you and around you.” He spoke from the heart and didn’t bother with all of that fancy philosophy and theology that the other rabbis used. When people asked Jesus about God, he usually pointed to whatever happened to be in his line of sight at the time:
“Do you see that woman baking bread? That’s what God is like. Do you see those crops growing in that field over there? God is like that. Do you see that farmer sowing seed, that woman sweeping out her house, or those merchants in the market? God is like all of those.”
He even saw signs of God’s presence in the lilies of the field and the sparrows of the air. That didn’t sound like any rabbi she had ever heard before. What’s even weirder is that he didn’t seem to be bothered by all the freaks and misfits who kept gravitating toward him. In fact, whenever zealous devotees came up to pledge their allegiance to him, Jesus kept turning them back to those very same freaks and misfits. “These people are my family,” he would say, “Whatever you do for them, you do for me.”
Family? Did he mean her? Nobody had ever talked to her like that before. People called her a lot of things, but never “family.” She hadn’t even spoken to her own family in years…
Why would anyone want her of all people in his family?
All the same, she kept coming back, drawn by that inexplicable something. Who knows? Maybe Jesus was right and it really was God that was drawing her?
She loved listening to him. She loved the way he stuck it to those religious hypocrites, using their own Bibles against them. She loved his stories and the way he looked at the world: finding God everywhere in it. But most of all, she loved the way he looked at her.
Men often looked at her, but not like that. They usually looked at her with some perverted combination of disgust and desire. Regardless of whether or not the rumors about her were true (some were and some weren’t), they believed them all and treated her accordingly. But Jesus called her family. He saw what she was capable of, not just what she was (or what she represented to everyone else). When he taught, his eyes would sometimes momentarily lock with hers, as if he was speaking directly to her. She would swell with pride and sit up a little straighter, imagining that he really was talking to her.
He wasn’t of course. She was just a woman, and a bad one at that. Women weren’t allowed to study under rabbis in that day. Even socially respectable women would only be allowed to sit in and listen to his lectures. But then why did he keep looking at her? Why did his words make so much sense? She was getting it! Could it be possible that maybe (just maybe) he really was speaking to her? I don’t know… but she kept coming back.
And something was happening inside of her. She was looking at the world in a whole new way. It was as if she had been blind all along and was really starting to see things clearly for the first time ever. It was almost as if she had been some lame beggar by the roadside and Jesus was taking her hand, lifting her up onto her own two feet, and teaching her how to walk her own path. For the first time in a long time, she felt like a person again, a real human being. It felt like those cold, numb, dead spaces inside of her were coming alive again when she was around Jesus. Who knew that was even possible?
Earlier that afternoon, she was hanging around town as usual and she heard some folks talking. They said Jesus would be moving on tomorrow, headed to another town. She felt her stomach jump with fright. Leaving? He was leaving? To where? Would he be back? Was this the last chance she would ever have to see him and feel that amazing feeling?
She had lost track of time those last few days. They seemed like an eternity to her. She was so caught up in everything he was saying, everything that was going on, it didn’t occur to her that Jesus wouldn’t be staying there forever. What was she supposed to do?
Something inside her heart told her she should do something, but she didn’t know what. Shouldn’t there be some kind of religious ritual for thanking or blessing a rabbi who was leaving? It seemed like there should be. After all, those religious folks had prayers, and blessings, and rituals for just about every other occasion, why not this one? But what would it be? She wished there was someone she could ask, but certainly no other rabbi would ever give her the time of day, much less let her ask a question. Besides, most of those blessings and rituals could only be performed by men. She would only get to sit out and watch, if she was lucky.
But that didn’t sit right with her. That didn’t do justice to the kind of person Jesus was. She might not know the correct thing to do, but she had to do something. It was getting late. The sun was almost down. There wasn’t time to plan anything elaborate. Besides, she heard that Jesus already had plans. He was invited to dinner at some big shot Pharisee’s house. They would have all kinds of fancy food and entertainment there. Nothing she could do would measure up to that. They would never even let her in the door, anyway. It was a hopeless cause… unless…
Nah, that’s too crazy… it would never work… but then again…
She had this jar. It had been with her a long time. Nobody knows how she got it. It was the only thing she had that was worth anything. It was filled with a very rare and expensive perfume, worth about as much as a full year’s salary for a working man. Once upon a time, that jar of perfume was worth more than her life, but not anymore. Jesus had showed her that she was worth so much more than that. The dignity she had discovered through him made that jar seem cheap and worthless by comparison.
It was right then that she knew what she had to do. Maybe she didn’t know the proper ritual for blessing a rabbi, but she would make one up to demonstrate to Jesus and everyone else what it was that he meant to her.
She went home, grabbed that jar, and made a bee-line for the house where Jesus was having dinner. Her heart was pounding and her adrenaline was pumping as she got closer. Right up to the front door she walked. And right through. The bouncer happened to look the other way for a second and so he didn’t notice her until she was already inside. He shouted and tried to grab her, but it was too late. She had already made it to the place where Jesus was sitting: reclining actually, with his feet stretched out behind him.
She looked down at those feet. Just like everyone else’s, they were disgusting. Without paved roads or organized sanitation, city streets in the ancient world were cesspools of filth. A person’s feet would get caked with mud and excrement just from walking around. Nobody liked to touch feet or wash them. It was the worst job, even for a slave. Feet were gross.
The woman looked down at Jesus’ feet. Then she looked back at the jar in her hand. After pausing for a second, she broke the jar open and dumped its precious contents onto Jesus’ feet. The pungent smell of lavender filled the room. She had never opened the jar before. She always wondered what its contents might smell like. Now she knew. It was beautiful. It reminded her of the way that Jesus made her feel inside. Through him, she had come to be aware of her own inner beauty for the first time ever. She was like that jar of perfume: broken open, poured out, precious, and beautiful.
As the weight of this truth hit home for her, she began to cry for joy. Her tears dripped down off her cheeks, chin, and nose and onto Jesus’ feet. Looking down, she realized the tears mixed with the jar’s contents were washing away the layer of filth left from the long, hard road. She could see his beautiful, soft, brown skin showing through. Bending down even further, she took each foot in her hands, undid her long, dark hair, and used it like a towel to wipe away those last remnants of slime, continuing to weep as she did it. This felt right. It was all she had: the only thing she could think of to do.
The host of the party was, predictably, indignant. He pulled out all those nasty names and labels that people called her. But somehow, those names didn’t phase her as she ran her fingers over Jesus’ smooth, clean, sweet-smelling feet. In that moment, she was prepared to let him talk and say whatever he wanted, but Jesus wasn’t. Jesus interrupted the Pharisee’s tirade with a single word: Simon. That was his name, the Pharisee that is. Jesus called him by name, not by his status or position. “Simon,” he said, “I have something to say to you.”
You better believe that shut him up quick. Jesus then told another story about debts being forgiven. “Do you see this woman?” Obviously, Simon didn’t. All Simon saw was another sinner, another woman who didn’t know her place, another scumbag lowlife. Simon didn’t really see her but Jesus saw her, so he asked Simon, “Do you see this woman? I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” Did she just hear him right? Did he just say forgiven?
Seeing the shock and confusion on her face, he said it again just to drive the point home. He spoke her name… she didn’t even realize that he knew her name, but he called her by it. She looked up and their eyes met again. He repeated, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Forgiven. She never thought she would hear that word spoken to her, but somehow she knew he was right. That was what she had been feeling all along. Forgiven. Restored. The shame and stigma washed away.
And Jesus wasn’t just making it happen for the first time either. He was announcing a reality that had already come true. She was already loved, forgiven, and clean. Jesus’ words were only sealing the deal and making it real to her. She was a person with a name and dignity, no matter how hard society might try to take that away from her.
Almost as soon as Jesus had said this, the room erupted into theological debate over who has the authority to announce such forgiveness. The religious machinery was hard at work, already pumping out Bible verses and quoting rabbinical commentaries on the matter.
Jesus just rolled his eyes, shook his head, and looked back at her smiling. And then, leaning down to whisper in her ear while the debate raged on around them, Jesus spoke her name again and said, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
This woman, whose name has been lost to history but was known to Jesus, was not the only one who experienced such wholeness at the feet of Jesus. There were other women among his disciples as well. We read about some of them this morning: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. They were an integral part of his ministry, contributing a vital part. There were men too, of course.
And the amazing thing is that all of them together… all of us… from first century Palestine to twenty-first century New York, are still hearing in our hearts and proclaiming with our lives that same message of forgiveness that continues to resound through the halls of history:
“I love you, God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
This past week, it was my honor to offer the blessing at the Utica Observer-Dispatch’s Teen All-Stars Breakfast. Distinguished high school seniors from our area were awarded for their good deeds, accomplishments, and acts of service to the community. I was invited to participate in this event by Dave Dudajek, who I know through his daughter, Jaime Burgdoff (one of our congregants here in Boonville).
It was amazing to hear about these local teenagers and everything they’ve managed to do in high school. My memories of high school mostly involve staying up late, watching B movies, and driving around town with friends when we had nothing better to do. But these folks are already making an impact on their world in the name of what they believe is right.
At this event, Donna Donovan (president and publisher of the OD) gave an address where she talked about these students’ upcoming freshman year at college. They would be challenged and inspired to grow in new directions and their horizons would be expanded far beyond what they could possibly imagine at this point. She also told them that this would only be first of several “freshman years” they would experience throughout the rest of their lives. Each new experience, journey, accomplishment, and challenge will lead them into yet another experience of being a wide-eyed and wet-behind-the-ears “freshman” who is just now figuring out who they are and what life is all about.
In Zen Buddhism, this is called “Beginner’s Mind”. A person has Beginner’s Mind when she or he is absolutely open to each new moment, each new experience in life. All of life, the whole universe even, becomes a teacher to a person who has Beginner’s Mind. Each and every moment is the moment when Enlightenment might happen.
I think this is what Jesus meant when he used the word “repent”. We associate that term with guilt and sorrow for one’s sins, but in the original Greek the word “repent” is metanoia (“change the way you think”). When he says “Repent”, Jesus is inviting us to think differently and look at the world through a different set of eyes, open to what the Spirit of God might be saying and doing in any particular moment. The kind of awareness and openness that metanoia entails corresponds quite closely with the Zen concept of Beginner’s Mind.
In today’s reading from the gospel of Luke, we can see Jesus issuing just such a call to repentance (metanoia, Beginner’s Mind) even though he never actually uses that particular term.
The story opens with a rare and unlikely character: a Roman Centurion. He was a soldier in a hostile, occupying army. Imagine that, instead of first century Judea, this story was taking place in Paris, France in 1941. In that setting, this Roman Centurion would have been a Nazi Commander talking to a local priest. The hostilities between nations would have created a barrier between these people that was almost impossible to overcome. After that, there are also the barriers of race and religion. These invading European pagans would have been offensive in the extreme to Jewish inhabitants of Judea. The people of Judea, in turn, would have seemed backward and barbaric to the Roman Centurion, who was trained to think of himself as a great hero of the Empire: making the world safe for Roman order and peace. There is no reason on earth why this Roman Centurion and these religious Jews should have any amicable contact whatsoever.
However, something seems to have already happened before Jesus ever set foot on the scene. We learn that there is a private relationship between this Centurion and the Jews. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles and prejudices had already been conquered. The Centurion had become a benefactor of the Jewish people, even laying down the money to sponsor the building of their synagogue. The Jewish leaders, in turn, had come to respect this one Centurion in spite of his being a Roman soldier.
The Jewish leaders probably thought of themselves as quite liberal and progressive for having made such a stretch in their worldview to include him. When Jesus was passing through and the Centurion sent a request to him through the leaders, they took advantage of the opportunity to highlight what a good relationship had developed. As Jesus was hearing the request, the leaders interjected, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”
What a lovely moment of intercultural understanding and the power of respect to overcome differences in even the most hostile circumstances! Too bad Jesus came along and felt the need to ruin it.
Jesus, you see, has this strange knack for cutting to the heart of a matter, turning things around, and getting you to see the world from an upside-down, inside-out perspective. In this case, he does just that by answering the religious leaders’ inclusive magnanimity with a snide remark: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”
Did you get that? Jesus said, “not even in Israel”. Who are the Israelites? They are! Jesus is saying that this pagan foreigner actually has more faith than the religious leaders of his own people! What would that be like in today’s terms? Imagine if the President of the United States pinned the Congressional Medal of Honor on an Al Qaeda terrorist, saying that this soldier represented the very best in America. People would be outraged! They would take to the streets in protest! They would call for the President to be impeached and tried for treason! Well, that’s the same level of outrage that the Jewish elders would have felt when Jesus said that a Roman Centurion had more faith than any of them. How dare he?! Just who does this Jesus guy think he is, anyway?!
Well, here’s what Jesus is doing in this situation: he’s creating an opportunity for his compatriots to adopt a Beginner’s Mind. He’s dropping a truth bomb on them so huge that it will hopefully shock them out of their preconceived notions about reality. If they can stay with him in this moment and be open to what he is saying, they’ll find themselves looking at the world in a whole new way.
Up until now, they’ve had a very ego-centric view of themselves and their role as “God’s chosen people.” To them, being “chosen” meant that they were endowed with a certain kind of special status that made them inherently superior to every other race, culture, and religion on the planet. So, from their perspective, they really were being quite kind and generous in their endorsement of this Centurion as “worthy” to receive the benefits of Jesus’ healing ministry.
But Jesus saw right through their generosity and exposed it for what it really was: Arrogance. Implicit in their charitable endorsement of the Centurion was the presumption that they themselves occupied the center stage in God’s unfolding drama in the world. Sure, they were presenting a kinder, gentler form of religion in that moment, but it was still a very self-centered vision (no matter how open or welcoming it might appear to be).
In reality, it’s not up to them to decide who is worthy or unworthy. In reality, being “God’s chosen people” has less to do with status and more to do with being part of what God is doing in the world. In reality, God’s work in the world extends far beyond the borders of any one nation, religion, race, or culture.
By highlighting the superior faith of the Roman Centurion, Jesus is drawing our attention to that reality. Jesus is inviting us to repent in that metanoia sense of the term, to think outside the box, to cultivate a Beginner’s Mind, an open heart, and an expanded consciousness. Like Donna Donovan said to the youth at the Teen All Stars Breakfast, it’s about engaging in a lifelong series of “freshman years” that challenge us and invite us to an ever greater sense of openness to life’s opportunities.
Here in the church, even when we’re being quite open, accepting, and progressive, it’s still quite easy to fall back into that ego-centric sense of superiority about being “God’s chosen people”. It’s easy to think that it’s all about us and our church. What Jesus wants to remind us of today is that it isn’t. We are part of what God is doing in the world. God’s mission includes us, but it’s also bigger than us, and it’s certainly not about us.
In order to participate in God’s larger mission, we have to move beyond the seductive idea of being a welcoming or even a growing church. We have to look for a faith that’s greater than our own and ask ourselves, “What is God doing in the world at large and how can we be a part of it?” And then our next task is to commit all of our resources to pursuing those ends, even if it costs us our very lives.
Where do you see God at work in the world at large? Who are the “Roman Centurions” in your life, outsiders whose faith and participation in God’s mission might go unrecognized by established religious authorities? How is God calling you to partner with these religious outsiders and participate in God’s larger mission?
These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves as a church and as individual Christians. This is the mentality, the Beginner’s Mind, that we need to cultivate day by day so that we can be more open to what God is doing and more faithful followers of Jesus, whose great big love honors and embraces the faith of all people: Israelites, Centurions, and even Presbyterians.
Last year, Pastor Alois Bell of Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries in St. Louis, MO famously stiffed her server at Applebee’s of her tip. This event made headlines as Chelsea, the server in question, was later fired for publicizing the event with a photo of the receipt:
The icing on the proverbial cake was the arrogant note Pastor Bell scrawled on the paper before signing it with her name and title: “I give God 10% why do you get 18”.
Why? I tell you why. First of all, because it’s company policy for parties that large. If you don’t like it, don’t eat there. Second, and far more important, is because your server is a fellow human being, made in the image of God, worthy of respect and dignity for that fact alone.
The role of server is one that Jesus blessed and took upon himself when he washed his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. Jesus, of all people, had the right to lord his status over others, but he didn’t. He came to give and serve. After voluntarily completing this act of degrading service, he commanded his followers to do the same, saying, “Just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another.” Who are we to then treat our servers as anything less than the very presence of Christ in our midst? Jesus also said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Finally, professional clergy who act in this way absolutely ruin our collective witness to the power of the gospel. Like it or not, people see us as representatives of the tradition we follow. If we want to encourage others to love and follow Jesus, we must demonstrate that same love in our words and deeds.
Pastors, priests, ministers, and other clergy, hear me loud and clear: The way we conduct ourselves in public and the tips we leave our servers preach more than a thousand sermons ever could. And don’t stop with your dollars either. Make an effort to remember their names, especially if you are a frequent customer. These people are treated like machines all day long, imagine the effect it will have on them when you make an effort to build community, nurture relationships, and love like Jesus!
As an act of collective repentance for what Alois Bell did in the name of pastors, I would like to share the following photo from a recent visit to Applebee’s in Rome, NY, where many of the staff members, including Alison, Lester, Matt, Amanda, Heather, Michelle, Natalie, Liz, Destiny, and Tristan, have become precious friends to our family, even though we only see each other in this one context.
Many thanks to our beloved server, Alison, for posting this photo and helping us redeem the world a little from the stain of hypocrisy left by Pastor Bell.
Alison posted the photo to Facebook with this comment:
J. Barrett Lee I put it up finally!!!!!! Thank you for being an amazing customer and more importantly an amazing person and friend! To everyone else: I didn’t know Barrett before I worked at Applebee’s. He came in one night (a particularly rough one) with his daughter and sat in my section. He treated me like a person( a concept that we have talked about many times since) an they made my night 1000 x better. They have now become friends of mine and I love seeing them. It doesn’t hurt that Barrett and his wife Sarah produce amazingly beautiful children
Anyway, my point is that servers are people too, along with the cashier who rang up your groceries wrong or who couldn’t let you use your coupon. Everyone has a story and sometimes they just need someone to listen to it! Spread the love!!!!!!
I am a guest columnist in today’s Utica Observer-Dispatch!
Many thanks to Dave Dudajek for doing me a favor and allowing me this slot.
Here is an excerpt:
When we as a society compare our sex offenders to garbage, we do the same thing to them that they did to us. In doing so, we stoop to their level and perpetuate the cycle of violence.
American society at large endorses such violence because no one is said to be more despicable than a sex offender. We seem to have made it OK to dehumanize and hate these people because of what they have done to others. We use them as scapegoats and a “dumping ground” for our own rage, frustration, and self-hatred. Again, we do to them what they did to us. We become what we judge.
With this housing crisis, I believe God is presenting us with an opportunity to rise above revenge and break the cycle of dehumanizing violence. We have a chance to stand in solidarity with Jesus, who ate with tax collectors and sinners, the scapegoats and “sex offenders” of his day and age.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 