Day 272 - Serious Business

A Sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN Sept 8, 2013

OT Reading: Jeremiah 18:1-11

NT Reading: Luke 14:25-33

          “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.” These are strong words. Does Jesus literally mean something so out of character with most of what He says? We know that Jesus never had feelings of hate towards humankind. After all, God is the essence of love  who sent Jesus came to reconcile us to God.  Several times over the last few weeks we have heard the greatest two commandments that Jesus said completely fulfill the law: “Love God with your entire being, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.” There is no hate here only an implied obligation to “do likewise.” The demand of faith is service. It cannot be minimized or understated, and sometimes only the strongest language gets through our inattentive ears.

Let’s think about the situation Jesus in Luke when he makes this statement about hating family. Let’s walk a few miles with him. If we focus on the divine nature of Jesus and forget this humanity we miss the power of the events Luke describes. We miss the meaning of the passage I read to you today.

He has built his team of disciples. Talking about the future, one of his followers makes a glib affirmation,(9:57), “I will follow you wherever you go!”, but Jesus knows the person has no clue. Jesus replies, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” We can never delude ourselves that Jesus is calling these disciples on some noble adventure that ends well. Jesus is a man of flesh and blood who sees his death before him.

He has sent his twelve out on a trial ministry, then seventy more. They were all sent out all with only the clothes on their back and these instructions (Luke10: 1-12 ), “minister to those who receive you and tell the ones who will not receive you that the kingdom of God has come near and on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for them.”

They return with a good report. They have rejoiced with those who listen and understand and grieved for those with deaf ears. Jesus praises God for this good news but knows it means it is time for the cross. Luke says his face is set on Jerusalem (9:51).  The human Jesus must have feared this journey to Jerusalem.

Every day on the journey he witnesses the abject suffering of poor, sick, crippled, spiritually impoverished and despairing crowds; and the conniving and self-indulgence of the religious leaders with their banquets at the expense of the temple treasury ignoring the suffering of these people that they could help instead. He sees the absolute misery of the human condition to whom he has offered reconciliation to God even to those who plot and reject every thing he says.  Surely he recalls Jeremiah’s words of the Lord from last week,

“Jer. 2:9 Therefore once more I accuse you, says the LORD, and I accuse your children’s children. 10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing.  See if there has ever been such a thing!

11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? [But] my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.

12 O heavens, be appalled at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD,

13  for my people have committed two evils: (1) they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and (2) they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

Do you think the human and divine Jesus might be a little angry with these religious leaders sniping at him on the road to Jerusalem? Maybe he is as angry as Jeremiah just described? The prophets said, “They hear but do not understand, and they see but do not perceive.” Jesus is well justified to act out of love to resort to strong, overstated language to get the attention of the disciples.

The form of overstatement that Jesus uses appears often in Scripture. In fact it is a common part of speech of Semitic languages. Proverbs 13:24 reads, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.”

How many of us, or our parents have used a variation on this proverb, spare the rod and spoil the child? I’ve known people who were spiritually and emotionally harmed by beatings of a parent based on that interpretation. The writer of the proverb certainly is not advocating hating or physically abusing your own offspring but is overstating the point to bring home the message about discipline. I have also known people who were helped by switching of their legs with a thin taper of a privet hedge to get their attention. The proverb means we need a total commitment to compassionate discipline to teach a child, not hate or abuse.

We find overstatement again in 2 Samuel 19  in the story of Jacob and his two wives Leah and Rachel who bear the fathers of the tribes of Israel. You may recall the story. It is really a biblical Peyton Place. Between Rachel/ Leah and their two maids, they gave Jacob the 12 sons who created the tribes of Israel.

Jacob met Rachel by a well and fell in love with her. Jacob asked her father Laban for her hand, but Laban tricked Jacob into first marrying his eldest daughter Leah and later Rachel, after working on his farm for 14 years. Jacob favored Rachel but the Lord favored Leah and she gave him sons while Rachel was infertile. But poor Leah grieved all the same and after she conceived her third son exclaimed (Gen.29:33),   “Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also…”   

Did Jacob really hate Leah or was Leah just trying to get Jacob’s attention?

Jesus is using this same kind of overstatement when he says unless you hate your mother and father, brothers, sisters and children, even life itself, you cannot be my disciple, and if you do not carry the cross you cannot be my disciple.

Let’s think about hate for a minute. “To hate” a thing means you have to disconnect absolutely your heart from the thing you hate. There can be no room in your heart for the thing, no feeling of compassion that would tempt you towards loyalty to it. We might say hate frees us from any tie that binds us towards the thing we hate. It is a very heartless and dangerous emotion when its intent is to harm someone, our children, but it is a single-mindedness to faith Jesus demands.

Jesus does not hate or expect us to hate people. He came to reconcile us to God, who is the essence of love. Do we find hate in those greatest two commandments?  No, there is no hate in there, only a call for commitment.

I wondered earlier if Jesus was as angry at this human mess about him as the Lord was about the Hebrew’s making their cracked cisterns? I think the answer is angry, hurt, frustrated, sad, impassioned that they hear but do not understand, they see but do not perceive. Sometimes strong language is the only thing to get through.

Last week Jesus talked about where to sit at the wedding feast, and who to invite. Do you remember? He is used the same overstatement, “Don’t invite your friends and relatives to my feast, invite the poor, the hungry, the cripple and lame.”  He is figuratively SCREAMING at the top of his lungs: “Wake up, get ready!”

Unfortunately the lectionary omits the next story of the guest who missed the point probably due to too many glasses of wine. He piped up, “Yes, Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Only Jesus could find the compassion to teach him with another parable. A person gave a great dinner but all the rich, busy friends declined due to other pressing needs. Angered the host sent his servants out into the streets to invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame and still found room for more. He ordered his servants to go out and compel people from the country lanes to come until his house was full.  Then he announced, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

Do you remember when Jesus said, “Follow me” to the fishermen Peter and Andrew standing on the beach doing their work and then James and John (Matt 4:18)? They didn’t stop, roll up their nets and beach the boats, they fell in with Jesus and began this wonderful ministry of the gift of God News.

Jesus is asking us, are you ready to be a disciple or not? Is something holding you back? Are you so tightly bound to your family that when the Lord says follow me, you will say ok, but wait a minute I need to go back and settle my affairs with my family. He asks, “Are you ready to experience mistreatment humbly rather than deny Jesus? Are you ready to pay the price of absolute loyalty for eternal life?  Can you pay for the cost of discipleship?”

We hear some of our pastor friends using passages like this to demand that we hate, denounce and even deny our own flesh and blood as sinners. They say if you cannot stand up and publically condemn them, then leave our fellowship. Personally, I can’t find that kind of hate anywhere in the Gospel. It is a stumbling block in my view. We are all absolutely obligated to search our own hearts with the guidance of the Holy Spirit to understand what we must do when confronted with sin but how can we reconcile ostracizing someone for refusing to condemn their child as a sinner when Jesus acted so oppositely when he came upon some scribes and Pharisees who had caught a woman in the act of adultery. They were about to stone her to death for her sin according to the law. He knelt down scribbling in the sand and looked up at them saying, you who are without sin, cast the first stone. What did he say to the woman after they left? “Neither do I condemn you, go, and sin no more.”(John 8:2-11)

Personal judgment is where it all gets so messy.  Detrick Bonhoffer was a well known German pastor in Nazi Germany. He faced this question of divided loyalty between the state and Christian discipleship. He wrote a book earlier called “The Cost of Discipleship” that struggled with the very ethical dilemma Jesus poses in our lectionary reading: Are we prepared for the cost of discipleship?  Hitler had forced the national Lutheran church to accede to his demand that the state define the proper religious position on matters of state and society for the church. Bonhoffer escaped Germany to teach at a Union Seminary in New York, but decided to return and fight against Hitler’s subversion of the church. He participated in a failed plot to kill Hitler with a bomb that killed a number of other Nazi leaders in 1944. The Nazi’s imprisoned him in a concentration camp and two weeks before the camp was liberated the Nazis hanged Bonhoffer. This was the cost of discipleship Bonhoffer paid. I personally am not convinced Christian discipleship requires violence against another human but I pray with all my energy that I will never face a situation where I must make that choice. But again, we had better know the cost of discipleship when it comes due. This is what Jesus means about gaging the cost or strength of numbers.

I am convinced Jesus does not expect hatred of family as the cost of discipleship. He is saying if you follow me to the cross, do not let anything tie you down and keep you from the way. ADAM is Hebrew for earth or clay. The Lord is talking about us in our Jeremiah reading at the potter’s wheel. Perhaps Jesus is completing Jeremiah’s prophesy this way: “I am the potter and you are the clay.^. I have chosen to make you a solid un-cracked cistern full of living water that depends only upon your faith. The man on the cross is my last piece of broken pottery.  I redeem you disciples and put the responsibility for human clay in your own hands, the congregation of believers who walk in the world as my representative, my presence in the world. Are you ready to pay the cost of discipleship which is to love the world when the world loathes and hates you, views you with suspicion, or just wants to get something for nothing from you?

Human clay only proves salvation is not humanly possible. It comes only by the grace of God.  It is easy to forget we are our own stumbling block, and the promise of eternal life is not a promise for a rose garden here in earth. Faith however it comes to us, causes us to face the world and act to satisfy the cost of discipleship. Discipleship always depends on each of us listening to God through the Holy Spirit for guidance on the choices we make that reflect God’s love for us.

note: Some of the ideas in this sermon on "hate" are stimulated by comments of Brian Stoffregen and Alyce McKenzie, among others. 

Day 265 - The Seat of Honor

A Sermon delivered at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN Sept. 1, 2013
Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 2:4-13
New Testament reading: Luke 14:1,7-14

This Sunday the lectionary seems pretty much to preach itself. But this reading from Luke contains a parable and parables are a flag that there is more to the story than it seems. If you read Luke you may notice frequently Luke finds Jesus at a meal when there is a lesson to be learned, like this meal. Often his adversaries, the Pharisees and Jewish religious leaders are present. Meals are both occasions of fellowship and the way Luke emphasizes that Jesus is the bread of life.

Jesus has showed up at a big feast attended by some very respected Pharisees, at least in their own eyes. I suspect their pretense having Jesus as guest of honor is to entrap him in heresy. Jesus noticed how they were jockeying for the best spot at the table near the putative guest of honor so they could hear clearly what Jesus said - all the better to entrap him.

Can you imagine the Pharisees hurrying into the room, looking for the best couch (they reclined to eat) perhaps a little shove or bump here and there, the well placed shoulder that gently eases another to the side before the realize it as you slide onto the couch next to the guest of honor? Imagine the look on the faces of the Pharisees entering last, a grimace or a shake of the head that they have to sit so far away from the guest and the other dignitaries at the head of the table.

Jesus takes the shuffling as a opportune time to tell a parable and a related story. To use the technical term, we are going to hear a story of a reversal; Jesus is about to tell them something that upsets their social and religious dogma in a way to explain Jesus’ own purpose on earth. Here he points out a social rule that still persists. Jesus says when you are invited to a formal feast, such as a wedding banquet; the person throwing the dinner determines where people sit. You can only incur shame and embarrassment if you seat yourself next to the guest of honor because the host may tell you to move down a few seats for someone more preferred to sit in your place. I'm sure they wondered why did he use the wedding feast as an example? 

Jesus’s advice might remind these scholarly Pharisees of Proverb 25:6-7, “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” The "king" being a little barb tossed their way.

As usual a parable has a double meaning. The part of about seating is fairly obvious, but what is all this about a "king" and a wedding? Is he criticizing the Pharisees for self-promotion in the presence of the chief Pharisee in whose house they are eating? Is Jesus suggesting the host is the symbolic king...? Or is Jesus obliquely referring to himself as a king, the guest of honor at the wedding banquet?

That Jesus intends the guest of honor and king to be about himself makes sense give we are closing in on Jerusalem. In a few short weeks in Jericho the people will be talking about the coming kingdom of God. Luke 19:11 (1-28) - As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable (about the talents), because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.  Then he will enter Jerusalem on a donkey being hailed as a king. At his trial Pilate will ask, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 

Perhaps Jesus is leading them to this connection at this feast, that Jesus is Lord and he decides who will be invited to the feast and where they may sit? He adds the twist of reversal telling the Pharisees who love the seat of honor that they will find themselves humbled at the foot of the table or even out on the street.

The fact Jesus uses the word “wedding banquet” in this parable further suggests to the thoughtful Pharisee Jesus means moire than he is saying. Throughout the history of the Hebrews the Lord describes his love of the Hebrews as that in a marriage. For example, Is. 62:5 says, “For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Read the whole chapter, Jesus is heading for Jerusalem.)

This is why it is so important to read both Old and New Testaments when we decide to quote scripture. There is no other way to appreciate some of the irony and meaning Jesus uses against the Jewish leaders as our instruction. As Jesus said earlier, he is completing the Law by interpreting older religious requirements in the current moment. He often employs the negative use of the Law by the religious leaders to emphasize the positive nature of the love in the Law.

Jesus tells the Pharisees and the disciples who may be present, “Do not exalt yourself and think too highly of your status, the heavenly King’s grace will exalt the ones with the best seats who humble themselves now.” Here he is again advocating humility, the virtue of the slave. Do you remember how Paul also extolled the virtue of the slave towards all persons as Jesus does.

Now we might think here of the slavish humility and awareness of their our personal sin exhibited by the local church who gave the parents of the lesbian police officer an ultimatum to denounce or renounce her or leave their congregation. 

I could stop right here because this parable about the heavenly banquet and humility makes a very complete lesson.  But, let us get back to our banquet because Jesus is not yet done with his final twist in the story.

Jesus never lets a subtle message alone without a barb tossed at pride. He turns to one of the Pharisees; perhaps one of the better respected ones who invited Jesus as the guest of honor to this plot to entrap him.  He continues to talk about the feast and says they all have it completely wrong. If you are the host of a banquet (in this case a wedding banquet), do not invite your friends, your neighbors or even your family, rather ignore them and invite the poor, the cripple, the lame and the blind.

What on earth is he saying? Is he saying forget our family reunion dinners, or our Wednesday evening dinners here at church? I think not. We know Jesus is all about celebration, love and family, he gets plenty of criticism for that. We know he is a Jew and the Jews are the Lord’s family after all. We have to understand the context of his parable.

Here at this feast compassion is a lonely companion to Jesus among people with self-inflated egos who think so highly of themselves that they ignore or abuse everyone else. We might want to read this passage this way, “When you hold a banquet do not invite those people who are already exalted in their own eyes, invite those who do not or cannot exalt themselves because of their circumstances.”

But we cannot overlook the specific people Jesus instructs us to invite: the poor, the cripple, the lame and the blind. What is it about this group of people that so impassioned Jesus?

Generally the things you mention first are the important things. The very first thing Jesus did after He walked out of the desert and was baptized was go into the synagogue and read to the people Isaiah 61:1-3, (Luke 4:18-21) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This prophecy concerns salvation from our literal and spiritual human poverty. However, if you were a good Pharisee, priest or scribe, you also would recall a passage in the Law from Leviticus. (The Pharisees were lay, religious policemen like the modern day Islamic religious police we read about in Iran and other conservative Moslem countries, or like Paul, the Pharisee who pursued Christians, arrested them and brought them to court for trial as Jewish heretics. He stood by and held the coats of the crowd as they stoned Christians, Stephen being the best example.) Times haven’t changed, we are always ready to condemn the sins of others.

Leviticus gives to the Hebrews the entire code of the Law that governed every element of a Hebrew’s life. It offers particular guidance for the priests and defines what disqualifies them to serve within the inner sanctum. Leviticus 21:17-23 reads, “No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, (that is) one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs (or crushed testicles.)  No descendant of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD’S offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God.  He may eat the food of his God, (both) the most holy (and) the holy.  But he shall not come near the curtain or approach the altar, because he has a blemish (that) he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the LORD; I sanctify them.” 

Even their descendants are bared from service! 

Is Jesus expecting these religious authorities to violate the Law by inviting the people the Law excludes? Perhaps what he is saying is, “You Pharisees have read the Law in Leviticus concerning priests and distorted it. While the Lord said a priest who has these disabilities, blindness, being crippled or mutilated, a limb too long, broken or disfigured, or with a skin disease should not enter the holiest place, you have read it to mean you are to bar every person with such suffering from my presence. Look around you at how you abuse the poor widows and enjoy the largesse of the temple gifts. You have failed the Law, for the Lord said even these may eat the food of your God. Furthermore, this Law applies only to the Levites, the priests. I, Jesus, have come to amplify and make the Law complete, for now you are all to become ministers. (See Matthew 28:19-20, for example, although there Jesus is talking only to his disciples.) The temple of the Lord, my house, is open to the ones I invite; and I invite those who suffer their poverty humbly be it in physical, economic or intellectual. They are all my people."

Jesus has completely upset the order of this banquet. The face of every priest and Pharisee in the room should be burning red at this implied criticism of Proverbs, Isaiah, and the parables of Jesus.  He has revealed and condemned the self-centered exaltation of these religious people.

So what does this story really mean to us? This parable is 2,000 years or so, give or take a few decades. As I read these passages, and as we discussed in our bible study, I wonder how much the self-centered exaltation and lack of humility described in these two stories are familiar to you and me today? We like to think humanity has matured relative to the quaint, old stories we read in the Bible. But have we really changed that much?

When we see someone who is down and out or has a birthmark or deformity that is visible, do we give a furtive glance at them to see how it looks, and feel a little uncomfortable around them? Do we invite people to our celebrations because we know them, or want to curry favor, or want to impress others to be seen with them for the implied status it imparts?

I recall a very good friend of mine in my days as a scientist and engineer. My friend was senior to me, and highly regarded and widely read. We got along quite well but he had a very disturbing habit. We would go to national scientific conventions to present papers on our research. There always were government staff around who worked in agencies that funded the research, or working in government labs, and industrial scientists who also funded university research. Part of the game is to curry favor with them because you increase the chance of getting a grant. I would find myself often standing in a hallway, or seated at a table eating lunch with him and talking. I always found it difficult to talk with him because he never looked at me; he always was eyeing the crowd passing by watching for a sponsor or colleague. Meals for him were potential opportunities to build his program.

At our local Christian Businessmen luncheons I sometimes frequented, I would watch a (now former) member of the congressional delegation at the head table. Constantly he looked around for the newspaper photographer to be sure he struck the right pose at the right moment of the flash. I doubt he heard a word of the speaker.  And, even today, we hear well-meaning folks take passages out of Leviticus and twist them around against others for their own exaltation as Christians.

Now don't take my criticism of these two to exclude me from this. I'll  go to a presbytery meeting and look for folks on various committees whose support I need. Walt Kelly was right, "we have met the enemy and he is us."

I guess the lesson in this parable is we have not changed much in 2,000 years. As Jeremiah said, we still seek self-aggrandizement and status as the Pharisees did at this dinner.

Jeremiah (2:12-13) said: 

      Be appalled, O heavens, at this,

                        be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD,

           for my people have committed two evils:

                        they have forsaken me,

            the fountain of living water,

                        and dug out cisterns for themselves,

            cracked cisterns

                        that can hold no water.

Cracked cisterns that cannot hold the living waters of God. My brother calls that "pointless futility." Since it takes just as much hard effort to rely on our faith, why not strive to be a water-worthy cistern for that living water of God?