Pentecost 11

Pentecost 11 (Luke 12:13-21) “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Greed is a distortion of generosity.

Our Heavenly Father designed the human soul to be an open channel of grace. The Bible describes this aspect of our nature as the open heart from which flows the well springs of living water.

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins that corrupt the fundamental principles of love. This corruption is only possible as a consequence of the original choice our species made to separate from God.

Separation produces a deeply rooted existential pain in our souls. That pain warps the original virtues with which God adorned the soul. That trauma to original virtue distorts the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we make choices.  Actual sin in thought word and deed proceeds from this distortion. The process ends in physical death.

Our Heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son into the world to reverse the process of separation, sin and death. Jesus just doesn’t teach about the truth of the human condition, Jesus is the original pattern of Truth.

By thought word and deed Jesus manifests the original pattern of humanity. When we study the teachings, works and life of Jesus Christ we see the fullness of the original blessing our Heavenly Father intended for all of us, for each of us.

Jesus is the Good News that God just doesn’t have love; God is love.

In the parable of the rich fool, Jesus tells us a story about a particular individual. That story has universal application.

The rich man is lost and unwilling to be found. The distortion of separation from God has led him to seek wealth. It is a vain attempt to ease the existential pain that separation from God brings. As with each of the seven deadly sins, greed is subject to the law of diminishing return.

The law of diminishing return states: the more you get the more want and the less you enjoy.

For a person lost in the distortion of greed there is never enough. There is only a gnawing desire for something different and something more. There is a certain pleasure in the desire, the longing, the yearning anticipation that just one more thing or one more level of wealth will bring happiness. There is a momentary rush of satisfaction in attaining a goal: a bigger house, a larger bank account, a better job. That moment passes quickly for the soul lost in greed.

Jesus reveals that greed is part of a process. The process is the spiritual decay of the soul. The process is the distortion of desire that is trapped in a feedback loop of demand that can never find satisfaction.

The rich fool is rich in the abundance of material possessions. He is foolish in his choice to hoard those possessions. He has so much that his barns cannot contain everything he has and everything he desires.

As he tears down his barns to build bigger barns he reaches the end of the process of separation and sin. The end of the process is death. In the world as it is presently constituted, death comes to everyone. Death annuls all contracts, ends all projects and defeats fulfillment of desire.

Death does not destroy desire. The desires we choose to cultivate in this life remain with us in the next life. Death does end our ability to fulfill those desires on our own terms.

The greedy soul retains the disposition of greed at death. But, death stops the process of accumulation and hoarding.

Death tears down the barns, makes the accumulation of possessions unattainable and no longer provides satisfaction to the soul. The illusion of wealth through temporary possession of things evaporates to reveal the poverty of a soul lost in a greed that can no longer claim ownership of any material object.

Mother Teresa once advised: hold all things lightly.  Moses and the prophets never taught that money or material possessions are evil. Jesus does not teach that wealth is immoral or sinful. It is not the money or material possessions; it is the obsessive desire.

St. Paul identifies greed as a form of idolatry. A basic principle of scripture is that we become like who or what we worship; and, we become how we worship. Greed is a distortion of love that worships things and uses God and other people to acquire and possess those things.

Is there some material object or pursuit you hold tightly? Are you living with the illusion of control through possession? What object or desire is more important you than loving God through worship, loving others through generosity and loving yourself through a commitment to yield your sins to the Holy Spirit to be transformed back into their original virtues? Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.

 

 

Pentecost 10

Pentecost 10 (Luke 11:1-13) “Ask”

Wisdom begins with a question. Faith begins with a question and is sustained by further questions. When we stop questioning we stop growing. And when we stop growing we stagnate.

Most people who knew Jesus did not ask questions. They had some very firm preconceived ideas about God, humanity, Israel and their own sense of identity as the chosen from amongst the chosen.

Most of those who did ask Jesus questions viewed him as a threat. The questions they asked were “gottcha” questions designed to embarrass and discredit. Jesus had a marvelous way of dealing with those questions. He turned the malicious intent of his enemies into an occasion for salvation.

The disciple’s request for Jesus to teach them to pray has a specific cultural and religious context. Every rabbi or religious teacher at some point addressed the issue of prayer. They gave model prayers in outline form as well as very specific formal prayers for specific occasions. Sometimes the prayers were taught in secret. Those prayers helped build the unique identity for the sect or school of thought.

Jesus gives his instruction on prayer as a model in outline form. The Lord’s Prayer, as we call it, might more accurately be described as the Lord’s outline for prayer.  Jesus presents his disciples, including us, with some bullet points to consider as we ponder prayer.

Underlying these broad general bullet points are three principles: ask, seek, knock. Those three principles derive from a unifying concept of inquiry. And, the motive force for this inquiry is the Real Presence of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.

When I teach I learn. I learn from the questions students ask.

I can acquire knowledge on my own by reading and memorizing. I can acquire some degree of understanding by pondering the material. I find I gain more understanding as I attempt to teach and as I hear other people ask questions.

The questions initiate a dialog that opens the potential for knowledge to metabolize into understanding, for understanding to evolve into wisdom and for wisdom to transform into counsel.

When Jesus encourages his disciple to “ask”, to “seek” and to “knock” he is inviting us into a process of gradual incremental and never ending transformation.

A basic principle of scripture is that if you think you know it all you don’t. No one has perfect knowledge. If you know you know it all you are lost and need to be found.

God does the finding. The lost are willfully, spitefully and pride fully lost and do not wish to be found. That is why God does the finding. God does the finding in Jesus Christ. For religious people Jesus will find us as we are lost in religion. For secular people Jesus finds us as we are lost in reason or hedonism. Jesus meets us where we are lost and offers us the way to be found.

There is always resistance to the Way Jesus offers. That is why Jesus finds many people in the questions we ask. That is why Jesus invites our questions and delights in our questions.

For many if not most people, the presence of Jesus provokes a reaction. It was certainly true when Jesus was on earth. Jesus not only understands our reactions he anticipates those reactions, and he counts on those reactions to disturb the spiritual, intellectual and emotional stagnation that forms our existence. Jesus came to bring life because Jesus is life. All life derives from the pattern, plan and purpose of the do-eternal Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ.

The first step of any journey is the first step. The first step in salvation is a question. Any question will do. Any emotional context to the question will open the door to further questions. As the first step can sometimes be the hardest step so the first question can be the most difficult question. The first question disturbs the illusion of pride. The illusion of pride is that we know we know.

The promise Jesus offers in this teaching on prayer is not a blank check. It is not a “name it and claim it” magical incantation. Jesus teaches that prayer is a process.  The process is the universal plan of salvation as it is applied to our unique and particular identity. The process of asking, seeking and knocking opens the mind heart and will to new possibilities.

Just because you don’t get what you ask for in prayer doesn’t mean your prayer is unanswered or even denied. Prayer is the gateway to the new Way of life Jesus offers. It starts with a question. The process of asking, seeking, knocking refines and clarifies the question. The process immerses a lost separated and prideful soul in the Real Presence of love and compassion. The Real Presence of Jesus unfolds a revelation not just of God but of human nature and our own specific identity.

God will always answer our prayers but he will not always give us exactly what we want at any particular moment. He will use our prayer to clarify our desires and focus our intent. In that process we will discover the amazing truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. The process of a new Way of life and a new way of living in the real presence of God starts when we ask a question. Ask.

 

 

 

Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (Luke 10:38-42) “You are worried and distracted by many things.”

Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves.

Our heavenly Father created all of us and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Beloved Son. Jesus is the pattern for human life and for our unique personal identity.

Worry distorts that pattern. Distractions inhibit us from living according to that pattern.Certainly, Martha was doing nothing wrong as she made preparations to receive Jesus. What was wrong was the attitude motivating the action. What was wrong was the worry.

Worry is about the future. It is the anxiety that declares: whatever can go wrong will go wrong. The reason worry is a problem is basic. No one can know the future. No one can control all events. We only have the present.

The present for Martha and Mary was Jesus. Jesus was not only their present, He was and is the Real Presence of God. As the Real Presence of God, Jesus is the point of contact that unites the realm of time we inhabit with the timeless real of the Eternal God.

Martha ignored the present reality of Jesus. She chose to immerse her soul in futile speculation about the future. She worried. And, in her worry she missed the blessing.

Distractions inhibit us from perceiving the blessing, receiving the blessing and sharing the blessing. As with worry, the particularities of distraction are usually not bad in and of themselves. Martha allowed the ordinary things of life to distract her from the extraordinary blessings Jesus brought.

For Martha, the occasion for distraction was housekeeping.  Jesus came to visit and Martha focused on cooking and cleaning, ignoring the very person who had come to visit. She was the perfect hostess who never greets her guests, speaks with her guests or gets to know her guests.

The real distraction underlying the occasion was perfection. Martha wanted everything to be perfect for Jesus. Underlying the desire for perfection is the demand for control. And, beneath the demand for control is hubris- fatal pride.

Nothing and no one in this world is perfect. Martha not only expected perfection of herself- she demanded it of her sister. The perfection Martha demanded was to have things her way in her time. This is a common malady of lost souls. Most of us most of the time want what we want and we want it now.

Sadly, the demand for perfection, the individual will to power and the expression of hubris made it almost impossible for Martha experience the visit of Jesus with joy. She experienced his visit with anxiety. Mary understood that when Jesus visits it is because he wants to see us, hear us and share the Divine Blessing with us.

The deeper insight the Holy Spirit offers in this as well as other passages of scripture, is that through pride and self-will many people willfully choose to miss the blessing of God in Jesus Christ.

It almost seems comical that Jesus visits the sisters and Martha so busies herself that she cannot enjoy the visit and actually resents Mary for enjoying the visit. But, it is a tragic comedy.

That tragic comedy is a universal experience of our species.

Our Heavenly Father designed time itself so that every seven days we would have the opportunity to set aside the distractions of every day life and enter into the Real Presence of eternal love.

Our Heavenly Father designed our species in such a way that we each complement each other, we each help each other, we each sustain each other through an attitude and an action of compassion.

Our Heavenly Father designed each of us personally to be one unique  and particular image and likeness in time and space of the infinite and eternal Beloved Son.

The Holy Spirit made sure the details of this dinner party were recorded in scripture. The purpose is to encourage us to consider how worry robs us of joy and how distractions subvert the blessings God has designed into nature, our species and each of  us as individuals.

What do you worry about? Surrender that worry to Jesus.

What distracts you from the Real Presence of God at the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence? Surrender those distractions to Jesus.

All people choose what we most want at the moment of choice. If you live with anxiety, at some level you have chosen that anxiety. If you are distracted from the blessings of God, those distractions – however good they may be in and of themselves- are the means the devil will use to rob the blessings of God from you.

Jesus sets the standard for us and shows us the way as he encourages Martha to make the choice her sister Mary made. The advice to Martha is universally applicable to all people everywhere.

Choose wisely. Choose the blessing. Choose Jesus.

 

Pentecost 8

Pentecost 8 (Luke 10:25-37) Do this and you will live.

People in religious cultures ask the question: what must I do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. To those people Moses, the Prophets and Jesus Himself give assurance that God is for us and God is with us.

The word of God is not strange, unusual or difficult. Moses teaches that the word of God is very near. The apostles teach that the word of God is a person: Jesus Christ.

The word of God written is the record of human observation of how people react or respond to the Real Presence of God. The Law exists to restrain evil in human behavior. Obedience to the law is not a condition for God’s love. God is love. Human behavior cannot alter who God is. Human behavior can and does subvert our ability to perceive and receive God’s love.

The Law also acts as a perfect mirror to the human soul. That mirror reveals to us where we are separated from God. The perfect mirror of the Law also reveals to us where our thoughts, words and deeds are in distortion from the original pattern by which God created us.

The lawyer in this passage is doing what most lawyers do most of the time. He is testing the limits of the Law. He is teasing out the meaning of the law through questions and disputations. He has the knowledge of the Law. He lacks the understanding.

Jesus meets the lawyer where he is. He engages the man in a process. The lawyer asks a question with enormous proportions. Jesus helps him narrow the focus so that he can discover the answer. Jesus asks the lawyer to consider the scriptures. What has God already revealed through Moses?

The lawyer has the correct answer. The answer is the principle that underlies the Law of Moses. The answer is the very nature of God. Yet, while the lawyer has the knowledge he lacks the understanding. As with everyone in his generation he is trapped in religious distortions of divine truth. He wants a very precise formula and set of definitions. He wants a check list by which he can justify himself and lay a claim on God.

He asks a question: who is my neighbor? Who do I have to love in order to avoid God’s wrath and earn God’s favor. And, who can I ignore?

All questions are good. All questions keep the mind, hear and will engaged in the unfolding process of grace. Although the lawyer’s question is in grounded in a basic false assumption about God, humanity and himself- nevertheless Jesus uses the question to invite the man to experience a paradigm shift.

Jesus does this by telling a story… a parable. Jesus sets up the elements of the story in such a way that the main characters are archetypes of human behavior and human misunderstanding.

The Levite and priest can only maintain their ritual purity and righteousness under the religious law by ignoring the animating principle of the moral law. They choose to stay pure by choosing to detach themselves from compassion. They maintain the letter of the religious law by not contaminating themselves with the blood of the crime victim.  They used their position in the Temple and in society to remain aloof from a pressing human need.

The Levite and the priest are the righteous who fail to show compassion. The Samaritan is the unrighteous who does show compassion.

By every standard of the Law of Moses the Samaritan cannot claim God’s favor and can only expect God’s wrath. The righteousness the Levite and Priest practice is formed in the categories of right belief and right behavior. According to that standard they are the righteous and the Samaritan is the unrighteous. Yet, Jesus sets up the story to show how adherence to the letter of the Law does not produce righteousness according to the principle of the law.

The principle of the Law is love. The principle defines righteousness as right relationship… right relationship with God, with other people and with the image and likeness of God imprinted on our souls.

The lawyer understands the point Jesus is making. He is still not able to say the word “Samaritan” in answer to Jesus’ question about mercy. But, he understood the point.

When Jesus tells the lawyer: go and do thou likewise- he introduces a new way of faith. It is the Way of wisdom. It is the Way of compassion. It is the Way of Jesus.

The Way is the active dynamic and creative unfolding of the new life in the new relationship our Heavenly Father offers us in Jesus Christ. The Way does not ask the question: what is the minimum I must do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The Way is guided by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit who helps us understand and apply the principle of Divine Love in the ordinary choices of our daily lives.

The Way is the invitation into a new path of living in this world that asks the question: how may I help?

Jesus reminded the lawyer then and Jesus reminds us today; do this, practice compassion in union with the infinite and eternal love of God, and you will live- you will experience eternal life in every act and attitude of compassion.

 

The Harvest is plentiful

Pentecost 7 (Luke 10:1-11; 16-20) The Harvest is plentiful

The people of God are the instrumentality of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.

The people of God are the church. Sometimes, the church is its own worst enemy.

Recently, an old friend moved into the city from the suburbs. He attended the nearest Episcopal Church. He was highly motivated to like that church since it was within walking distance to his apartment. Sadly, his experience subverted his expectations.

First, although the church appeared stately and wealthy, it had no air conditioning. The heat and humidity were oppressive. Second, although he arrived early and saw the clergy walking about getting ready for the service they did not come up to him to welcome him.

The sermon was political. It presented a point of view that my friend largely agreed with but it had nothing to do with the gospel reading that day and had no message of salvation. Finally, at the coffee hour no one approached him to speak with him.

He sadly concluded that this was not the place he would find the Good News of Jesus Christ.

He was primed and ready to enter into the church community. But, for whatever reason, the church he attended was not ready to receive him.

Jesus sent out seventy of his disciples on a mission. The specifics were unique to that particular mission. The principles of the mission are the universal principles of Evangelism. The principles of evangelism are joy, welcome, and God centered.

The details of evangelism vary in every time and culture. We adjust the timeless truth of Divine Love to local circumstances. Some elements of evangelism remain constant in every time and in every culture.

First and foremost evangelism is Christ centered. At the very least the clergy must be committed to an active and transforming relationship with Christ. Clergy will never be perfect. We must be committed and we must renew our commitment daily.

Second: the message must- must- be Christ centered. I have my point of view on politics, economics and comic books. It is not my call to convince you of my opinions about these things. It is my call and responsibility to draw on my relationship with Christ and my seminary training to proclaim and explain the Gospel.

Third: evangelism is grounded in a community. The basis of Christian community is a welcoming inclusive hospitality. To be a Christian is to be in a transforming friendship with Christ. To be a Christian is to be a member of Christ’s body, the Church. To be a member of the Church is to be open and welcoming to everyone who visits us and who chooses to stay with us.

The minimum requirement for evangelism is Real Presence.

The Real Presence of Jesus for his disciples in the church is the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.

The Real Presence of Jesus for visitors to the church are His disciples; you and me.

The 70 disciples had some good experiences on their mission and some bad experiences. They had some success and they met some opposition. They were also amazed at how the Real Presence of Jesus in their midst manifested in astonishing ways.

AS disciples of Jesus Christ we are all called to be the Real Presence of Jesus Christ to each other and to anyone we meet. That is why it is vitally important we take the time to receive the blessing of Jesus at the altar of sacrifice so that we can be the living blessing to everyone we meet.

The stakes are high. The Harvest is plentiful. The Harvest is no less than the seven billion souls on this planet who desperately  long for Good News.

The Harvest is plentiful beyond imagination. The Harvest is the purpose for the Church in this Age of Evangelism. The Harvest is our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ. The laborers are few.

The laborers are those who draw near to Jesus. They are those who enter into the world of the Harvest with joy and gladness. They are the ones who so value the blessing of the Gospel that they chose to live in a process  of becoming the blessing.

The Harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray therefore, that the Lord of the Harvest, the Lord of Evangelism, the Living Lord Jesus Christ, will so fill you with his Real Presence, that you will become the laborer who enters in the joy and wonder and delight of the Harvest. Pray that you will receive the blessing of Divine love and become the blessing of Divine love. Pray that you will  become Good News for the separated souls of this world.