Pentecost 17, Proper 20 Yr C

+At the end of the announcements each week I say an offertory sentence, words taken directly from scripture to ready us for making and receiving offerings at the altar. We bring forward the collection plates, the bread and the wine and then we receive the gift of grace through the body and blood of Christ at the altar. I usually say “Walk in Love as Christ Loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” There are several others, including: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, then come offer your gift.”

The point of this sentence is that if we’re holding a grudge, if we have unfinished business, if we haven’t forgiven a misunderstanding, a debt, or a disagreement, then we aren’t ready to make an offering to God or to receive the abundant grace of God offered to us through the Eucharist.

God wants us free and clear when we come to this altar. That’s why we do a confession of sin just before we come with the gifts. It prepares us, it wipes the slate clean---it frees us.

Today’s Gospel-- the Parable of the Dishonest Manager-- is a story about the forgiving of debts. Not just monetary debts, but all debts---all the scores we keep—who has slighted whom, who owes whom an apology…we have a laundry list of things done to us, and things we’ve done to others ---which must be cleared from our hearts and souls before we can fully receive God’s love as offered to us through the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Today’s parable has a lot of conniving, debting and dishonesty in it. And it’s easy to get lost, trying to figure out who’s the villain, and who’s the hero.

To review-- there is an absentee landlord, landowner who has a resident manager to handle the day to day affairs of his business---which includes taking advantage of the farm workers---paying them an unlivable wage, charging them huge rents and then gouging them at the company owned store….

….In summary: the landowner was cheating the peasants, the manager was cheating the landowner and the peasants by taking a little off the top for himself. When the manager is caught by the landowner the manager turns to the peasants and by cheating the landowner even more, makes the peasants happy. There’s a lot of cheating and conniving going on here.

Luke wraps up this parable talking about faithfulness, dishonest wealth and true riches.

So, once again, it sounds like Jesus is condemning wealth.

But to just assume that and move on is to miss what Luke has been saying to us all summer----that all the riches of this world will never ever take the place of the riches God bestows upon us….for the grace of God is what makes all things possible –even our wealth. And to be able to fully receive God into our hearts we must be free of resentment, free of regret, free of burden.

For Luke, forgiveness is the name of the game. Luke tells us again and again that God is always ready to forgive. Abundantly, extravagantly outlandishly. That God, regardless of what we’ve done, is completely willing---anxious, actually---to forgive us.

Now, as we heard last week, while forgiveness is always available we must ask for it, we must long for it, we must seek it…forgiveness is not some free giveaway, it’s an abundant gift given to those who are ready to receive it, who have repented, have amended their lives and want to be washed in the forgiveness of God to start their life anew. A process we go through, week in and week out as we come to this altar to be forgiven, healed, renewed…fed in the glory of God, nourished to go out and do the work we have been given to do.

But, and here is where this week’s parable becomes clearer, forgiveness is not just something we receive …it’s also something we give….Jesus makes it very very clear in the Lord’s Prayer---forgive us our trespasses, our sins, our debts as we forgive those who have trespassed—sinned—debted against us.

Jesus is telling us, with this convoluted story of landowners managers and peasants, that we must forgive others—their mistakes, their faults, their debts---in order to be forgiven ourselves.

Our forgiveness of others is to have the same character as God’s forgiveness of us---as God’s love for us: it is to be abundant, extravagant and outlandish. It must be overflowing, it must be constant. With this parable we are told that we must forgive… that only in forgiving others can we truly accept the forgiveness God has for us. The forgiveness of God is so intense, so absolute, that we have to make room for it.

To do that, we must empty ourselves---of our resentments, our anger, our bitterness, our disdain and our petty scorekeeping. We are to-- simply and completely--- forgive people. Everyone. Not just those who have, in our eyes, earned it…..but everyone.

None of us can earn forgiveness, we can only desire it…and we only desire it, we only want it, when we realize, when we admit that we’ve made a mistake.

The manager had no right to forgive half the debts of those debtors.

But neither did the landowner have the right to pay those debtors an unlivable wage.

There is no villain in this story and there’s no hero …and that’s the point.

In this parable, everyone was making mistakes….everyone needed forgiveness….

Just like real life. We all make mistakes, we all need forgiveness.

Jesus is saying, don’t wait for someone to ask for forgiveness, just grant it…For it isn’t our job to keep score, it isn’t our job to decide who gets forgiven what when and how, Our job is to free ourselves enough to receive the fullness of God’s love.

By granting forgiveness, we lighten our own load of bitterness and resentment, we free up space deep within us, space which will be filled at the altar as we present ourselves, forgiven, healed and ready to be fed by the grace and truth of God, who forgives all our debts.

Always.

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Sept. 12, 2010

How would you feel if, because of the actions of a few, you, because you identify yourself as a Christian, were discriminated against, hated reviled and wished harm?

It would feel lousy, right?

Perhaps you would say, “hey don’t blame me for the actions of a few crazy radicals. I am a ‘real Christian’ and I follow the teachings of Jesus to the best of my ability. I believe that God is Love and that we are called to love our neighbor, regardless of who they are or what they do.”

If there is one thing the actions of Terry Jones-- that pastor in Gainesville Florida who was spearheading the Int’l Burn the Qu’ran Day—did, was offer a tangible reminder of how the millions of peace loving, devout and honorable Muslims must feel in this day and age of misunderstanding the Islamic faith. It served as a reminder of how the actions of a very few can skew the perception of a great many. You and I are no more hate-filled Qu’ran burners, than the Muslims who worship at the mosque on Amherst Street are terrorists who wish us dead.

Fear is powerful. Fear can paralyze. Fear can antagonize. Fear can intimidate, fear can incite. Fear is a complex human trait…causing both flight---getting ourselves out of harm’s way---and fight---causing us to dive right in, fighting our way free of fear, free of danger.

Think about September 11, 2001. As terror took hold in NYC, Washington DC and that field in western PA did you react in measured tones, realizing that whoever was behind the attacks needed our prayers and forgiveness?

Probably not.

Because when we are terrified, when something happens which puts everything we believe, everything we trust in, everything we hope for in peril, we lose our measured selves, we lose perspective. We quickly lose our bearings, our way and can react in a manner we would never expect….we can become reactionary and intolerant.

Hate is kept alive when we let fear rule us instead of faith. Hate is kept alive when we claim that if we don’t attack first, then we’ll be attacked. Hate is kept alive when we believe that there are unredeemable people in the world. Hate is kept alive when we think that there are sheep or coins—to use the two examples in today’s Gospel—, which aren’t worth searching for, finding and bringing into the fold.

Of course we were terrified on 9/11/2001. We should have been! That is the absolute goal of terror----to keep us so scared, so frightened, that we stay stuck in reaction, we stay mired in misperception, we stay trapped in intolerance----

But what a good portion of this nation did, what a great many of you, I’m sure, did, was stand up and shout to the world…no, we won’t be reactionary, we won’t be fear mongers, we won’t HATE. We will LOVE. We will pray. We will try very hard to love our neighbor, even the neighbor who doesn’t look and act like us. We will FORGIVE. We will believe, in our heart of hearts that the Good Shepherd searches out each of us no matter how far we have strayed, no matter how lost we have become, no matter how heinous our crimes. Because the angels in heaven rejoice each and every time the lost is found, the sinner repents and the hater becomes the lover.

Love doesn’t overtake hate through further acts of hate---like racial profiling, burning Qurans or blocking the construction of a house of worship----love overtakes hate when we repent of our own misdeeds…for in repenting for our own mistakes builds tolerance for the errors of others.

Love overtakes hate when we pray our way though our terror instead of yelling our way through it.

Love overtakes hate when we remember that everyone, no matter how lost they are, is sought after by God--even misguided Pastors in Gainesville Florida and extremists who have done us great harm. Because we are all beloved daughters and sons of God and when any one of us repents and returns to the fold, there is great rejoicing in heaven.

So, as we remember the lives lost on 9/11 and the thousands of lives lost in the ensuing conflicts, when we hear about Qu’ran burning and protests against the construction of a mosque for the faithful Muslims of lower Manhattan, when fear grips our own hearts and hate seems so much easier than love, we must open ourselves to the power of grace, a grace which is freely bestowed upon all who seek it…not because we are better than anyone else, but because we all, at one time or another, will find ourselves lost and we all--- daughters and sons of the Torah, the Bible and the Qu’ran—are worthy of being found.

Amen.

Sept. 5 2010: Labor on, For the Glory of God Pentecost 15 Yr C

+I love Labor Day weekend. Not because it’s a weekend of cookouts and relaxing. Not because it’s the last hurrah before the routine of the September through June world takes root. No I love Labor Day because we sing one of my favorite hymns: “Come Labor On,” #541 in our hymnal. I love that the words of this hymn reflect God’s sanctifying of our daily work, our labor.

Our work, what we do to earn a living, to put food on the table, occupies a huge portion of our life, yet many of us don’t connect what we do 9-5, M-F with what we do here on Sunday morning from 8 until 9 [10:30-11:30].

This hymn states that God has given us the ability and the expectation that we will work, that we will labor. This hymn tells us that there is work to do and that, when we work hard with dignity and integrity, God is pleased.

Pleased with our efforts, please with our work. All our work. Not just work we do specifically “for the church.” God sanctifies all human labor. This hymn acknowledges that work is part of the human condition and that God notices.

Of course, we all want to be acknowledged for the work we do, to be told that what we’ve labored at all day, all week, all career, is worthwhile and appreciated. But it usually isn’t God we turn toward for that praise.

You see, when we’re focused on being acknowledged by our bosses, by the folks who sign our checks, by our friends and family; we forget that the acknowledgement that really matters, the honor that really counts, is that which we get from God.

And, remembering God in all we do is the message in today’s Gospel.

When Jesus tells us to hate mother, father, sister, brother he means, don’t lose our primary focus— remember God in all we do, not just in times of trouble, not just in times of joy-- but always and everywhere.

He knows how easy it is to get caught up in the here and now, to pay attention to the loudest voices around us, the voices of judgment and expectation put forth by our co workers, our bosses, our friends and our family.

Jesus is reminding us that what we do---that everything we do—is because of and for God.

As stated in the Book of Jeremiah, God, the great potter, has molded us from non-distinct balls of clay into the wonderful vessels we are today, complete with the unique attributes which make you, you and me, me. Each of us fulfills a different purpose within creation. This brings to mind another old hymn—I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. A hymn which details how all of us are saints in the eyes of God, no matter what we do. We can be teachers or doctors, shepherds or queens, soldiers or priests, or even slain by a fierce wild beast…..but the point is we all have specific gifts bestowed upon us by our creator and our job is to go out into the world utilizing these gifts, as best we can, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

Every job, even the wonderful job of being your rector, of being a priest, has drudgery attached to it, There are things I need to do on a daily basis which don’t feel, at first blush, to be furthering God’s kingdom. I bet your jobs feel the same way. But, and here is the point, when we are working at our daily tasks, no matter how mundane, we are living into the life God created for us.

We are God’s creation and all we do is of God.

When we get so caught up in just “getting through the day,” when our daily tasks become a burden, when we work simply to get to the end of the day, when we forget to see God at work even in the most tedious of tasks, we are turning our back on God.

Jesus is saying, “don’t let anything stand in the way of your love of God. ….it doesn’t matter if you can’t see the glory in what you do every day. . .because God sees it, and God has sanctified it.”

The regular-ness of our daily lives, our jobs as clerks, managers, accountants, teachers, construction workers, bankers, homemakers and volunteers… is where we live out the fullness of our faith.

The regular-ness of our daily lives—our Monday through Saturday lives, is more sacred than our Sunday morning lives. For it is in our daily lives that others are able to see God’s grace –a grace we gather each week here to celebrate and honor---at work in our lives.

What we have to do, what our task is as put forth by Jesus, is to do our very best to seek and serve Christ in all people—even when our bosses, our co-workers, our classmates, all our companions along the way ----drive us nuts, make us mad, hurt our feelings and exasperate us.

That’s when we’re carrying the cross of Christ. Carrying our cross and following Jesus is not proselytizing it’s not preaching…it’s living our regular, ordinary day in and day out lives.

If we live our lives doing the best we can, seeking and serving Christ in all people---even in those people who drive us nuts---then we’re carrying the cross of Christ, we’re ---evangelizing. Because, by being who God molded us to be, we show others that God loves us all and sanctifies all that we do.

So go out from here today, resuming the routine of a September to June world, knowing that God is with you in all you do, loving you for who you are and what you do, so that no matter what heartache befalls us, no matter what frustrations we feel at home, at work or at school, we are the beloved masterpiece of our potter God, a God who formed us to be exactly who we are.

So go, Labor on. Your work is beautiful in God’s sight. +

Pentecost 12 8.15.10

+Today’s Gospel isn’t light reading is it? There’s a lot of violent and disturbing imagery in it. At this stage of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is pretty riled up—he seems fed up with his disciples, disgusted with his followers and ready to chuck it all.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus seems really human. And that, to me, is wonderful.

The fact that Jesus is God incarnate---God in the flesh---is an absolute cornerstone of our faith. We embrace Jesus the man, born of Mary AND Christ the Son of God as two sides of the same being. While this seeming contradiction----being fully human and fully divine----is fundamental to our faith… have you ever stopped to think about how it must have been for Jesus?

How did he balance being fully of God and fully of Mary----how did he balance what he knew as divine and what he felt as human? If Jesus was fully human---and he was---then he went through the same developmental milestones we all do. He learned to recognize his parents, his siblings, other close relatives, he probably even developed separation anxiety when Mary first needed to leave him….he learned to crawl and to talk and to walk….he grew up like we all do….through trial and error…. fits and starts.

While we know very little about Jesus’ childhood and adolescence we get a couple of glimpses ----his being left behind in the temple when he was 12 and the wedding at Cana--- which show that Jesus was, as far as we know, a fairly normal boy---who, as he grew, began to test the limits of his parents. At times he drove them nuts and at times he was positive they didn’t understand him. Yes, my guess is Jesus went through the same growing pains we all do…but…….

how much did he know about who he really was?

Many suggest that Jesus came to terms with his identity as the Son of God and the son of Mary slowly over time, with full comprehension of just who he was and what would happen to him occurring at the Transfiguration---that time when along with Peter John and James, Jesus encountered Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. Recent scholarship makes a very strong argument that Jesus, when he Elijah and Moses are enveloped in the cloud, grasps the full magnitude of his mission. That it’s on the mountaintop when Jesus realizes that his message of peace and love was going to be met with fierce and violent opposition and that he would need to fall victim to that violence to fully complete his earthly task…..

Such a realization would make anyone a little on edge….

And Jesus, increasingly throughout Luke’s Gospel, becomes a little more edgy. Jesus’ intensity increases following the transfiguration---he appears much more intent on getting to Jerusalem, he seems much less patient with his followers, he seems much more urgent and harsh in his movements and his message.

So today we encounter a Jesus who realizes that his time is short and that his task is immense. Today we encounter a Jesus who has finally come to grips with his identity and doesn’t understand why his followers don’t get it---today we encounter a man who is having a bit of an identity crisis.

He was anxious, he was stressed …..he was being very human…and if we really believe what we say we believe---that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a human woman, fully human and fully divine…. then we should embrace this Gospel, difficult as it is to hear---not because we want families to be torn apart, not because we support some reign of terror to accompany the end times---but because God so loved us, he came to walk among us, to grow among us and to dies among so that, once and for all we’d know---really know—that we’re never alone.

That’s the purpose of the gospels---this collection of stories, parables and teachings--- proof that we are loved beyond all reason. And that’s good, because being a Christian, as outlined by these same Gospels, isn’t easy.

Discomfort is a big part of Christianity….it is uncomfortable to stand up for what is right when it isn’t popular, it is uncomfortable to raise your pledge when the economy is so volatile it’s uncomfortable to pray for the people you don’t like, the people who wish us harm, the people it would be so much easier to hate.

Christianity, with it’s clear and non negotiable message of peace and justice for all, demands that we challenge the status quo when that status quo impedes any human being from living life on an equal footing with everyone else, it demands that when we know of injustice we do something to stop it, it demands that when everyone shrugs their shoulders and says, “that’s the way it has always been” we say, “no no that’s not acceptable, there’s another way.” Christianity demands that we be the pain in the patoot to the world. Christianity demands that we make ourselves and other people uncomfortable as long as inequality and injustice exists on earth.

It isn’t easy. And in today’s Gospel Jesus is telling us that being faithful can be very messy, very frustrating, very infuriating and at times pretty darn hard.

But, because ours is an incarnational faith, because we know that God came to live among us, as one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, we also know that, as we stand up for what is right and just, as we fight the good fight against violence and evil, degradation and despair, we are not alone…

…no matter who might abandon us along the way, no matter who may disagree with what we believe, we are never alone. We never have been and we never will be.

Because God has been where we are, and then some. Because God, given to us in the person of Jesus Christ knows how hard it is, because he has felt the anger the loneliness and the terror which is part of our human condition this Gospel today offers us Good News. Good News that although being a Christian may not be easy, and it may not be popular and it may not always feel good, it’s never ever lonely. And for that we can all say, Amen.

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Pentecost 11 Proper 14 Yr C

Today’s Gospel has caused me fits all week. I couldn’t reconcile the loving message of “Do not be afraid little flock” with the end times apocalyptic imagery of “be ready for you never know when the Son of Man will come.” I just couldn’t figure out how “not worrying” could mesh with “be wary, the end is near.”

But then, a bat flew into my bedroom in the rectory.

Now it’s not unusual to have a bat in an old house…however, I have an unnatural terror of anything bigger than a fly flapping their wings near me… especially inside my house….A bat and me in the bedroom was terrifying, and as a result I spent a good portion of this week being very distracted. I wasn’t ready for anything except worry.

My worry and my obsession became so acute that I wasn’t living the life I normally do. I wasn’rtwasn’t taking the time to pray, I wasn’t taking the time to exercise, I asn’twasn’t taking the time to sleep. My priorioties, because of my worry, got all messed up.

And then, late on Friday night, it hit me---“this the point of today’s readings---worrying, fretting and obsessiong about things shows a tremnendous lack of faith.”

Faith is an elusive concept…it’s next to impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t have it and it is almost impossible to acquire through shear will and determination. Faith develops over time. It’s a give and take relationship between each of us and God. We give a little and God gives a little and pretty soon we’re engaged in a dance with God, we let go of something—usually worry, control or doubt--making room for more of God’s grace to seep into our daily lives.

Faith is a beautiful every changing thing….it’s wonderful when we feel full of it and it’s terrible when we feel devoid of it.

As I fretted about when and how that bat got into the house, as I worried that another bat may get into the house, I was devoid of faith. When I worried about the bat, I didn’t reach out and love my neighbor. When I obsessed about how terrified I was when the bat was swooping across the room, I wasn’t thanking God for the fact that I have a roof over my head, a roof that could also house a bat. When I was worried sick about that bloody bat I wasn’t at peace.

Peace is that space when we finally stop struggling, stop fighting. Peace is the space in which our faith lives.

It’s easy to think that peace is a God thing….but sometimes I wonder if peace instead is really an us thing. God’s peace is always with us, we just fail to notice a lot of the time.

God is Peace. When we’re distracted and worried we push that Peace, which is God, out of our consciousness And end up, much like the Israelites in today’s reading from Isaiah, forgetting to “do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.” In other words, when we disrupt God’s peace, we don’t love our neighbor. When we disrupt God’s peace, we aren’t being faithful.

In our epistle from Hebrews the author reminds us that Abraham and Sarah had faith beyond all reason--- their ability to laugh at the absurdity of God’s promise of pregnancy at their advanced age, suggests a peace in their core, a peace which allowed them to toss their heads back and laugh at God’s gift….sure they worried and had their moments of doubt, but at their core Sarah and Abraham said, ok God, whatever you say. They may have been incredulous, they may have thought, “this is ridiculous” BUT they walked in the Peace of God, instead of running from it…

Instead of being ruled by fear, they allowed God’s good pleasure to take hold.

In the Gospel Jesus is telling us not to worry, to let God have God’s way with us, for if we do that, if we keep God uppermost in our hearts and minds then it is God’s great pleasure to lavish us with great joy—with the Peace and Love of God, the Peace and Love which is God.

The Gospel lessons of the past few weeks have been clear about one thing:

The distractions of life---worries about money, worries about legacy, worries about status, worries about bats, are all diversions designed to keep us in charge instead of God. And when we put ourselves ahead of God, when we cover that peace which is God with our doubts and our fears we become a “faithless generation.” When we shroud the peace and love --which is God--- with our own despair and fretting, we are turning our back on our Creator’s good pleasure.

When we fail to trust in God, when we forget to have faith, when we feel that having faith is just too risky, then we are denying the legacy of all who have walked this earth before us. We are denying the faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses and Miriam, of Mary and Joseph.

Of course we need to be responsible and prudent, but when the due diligence of our daily lives becomes the driving force of our existence—then we are in trouble. For it is God’s great pleasure to see us toss our heads back and laugh at the fact that sometimes life doesn’t go as we plan, sometimes we have bats in our bedrooms and sometimes we have worry in our hearts.

In spite of whatever distraction life presents to us, our Creator God’s greatest pleasure is to give us the Kingdom---a place overflowing with peace and joy.

And maybe even a few bats. +

Pentecost 10, Proper 13 Aug 1, 2010

+Today’s gospel is known as the Parable of the Rich Fool. It could just as easily be called the parable of the poor fool. For Jesus is saying that the things we hold onto—be it possessions, beliefs, fears or worry---is what keeps us from God. The rich fool has all that he could possibly need, and then some, yet all he can think about is holding onto it—and it is in the holding on that Jesus takes issue. For, as he says at the end of this reading, those who store up treasures for themselves are not rich toward God.”

I’m intrigued by that phrase: Rich Toward God.

What does it mean to be rich toward God? Or, for that matter, what does it mean to be poor toward God?

In the modern language translation of the bible, Eugene Peterson’s “The Message,” the end of today’s gospel is translated: “that’s what happens when you fill your barn with ‘self’ and not God.”

The rich fool built bigger and bigger barns to hold his treasure, and the bigger the barn, the farther away from God he became. He filled his barn with self instead of God.

How do we fill the barns of our lives with self and not with God?

On Friday the Today show ran a feature on reclusive heiress Hugette Clark . The story described all the mansions she owns and how she, for the past 50 years, hasn’t lived in any of them. She’s still alive, she just isn’t enjoying all she has acquired. This woman who had treasure upon treasure piled high in the barns of her life is, at age 104, living in a drab hospital room without the slightest hint of luxury.

I don’t know all the details, but this woman sounds like someone who has found out that filling your barn with self instead of God can leave you alone and despairing.

But filling our barns with self instead of God isn’t just a rich person’s problem.

While abundance certainly can distract us from God, so can scarcity.

Not having enough can turn us away from God just as quickly as greed. On that same episode of the Today show was a segment on student loan debt and how, according to Suze Orman, student loan defaults will end up being the next big financial crisis in the United States. Debt—be it school loans, credit cards, second mortgages---fills many of our barns, blocking the way of God.

It’s terrifying when the money we thought would be there isn’t.

It’s awful when the red ink in our budget over-runs the black.

And it’s as easy to let that fear fill up our barns as it was for Hugette Clark or the Rich Fool to let greed fill up theirs.

We can read this gospel as Jesus railing against wealth, another bible story designed to make us feel guilty for having things, guilty for not giving more of it away…but that’s not it at all. Jesus didn’t hate money. He just disliked what money did to people.

Jesus knew that money causes many of us to become poor toward God.

Most of us don’t have nearly as much as we did a few years ago. Some of us sitting here today may be on the brink of becoming upside down in our debt, some of us may already be there, others of us are terrified of ending up there.

AND, the sad thing is, we don’t talk about it. We don’t share these burdens with one another---we just carry on as if everything is just fine.

We fill our barns with shame, blocking the way toward God.

That my friends, is NOT being rich toward God. That, is being poor toward God.

Have you ever had a loved one who has been distracted for a long time—different, pre-occupied, worried? Finally they share with you what has been going on-- a burden which they have carried alone for days, weeks maybe even months? Isn’t your first reaction to say, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say anything? I would have helped. Inevitably they respond, “well I didn’t want to worry you. Burden you, bring you down. “

While that is a sweet sentiment I often finds it hurtful. Because, when you love someone you love them for who they are ---for all that they are and all that have---the good and the bad, abundance and scarcity, profit and loss.

God is no different. God wants us –God NEEDS us to share it all. When we hold back from sharing our joys and our sorrows, we are poor toward God. When we hide behind abundance or scarcity, our barns become full of us, instead of God.

God wants us to share our wealth---yes---but God also wants us to share our debts, our worries and our fears. For it is only when we give all of ourselves to God---the good the bad and the ugly—that we can truly experience the full measure of God’s love.

This parable isn’t about the evils of having too much wealth or too much debt. It’s about turning away when we should be turning toward. It’s about distraction, its’ about all the stuff which keeps us from love of God and love of neighbor. This whole section of Luke’s Gospel—what we’ve been reading for the past month, is about what God wants us to value. It’s written to teach us that whether we have much in the way of money or little, whether we have a lot in the way of debt or none---God doesn’t care, as long as we bring all of it---the joy of abundance as well as the sorrow of scarcity---to the altar---where, when we truly lay ourselves bare, our barns will be transformed from shelters of isolation and despair into communities of grace and love, where we rejoice in the abundance of all God has given. +

George Knocked and the Door Opened. Pentecost 9 Yr C

+George was lying in the oncology unit of the local hospital. 64 years old, body ravaged by cancer, he knew his earthly life was ending. In a voice enfeebled by illness he called out to his daughter who sat nearby. Faintly she made out the words: “I was a lousy father. “ The look of shame sadness and resignation on his face was profound. The daughter came close to him, took his hand and said, “no you weren’t. You did the best you possibly could and I wouldn’t trade you for another father.”

Of course, technically, George was correct---over the course of his life as a father--- he had not been the greatest dad. But he had done the best he could under the circumstances…and, and this is most important of all, he had confronted the demons which haunted him, made amends and was living a good life. What he may have lacked at times as a Dad he was making up for as a grandpa. George, as he lay dying, was a good man and a good father…somehow, his daughter thought, he needs to believe that….because he needs to believe that there is a forgiving God who when Dad arrives in heaven, will say to him. Well done my son, well done. The daughter knew that this fear of being a failure as a dad was causing her father great distress---indeed he was terrified of dying, terrified of having to account for the mistakes he had made. [Somehow, the daughter thought, he needs to know that it’s ok. That all is forgiven.]

Some of you may have already guessed, but the daughter in that story is me, and George? George is my dad who died in 1993. I won’t bore you with all the details, but believe me when I tell you; my father was a good man and a great father. He was also human and he made some really big mistakes but, in the end, on his last day, he had cleaned up his messes and as he lay dying, he had four children and four grandchildren who loved him, forgave him and wanted nothing more than for his struggles and his pain to be over.

Had I known then, that evening a couple of days before he died, what I know now, I would have said, “Dad the God of Hosea[the God in our reading from Hebrew scripture this morning] is the God of those who are afraid, for those who are ashamed for those who feel worthless. The God of today’s Gospel, The God of Jesus is a God of unending forgiveness and grace. A God for those who long for redemption. Dad you have knocked and the door has been opened, you’ve asked and you’ve received.”

Our reading from Hosea is a little disturbing. It depicts a God who threatens to completely abandon Israel. Lo-ruhamah, the name Gomer is to name her daughter means “No Mercy” and Lo-ammi, the name for her son, means “Not My People.” This is one angry bitter God.

Of course, I doubt God really say all that. This is how Hosea imagined God would speak, this is how Hosea believed God would behave because Hosea knew that God’s people had turned their back on the God of their ancestors, and like a parent who has given everything to his child only to have the child reject it all, Hosea imagined that God would react with rage. Who can blame him?—We, as humans, can’t imagine a God who, when we disappoint, when we miss the mark, would never—ever--exact revenge on us, would never –ever--wish us harm, would never—ever-- abandon us. That just isn’t God.

But, that abundant love, that Love which longs to dwell among us, is so difficult for us to understand, so hard to comprehend.

Even with Jesus among them, the disciples still didn’t understand that God so loved them that all they needed to do was knock and the door would be open, all they had to do was have faith and trust that the God of Abraham and Moses, the God of Amos and Hosea, the God of Judith and Esther, the God of John the Baptist and the God of Mary, will always forgive those who ask forgiveness, will always find those who seek and will always love us. Whether we believe it or not.

We don’t deserve that love, we don’t earn that love, and we don’t get that love as a door prize.

We get that love because God wants to give it.

This love is there, just waiting for us to accept it by saying, “take me Lord, for I’m yours.”

That’s what Jesus is teaching us in His prayer---ask God to be with us, ask God to provide and then step back and allow God to do so, remembering that what we want and what God longs for us may not look the same.

Our focus is on what we want, God’s is on what we need.

Our focus is on the temporal while God’s focus is on the eternal. So what we ask for may not be what we get, but it will be what we need.

In that hospital room so many years ago what I witnessed was a man, broken by the temporal and terrified of the eternal, fearing that his actions would bring the wrath of the Hosea God, laying himself bare before the God of Jesus and saying, not my will, but yours. Forgive me what I have done, accept me for who I am and take me, for I am yours.

And you know what? A few days later, as he took his final breaths he was no longer a broken man with regret, he was a man who had been forgiven, healed and renewed. A man who had knocked and had the door opened for him. A man who had asked and then received.

May we all remember that God longs to have us accept The Love which surpasses all understanding. And may we all find the strength to knock on that door. +