Like a Thief in the Night

Luke 12:32-40
Pentecost 12C
August 11, 2013
First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

Just three years before he would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Irish poet William Butler Yeats surveyed the carnage of post-war Europe and penned what would be a masterpiece of modernist poetry.  Called the war to end all wars, for many WWI or the Great War looked as if it was the war that would end all humanity.  The aftermath of the war brought with it a deepening sense of despair and hopelessness about the future.  The very foundations of what had once been understood to stand at the heart of stability- empire, church, the traditional class system- were shattered.  

It was in the midst of that season confusion and failure of confidence that Yeats penned his famous words in the poem “The Second Coming.”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed up upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.  

The imagery of the poem is stark, frightening, and unapologetically pessimistic about the state of world affairs.  Perhaps the most incredible thing about the poem and its imagery of a world decaying and rotting from the inside out is the fact that though written over nine decades ago, it could have been written yesterday.  Yeats’s description of his own world is not that different from a reasonable description of our own.  The characters might have changed, but much of our reality is the same.  

Yeats changed the title of the poem several times before it was finally published.  The title he settled on, “The Second Coming,” refers to the promised second coming into the world of Christ.  For generations beginning as early as the days of the gospel writers, the church hung its hopes on the promised return of the Messiah.  No matter how bad things might get, the days of Jesus’s promised return; the days of the kingdom of God are right around the corner.

In post-War Europe, it looked as if Jesus would never return and God had just forgotten about the world.  Echoing the growing doubts of a generation, Yeats pulls no punches in his writing.  The very notion of Christ’s return is turned on its head in the last few lines of the poem where Yeats writes,

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

After 20 centuries of waiting and waiting and waiting, the sentimental vision of the new born baby and the gentle entry into the world has been replaced by the hour for the coming of a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.  

It is difficult not to read this text from Luke through Yeats’s despairing eyes.  

This text demonstrates what I find to two of Jesus’s most annoying habits; declaring that he will return and taking his time about actually doing it. 

Part of why I find it so difficult to treat Yeats too harshly is that I know what it is to be in that place.  To feel as though Jesus has forgotten to return and God has forgotten us all together.  

The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

As many of you know, I was in Louisville, KY a couple of weeks ago for a Presbyterian Church event called “The Big Tent.” Big Tent was started when the church chose to have the General Assembly meet every other year rather than every year.  In off years, all of the major church gatherings; the Theology and Worship Conference, the Peacemaking Conference, the Multi-Cultural Fellowship and half a dozen others meet together in the same place for four days of fellowship, worship and learning.

My experience was wonderful in many ways.  I got to meet new friends in ministry, share stories of two churches I am deeply proud to serve and learn some new ideas from other church leaders.  If I learned anything, it is that the PC(USA) really is a big tent with room for all of God’s children to live, grow and worship God together.

As with all church gatherings, there were some uncomfortable parts.  It became more evident how we, along with our brothers and sisters in the other Mainline Protestant churches, have gotten so used to talking about all the changes in the church; harping on the challenges of the church; each generation pointing to another and laying blame, placing hopes or simply saying run away!  When we gather as a larger church, we spend an awful lot of time looking inside and not a whole lot looking outside.  Now, don’t mistake me.  There is plenty of good mission and ministry happening around the church, but sometimes it feels like the navel gazing has been raised to an art form.  All of our inwardness distracts us from the larger calling of the church to love and serve the world as we love and serve God.  

We lose track of that sometimes.  In the chaos of the moment, it is so easy to lose sight of the long view.

As Yeats says, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

I suppose it is no wonder though.  Our reality is pretty radically changed from the church many of us knew.

  Many churches were built for 500 worshipers and on a good Sunday you may count 60.

Some were founded because they were geographically isolated, but Mr. Ford and his assembly line helped take care of that.

Budgets continue to shrink just as expenses soar.

More congregations are closing than are opening and the 4 million members of the 1960s has become less than 2 million today.  

It is almost like post-war Europe was not the only thing Jesus forgoes or God forgets.

But Jesus says, “you must be ready because the Lord is coming when you least expect it.”

Part of us thinks the surprise will come if he returns not when.  There has been plenty of reason to doubt in the years since Yeats saw such despair in the world.   There is reason to doubt as we watch the old church we once knew transform around us and, yes, in some ways die.

4 million to 2 million in less than 50 years?

Maybe Yeats was right. 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed up upon the world,

Anarchy rules the day.  Why do we bother?

You are crazy if you think preachers do not ask themselves that question pretty often.  “Why bother?” “Why keep preaching Jesus will return when all evidence to the contrary surrounds us every day?” 

Preacher or parishioner, that is likely not an unfamiliar question and based on the world in which we live, it is not a wholly unreasonable one.  The evidence around us tells us day after day that putting our hope in the coming of Jesus, putting our hope in a Second Coming of messiah is nothing but a dead letter.

So why bother?

The answer to that is pretty simple.

Why bother?

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.  That is all that needs to be said.  Jesus Christ is God’s hope summed up.  He is the promise of God made flesh.  Jesus Christ is the word of God and Jesus promises to return.

There is a reason that everything around us fails to point us to the fulfillment of God’s promise in the return of Jesus Christ; that is not the world’s job.  

The world and all that is in it sing praises to God, but we must not mistake the world, its life or its history for God.

No, the world does not fulfill the promise of Christ because it cannot fill his shoes.  Only Christ can keep the promise to return and make all things whole and new and shalom.

Only Christ can keep the promise.

And it is Christ who made the promise.

Christ, who never promised to return this day or that year but only that He will return.  In fact according to the text, he is returning.  That is what the Greek here means.  The way Jesus makes his promise, the words are in the present progressive tense- when Jesus made his promise to the disciples, the promise was already being kept and it is being kept today.  It is a promise made and unfolding through history.

  The world gives us all kinds of reasons to give up.

To give up on the church.

To give up on our neighbors.

To give up on our world.

The reasons to give up are legion and the reason to stay alert- to be prepared- to wait and work with faithful anticipation is just one.  Because Jesus Christ said so.

That is the only reason we have to believe and the only one we need.  

Christ has promised to be faithful to his promise so we are freed to be faithful to Christ.  

That is the only reason we need to dig in and put our faith and our energy into doing the work of God in this place; to face a changing world and a changing church with an unflinching hope in the God glorify, the Spirit that sustains us and the Christ who is with us even now as he fulfills his promise to return.  

So, be ready.

Jesus will return- he promised us he would.

He didn’t say when and he didn’t say where, but he promised to return.

And whose word can you take if not the word of the Word of God?

Amen.

Smell the Roses

Luke 12:13-21

Ordinary 18 Year C

August 4, 2013

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

            At first glance this parable seems to be a pretty strong indictment of wealth and money and the faith we put into it.  Jesus was fond of parables on money and there is no escaping that he was particularly critical of the wealthy. 

            Proclaiming Jesus’s discontentment with wealth can be a bitter pill to swallow and frankly very thin ice for a preacher to get out on with a room full of Presbyterians!  Let’s face it, we may not all be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, but compared to some of our neighbors near and far, our silos are pretty damn full.

            Texts like these make us squirm a little and more so than with others probably leave you sitting there wondering what I am going to say about it.  I spent a while wondering that myself!

            The obvious metaphor in the parable to make it accessible to a modern audience is grain=money.  Jesus is teaching a parable about the perils of storing up wealth in whatever form.  Perhaps the grain silo is a 401k or an IRA.  Like so much of Jesus’s teachings, they are annoyingly applicable to our lives despite their arcane imagery.

            As I was studying this passage, I became aware of myself arguing back at the text a little bit.

            Yes, I know we are not supposed to hoard our money and possessions, but give us a break.  We’ve been through a lot.  We are still climbing out of the biggest financial mess since the Great Depression!  We are bound to be a little anxious.  Surely tucking a little away for the sake of peace of mind cannot be that bad a thing. 

            Then, as my list of reasons why money and wealth are not bad things continued to grow in my defense against the text, it dawned on me…maybe this text is not about money per se but greed. 

            Now, that’ll preach, I thought. 

            Preaching on greed these days is like pushing on an open door. 

            Big banks foreclosing on homes and farms;

            Corporations with record profits and record low wages;

            CEOs running their companies into the ground and getting shown the door with multi-million dollar pink slips.

            Even just following the metaphor from the parable is rich soil for railing on greed. 

            Big agriculture stockpiling grain to keep world prices up.

            OPEC manipulating the price of oil.

            30,000 sq foot mansions in West Palm Beach.

            Greed will preach.

            Greed is easy.

            Greed paints a target on THEM and lets me stand back, take aim, and start lobbing preaching bombs at them.

            Greed?

            Now, that’ll preach.

            The problem is that this text is not really just about greed per se.

            Yes, the farmer in the story is guilty of being greedy and yes, God is displeased with his greed, but that is not the whole of Jesus’ indictment here.  This parable is not an indictment of one man nor is it simply a warning about the very real dangers of greed.

            In this parable, Jesus is trying to open our eyes to a fundamental truth about human life then and now; we are being lied to.

            We are being lied to.

            In this parable about a farmer and an over flowing silo of grain, Jesus is saying to us, “You are being lied to.  Don’t believe it.”

            The lie Jesus indicts in this parable, the lie he warns the disciples, the gathered crowd and us about is the persistent myth of scarcity which dominates our world and shapes our vision of it.

            Beyond money or greed, at the heart of this parable, is Jesus’s indictment of the lie of scarcity.

            The myth-the lie- of scarcity- the fear that there is not and will not be enough to meet the needs of the world- is a lie as old as time.

            It is a lie, because everything God has done in the world proclaims against it. 

            It is a lie, because everything it is proclaims against the Word of God.

            From the very beginning, God’s work and Word is an unfolding chorus of abundance.  Genesis 1 is a litany of abundance.  By the end of the story’s sixth day, the whole of creation is caught up in a whirlwind of abundance.  Plants, trees, birds in the sky, fish in the sea and everything in between is swept up in a carnival of fruitfulness to the point that God finally says, I need a break!  

            From the very beginning, God’s work in the world has been defined by abundance.

            But it doesn’t take long for the lie to be heard.

            The lie of scarcity, screaming out to be heard, begins to interject into the chorus of God’s work.  It takes a while, but by chapter 47, the lie gains some ground.[i]  Pharaoh, dreaming that there will be a famine in the land, sets out to control the supply of food.  Thinking that there will not be enough for everyone, that scarcity rather than abundance will rule, he becomes determined to make sure that he has more than enough.  He builds bigger silos like the farmer in the parable and he starts to fill.

            He buys the lie and lives into the fear that attends it.

            Martin Niemoller, one of the few German pastors who actively stood up to Hitler, was part of a delegation from the Evangelical Lutheran Church that met with Hitler in 1933.  Niemoller stood in the back of the room and said nothing.  Returning home, his wife asked him what he learned.  Niemoller replied, “I learned that Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man.”

             Like Pharaoh, Hitler was convinced that there was not enough so he acted brutally to ensure that he did not lose his place; that he would not be caught with his silos empty.

            If the stories of Pharaoh and Hitler teach us anything, it is that those who live into the lie; those who buy into the myth of scarcity may purchase for themselves security in the moment, but they do not rule the unfolding of God’s tomorrow.  That belongs to the abundance of God.

            Even in captivity, the people of Israel grow and multiply- they are fruitful.  As Aaron and Moses lead them through the desert they are fed not once, not twice, but as many times as their needs require by manna from heaven.

            Even in the wake of Hitler’s abomination, the Jews of the world endure still today.

            If there is a lesson to be taken from those moments when the lie of scarcity has ruled the day, it is that it rules only for the day; it does not endure; in fact, it cannot endure.  God’s unfolding abundance always, always, always shines through to God’s promised tomorrow.

            So the fundamental question faced by the church and each of us who are claimed by Christ as part of the body of Christ is this; what do we believe?

            Scarcity, the message of the world.

            Or

            Abundance, the message of the Word of God.

            World or Word? 

            In which of these two will we place our trust?

            If you are like me, the answer is both.  We read our bibles with one eye on the Dow Jones.  We make our pledge to the church always mindful of how the 401K or IRA is doing.  We hear God’s promise of abundance and we try to put our faith in God’s promised tomorrow, but just in case we tuck a little something away in the silo for safe keeping; for a rainy day.

            We believe, but we hedge and it is pretty easy to rationalize it for ourselves. 

            After all, we aren’t Pharaoh or Hitler!  We are not these cartoonish images of the power and control hungry who stomp all over God’s Word for the sake of themselves.  Sure, we tuck a little away for tomorrow, but we still try to be generous.           

            And I think that is a fair point both theologically and biblically. 

            Jesus is not arguing in this parable against retirement accounts or rainy day funds or even wise investment strategy.  There is nothing unholy about saving wisely to ensure that your family is provided for or the church investing wisely to ensure that its ministries will endure.  The trouble with believing in the lie of scarcity is not that we take some care for tomorrow but that we become so obsessed with tomorrow that we forget today; we become so controlled by providing for a perceived need down the road, we lose track of the needs right around us. 

            Whether it is money, time, power or anything else, the thing itself is not necessarily the problem. The problem is when we cannot see past the thing and that obsession leads us out of relationship with one another and with God. That is when we find ourselves in trouble; when we let the anxious lie of the world rather than the promise of the Word guide our every move and define our every relationship.

            A few years ago I got a call from a friend asking for a favor.  At the time I was a struggling graduate student and my friend occupied what you might call a position of far greater power and prestige in the world.  What, I wondered, could I possibly have to offer?

            It turned out that his son and daughter-in-law had a baby and they were preparing for pre-school.  It is important to note, that this baby was maybe 6 months old at this point.  The friend was asking if I would make a call to a Presbyterian Church in another city to help secure a spot for the child in the pre-school.  It was explained to me that the pre-school was essential in order for the child to get into the right kindergarten which was essential to get into the right grade school which was essential to get into the right middle school which was essential to get into the right prep school which would ensure a spot at Harvard and a life of health, wealth and security.  Right there in front of them was tangible evidence of the abundance of God- the fruitfulness of creation- but they could not see past the fear of a potential college rejection letter 18 years down the road. 

            How often do we do that in our lives; become so obsessed with the anxieties of tomorrow that we miss the evidence of abundance right before our eyes?   We get in such a hurry that not only do we not stop to smell the roses, we don’t even notice that they are there!

            Yet, the abundance of God is all around us every minute of every day; God’s promise unfolding throughout creation.

            When you woke up this morning and opened your eyes, did you have to set the sun in the sky or was the light already there? [ii]

            When you drew your first breath in the world, did you have to fill the room with oxygen or was the air already there?

            When you came to be baptized, did you have to fill he font yourself or was the water already there ready and waiting for you?

            When God sent the son into the world to save the world, did the world have to ask first?  Did we have to ask for the true bread from heaven; the spiritual manna that is Christ Jesus?

            The evidence of abundance is all around us and we need to open our eyes and our hearts to see it.  And when we see the abundance of God;

            when we delight in the abundance of God;

                        when we look beyond the lie of the world and reveal that beneath                                          the proclamations of gloom and doom;

                                    beyond the myth of scarcity and shortage;

                                    away from the persistent anxiety over tomorrow;

                                    when we tear back the curtain where the lie of the world is                                                      hiding, we find…nothing. 

            Nothing.         

            When we peel back the layers of the lie, we find that there is nothing there.  The world’s lie of scarcity is built on nothing.

            Perhaps then, staring into the abyss of the myth of the world, our eyes will be open and our lives made glad in the abundance of God.  We may find it impossible to let go our silos full of stuff, but thankfully with God nothing is impossible.  And, friends, those who put their faith in the abundance of God are with God and may God use them-use us-to show the abundance of God in every part of the world.

            Amen and Amen.

               

---

[i] This reference to Pharaoh and to Hitler and the underlying linkage between the two comes from lecture notes from a class with Walter Brueggemann at Columbia Seminary.  I do not recall the article, however I believe it was published in the Christian Century in the 1990’s.  I apologize for not having the proper citation, but want to give Dr. Brueggemann full credit for this helpful insight.

[ii]  Dr. Ron Peters used this image at the opening worship service of the PC(USA) 2014 Big Tent event in Louisville.   His sermon was an interpretation of Acts 2, but the image seemed to work here as well.  Thanks to Dr. Peters for an inspiring sermon.

Eyes Front

Luke 9:51-62

Ordinary 13 Year C

June 30, 2013

First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            “More than anything else,” Shug explains to Celie, “God love admiration.”

            “You sayin God vain?” Celie asks.  “Naw,” says Shug, “not vain, just wanting to share a good thing.  I think it makes God anry if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”

            Alice Walker, without realizing it, summed up this text from Luke in this short exchange in her epistolary novel The Color Purple. 

            God is not vain, but God does desire and even demands our attention.  But how often do we walk right by God’s call- God’s outstretched hand- without even noticing?  How often is God our color purple?

            Jesus was certainly that unnoticed color to the Samaritans. 

            Knowing that his time was coming, Jesus set his face to Jerusalem and determined to set out to David’s city.  For whatever reason, that decision alone was enough for the Samaritans to reject him.  We do not know why they reject him, or at least why his decision to go to Jerusalem is enough to make them reject him.  But that is exactly what they do.

            It is as though they are willing to welcome Jesus but only if he is willing to come on their terms.  No passing through.  No stop along the way.  No here today off to Jerusalem tomorrow.  They will welcome him but only on their own terms.

            Some days I am such a Samaritan; ready to welcome Jesus in if only he will stay on my terms.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you probably have those days as well.  Days when faith in Jesus Christ is the thing we long for the most as long as it fits neatly into the lives we have made for ourselves.

            David Lose, professor of preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul puts the question we have from Luke this way:

Does the grace, mercy, and love of God made incarnate in Jesus trump our plans and shape our lives, or do we shape our faith to fit the lives we’ve already planned?

            The answer for the Samaritans was pretty clear.  They were willing to let Jesus in, but only if it fit their already laid plans, perspectives, priorities.

            But, hey, they were Samaritans.  They might as well have been Pharisees, right?  Sure there was that one kind and helpful Samaritan, but for the most part they were a clueless bunch always missing the point and getting things wrong.  Unlike we who are in the church/ in the know...right?

            If Luke would just leave it there, we could shake our heads at the Samaritans and their willful blindness to the Word of God; the color purple that they walk on by without noticing.  If Luke would just leave it there we could tsk tsk tsk at the poor Samaritans and go on about our business.

            Of course Luke being Luke could not leave well enough alone.  After Jesus faces down the rejection of the Samaritans, shakes the dust from his feet, and gets on the road to Jerusalem, Luke recounts one instance after another when Jesus challenges the illusion of control in the face of the call to discipleship; instances when disciples and would be disciples are called upon to let Jesus and the calling of God trump their well-laid plans.

            Someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One has no place to lay his head.”

As someone who travels quite a bit, I have learned a few lessons.  

Pack light.

            Don’t rely on airline timing.

                        Keep your toothbrush in your carry-on just in case you wind up in Dallas and your bag goes to Delhi.

And…there’s no place like home.

Even the most extraordinary trip to the most exotic locale cannot take away the pure comfort and joy of coming home. 

There’s no place like home.

What, then, do we make of Jesus’s reminder that for the Human One- the Son of God- there is no place like home because, well, there is no home; there is no place of safety and comfort to which he can retreat after a long journey?

If the first thing Jesus trumps is our expectations and plans, the second trump card costs us comfort; the comfort of a retreat from our calling.  Following Jesus is not a weekend getaway with home sweet home waiting at the end.  When we pack our bags to follow Him, we are, Luke reminds us, signing onto a lifelong journey.  When we follow Jesus, home is not at the end of the journey; home is wherever we find ourselves with him.

Now to be sure, I am guessing that there is great blessing in laying your head wherever our savior has called us to be, but for my part, I like having my own bed, my own home, my own place to retreat when things get to be too much or when I am just plain tired.

Yet…

“Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One (and by extension we who follow him) has no place to lay his head.”

Then Jesus said to someone else, “Follow me.”

He replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom.”

My to-do list is never past tense. 

In my life, I do not think I have ever had a done to-do list!

Whenever I get near the end of it, I find one more project; one more must do item; one more thing that simply cannot wait that must be done.

If I am really hones with myself, more often than not my to-do list is a distraction from the things I really need to do.

I really need to do my taxes, but first I must get the lawn mowed.

I really need to finish my sermon, but first I must reorganize the kitchen cabinets.

I really need to reorient my life toward Christ, but first I must do X, Y, Z.

To be certain, the to-dos are not always just distractions.  Sometimes our own good intentions wind up standing in our way.

I want to give more time to the church, but by the time I live up to these other obligations there isn’t much time left. 

I want to give more financially to the church, but first I want to tuck a little more away for a rainy day.

I want to follow you, but first I need to bury my father.

Sometimes we use our to-dos to bide our time and sometimes our to-dos just suck up all the oxygen in the room.  Whichever it is, when Jesus comes into our lives, those to-dos get trumped. 

Jesus reminds us that the only indispensable to-do on our lists; the only thing we absolutely must get around to doing is spreading the Good News of the gospel of Christ.  If, when we reach the end of our days, there is one thing we have not left undone, let it be that.

“Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom.”

Someone else said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say good-bye to those in my house.”

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for God’s kingdom.”

Of all Jesus commands, this is perhaps the most difficult. 

I can learn to live with Jesus trumping my own well-laid plans; I can deal with Jesus calling me away from the comfort of the known to the unknowns of discipleship.  I can even learn to do without my to-do list.

But to leave everything behind and not even say good-bye?  To just walk away from home, family, vocation, responsibilities and relationships is just a bridge too far. 

Part of me wants to romanticize this text and say, well Jesus doesn’t really mean leave everything behind.  Luke was just trying to make a point. But that would be less than honest with the text.  Luke is in fact trying to make a point, but he is doing it with Jesus’ own words not with some heap of hyperbole. 

Jesus said to him…

That is what the text says.  Not “Jesus sounded like he was saying” or “it was as if Jesus had said…”  No, “Jesus said to him…” The text is clear on the exchange.

Let me say good-bye.

No.

That is tough medicine; tough stuff to swallow.

And that, my friends, takes us right down to the whole blessed truth of the gospel; the truth of the grace of Jesus Christ.

It is tough.

Grace is tough.

The calling of Christ and the grace that abides it are not pliable like spiritual play-dough that we can make and mold into the shape that best fits our lives. 

Grace is tough, sometimes even bitter.

In his classic Christian text The Cost of Discipleship, Deitrich Bonheoffer wrote that the grace of God is cheapened when it is made undemanding, easy, and little more than the moral equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card.  He wrote,

"cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."

In other words, grace- true grace- is grace that intrudes on our well planned lives, disrupts us from our comfort, calls us to a new way of living and demands of us allegiance to something that is beyond our whims, our desires, our very lives.

            Bonhoeffer knew from bitter experience that daring to follow Christ in a world that can at times, be radically hostile to the Good News is a risky endeavor.  When we answer the call of Christ, when we stop for a moment to notice the color purple right in front of us, we risk losing control; or at least the illusion of control.

            That is the Christian life.  Or more precisely, that is the life of Christ in us.  Because make no mistake about it, Christ still has work to do in the world.  And when we open ourselves to allow the grace of God guide and even take over our lives, we allow the Christ of grace to live in and through us.  That is how we as the church can lay claim to being the body of Christ in the world. 

            Not by any merit of our own as though we have some monopoly on the love and favor of God.

            Not by any special power we possess over good, evil, right or wrong as though we somehow have a monopoly on righteousness.

            Not by any position of privilege we might claim in the sight of God.

            No, we are the body of Christ in the world only by means of the Christ who lives in us.  Because when we let go the illusion of control, when we let Christ trump our plans and take control of our lives, we get a glimpse of what the scriptures call becoming kathos Christos- “like Christ.”

            And when we let Christ live in us; when we stop and notice our color purple; when we become kathos Christos,

            The plans and agendas of this world fall away,

                        home becomes wherever he may lead us,

                                    all those to-dos we manufacture boil down to one command,

                                                and our eyes become firmly affixed on what is to come.

            When we let Christ live in us, we will never look back again because nothing, absolutely nothing, that ever was will compare to what might be with Christ alive in us.

            Amen.

                                                                        

But What about the Pigs?

Psalm 42/43 and Luke 8:29-36

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Year C

June 23, 2013

First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry          

          From time to time I find myself wondering if the writers of hymns pay attention to what they write.

          Some just don’t make sense.  Consider the Christmas hymn, a sentimental favorite, Away in a Manger.  According to the hymn…

          The cattle are lowing,

          The poor baby wakes,

          But little Lord Jesus,

          No crying he makes.

          Really?  NO crying?  Has this guy ever spent a night in a house with a newborn?  My guess is that more than one time those first few nights, sleepless Mary turned to sleepless Joseph and said with a sleepy gaze, “your turn.”

          Some hymns are just badly written and overwrought or sentimental to the point that their sweetness hurts your teeth when you sing them.

          Some, though, are just theologically bad. 

          One of those theologically bad hymns came to mind as I was doing the pre-writing dance with this text.

          Written in the early 1800’s by a prolific hymn writer, Arthur T. Russell, O God of Life, Whose Power Benign may be the most theologically bankrupt piece of music I have ever heard. 

O God of life, whose power benign

Doth oér the world in mercy shine,

Accept our praise, for we are Thine. 

          Whose power benign?

          Did this guy ever read Luke?  Did he ever read this story?  Did he ever think about the fact that if God’s power is anything it is anything but benign? 

          The God who created heaven and earth;

          The God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt;

          The God who raised Jesus from the dead is not benign.

          If the power of God is anything it is anything but benign.

          In the story recounted for us in Luke’s gospel this morning, Jesus encounters a man tormented by demons.  Not just one or two but so many that they call themselves legion- he is possessed by an army of demons.  At the heart of this text is the truth of the care and love of Jesus Christ for us all and that is a comforting story- an important story.

          When Jesus encounters the man, the demons have such total control over him that they speak first.  It is as if they have taken total control of the poor man and he is without any will or identity of his own.  If ever there was a candidate for Jesus’s healing mercy, this guy fits the bill.

          The legion of demons confronts Jesus and recognizing him as the son of God and the power that entails they ask that if Jesus is going to cast them out to at least cast them into some other living being so that they are not sent back into the abyss.  For reasons left unexplained, Jesus, ever gracious and ever generous, acquiesces to their request and drives the demons from the man into a nearby herd of pigs.  Of course the favor is short lived because the pigs run over the cliff into the sea and are drowned.  But for that brief moment, even the demons know the grace and generosity of God.

          There is nothing benign in that moment; not in in Jesus’s healing and there is nothing benign in that sort of love- that sort of divine generosity that even a legion of demons possessing a man’s body is granted the wish of its heart.  That sort of love is active, it is transformative, it is awe-inspiring.  It is anything but benign.

At the heart of this text is the truth of the powerful and transformative care and love of Jesus Christ for us all and that is a comforting story- an important story.-  but it is not the whole story.

          Beyond the wonder of Jesus’s gracious act in healing the possessed man and granting Legion’s request and beyond the wonder of a God whose love is so incredibly vast is a question that demands our attention…what about the pigs?

          Yes, Jesus does a generous thing and yes Jesus does a miraculous thing but on some level we have to acknowledge that Jesus also did a pretty costly and troublign thing.  He cast the demons out of the man and into some poor herdsman’s livelihood.  Herds of domesticated pigs did not just wander around the ancient near east.  Where there was a herd of anything there was a herdsman charged with their care so it does not take too much of a leap to assume that with these pigs there was someone who cared for and about them. 

          How, I wonder, did he react to Jesus’s act of incredible generosity toward Legion?

          How did he feel about the events that day?

          My guess is that he did not like it much.  I sure wouldn’t.  Think about it.  How would you feel if your neighbor called on Jesus for help and Jesus responded by destroying your career.  That is essentially what happens here.  Do you think anyone would hire that herdsman again?  No one is going to trust a new herd to the guy who lost his last herd off a cliff!

          If I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t like the events of this story very much.  No I would not like it at all.

          Yes, Jesus was generous.  Yes, Jesus was merciful.  Yes, Jesus was kind.  But Jesus ruined my job!  No, I would not have liked this one bit.

          And that, friends, brings us to the rest of the heart of this story.

          God’s is a disruptive power.

          Luke is silent about the reaction of the herdsman whose livelihood just ran headlong into the lake, but he does tell us about the reaction of the crowd that witnessed this miracle of healing and the crowd that gathered to hear the story retold; they were afraid.

          They were afraid.

          Given the speed with which the possessed man shows up on the scene, it is safe to say that he was known to the people in the community.  His madness, his ravings, his oddness was not unknown and although they might have tried to put him out of mind, they knew him and were, on some level, used to him.

          When Jesus shows up on the scene and his first act is to heal the man, you would think that the crowd would stand in awe and wonder celebrating the miraculous work of God and that word of the healing would draw a crowd of admirers or at least curious onlookers.  But they don’t. 

          They were afraid.

          They saw the work of God in their midst and they were afraid.

          They saw the power of God and witnessed its disruptive power and collectively they thought, “better the devil you know.” 

          How often do we do that?  How often are we confronted by the work and the power of God only to retreat into the familiar?  It was easier for them to accept the madness of their possessed neighbor than to accept the potential cost and disruption that would come from letting the work of God loose in their midst.  The power of God was right there in front of them and they asked it to leave town rather than bear the cost that may come with it.

          Better the devil you know, you know?

          This text is a favorite among some transitional pastors.  Part of congregational transformation is working with a church to excise those things that are dragging down its spirit and ministry; naming the legion of bad habits and old patterns that though familiar are nonetheless holding us back.  Part of letting go of those old habits is understanding that they may take something or someone valuable with them when they go. 

          When we allow God to chase out the forces of anxiety about the future, it may just rob us of the illusion of control.

          When we allow God to cast out the power of “we always did it that way,” it may just take the ease of stale but familiar ministry with it.

          When we allow God to exorcise our reliance on the same small group of volunteers to do everything, it may just cost us a little of our own time to make the ministries of the church thrive.

          The work of God in our midst comes with a cost.  The question that confronts us- that confronted the Gerasene community in Luke’s gospel- is whether or not we are willing to give a little of the familiar to make room for the divine. 

          Can we let go the devil we know to make room for the blessing we do not?

          That day on the lakeshore, a Gerasene man experienced what I think Luke wants us all to know; when we allow God to work in our midst, it may be frightening, it may be costly, but it will always be worth it.

          God’s is a disruptive power but it is God’s and God is gracious, generous, loving and merciful.  I don’t know about you, but I could use a disruption like that in my life.  Even if it means losing a few pigs along the way.

          Sola Deo Gloria!  To God alone be the glory!  Amen.