Reflection on Luke 9:51-62

Right away, I want to point out that Jesus explicitly focuses his sight on Jerusalem; the city where he will die for sinners and where he will redeem all of us who are distracted by a great many things.  Jesus sets his sight on the love that will be shown on the cross and nothing deters him.  Jesus has the kind of singular focus that, as the old hymn goes, saved a wretch like me. 

And what would a wretch like me do if I were in Jesus’ shoes?  I would probably get distracted.

Distractions are easier to come by than you think. 

While James and John are traveling with Jesus they notice that a village of Samaritans has not accepted Jesus and his message.  It appears that these people will not accept Jesus’ message of good news, because Jesus has his eyes set on Jerusalem and rather than Mount Gerizim (the mountain that the Samaritans believe is the holy mountain of God, rather than the temple mount in Jerusalem). 

What mountain does God prefer?  To us who know that God is everywhere, arguing over which mountain God likes to visit in order take a vacation from heaven seems like a stupid thing to get distracted over.  But, do not most of our distractions look stupid to someone looking on from the outside? 

Does God really care about the type of pants that someone chooses to wear to church?  Does God really care about which hymn we would choose to sing? 

But, we make the insignificant top priority all the time; Cats vs. Dogs; Liberal vs. Conservative; Eagles vs. Steelers; Organic vs. Non-Organic; people who think blue is the best color vs. everyone else…because it is!

"Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"  James and John declare in response to those who do not accept Jesus. 

What, James and John?  Where did that come from?  How did a theological disagreement about mountains rise to the level of fire and destruction from heaven?  How does such a disagreement warrant the leveling of houses and the slaughter of innocent animals, children, and women, all of whom had nothing to do with the disagreement?  

But, I guess that we could also rightly ask how a political comment on Facebook or Twitter rises to the level of un-friending and never wanting to talk family and friends again? 

Distractions are easier to come by than you think.  But, Jesus is not distracted.  He has his eyes set on Jerusalem.  He has his eyes set on the cross.  He has his eyes set on redeeming his people.  He has his eyes set of saving those very people who get easily distracted and hateful, and he will not let anything get in his way.

Did you know that empathy, the ability of to see another person’s perspective and imagine how they are feeling, has dropped 40% in college students since the year 2000?  And, no, this does not necessarily say something about “kids these days” (college students are just easy test subjects because they will do work for pizza).  Rather, it is a reflection of just how polarized our society has become quite recently. 

People do not even pretend to try to understand another person’s perspective anymore.  Rather, entrenching ourselves in our own points of view these days is raised up as a high virtue.  Sticking to our values and ideals is how it is described honorably, but in reality it is quite often just allowing ourselves to be distracted from what God finds important.

And, what exactly is it that God find important?  Well, if you want to know, take a look at Jesus.  Take a look at “God with us.”  Jesus has his eyes set on Jerusalem.  Jesus has his eyes set on saving the sinner and redeeming the ones who are lowly. 

In Jesus’ own words he says that, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (NRSV, Luke 4:18-19).

Jesus cares that the lowly are raised up.  Jesus cares that those who are bound up be set free.  Jesus cares that those who cannot see might have their eyes opened.  Jesus cares that forgiveness and a new start rules our thoughts and minds.  Jesus cares that the one sheep is sought out, leaving the 99 behind.  Jesus has his eyes set on the love of the cross, and he will not be distracted by any of us.

A common refrain that anyone who has dealt with children starts to hear is, “Yes, but first I need to…”   This is what a parent soon begins to hear when they give instructions to their children. 

“Please pick up your socks.” 

“OK, but first I need to finish eating my snack.” 

And, an hour later, guess what?  You got it, the socks are still there! 

If this is infuriating to parents, imagine how infuriating it is to God to have so many people uttering their own versions of “Yes, but first I need to…” 

“My children are starving and cold, will you help them?” God asks. 

“Yes, but first there is a list of to-dos at home that I need to attend to.” 

“My children are being discriminated against.  They need love,” God says.

“Yes, but first I need to attend to…” 

Well, you fill in the blank.  In the scriptures it is a guy who needs to bury a father and a guy who needs to turn back and say goodbye to his family.  As reasonable as all of these excuses sound, and our excuses always sound reasonable, Jesus knows that an hour later the sock will still be on the floor.  Am I right?

But, Jesus has set his eyes on the Jerusalem.  He has eyes set on the cross, he has his eyes on setting all of us free from our distractions and forgiving our past detours away from kingdom living.  Nothing will deter him from redeeming us. 

In other words, Jesus has his eyes set on loving the whole world, and no amount of distractions of other important things will keep him from his saving work. 

That is right, distracted or not; empathetic or not; working to save others or not; casting fire on others or not; too busy or not; too cool for God or not; Jesus comes to redeem us, and he will not be distracted.  And, if that love cannot knock down our walls of distraction, I do not know what will.  But, even if our walls stay erected, God’s love of us is still true.

But, for those of us who are willing to allow those walls to be knocked down by God, we strive…imperfect as it may be…to also focus our eyes on Jerusalem.  We strive to set our eyes on the love of the cross.  And, in doing so, maybe our lives will be lives of empathy and love, and not lives of distraction.

Reflection on Luke 8:26-39

She was the only one who wanted to go on the trip, but that was not out of the ordinary.  She was used to being the “freak” and the “loner.” 

She was different and she could not help it.  Her lip had not formed right at birth, causing it to look more like half a lip.  She despised lipstick ads and their full, fleshly lips of beauty. 

Why couldn’t she be beautiful? 

Her parents could not figure out how to keep their lives straight and they lost custody of her years before.  Now, she had no home or parents…well except for a long list of houses and foster parents, but that was not the same. 

She watched as other girls left the school, jumping into SUVs with smiling mothers who had their soccer or dance gear all ready to go. 

Why couldn’t she have a family? 

Most girls in her class went down the halls of the school in groups of laughter, but she had never really figured out how to do the whole friend thing.  She was not exactly skilled at being normal or funny. 

Why couldn’t she have a friend? 

And, now as she filled out the glossy form for a special weekend at Bible camp, she did it alone on the other side of the room from the other kids.  The group was not interested in going, but she was.  So, she was going to do it like she did everything else…alone.

She felt like that guy in the Bible who was so messed up in his life and in his head that the people of his town chained him up and threw him out to live alone, naked, in the graveyard. 

You know what is ironic, she had always liked graveyards.  They were so peaceful to her.  And, also ironically, they were filled with so many people.  There were so many people laid to rest there.  In a graveyard, no one goes into the next life alone.

Maybe, the guy felt comfort in the tombs?  Or, maybe, it was just the only place that he could call home because he was so rejected and despised?

Well, in any case, that guy had Jesus.  Jesus came along, entered into the guy’s graveyard home, cast out the whole legion of demons (all 5,000 of them), put the demons into a herd of pigs, and drowned every last one of those who tormented him. 

“Does Jesus still do that?” she wondered.  “Does he still come and heal like that?  Or, is that just something that he did a long time ago?” 

She did not know.  What she did know is that she wanted what that guy got.  She wanted Jesus to come, make her beautiful, give her a family, and give her some friends to whom she could rejoice and say, “Hey, look, I’m all better now, I’m beautiful now, I’m finally like all you now!”  That guy got to go home and have a life.  She wanted that more than anything.

Maybe, that was what the camp thing was all about.  She was searching for Jesus.  She was searching for his healing.  She was searching for friendship.

When she handed the completed camp form to the youth advisor, he looked it over and asked if she had a ride to take her the 100 mile trip.  Of course, she did not. 

“I’m sorry, this is a really large church and we kind of have to do what the majority of the group wants to do,” the youth advisor explained. 

He was right.  It was a large church with a couple thousand people.  She was just…you know…her.  She was the one living amongst the tombs.  She was the one living far off in the gentile regions.  She could not expect the group to care about her.

But, the next day as she laid on her bed, which was stuffed by the hot water heater in her new foster home…it was OK, it was a warm spot…she got a phone and a female voice spoke.  It was the senior pastor of her church. 

The senior pastor said, “Get your things together, I’m taking you to camp this weekend.” 

“Don’t you have to preach?  Don’t you have a large number of people to care about?” she protested.

“I do, and it includes a beautiful girl who wants to go be with Jesus” she told the girl in return.

And, like the shepherd who left the 99 sheep in order to find the one, the girl’s senior pastor left the church that weekend in order to spend time with her and take her to Bible camp.  The church had a fit.  How could the pastor of a church of thousands just give up such a huge responsibility for the sake of one strange girl who had hardly been a part of the church? 

“It wasn’t a smart use of her time,” they thought.

Maybe it was not a smart use of her time but, Jesus never seemed too concerned about good time management.  He randomly left the Jewish region and walked into a predominantly gentile region one day to heal a crazy guy living out in the graveyard.  Yes, Jesus fed thousands, but he also went out of his way to find the one.  Jesus seemed to care more about those who needed healing and community than he did sticking around the safety of his own people. 

So, the senior pastor went with the girl.  She gave her, for one weekend at least, a family.  And, she went out of her way so that the girl might possibly find the healing of Jesus. 

What the senior pastor did not realize was that the healing had already happened.  Jesus had done his work the minute that the pastor made that phone call to the girl.

There are so many people who have been pushed out to the tombs to live and struggle alone. 

For those who suffer from mental illness. 

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those who are different and have few friends.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those who have fled the dangers of their homes, but have not found a place that will welcome them.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those children who have lost their families.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those who have governments who are cold to their needs.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those who are the only ones left among their family and friends.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For those who face death alone.

Jesus, bring your healing.

For all who desire deeply to feel your healing touch.

Jesus, bring your healing.

Bring your healing to all who find themselves living among the tombs of death.  Give them wholeness, give them joy, and give them a community of love.  Amen.

Reflection on Roman 5:1-5

Trinity Quiz:

Question: Of the 268 congregations of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (the church to which I belong), how many are named after the Trinity?

Answer: 28

Question: True or False: The Trinity describes God as “one God in Three persons”?

Answer: True

Question: True or False: The persons of the Trinity consist of: “God,” “the Son,” and “the Holy Spirit”?

Answer: False. 

The first person of the Trinity is not “God,” but rather, “God the Father.”  The other persons of the Trinity are “God the Son” and “God the Holy Spirit” because all are equally God.

Question: True or False: The Trinity can be best described as being like water: taking on three forms (liquid, vapor/mist, and ice) but still all water?

Answer: False. 

This is a heresy called Modalism in which God exists in three modes, but never at the same time.  Just like water cannot exist as liquid and ice at the same time, so too did Modalists believe that God could not be Father and Son at the same time. Modalists believed that God had different “modes” (like putting on different masks depending on what was needed at the time), but the church believes that God is all three persons simultaneously.  If this was not the case, who then was Jesus praying to in the garden?

Question: True or False: In the doctrine of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is a manifestation of the Father and the Son rather than being described as fully God.

Answer: False.

The Holy Spirit is a full person of the Trinity like the Father and the Son.

Question: True or False: In Trinitarian terms, all three persons are described as creating the universe rather than just the Father?

Answer: True. 

The Bible describes God the Father as the creator, but also notes that it was God’s Spirit hovering over the deep that was involved in creating at the start of Genesis.  Also note that in John’s gospel “the Word” (God the Son) was there in the beginning and that “all things came into being through him.”  The persons of God are fully involved in every action of God.

Question: What shape has historically been used to describe the Trinity?

Answer: Triangle. 

Beyond the triangle having three points to represent God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the equilateral triangle is able to represent each person of the Trinity in an equal way (all points and angles are the same), yet all points are a part of the same object.  Though this is orthodox, I still maintain that God is not a shape.  You cannot have a relationship with a shape.

Relationships: that is how I actually want to talk about God this Trinity Sunday.  Quite frankly, facts about how God is Trinity can be fun for a quiz, but does not do much to promote the new life that can be found in Jesus Christ.  Probably, the best description that I have ever heard concerning the Trinity is that God is inherently a community.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who are all equally a part of this divine community, work together to create, save, and draw more of creation back into that Holy Community.

And, we need to be drawn back in because there are lots of ways that we try to push away the community of God. 

Some people focus only on themselves.  Selfishness is the opposite of being a part of a community, and therefore is opposite to the very nature of God. 

Some people are concerned primarily of making money and they put that first in life.  Think of those who choose to destroy the environment rather than care for it, all to just make a profit. 

In the book of Revelation, John of Patmos (the preacher of the book) repeatedly regards Rome’s destruction of the land and pollution of the seas as being work that is in opposition to Christ.  In other words, when we destroy God’s creation, we are essentially pushing away God’s divine community which thought up and molded the universe in the first place.  When we haphazardly and selfishly destroy creation, we are essentially pushing away what God loves.

There are lots of ways to push away the community of God.  Selfishness does not just take the form of loving money but, as Paul lists in Romans, Chapter One, selfishness can fill us with every kind of “wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.”

           

You do not need Paul to list off all of those things for you though.  You know very well how destructive any one of these things can be to a community.  

“Gossip,” one of Paul’s examples, can utterly destroy a group of people.  Gossip can consist of either true or false information, but, either way, it is spread without first investigating the truth.  Gossip cares more about spreading the information than spreading the truth. 

Now, if the gossip is false, it is obviously destructive because it injures someone who is innocent.  I think of the farmer who was denied an operating loan from a small town banker because the rumor had hit the banker that the farmer was going to sell all of his cows.  When the farmer heard at the café weeks later that he was going to sell all of his cows, it was news to him!  But, the rumor had already done its very real destruction.

Yet, even if the information contained in the gossip is true, it is still destructive because Jesus tells us to confront those who sin against us; not just talk behind their backs.  Even more, Jesus demands that we forgive 70 times 7 times. 

Gossip does not care about reconciling people, but God does.  God cares that God’s community of people show love to each other because God is a community of love.

And, for those who do not identify with any of Paul’s examples of selfish, idolatrous behavior, he goes one step further.  If you are judging others who do these things (like me right now as I chastise the gossipers), then you too (and me) are no better. 

For in judging, we are standing in the place of God rather than in the place of a human being and we too think too much of ourselves and our values.  In passing judgment, we too are selfish and idolatrous, holding ourselves higher than we ought.  In judging we too are destroying the community of God. 

God cares that God’s community of people show love because God is a community of love.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Paul points out.  That is just the truth of being a human.  We fall short of the mark, even if we try to aim right at it. 

Yet, do not forget that God is a community of love.  Jesus Christ brings us peace with God.  Jesus Christ looks at us through eyes of grace and not eyes of judgment.  We are brought into God’s community through grace; not because we deserve to be in God’s community but, because God wants us there. 

By grace you have been saved.  By love you have been saved.  And, the Holy Spirit pours this same love into your hearts because God is a community that wants more and more invited in. 

We are a people of grace, because God is a divine community of grace.  And, that is what is important in life.  And, that is what is important to understand about the Trinity.