Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, July 20, 2025

Some of you may know my story, but for those unfamiliar with my journey out of fundamentalism and evangelicalism, I will recap briefly. I have shared here before that I grew up in a tiny Baptist denomination in Southern Appalachia. At around age 2, I began to spend every Saturday night at my grandmother’s house so that I could go to church with her on Sunday. She became a place of refuge for me over the course of my childhood, and so did the church. I met Jesus and I learned the faith in this church and in my grandmother’s home. By the time I started college, I had developed a deep love for the scriptures and took my faith very seriously, and as a result I began to question some of the things I had been taught. The Jesus I knew and the scriptures I read led me to very different conclusions that those of my church. When I stopped reading the Bible in the King James and started reading a modern translation these differences grew even broader, and eventually, my involvement with Campus Crusade, which they considered a heretical organization, became a breaking point, and the church where I learned the faith forced me to repent of my involvement and affirm that the King James Version as the only rule of faith and practice, or I was “not qualified to be a member” of the church. At the time, that choice seemed easy. Follow the Jesus I had come to know, even if it led me away for this church that had been family to me, or abandon my faith in this Jesus in order to keep a truncated and pernicious version of the faith. So, I resigned my membership, and began a long, meandering spiritual journey to find a tradition that resonated with the Jesus I had always known. Eventually, I landed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But I had not counted the cost. Some years later, while visiting my grandmother, who had continued to attend the church I left, we were having a conversation and, I don’t remember what brought it up, but I told her that I had discerned, through prayer, study, and reading the scripture, that I could no longer say the pledge of allegiance without violating my conscience— but that is a matter for another sermon. My grandmother was shocked. I had never seen her so disappointed in me before. This was also the catalyst for a conversation about many other ways that the things I had come to believe were a disappointment to her. I was shocked at how hurt she seemed. I was shocked at how hurt I felt. I had left her church with such hurt and righteous indignation that I had not considered how she had felt about my leaving. My study and conviction, my faith and my love for Jesus were a direct result of her teaching and example. I was still a Christian at all because of her, because of the way she embodied the faith, the way that she had introduced me to Jesus and not just handed me a Bible. My continued faith was an act of defiance against all I had been told I had to believe in order to be allowed to stay in the church, not an act of defiance against her. I couldn’t reconcile the Jesus I knew and this iteration of the faith that to me was taking the Name of Christ in vain. But in leaving, I hadn’t just left the church; I had left my grandmother. Where I had gone, she couldn’t follow. The cost of leaving was high, but the cost of staying was higher. I couldn’t keep Jesus and the only place of safety and comfort I had ever known. I can imagine that she felt like I had come to hate all she had tried to teach me, that in rejecting her church and its ideology, I had rejected something fundamental about her. I could see the heartbreak and confusion on her face, emotions I wasn’t aware of causing before, and certainly, had never intended. When I counted the cost of leaving, I hadn’t accounted for her grief. In the coming months, All Saints will begin to literally count the cost of building new ministries and rebuilding old ones. We will give an accounting of all the time, talent, and treasure we will need to invest to make sure that we are introducing this Jesus to our neighbors and to each other. We will ask, “Who isn’t here?” and we will find ways to invite and include our neighbors in our life of faith. And as we make this accounting, we will have to ask, Can we afford to build a ministry that is more inclusive, that doesn’t demand more of people than they can give in order to be included? Can we afford not to? Can we afford to give up our old ways of doing church, the habits and traditions that have shaped life together and given them meaning? Can we afford not to? Can we let go of outdated models of growth, membership, and engagement and meet people where they are? Can we afford not to? Can we afford to stop thinking of church as a destination at the end of the path toward faith and begin to think of faith itself as a journey and church as the rest areas along that path? Can we afford not to? Can we afford the time, energy, and money it will cost to examine every aspect of our beliefs, our practices, our politics, our preferences, our principles, and measure them by their faithfulness and effectiveness, measure them against Love? Can we afford not to? Moses asked the Israelites to choose life. Paul asked Philemon to choose love. Jesus asks us to choose the cross. There are other choices, but the question is not can we bear the cost of choosing life, love, and the cross. The question is whether we can afford to avoid choosing life, choosing love, choosing the cross. Choosing to grieve and let go of all the things we must leave behind in order to choose life, love, and the cross is the very substance of discipleship. Eventually, my grandmother and I reconciled, and we were able to talk about the scriptures, differences in interpretation, theological insight, and grow in mutual respect. I wouldn’t say I won a convert, but I don’t think she would say she lost a grandson, either. The cost of following this Jesus is often high. There is no discipleship that is not marked by the Cross. It will cost us home, family, security, time, money, even our very lives. But for every cross we bear there is a resurrection. God does not call us to faith to destroy us, any more than God calls us to faith to protect us from every discomfort. God calls us to choose life, and Jesus leads us to the cross. Discipleship, then, is the choice of the life that only comes after the cross, the life that is marked by scars and healing, not safety and health. Discipleship is the path of transformation, the path of life, death, and resurrection, the path that brings babies to a symbolic burial in baptism and celebrates our founder’s last meal, to promise us that death is not final, and discomfort cannot be avoided. The cost will be high, we will have to account for our discomfort, for our grief. But we can also account for the life that only comes after such discomfort and grief. The question is not can we afford to grow and change, to bear the discomfort or to grieve the losses that will come. The question is, Can we afford not to? Amen.

Food is a big part of what we do here. We are always gathering food or gathering around food. We make sandwiches and collect food for people struggle to eat. We are planning to offer a meal of bratwurst and hot dogs along with a free concert to share with our community. Even our worship culminates around a sacred meal. In today’s gospel Jesus finds himself invited to share a meal with a Pharisee. Just as a quick reminder, Pharisees are spiritual leaders in Judaism who often get a bad rap. These leaders were responsible for interpreting Torah, God’s law in the Holy Scriptures, and understanding God’s intentions for God’s people. For a while now, these religious leaders have been watching Jesus, curious and concerned about the way he interprets the law, who he accepts, and how he practices Sabbath. You see in Luke chapter 7 these leaders have witnessed a notorious woman anoint Jesus’ feet at a table. In Luke chapter 11, Jesus and his disciples have not properly washed themselves before eating at a table. And prior to this exchange today, Jesus has healed a dinner guest on the Sabbath. And the religious leaders, like these Pharisees, aren’t quite sure what to do with this. Jesus is very aware of the invitation he is accepting. Jesus knows that a dinner invitation in the first century, is not just a dinner invitation – it has strings attached. Dinner invitations were a measure of status. Tables were often arranged in u-shapes with a defined social order, with those seated in the middle being part of the upper class and those on the ends part of the lower class. And not only that, the table was a place of networking for male upper-class individuals who were expected to return the invitation back to their own tables. A dinner party was not just a dinner party, there were strict expectation. Nothing says “Party Time!!” quite like a list of inscrutable rules. But we’ve been watching Jesus ourselves. The Monday Bible study and the Lectionary have been following Jesus over this season after Pentecost as we wind our way through the gospel of Luke. We know that Jesus is not going to attend a dinner party and play by the rules. Jesus is mission minded. He’s always looking for a teachable moment. If he’s going to attend, he’s likely to expose the whole thing in order to reveal of the Kingdom of God. Recalling the Proverbs, to these experts in the scriptures, he says, don’t embarrass yourselves by choosing a seat of honor, assuming it belongs to you. Instead, chose the lower seat and assume that is your position so that if the time comes you will be honored when you’re asked to move up. Do you hear echoes of Mary’s song here? Earlier in the gospel of Luke, Mary sings, “God has looked down with favor on the lowly … God has scattered the proud … God has brought down the powerful from their places of power and lifted up the lowly … God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty …” But this is the opposite of how we have been trained to think. We live in a society that encourages us to learn the most, earn the most, own the most, be seen the most, and post the best version of ourselves on social media. In most of our lives, when we share a table, it is often a game of “one up,” of social and political power plays, comparing accomplishments and wealth. We judge ourselves and each other by our proximity to power, by our allegiance to a political ideology, or even a specific politician. We even judge our churches by how many people attend worship, how they set the table for worship, and by how formally or casually they approach God’s table. And all the while, God judges by a different metric, looking around for the people who have no proximity to power, for those who are missing from our tables. Beloved, who is missing? When we gather around our tables, who is not there? - Who is missing at the tables in our homes? - Who is missing at the tables in our social circles? - Who is missing at the tables in our neighborhoods? - Who is missing at the tables of our children’s cafeterias? The late Rachel Held Evans once wrote: “This is what God’s kingdom is like: A bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes, and there’s always room for more!” And at God’s table all are welcome, There is a place for everyone! It doesn’t matter what your bank account says, what your relationship status is, what gifts you bring or what gifts you lack; whether you are young or old, there is a place for you around God’s table, in the midst of this meal of love. Beloved, when we gather here at God’s table, who is missing? The demographics of this part of the county say that on average, our neighbor is a 35yo person of color. And yet, our average parishioner is a white person twice that age? We do an excellent job of making sure our neighbors’ tables are filled with good food. But Jesus challenges us to find a way to share not only our food, but our table, to share our meal, and to share God’s meal, with those who don’t look like us, who don’t share our proximity to power, who don’t share our socio-economic status, who suffer in ways that make us uncomfortable, and whose experience challenges us to reexamine our understanding of the world. This is the very work and witness of Jesus, who set aside equality with God to stand, or sit, in solidarity with the human condition, with all its joys and sorrow, until life and death and everything in between is swallowed up in the very life of God. We are called to move beyond simply sharing our food to sharing our table and indeed, our very lives with those our social structure has pushed to the margins. As we move toward discerning where God is calling this congregation to invest our lives and our resources, we are beginning to reexamine and reimagine the ways we embody the kingdom of God in our community. In the coming months, we will be inviting you to take a seat at the table as we discern together where God is calling this congregation to engage our neighbors and to make a seat for them around this table. For some of us, that we mean that we will have to take a “lower place,” that we will have to put the needs of our neighbors ahead of our own preferences and comfort. It will call us to witness and to stand in solidarity with the suffering going on around us. It will call us to free our lives from the love of money and the status it brings, trusting God to be our provision as we work to provide for our neighbors. And we will not take on this work alone. God has promised that God will never leave us or forsake us, and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So, let us come to this table trusting that it is Jesus himself who invites us to move up, and to move out, to invite others in. Amen.

When Zion was little, he was obsessed with lawnmowers. He pointed them out when we drove by someone mowing. He begged to stop at Home Depot so he could sit on one. He had his own toy versions of a push mower, trimmer, blower, and a John Deere riding mower. But there was one lawnmower he LOVED more than any other and it belonged to my father-in-law. This mower was a Kabota zero turn lawnmower And the reason I know the name brand was that every time we went to my in-law’s house – winter or summer, rain or shine, Zion would say, “I want to ride the Kabota.” In fact, he was so obsessed with my this lawnmower that for his 3 rd birthday all he wanted was a lawnmower cake that looked like PawPaw’s Kabota and we had to find a baker who could make it happen. But there was one day every week when no matter how much Zion begged, no matter how many tears fell, my father-in-law refused and that day was Sunday. For my father-in-law, my own grandfather, and many people I knew growing up, Sunday was the sabbath and this meant that any kind of work— or even the perception of work— was forbidden; unless, quoting from Deuteronomy, “your ox was in a ditch.” Sundays were sacred. They were for worship, lunch, naps, and televised sports. A Southern sabbath. But, ya know, despite sharing this experience with many a Southern family, it was always someone’s dad, grandpa, uncle, neighbor— but never someone’s mom, grandma, aunt. Seems this Southern Sabbath was made for men. All those Sunday morning pews crawling with monogrammed smocking and Buster Brown shoes were corralled by women. All those Sunday suppers were made by women. All those crisply ironed Monday morning shirts were starched by women. The sabbath might have been a day for resting from work, but only if you were getting paid for that work. While the fellas listening to this Gospel lesson might have wondered what Luke might mean when he speaks of a woman bent-over with a spirit of weakness, I would be the ladies listening don’t have to strain their imaginations too hard. We don’t know her name or where she comes from, but in our Gospel lesson this morning a woman, weary and bent over with a spirit of weakness, makes her way into the synagogue where Jesus is teaching. What the text hides from us in the mists of translation is that word here for “bent over” is used only one other place in scripture and there it means something closer to humiliation. Further, when the Gospels speak of oppressing spirits and demons, we should read this as a toxic relationship to something or someone. She bears in her body the weight and the weakness of a burden heaved upon her. She is bent not because she wants to avoid eye contact, or miss each morning’s sunrise, or forget what the stars look like, or never raise her face to the evening breeze, but because she has no other choice. While her fellow worshipers have arrived on time, she comes late. Jesus is teaching — most likely surrounded by a crowd – so who knows if she even notices him, bent over as she is? Luke tells us that by the time she encounters Jesus, she’s been crippled for eighteen years – almost two decades. According to the text, the woman doesn’t ask Jesus for help when she appears in the synagogue on this particular Sabbath. But Jesus sees her. And he stops preaching. Worship is put on hold. He calls her over and says the thing Jesus always says when he encounters the sick, the broken, the dying, the dead: “You are set free from your ailment.” Then, the Gospel tells us, Jesus “laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” “Immediately she stood up straight.” I wonder if we of this place or worship as a place where hunched over, humiliated, exhausted people are invited, encouraged, and empowered to “stand up straight.” Do we think of the Church as a place where people, maybe even ourselves— people who are bent under the weight of shame, judgment, invisibility, loneliness, false piety, condemnation, prejudice, legalism, and harmful theology can be embraced and restored? Do we believe that the Church is a place where Jesus still liberates people, transforms people, so that our full potential is realized? Do we have the courage to shift our focus from the worship we prefer to offer to the work of liberation God desires of us? Are we brave enough to invite others who are bent by the weight of oppression and systemic injustice to come and find healing, wholeness, and community? Will we let the praises of the liberated ones stand as a living sermon, to us and to the world? Or are we upset at the interruption? Unfortunately, the Gospel story itself offers some insight into these questions. As soon as Jesus frees this bent woman, a leader of the synagogue voices his frustration. Essentially, his angry criticism drowns out her joyful praise: “There are six days on which work ought to be done,” he tells the crowds, “come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” The leader protests because Jesus disrupts the regular Sabbath schedule of the synagogue and messes with the tradition. Worse, Jesus places a socially expendable, physically disabled, spiritually vulnerable woman at the center of the tradition. Jesus allows the woman's need to interrupt his own sermon, and welcomes her praise song even though it upends the synagogue's order of service. Now, to be clear, the leader of the synagogue is not a “bad guy.” This leader cares about right worship. Right belief. Right practice. He cares about honoring the Sabbath, obeying God’s laws, and upholding the faith-filled traditions of his spiritual community. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these goals. His intentions are not evil, and his concerns are not without merit, but his myopia is akin to that of all those Southern men who can enjoy a sabbath rest because of the bent over women in their own lives. What the leader misses is the heart of the Sabbath, the heart of God’s law, the heart of the tradition the heart of liberation. As Walter Brueggeman writes in his book Sabbath as Resistance, “Worship that does not lead to neighborly compassion and justice cannot be faithful worship of YHWH.” This synagogue leader and all those Southern men are missing justice and compassion. The kind of justice and compassion that exceeds legalism every single time. The kind of justice and compassion that doesn’t cling to orthodoxy simply for orthodoxy’s sake. The kind of justice and compassion that consistently sees the broken body, the broken soul, the broken spirit — instead of seeing a broken commandment. This story — like so many Gospel stories — illustrates a fundamental truth about Jesus’ ministry and God’s inbreaking reign: timing, etiquette, propriety, and decorum are not important, but compassion, justice, and liberation are essential! In the same way Jesus embraced and liberated the bent over woman from the oppression she experienced, Jesus embraces and frees the synagogue leader, transforming his understanding of sabbath and God’s work within it. And the challenging but very good news for us this day, is that here in this place, within and around us, through the Spirit, God embraces and liberates each of us, releasing us from shame and oppression, fear and isolation, prejudice and judgment raising us up so that we can see the good news of God’s love, so that we can BE the good news of God’s love. As the Spirit of God liberates each of us we are called and empowered to go and liberate others, by following the Spirit into the places where bodies, spirits, and souls feel broken offering healing and restoration, dignity and transformation. This is what it means to keep the Sabbath holy, this is how we honor the command of God, this is what Isaiah tells us this morning brings delight to the Lord. So beloved, let us go forth and proclaim the wonderful things God has done and continues to do in us! Amen.

I’m not a math guy. I am grateful that there are people who love math, like the accountant we pay each year to file our taxes in my household with two clergypersons. I say here and now, there is no way I could file my own taxes and not end up in prison. I just don’t have the patience for math. I was one of those kids who used to make Christmas trees and lightning bolts out of the bubbles on the scantron sheets used to score our standardized tests. And I do not have the patience for puzzles either. I didn’t break it. I am NOT about to fix it. I will admit that my impatience is mostly a product of pathology. I have known I have ADHD since I was 8, and I tend to struggle with an intolerance for small time irritation. I do not see problem-solving as an exciting challenge, or a fun activity for a rainy afternoon, rather I experience it as a tedious annoyance, as a confining obligation. I do not possess the capacity to remain focused on tasks that do not provide a nearly instant result. I cannot buckle down and figure out which value goes on which line of which form, and certainly not under threat of federal penalties. And the same goes for sorting through tiny pieces of cardboard to reconstruct an image I can see on the lid of the box! I admire those folks who realize the toaster isn’t working and grab a toolbox, take the whole thing apart, and put it back together again in working order, instead of Doordashing a new one from Target. I admire these folks— and the accountants and puzzle-workers of the world— because I see in them something of the heart of God; the God who makes something out of nothing, who sees value where I see only garbage; the God who sees utility where I see futility. This is what God is always doing, fashioning something from nothing, or as the African American Church reminds us, God makes a way out of no way. In fact, God is existence itself; all things come from God, and all things are returning to God. Apart from God, nothing could exist. All of reality is part of the divine existence, the very life and love of God. And our God is one who enjoys tinkering. Our God is always taking things apart to put them back together. Our reading from Hebrews tells us that this is precisely the experience of that “great cloud of witnesses,” who “won strength out of weakness,” who “received their dead by resurrection,” who were saved by the faithfulness of a prostitute, and yet so many more were “stoned to death, were sawn in two, were killed by the sword; they went about…destitute, persecuted, tormented.” And the world was not worthy of them because God makes worth from worthlessness, meaning from meaninglessness, hope from hopelessness, purpose from purposelessness. When Jesus says he comes to bring division I think he means like halves of the Red Sea, dry ground for those escaping, and quicksand for those pursuing. When Jesus says he comes to bring division I think he means like nuclear fission, the very process that created the universe, and now gives us the power to end life as we know it. When Jesus says he comes to bring division I think he means like boundaries, like the difference between genealogy and kinship, between obligation and service. This division, is a picture of divine judgment. What we feared would be our undoing is only our remaking. Jesus came to bring division and fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit, the fire with which John the Baptist promised we would be baptized. What we feared would be a separation, what we feared would be a conflagration, God has made our salvation. The fire that Jesus brings is the radiance of the life and love of God at the heart of this reality, a life and a love so big that it encompasses this whole reality, with all its joys and woes, pains and promises, faith and fear. A life and love so big it includes both the cross and the resurrection, both sinners and saints. Our God is one who enjoys tinkering. Our God is one who has the patience to take this world apart, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, atom by atom, and put it all back together again in working order, instead of discarding this one and making a new one. Our God is one who can take all the broken pieces of our lives and take delight in placing them back together to recreate the image of God. Our God is a math guy, a lover of fine details, a puzzle worker, a toaster fixer. Our God is a sea-parting, way-making, rescuer, calling slaves to freedom and masters to their reckoning. Our God is the nuclear blast at the heart of an atom that commands worlds from nothing and breathes life into stardust. Our God is the definer of family, freeing us from unhealthy relationships and becoming our Parent, our Sibling, our Community when we must draw hard lines to save our sanity, to save our life. Our God has the patience to tinker with this world until it is fixed, until it returns to its original purpose. The judgement we feared is the salvation we hoped for. So let us trust God to make something from our nothings, our meaninglessness, our hopelessness, our purposelessness, and let us run with perseverance the race that is before us, looking to Jesus, the creation and completion of our faith, who trusted God to make something of the Cross, and calls us to trust God to make something of our suffering too. Amen.

I think most of us have had the dreadful experience of hearing a parent or some authority figure call out our whole name. Not a diminutive, not a pet name, not a nickname, but your proper first and middle name. We knew instantly something was wrong, and our conscience would hit Mach 10 trying to figure out which of the things we knew we had done but weren’t sure they knew we had done that we ought to fess up to to spare our fledgling lives. We use whole names to mark the solemnity of big moments in worship. We baptized infants by first and middle names, not “Mama’s little snuggle bear.” We use our proper names as we make our wedding vows— “I, Ashton, take you Jennifer…” Many a Bobby, Frankie, and Tommy became Robert, Francis, and Thomas when their numbers came up for the Pacific Theatre, Korea, or Vietnam. And when we want to get away with something, we change our names, use an alias, to keep the authorities from having power over us. In the ancient world, to know the name of a spirit, a demon, or a god was to have power over it. When Jesus finds a man possessed, he asks the demon its name, and knowing its name, he casts the demon out. Today, we might call what Jesus did finding a diagnosis, When we have a name for what ails us we can fight it, manage it, maybe even cure it. But in Jesus’ day, this was the divining of spirits, naming the collective personality of institutions, governments, religions, armies, and determining whether they were good or evil. We have done something similar in the way we speak of the economy. It is not governments, corporations, or greedy individuals, then, who control prices and inflation, but the Market, a cold, impersonal force to whom we must cede control of our financial well-being lest we upset the Market and everyone suffers. So, despite the Deism, if not practical atheism, of Enlightenment figures like Adam Smith and John Locke, we have inherited a deity no less fickle and cantankerous than the totality of the Greek or Roman Pantheon, and we must bring sacrifice so as not to anger this Zeus in a three-piece suit. But this lesser god, is nothing more than an appetite, a gnawing, insatiable hunger for more and more. It must accumulate to exist. Like fire, it must be fueled, it must consume or it dies. By contrast, our God comes to Moses burning in a bush, and the bush is not consumed. Our God is being as such, existence itself, complete and needing nothing. God is the opposite of the Market. When God receives our sacrifice, God gives it back. When God creates, God is giving God’s self away, sharing God’s very being, and yet, God remains undiminished. God’s economy is an economy of enough, daily bread today, manna for the moment, not store houses, barns, Swiss bank accounts, or private space programs. Discipleship then is an invitation to participation in the self-giving life and love of God. When we give money away instead of hoarding it or leaving it to future generations we weaken the power of the Market to control us or demand our sacrifice. When we rob the Market of this power over our thinking, our giving, our living, we participate in God’s eternal flow. Like that bush, we will burn with holy fire and we will not be consumed. Naming this evil spirit is only the first step. The second step is casting it out. We know from the scriptures that Jesus’ disciples have not always been successful at casting out demons. In fact, some folks who aren’t even followers of Jesus have done a better job of naming and casting demons out than Jesus’ own followers. So, how do we do this? Where do we start? We start by refusing to believe the demon’s lies. We change our mindset from scarcity to the infinity of God’s very self. This demon only comes out by prayer and fasting. So, we pray for our daily bread, and we work to make sure our neighbors eat. Second, we participate in the self-giving of God. Our giving is about divestment of the power money promises when we hoard wealth. We have to choose to trust God’s provision instead of the alluring promises of a demon. When we pray for God’s kingdom to come and give us our daily bread we are giving lip-service to a lie if we do not also live like citizens of that Kingdom here and now, if we do not make sure our neighbors have daily bread, if we are bowing to anything that demands sacrifice and our allegiance as though it were a god. There is no god but God. The Market only has the power and the resources we give it. Emboldened and empowered by our acquiescence and fealty, by our sacrifice and devotion, it is a growing demon, a swallowing void, an appetite for destruction, of the planet, of our bodies, of our relationships, of our very lives. We can keep this demon in check by paying workers what they need to thrive instead of what the Market will bear. We keep the demon in check when we choose to live on enough and give away God’s abundance, instead of striving for the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. We keep the demon in check when we are rich toward God by being rich toward our neighbors, building longer tables instead of building bigger barns. We keep the demon in check when we spend our lives to save our neighbors. God is the fullness of all in all. The Market only has the power we give it. So, let’s call the demon by name and cast it out. The writer of Colossians tells us to “Put to death, therefore,” anything in us that creates an appetite that can never be satisfied, because this is nothing less than idolatry. Instead, worship the creator of all things, whose image burns in us but never consumes; the God who calls our names in baptism to exercise power though us, to call us into the eternal self-giving flow of God’s very life, to free us from the forces that defy God, the powers that rebel against God, and the sin that draws us from God, to proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace, which is the life everlasting. Amen. 

There once was a man who was quite overwhelmed by the state of the world. His heart broke to see so much poverty, to see such need among his neighbors. So, he began to pray, “Lord, there are so many needy people in the world. If you will let me win the lottery, I can so much good, help so many, make such a difference.” Every night, the man prayed earnestly, ardently, fervently, righteously that God would let him win the lottery, so he could help the poor. Eventually, the man died, broke and angry. He reaches heaven, furious and confused. He searches out God, marches straight up to God in all God’s splendid majesty and says, “How could you?! I prayed for so long; and not for myself, but for others. Why, in your infinite wisdom, didn’t you let me win the lottery?” This benevolent God Who Is Love glowed with a radiant brilliance to outshine the sum of all the stars and embraced the man in a hug that felt like being swallowed up by eternity and as intimate and sweet as a first kiss. God said to the man, as his anger melted into understanding, “My sweet, sweet child. You never bought a ticket.” Our lessons for today need a little set up, or we might miss or misinterpret their central theme. Several weeks ago, our passage from Luke 10 began in verse 1, stopped at verse 11, and restarted at verse 16, ending at verse 20. Those verses between 11 and 16, contained a little nugget we should circle back to now. In Luke 10, just after Jesus addresses the 70 he is sending to share the message of the kingdom Jesus says, “But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’” Jesus continues in verse 12, “ I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.” Jesus explains that the “sin of Sodom,” then, is a lack of hospitality. It has been convenient for centuries to point to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to stigmatize, demonize, and ostracize the LGBTQIA community as though the sin of Sodom was any deviation from the presumptive normality of heterosexuality. But Jesus himself says otherwise. Abraham’s persistence in our first reading that God’s mercy take precedence over God’s wrath, comes after Abraham himself has shown hospitality to God’s very presence, and this story stands as a counterpoint to the story of the same strangers visiting the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah and receiving no such welcome. And Jesus says these folks will have received a lighter sentence than those who reject those he has sent to proclaim the kingdom come near. This theme of hospitality has carried through the story of the Good Samaritan, of Abraham beneath the oaks of Mamre, of Mary and Martha’s hospitality, and now into this parable of the persistent neighbor. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. They are to approach God boldly, “Father,” but with reverence, “hallowed be your name.” Prayer should align their will with God’s, “your kingdom come” and to place their trust in God’s provision, “give us each day our daily bread.” They are to be honest and humble, “forgive us our sins,” and to give away the grace and mercy they hope to receive, “for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” And they are to ask God for guidance and rescue, “Do not bring us to the time of trial.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Jesus gives them a parable. Suppose a friend comes to you in the middle of the night, while your kids are asleep, and begs you for bread because he has just received unexpected guests and has nothing to give them. Jesus says that even if you don’t want to help, because of the racket your friend is making you’re likely to help just to shut him up. Jesus teaches his disciples that prayer consists of two things: asking and acting . Before God, Abraham is poor and bold to ask for what is needed even on behalf of others. Before his neighbor, the friend in need is bold to ask. But the neighbor is slow to act, so the friend remains in need, and so do his guests. Jesus instructs his disciples to ask and to act, to know we are poor before God, that even so we will have what we need, and that we participate in meeting needs when we forgive those indebted to us and when we are generous to give away what we need, trusting that we will be partakers of the sacrifice. Prayer, then, is the process of becoming what our neighbor needs. Prayer teaches us what to ask for— a better world filled with enough for everyone to eat— and how to act— we love God and our neighbor not in perfection, but in progress. Love is our faith and our calling. To those who have bread, eggs, and fish, give to those who ask of you, just as God has given to you. To those of you in need of bread, eggs, and fish, be bold to ask and it will be given to you. The late Pope Francis said, “First you pray for the hungry, then you feed them, because that’s how prayer works.” You can pray your whole life to win the lottery, but what do you what God to do if you never buy the ticket? You can pray your whole life for God’s kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and yet, what do you expect to happen if this faith doesn’t change the way you live, doesn’t make you a better, kinder, more generous, more peaceful, more loving person? How much better will God’s kingdom be if it doesn’t transform the people in it? We commit the sin of Sodom every time we close our ears to the cries of our neighbors. We commit the sin of Sodom every time we shut out those who bring the kingdom near. We commit the sin of Sodom every time we pray God’s kingdom comes and brings us our daily bread without living like the kingdom has come near and making sure our neighbors have enough to eat. We are to ask and to act, to hope and to trust, to pray and to practice. May we become disciples who know how to pray— who know what to ask and how to act— that we might all live together in God’s neighborhood on earth sharing our daily bread. It’s not winning the lottery, but it’s just the ticket. Amen.

This particular parable of the Good Samaritan is likely one of the most familiar of all the parables. We call a selfless do-gooder a good Samaritan. Many a Christian charity focused on care for the sick, the poor, the hungry, are named for the Good Samaritan. Pastor Crispin Wilondja runs Good Samaritan Ministries, a ministry focused on accompanying refugees who have been resettled in this area. I am sure that you can think of other ministries in other places with the same name. And because this parable is so familiar, I would bet that you could retell the story, at least in broad strokes. But familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt. If not contempt, at least indifference. We suppose we know the story and so, we half listen, assume we understand, and move on. We don’t wonder what a Samaritan is. We don’t question why it should be necessary to classify this Samaritan as ‘good.’ We smirk at the author’s insight about the legal expert wanting to vindicate or justify himself, calling to mind any number of lawyer jokes. And then because we have helped a charity named for the good Samaritan we pat ourselves on the back and thank God that we aren’t like that priest or that Levite. But this isn’t quite how parables work. They are not fixed stories with an obvious moral suggesting we adopt a certain value and practice a certain virtue. Instead, parables have to be exegeted, contemplated, mulled over, unpacked. Parables have to be read and reread in each new context, each new time and place. Parables are not data to be crunched, are not facts to be recorded are not empirical statements demanding our acquiescence, are not imperatives to be obeyed. They are invitations to introspection, to mystery, to ponderance, to conversation, to reflection. When the legal expert asks Jesus a question, Jesus responds with a question. When the expert asks a follow-up question, Jesus responds with a parable. The legal expert wants to know the fine print, he wants the loopholes, the exceptions. He wants a strict constructionist interpretation, an originalist viewpoint. He wants to know what the framers meant when they said “neighbor,” and more importantly, he wants to know exactly what they did not mean when they said “neighbor.” Jesus rejects this strict constructionist view. And it might be important here to point out that Jesus is the framer. Jesus tells the legal expert that he already knows the answer to his own question. Jesus seems to be echoing the tone of our first reading. The legal expert doesn’t need someone to go off and get the answer, doesn’t need someone to pronounce an edict, file an amicus brief, or author a majority opinion. No, Jesus tells a parable to show that the best interpretation is near the legal expert, the answer comes from his own mouth, out of his own heart. Jesus and the legal expert together become re-framers, reinterpreting the law through the lens of mercy. So, what then does this parable mean to us? How are we to read it? As a congregation, we have been asking this question for some time. Who is our neighbor? So, let’s read it again in our context. A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. In our context, this might sound like, “A refugee was fleeing the violence of his home for asylum in the US when he fell into the hands of coyotes who exploited him, deprived him of food and water, and dropped him off at the border half dead.” Jesus says that by chance a priest was traveling that road from Jerusalem to Jericho, and when he saw this naked, half-dead traveler he passed by on the other side. There are some who think that I should follow this priest’s example and pass by this whole subject. But the vows I made at my ordination and the vows we all reaffirm when we remember our baptism call us to work for justice and peace in all the world. It would be unfaithful for me to avoid topics of justice and peace when they are right in front us everyday. Pastor Crispin is preaching the same message with his very life, working to help and to heal refugees fearful for their lives and abandoned to their own devices here in our community. Jesus says that “likewise a Levite, when he came to the place [in the road] and saw him, passed by on the other side.” Now, the Levites were the tribe of Israel from whom the priest’s came. They were a privileged group, religiously and socially. They were the keepers of the laws and the customs that made the Hebrew people the Hebrew people, that made them God’s people. I imagine that this Levite thinks this banged-up traveler isn’t his problem. He probably also thinks that this is why he usually avoids this part of town. He’s likely worried, “If they beat this guy up, they might get me too. “It’s just not safe to stop and help. “Someone else will take care of this— some agency, some do-gooder. “This is also what that politician has been talking about; undesirables making the streets unsafe for people like me. “I’d better get out of here.” But then, Jesus says a Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans were a divergent religious and ethnic sect. They were outsiders, heretics, everything the legal expert, priests, and Levites were working so hard not to be. This Samaritan then puts the legal expert, the avoidant priest, and the privileged Levite to shame, demonstrating that without vocational obligation, without their religious heritage, without legal expertise, this foreign heretic was a better interpreter of the law than the legal expert. Jesus reframed the question. The question is not Who is my neighbor [and therefore, who isn’t]? The question is, if you have the law and the prophets, if you know the whole of the law and prophets are summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor, then why don’t you become a neighbor by practicing mercy? Neighbor-hood is a relationship of mutuality. You can’t have a neighbor without being a neighbor yourself. In these next few months, we will be trying to reframe this question, “Who is our neighbor?” and “How can we become a neighbor to them?” Our congregation is shrinking, our funds are dwindling, and we have been hoping for easy answers and loopholes. We have encountered opportunities to become what our neighbors need us to be, and we have passed by on the other side. We have clung to a mission statement some 30-plus-years old. We have hoped that someone else would take responsibility for the ministry here. We have been too religious, too frightened, too complacent, too tired, and by our own admission, too old to engage in the ministry in our path. We have hoped that someone else would go up the mountain or across the sea— or down in the ditch— and come and tell us what we want to hear, would bring us throngs of children and young families, would restore our former glory at best, or would absolve us of responsibility for our dissolution at least. But Jesus tells us that the answers to our questions are near us, they will come from our mouths, and from our hearts. I will be working together with the council and the Mutual Ministry team to define a listening process to discover and to voice a new mission statement and a new vision for this congregation. This will take all of us. It will be uncomfortable, it will cost each of us something, but it will make us neighbors, it will make us merciful, it will fulfill the promises of our baptism to work for justice and peace in all the world. We will know who our neighbors are and they will know theirs, too. Amen.

Today is the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover, the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the Church. This is a day of celebration , a day of joy and feasting. We deck the place and the minister in red, the color of fire, the color of blood, the color of love. Yesterday, when Deacon Sue was ordained, we invoked the Holy Spirit, we laid hands on her, and we put a red stole across her shoulder, a symbol of service derived from the towel Jesus tied around his waist when he washed the disciples’ feet. Red is the color of the Church because it is the color of the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, a mighty rushing wind and tongues, or language, that spread through the assembled crowd like a wildfire. This Holy Spirit fell on ethnic Jews and on Gentile foreigners alike, and they all became something new together. But like that one-hit wonder “Closing Time” by Semisonic reminds us “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” We come to this point in the metanarrative of the Scriptures after the Resurrection of Jesus, his appearances to his followers, and his ascension into heaven with the promise of the Holy Spirit and that he would come again. And then, they waited. The apostles— including Mary Magdalene— Jesus’ mother, the other disciples and followers had at this point already begun to gather on the first day of the week. And so they gathered this Sunday morning, as they had been doing, to wonder and wait together. And when this hot and holy wind blew through like a tornado in a wildfire these waiting wonderers were set ablaze like that burning bush that called to Moses and set God’s people free. They each spoke with tongues on fire, burning with love, illuminating the gospel, and purifying the earth. These Gentile proselytes from across the Roman world heard the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of David, speaking to them in a language they could understand. Paul called this the spirit of adoption. There is no human being who is not a child of God. God is the father, the parent of us all. But to have a mother and a father is very different than having a mom and a dad. It is one thing to recognize that we all have a relationship to God and it is another to have a relationship with God. When Paul says in Romans 8 “When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” Abba is an Aramaic term of affection, meaning something like “Daddy.” The Spirit comes to make us know that we already have a relationship to God as parent, creator, sustainer; but we are invited to have a relationship with God that is deep, intimate, enduring There is a principle in counseling were the relationship between any two people or things is actually a third entity. In the relationship between a married couple the marriage is that third entity. That marriage must be nurtured, prioritized, calibrated over time in order to remain healthy. Theologian Walter Wink theorizes that this is what the ancient world meant by talking of spirits and demons. A toxic and harmful relationship is a demonic spirit. A good and healthy relationship is an angelic spirit. I think this is how we should think of the Holy Spirit. The relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Christ and the Church, the relationship between individual believers, that goes beyond a mere relationship to the other and draws us into relationship with the other, this is the Holy Spirit; that third divine entity that makes two into One. At creation, God breathes a hot and holy wind into molded earth and this created thing became a living being precisely because God desired to be more that related to this creation; God wanted a relationship with this creation. So God named this living being, God walked with this living being, God saw Godself in this living being; God and this living being shared a relationship as close as breath. In Hebrew, the language of the book of Genesis, ruach means breath, wind, and spirit. The same ruach that hovered over the waters before creation is the same ruach breathed into this living being. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, pneuma means breath, wind, and spirit. That same mighty rushing pneuma blowing through that crowd on the day of Pentecost is the same pneuma descending like a dove at Jesus’ baptism, and that same pneuma Jesus promises to send to us to make us one with the Father as he and the Father are one. The ancient mystics tell us that this is precisely why the Spirit came as a tongue on Pentecost; because it is the tongue that forms the Word within us, and it is the pneuma within us that brings that Word to life. There is more to this Christian faith than assurance of our relationship to God. By our baptism we are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, that is, we are made aware of our relationship to God in Christ and we are invited into a deep, intimate relationship with God. And today, as we come forward for communion, I invite you to receive again this anointing oil, marking your forehead with the sign of the cross and the seal of the Holy Spirit, our deep, intimate relationship with God. Let this tongue of fire form the Word within you and the ruach, the pneuma bring it to life. Let this encounter lead you into relationships with your neighbors and let this relationship lead to mutual understanding. Let this hot and holy wind sweep your inner house “clean of its furniture” that you might make room in your heart for the new thing God is doing. Let this ruach, this pneuma be the Holy Spirit, the relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Christ and the Church, the relationship between individual believers, that goes beyond a mere relationship to the other and draws us into relationship with the other. This is the Holy Spirit; that third divine entity that makes us into One. Amen. 

This past Thursday was the day of ascension, a holy day when Christians around the world remember and reflect on Jesus’ ascension into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God. This day is important. In fact, this holy day is right up there with Christmas and Easter. This is a day when, as Jesus promises, we see scripture fulfilled and wisdom given. In Jesus’ final moments with his disciples he once again shares the gospel: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. What this means is that beginning with God’s covenant to Israel, extending to the disciples, and to all generations to come, God’s forgiveness and salvation reigns! And not only has God kept these promises, but God makes new promises promises of grace and forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ascension truly is one of the most holy days in the church’s life, full of promise and hope. But then, Jesus leaves. And I find myself mystified and perplexed. You mean to tell me that God’s ultimate work is finally accomplished in and through Jesus Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection and that because of Christ we too have been justified, saved, and have the promise of resurrection and then he just… leaves? Is this the feast of the ascension or the feast of the abandonment? Surely those standing there that day must have felt the words of the psalmist, the words of Jesus from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And if we’re honest, maybe we’ve felt that too. Maybe you’ve looked up to heaven and felt the vastness of space, the breadth to time, and the depths of the world’s pain and wondered if Jesus leaving this whole Church thing in the hands of his followers was such a good idea. Maybe you’ve felt that black hole of grief collapsing in on itself and swallowing worlds and starlight with a never-ending appetite, trying to fill the void created by your loss. Maybe you’ve felt the brokenness of divorce, the fear of your diagnosis, the shame and aching need of your addiction, the disgusted resignation of being unable to change your circumstances, the injustices of the world, or the person you see in the mirror. Or maybe you’ve just read or watched the news. Maybe you’ve feared for the safety of our immigrant neighbors, or our poor neighbors, or our elderly neighbors. And maybe you’ve wondered if Jesus didn’t so much ascend as escape, blow dodge, go AWOL, or give up on the whole salvation project. I think to some degree our sense of abandonment comes from the language we use to describe what happened in the ascension. We say Jesus “ascended,” was caught up to heaven. We say Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. We paint Jesus in baroque opulence, borne on the wings of cherubim and standing on sunbeams, rising from the earth, departing our realm for a distant, invisible, intangible Heaven beyond our mortal reach. And this language, in words and pictures, teaches us to think of the ascension as a separation, a departure, a loss of proximity to our God. And so we have over-spiritualized the word salvation because of it. We have assumed that our salvation is also our escape, departure, separation from our neighbors, from any responsibility for the state of the world and the plight of our neighbors. Which is why when the earthquake in our first reading causes the chains to fall off Paul and Silas and all the prisoners in that Philippian jail, and the doors swing wide open, we might have assumed, as the jailer did, that all the prisoners would have escaped, “r-u-n-n-o-f-t,” like Everett, Delmer, and Pete in O Brother, Where Art Thou? We cannot fathom what it means to be saved, to be, as Luther said, the perfectly free lord of all and the entirely bound servant of all all at the same time. And all this makes us think of the incarnation in the abstract, like an anomaly in the life of God. It makes us think of the incarnation as an impossible thing we are expected to believe as a litmus test for our faith rather than the living reality of the whole life of God. Theologian Wellford Hobbie writes, “The ultimate question is not whether there is someone or something out there in limitless space whom we call God, but whether there is someone who knows something of the dust of the earth, something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it.” When Jesus meets the disciples in that locked room that first Easter morning, he comes in the flesh, scarred from the ordeal of the cross. He comes physically, inviting their embrace. He comes hungry, sharing their food. And he comes reminding them of all the promises God had made, and all the promises God had kept. He comes defining the cross and proving in is very body God’s power to redeem. He comes entirely free in the sovereignty of God and in total solidarity with the human condition. He comes to make us one with God through the preaching of the apostles. Here indeed is a God who knows something of the dust of the earth, who knows something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it. Can cry its name into the stench of the tomb and rescue it from death. Here indeed is a God who’s own face was stained with blood, who’s own body is but the dust of earth. Here indeed is a God who not only feels for human existence but feels with human existence. The ascension is not the end of the incarnation. The ascension is not the end of God with us, not the end of grief or pain, suffering or death. The ascension is the incarnation exposed, the incarnation universalized before our very eyes. In Jesus we have found the hidden God. And in the ascension, we have found God hidden in our very lives. Christ is incarnate in us. We have not been abandoned by the ascension; we have been appointed, appropriated, called up and sent out, made one with the very heart of God. We are the living, breathing, bleeding and dying body of Christ. If Christ is the image of the invisible God, then the Church is the image of the invisible Christ. When the world wants to know that there is someone who knows something of the dust of the earth, something of the blood-stained face human existence wears and can feel for it, the world is looking to the Church. When the church prays for an end to gun violence, poverty, war, loneliness, disease, tyranny— and then takes no meaningful action, takes no real risk to see them end, our neighbors do not see God answer prayers. When the church takes a moment of silence in response to the grotesque horror of racism, sexism, classism, the world hears the silence of God. When the church remains silent, the world experiences the absence of God. The ascension of Jesus is not God’s abandonment of the world, but the church’s silence, inaction, and insistence on its own rights is God’s absence, failure, and indifference in the experience of our neighbors. Salvation is not freedom from responsibility for the suffering of our neighbors. Beloved, the incarnation continues in us. The Gospel is embodied in us. In us Christ is dying, In us Christ is rising, and in us Christ has come again. Christ has descended into our personal hells to lead us out of all that holds us captive. Christ calls our names into the tomb to free us from all that binds us. Christ is the Word spoken into the formless void of grief and shame and fear and doubt, Let there be life, let there be love, let there be peace, let there be faith. The world wants to know that there is a God out there who knows something of the blood-stained face of human existence, and can offer more than lip-service to it. Martin Luther said, “God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.” Perhaps in our context, we might hear his words this way, “God doesn’t need our voices, our advocacy, our votes, but our neighbors do.” The incarnation of God in Christ is the revelation of God’s solidarity with the human condition. The ascension is God’s commissioning of the Church to practice the same radical solidarity with a world in need. We have been called to embody the good news of God’s solidarity with the human condition. People of God, turn your eyes and hearts, and voices toward your neighbor that they may know what is the hope to which Christ has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power that they might see Christ in the Church, which is his body. And when we live out this faith, we are embodying the resurrection, proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. Amen.