Seek and Save

Sunday, October 31st, 2004
22nd after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 19:1-10

1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ 9 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he
He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see
And as the Savior passed that way he looked up in that tree
And he said,” Zacchaeus, you come down!
For I’m going to your house today!
For I’m going to your house today!

How many of us have never heard the story of Zacchaeus?

How many of our earliest impressions of what it means to be a Christian come from nursery rhymes and Sunday school choruses? Can you identify the first time you heard about Jonah and the whale (NOT the big FISH), or Noah and the Ark, Daniel in the lion’s den?

Some stories stick with us. As children, we’re geared to focus in on those aspects of stories we hear with which we can identify … hmm … come to think of it, I suppose the same can be said of us as adults, as HUMANS.

If there’s no common ground, there’s very little to hold our attention, and so we move on – we listen for a couple of minutes and then mentally check out, assuming that there IS no common ground.

Let’s look a little more closely at the story. What is Luke trying to convey with this story – not ONLY in and of itself, but as a part of the tapestry woven together by the different stories that have preceded it and which follow it?

The last half of chapter 18 shapes our understanding of this text:

(18:15-17) First, people bring little children to see Jesus. The disciples rebuke the parents, but Jesus intervenes saying, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs".

(18:18-27) Then a rich ruler comes to Jesus asking how he might be saved. He goes away sadly after learning that he will have to sacrifice his riches. Jesus says, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" Those who hear Jesus ask, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus replies, "What is impossible for mortals is possible for God".

(18:35-43) Then a blind beggar sitting at the side of the road shouts his plea for mercy. The crowd tries to quiet him, but the man persists. Jesus orders the man to be brought to him and declares, "Receive your sight; your faith has saved you".

In each of those instances, Jesus reverses the ordinary. He welcomes children and beggars, but places heavy demands on those whom others would welcome with open arms.

In the case of the rich ruler, Jesus leaves the door ajar. It is difficult for rich people to be saved, but God can save them. This leads naturally into our Gospel lesson, the story of Zacchaeus, a rich man who finds salvation. The rich ruler is too attached to his possessions to give them to the poor. Zacchaeus, on the other hand, voluntarily pledges to give half his possessions to the poor and to make restitution to any whom he has cheated. If he does what he says he will do, he will have voluntarily done what Jesus asked of the rich ruler (18:18-27).

In preparing for the message today, there’s an interesting tidbit of information that was brought out – in verse 8 - It is not clear whether Zacchaeus has defrauded anyone. His verbs, "give" (didomi) and "pay back" (apodidomi) are present tense (rather than future tense as the NRSV translates them) and may indicate that he routinely gives to the poor and offers restitution to those whom he has wronged. In other words, he might be innocent of any wrongdoing, and what we’re dealing with is Jesus making known that fact by publicly associating with Zaccheus. In a very literal sense, Jesus pronounces his blessing on Zaccheus and his household, and it is a transformational experience.

If we were to follow that perspective of the story, the focus changes substantially, but not ultimately.

Last week I referred to Zacchaeus and his "dramatic" turnaround. That is still the generally accepted understanding of the story: that prior to meeting Jesus he was a scoundrel, but that when he met Jesus here, in this story, when Jesus accepted him, trusted him, and sat and ate with him, he in turn learned to accept not only Jesus, but his community as well.

Consider for a moment the possibility that at some point prior to THIS particular encounter, Jesus had already had some influence on Zaccheus. Somewhere along the line, Zacchaeus was standing behind a group of people listening to Jesus speak – and something Jesus said triggered that change that we assume happened at the end of this scene – only before.

The problem is, everyone – and I do mean everyone - in Jericho can’t get past the fact that Zaccheus is the chief tax collector (v 7 – “ALL who saw it began to grumble”).

Typically, a chief tax collector contracted with Romans to collect taxes in a particular town or region, and paid a substantial fee for the franchise. He then subcontracted the actual collection of taxes. His profit was the difference between his franchise fee and the amount of taxes collected. The system was prone to abuse, rewarding tax collectors for excessive collections. If the citizenry rebelled, Roman soldiers stood ready to put down the rebellion (although a tax collector who provoked excessive rebellion risked losing his franchise). Jews despised tax collectors as mercenaries and thieves.

A leopard can’t change its spots, right? So what we’re dealing with here is prejudice. Prejudice on the part of the general population of Jericho towards this diminutive man, who has been fundamentally changed, but no one sees it because they still only think of him as Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector.

That seems to be the whole point of Jesus’ coming. He changes us. Dramatically, drastically, radically, sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly, but he does change us. What he may be doing here with Zaccheus is broadening that effect.

As chief tax-collector, Zacchaeus was an outsider, a social leper. Jesus brings him inside again, declaring him to be a "son of Abraham," just has he has pronounced the woman crippled with a spirit of infirmity for 18 years a "daughter of Abraham" (13:16).

Zacchaeus is not saved in isolation. Jesus declares that "salvation has come to this house" (oikos -- which in this context implies "household" or "family"). Zacchaeus' salvation will affect the entire community as he provides support for the poor and restitution to those whom he has defrauded. A community could be transformed by the presence of a tax collector whom people can trust.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Perhaps this story says more about the community of Jericho than it does about Zacchaeus. Perhaps what we need to notice is the reaction of the crowd - and Jesus' actions in spite of them.

Maybe the message for us today is that we are to acknowledge - and celebrate - the transformative power of the Holy Spirit WHEREVER it moves - HOWEVER unlikely a place.

We dare not judge any person hopeless. Whether we are murderers, terrorists, racists, or rapists, gossips, liars, or gluttons, Christ seeks to save us all. Sometimes, against all odds, he succeeds.

Let’s pray.


with deep gratitude to Richard Niell Donovan

Justification


Sunday, October 24th, 2004
21st after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 18:9-14

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10‘two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be
exalted.’

There’s a real drawback to growing up hearing the Bible read on a regular basis. I wouldn’t say I’ve been immersed in the Bible, though in comparison, I well might have been. There are still sections – largish ones – that are unfamiliar to me. But for the most part, those sections we most often hear preached on, or read from, are ones that I’ve become accustomed to hearing about.

The drawback is this: familiarity breeds contempt.

I don’t mean I’m contemptuous of the Bible in ANY sense of the word, but it’s the same idea that applies after you’ve written something. You get someone ELSE to proofread it. Because if you try to do it yourself, you’ll miss the obvious mistake because your mind doesn’t catch it as it goes by. You read what you intended to write, and not what you actually wrote.

So this text has been on my screen on the computer for the last week, and I finally sat down to concentrate on the finalization process of the message last night, and read the first part of the introductory sentence, and there it is, plain as day: a disclaimer.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt

The disclaimer has a purpose. It clues us in to whether we need to be listening or not. If you know you’re NOT righteous, then there’s no need to listen to the parable about to be told. Since we readily admit our own unworthiness, there’s no point in taking up room where someone else could benefit from hearing what is about to be told. So, just excuse me a moment while I mentally check out of hearing range and you just carry right on, Jesus. Tell them what you were getting ready to tell, and I’ll wait over here, where those of us who don’t need to hear this particular parable will be waiting for you.

Hmmm… then in spite of yourself, you start to tune into the rest of the parable, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector … let’s put it in a modern-day context, the Preacher and the Casino Owner … they both walk into the church to pray.

The preacher, in all sincerity, begins his prayer with thanksgiving – thanking God for making him … Holy. For making him a better person than the folks he’s been hearing about in the news recently; thieves, terrorists, pop stars that flaunt their less-than-exemplary lifestyles and laugh at those who try to point out that what they are doing is slowly eroding the fabric of the society in which we live.

He notices out of the corner of his eye the casino owner sitting quietly in the back corner, head bowed. He plows ahead with his prayer of thanksgiving to God for making him better than the Casino Owner there, in the back, everyone KNOWS there’s NO way HE’S going to turn over a new leaf … some people are just beyond reach.

“But I’m different, God, I fast twice a week, I tithe, I go to all the meetings I’m supposed to, say the things I’m supposed to, DO the things I’m supposed to, sing all the right ‘amens’… you can count on me, God, to do my part, and yours as well, for that matter …

Then we have the introduction of the second character. The Casino Owner.

Early in 1981, I was watching an episode of Hill Street Blues. The show broke a lot of new ground in its day. It was one of the first police shows that tried to be true to life insofar as it made the characters – ALL the characters – multidimensional. You got to know that both the policemen and women as well as the crooks and bad guys had both good and bad qualities, warts and halos, as it were. Looking back on some of the episodes today they seem a little more melodramatic than they felt at the time, but in some ways the producers were still working their way out of the old framework.

In the episode, the head sergeant, Esterhaus, is told that an old nemesis of his was caught walking into the precinct, and is down in the holding cell. Apparently the man had been imprisoned for several years, and there was a bitter history between the two. I don’t remember the ex-con’s name, but I remember the scene: Sergeant Esterhaus hesitates and seems to agonize over how to even approach the man – you get the impression that whatever the man was like, he was NOT someone you’d want to get on the wrong side of – and Esterhaus was DEFINITELY on his bad side. Towards the end of the hour, Esterhaus finally makes his way down to the holding area, and the man at first is in the shadows at the back of the cell.

Sgt. Esterhaus steps up to the bars and visibly steeles himself for an explosion of some sort – a ranting, raving, yelling, spitting, and cussing out from his longtime enemy.

It doesn’t happen.

The man steps out of the shadows and he’s decently dressed. His face is clear – clear in the sense that he’s not scowling or frowning, or spitting, for that matter.

I don’t remember his exact words, but the gist of what he says to Esterhaus is this:

“I just wanted to come by and tell you that I’m a changed man. I’m not the same man you put behind bars. I’ve been saved, and Jesus has changed me. I love you and Jesus loves you too.”

Though I’d only been back in the States for a little over 3 months, I’d already gotten used to born again Christians being … maybe not ridiculed, but more often than not being made into caricatures, either portrayed as hypocrites or simple-minded followers of some egomaniacal televangelist.

What was so stunning to me about this portrayal was that it did none of that. Esterhaus’ reaction to him was tentative, but willing to guardedly accept his assertion at face value. We never saw the character again. There’s no subsequent dialogue that throws any doubt on the man’s change. It was left at that. In short, it treated the character as genuine, as honest.

That is what happens in the parable. The Tax collector, an almost-universally reviled person in first-century Palestine, and probably most anywhere else they were found, is presented … unvarnished. There is no spin to be found on him. We find him in the midst of confession, and supplication.

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

And it’s his only line!

He doesn’t go through a radical transformation, at least not in so many words. There’s no resolution to his tax-collector status – not in the same way that Zaccheus is reconciled with those from whom he extorted money. We don’t find this man returning four times what he stole to the people he robbed.

All he does is cry out to God, and admit he is a sinner.

And here’s the capper. Jesus concludes the parable in the very next sentence by telling the people who are listening (remember, they are the ones who ‘trusted in themselves to be righteous and regarded others with contempt’), that the tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified. That is, the Casino Owner went home with God’s blessing rather than the Preacher. And in case they didn’t get it, he spells it out for them: ‘for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted’

The two men in the parable were seeking justification before God. That is, they were seeking acceptance from God, seeking, as it were, salvation.

One, the seemingly more righteous of the two – the one who was doing all the “right” things – walks away unjustified. The other, the one whom proper society had turned away from, walks away justified. What’s the difference? As near as I can tell, the difference is in the heart, in the attitude of the heart. The Preacher believes himself capable of bringing something to God in exchange for justification. The Casino Owner recognizes that there is nothing he can bring to God to change HIS condition – nothing, that is, but a contrite heart, a broken spirit, a realization that it is only through the Mercy of God that we can approach the throne of Grace.

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

For one thing, it means that yes, we’re nearing the end of the sermon, but please don’t start shifting into ‘leave’ gear just yet.

What this means for Jerusalem Baptist Church is this: if we are to become a portrait of the kingdom of heaven, we need to be prepared to join in fellowship with people who know themselves to be totally reliant on God’s grace for salvation. We need to remind ourselves that, when all is said and done, on that crucial point there is no distinction between us. There is none more righteous than another. There are only receivers of the free gift of God through faith – as Paul says, lest anyone should boast. We boast in the grace of the one who calls us to himself.

Let’s pray.

Travel Tips


Sunday, October 17th, 2004
20th after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. 4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: 2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. 5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

This message is really more of a letter, and though you’re all welcome to listen in, it is directed primarily at Hannah.

Hannah, I don’t remember all that we talked about that evening in April of last year when you told me and mommy that you understood what it meant to give your life to Jesus, and make him Lord of your life, I wonder if you do. I DO remember telling you that you’ll come up on times when you’re not sure. So let’s start from there.

The passage we all read from responsively a few minutes ago was part of a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a young pastor named Timothy almost 2 thousand years ago.

We need to stop before we go on and talk about what that means. ‘The passage’ means that what we read is part of a larger piece of writing. In this case, the larger piece of writing is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to a friend of his named Timothy. Timothy was kind of like Paul’s son, but not in the normal way. Paul adopted Timothy as a son in Christ. That is, in a way, Timothy was probably more like a younger brother to Paul.

Anyway, there are several letters and writings that were put together a long time ago into what we now call the New Testament. The New Testament is divided into the first four books, which are called the gospels, which is short for ‘the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’, and then comes the book of Acts, which is short for ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ which tells us about what the early church was like – how the first followers of Jesus Christ lived together and began to form the Church. It is followed by 21 letters and one apocalyptic book. Some of the letters, most, in fact, were written by the apostle Paul, like this one to Timothy, others were written by other people, some named and others not. When you open any of those letters to read them, never forget that someone, somewhere, a long time ago, was writing to someone else, trying to help them understand a little more about what it means to follow Christ.

We’ve been talking about the New Testament, and as you know, there’s an Old Testament as well.

The Old Testament is a lot longer than the New Testament, and a lot older. The Old Testament is full of stories of gardens, floods, battles and miracles, kings and prophets, poems and songs, and sayings, and laws. The first section is called the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which tell of the forming of the world, and the giving of the law to Moses. There are parts of those five books that move along really fast, like a good movie, say, The Prince of Egypt. But there are other parts that just go on and on and on, and seem to not really have any relevance to today, to what it means to follow Christ today, with things going on today, with the way your friends are acting today towards you. It’s going to be hard sometimes to find what it is exactly that sections of Deuteronomy say about life today. But hold on. That day will come. In the meantime, read some in the book of Psalms.

There are other sections of the old testament as well – the poetic, or wisdom books, which include Psalms and Ecclesiastes, and the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. They may sometimes run together, those Minor Prophets, and it may be hard to pronounce some of their names, or the names of the people they were speaking about and to. In fact, you’ll find that to be the case in a lot of the Old Testament. But please don’t let that stop you from reading it. I know you love to read, and if that love of reading extends to the Bible, so much the better.

The important thing to remember about them all is that they were all written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. One way or another, God had a hand in this. Not only in how it came together, but in how it was first put down. What you are going to find is that the Bible is sacred not because of who wrote it, or because someone says it is, but because of what it is about.

You see, when Paul wrote to Timothy and said,

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

He wasn’t including the letter he was writing right then in the ‘All Scripture’. He was talking about what they already had and accepted and understood to BE Holy Scripture – it’s what we call the Old Testament. There’s a connectedness between the Old Testament and the New Testament, though, that you can see when you step back from it some. There are places in the Old Testament that talk about things that, when you go to the New Testament and read, you find THAT was what the Old Testament was telling about. Here’s the thing: the latest part of the Old Testament and the earliest part of the New Testament were written about 500 years apart from each other.

We belong to a tradition that honors the Bible as the inspired word of God. As you get older, you might hear arguments about what ‘inspired’ means, and you may hear the word ‘inerrant’. Right now, all you need to worry about is this: God speaks to us through this book. Through these words, whether they are in the Old or New Testaments, God touches our lives, and changes us. It doesn’t always happen in the same way. That’s the neat thing about it. As you go through life, and read a particular passage, it may mean one thing to you at one age, and a few years later, you’ll go back and read it and it’ll mean something different. You see it from a different point of view. Neither I nor anyone can predict just how that will change, because it is the moving of the Holy Spirit that changes you by reading and by living it.

That was kind of what Paul was telling Timothy when he said that “the sacred writings … are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus.”

Paul goes on to tell Timothy to DO some things: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

So proclaim, be persistent, convince, rebuke, and encourage. But what do you think he was talking about? He was talking about the gospel. The Good News that Jesus Christ was God with us, reconciling us to God’s self and teaching us to live life fully – as fully as he did, as fully as God intended us to live it in the first place.

That means not backing away, not hiding, not avoiding something hard. I think you learned that from Mrs. Collins, practicing and working on your bridges and tick-tocks, and other gymnastic moves. It means always being willing to listen, willing to talk, willing to forgive, willing to hold out your hand and hold someone ELSE’S hand to pull them through a hard time they might be having. It means recognizing when you’ve done something wrong and hurt someone and going to that person and sincerely, honestly, apologizing and telling them it will not happen again and mean it.

It means not being worried about what other people think about who you sit with, talk with, are friends with, eat with, and share your life with. It’s about knowing that God loves everyone, and you doing the same thing.

It means not being afraid of the hard questions, and not being afraid of not getting an answer, because sometimes that’s what faith means – it means waiting patiently for an answer that might or might not come in this lifetime.

You’ll come across people in your life who will tell you they have it all figured out, that the Bible is not a mystery to them. They can give you an exact date for when the world was created, and for when it will end. They will tell you that things that are happening today or have happened recently are in the book of Revelation, written right at 1,900 years ago. There are people that will tell you that their answers are the only answers. I would caution you about them. Living out what we read in the word of God involves an active following of the Spirit of God. It means ‘checking in’ on a regular basis with the author. It means carrying on a conversation with God each and every day of your life.

Please don’t ever let God be boxed in by what someone tells you, that he was only active in a certain way thousands of years ago. The Bible is an overall testament to God’s being in relationship – God’s pursuing a relationship – with humanity. Do you know what pursue means? It means chase. God chases after us.

And the best example of that chase is Jesus. God sent his only son to love us and show us the way. And that is why we are called Christians, because we follow Christ. And following Christ means giving yourself up for the sake of Christ. It means putting others’ needs in front of your own. (You may want to remember that as you and Caleb and Judson get older.) It means loving your family – blood relatives or not – whether you like them or not, seeing them as God sees them, as worthy of the life of God’s son Jesus Christ as you are.

Never forget that the family of God is bigger than just the people in this room. Do you remember what we read last week in our Wednesday night Bible Study on Mark, where Jesus was told that his Mother and brothers had come to see him? He asked who his Mother and brothers and sisters were – and he said ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’ Don’t forget that the family of God is going to look as different from each other as you and I are different, even more so. And never, ever, ever forget to love them. Because that is how people will know you’re a Christian – by your love.

I love you Hannah.

Let’s pray.

Gratitude - in Percentages

Sunday, October 10th, 2004
19th after Pentecost (Communion Sunday)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

“We have no way to thank you.”
“How can we ever thank you?”
“God will repay you.”
“Thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you so much.”

I suspect that if we went around the room, at one time or another, we’ve all … hopefully … been on the receiving end of one of those expressions of gratitude.

‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God
except this foreigner?’

It almost sounds … racist, doesn’t it? At the least, it sounds … isolationist … Jesus, the savior of the world, the lamb of God, the author and redeemer of our faith, the one who came so that all the world would be saved, is now here, referring to the single one of the 10 lepers he’d just healed coming back to thank him, and seems to be able to think of nothing better to call him by than to highlight the fact that he is a Samaritan. It’s something you’d expect to hear from someone like …well, Peter, or Paul, before his conversion … or definitely the Pharisees … we could even read a little bit of exasperation in Jesus’ tone as he says it.

‘… none of them found … except this foreigner?’

In defense of the other nine, he had just told them to go and show themselves to the Priests. No mention of ‘go and be healed’, or ‘your sins have been forgiven’, or ‘your faith has made you whole’ – at least at the beginning of the passage. His response to their undefined request for mercy was a simple command: ‘Go and show yourselves to the Priests.’ So they did.

There was an understood subtext to what Jesus did. HE knew and THEY knew that, to meet the requirements of being declared ‘clean’, they needed to be examined by a priest, who would then declare them healthy.

I wonder if any of them asked themselves why Jesus told them to go see the priest when it was obvious to everyone that they were LEPERS. And as far as anyone knew, there was no cure.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd? I suppose it might not so much, since most all of us know the rest of the story. But the thought is, why do something that would only apply in a situation in which you’ll never find yourself again?

They were healed as they were walking.

There's an image for you. How often do we go along, walking on this pilgrimage of faith, only to one day look back and realilze that we've been healed -- sometimes of something we didn't even know we suffered from?

Imagine walking along a dusty Palestinian road, surrounded by your fellow lepers, maybe you’re in the middle of the group, and you’re looking down at the back of the legs of the man in front of you. You’ve grown accustomed to watching the step-shuffle, step-shuffle gait of him over the years you’ve been hanging out together. And as you’re walking along, you suddenly realize that the step-shuffle is changing … and before you know it … the gait is ‘step-step, step-step, and step-step’. It hits you – you take a closer look, and – yeah, I’ll be darned. Those toes are back on that foot!

Then you stop breathing. You look down at your own feet, your legs, your hands. And where there used to be gnarled stumps, there are now whole feet and hands – fingers just like they used to be – all there. You put your hand to your face and feel it – and realize you CAN ACTUALLY FEEL IT. Something you hadn’t been able to do for years – longer than you’ve been an outcast – the first symptom – losing the sensation in your extremities – predated by several years your ending up as a part of the ragtag group of outcasts who had to warn everyone as they drew near that they were

‘UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!’

In New Testament times, those who suffered from leprosy were forced to proclaim their illness – literally – by yelling to anyone whom they saw coming that they were ‘unclean’ – to warn them off – or else risk becoming infected themselves. Thus they not only suffered the effects of the disease itself, but of the ostracism – the devastating effects of being cast out of their homes and families because of fear. Fear of contagion. Fear of infection, fear of guilt by association.

How often do we find ourselves separating ourselves from those we would consider foreigners in our midst? How easily – how much more readily do we identify what separates us rather than what unites us, what we have in common?

It struck me in this reading that the only one to come back was a Samaritan. Samaritans wouldn’t have been … eligible for a priestly blessing from a Jewish priest anyway, since by definition, they were unclean, leprous or not. Perhaps this man had less of an investment in completing the task that Jesus had given him. Perhaps he realized sooner than the others where the real source of his healing came from. It wasn’t going to be found in the priestly blessing. He knew that the change that had occurred in his life was from above, and nothing anyone could do here on earth would change that. Recognized or not, he knew himself to be clean.

Time and time again, we see Jesus reaching out to the fringe of society. To the outcasts, to the folks living on that ragged edge of humanity, who had been denied their identity as fully human by the norms of the society in which they lived. Christ takes that and turned it on its head (nothing new there). I suspect Jesus probably had an idea that exactly this WOULD happen – that as the lepers were walking towards the priests, as they became whole, they would become so enthralled with what they were regaining, what they were once again becoming able to participate in, that their focus shifted. They began to think more and more about what they could get out of the healing - their own personal gain - than what they could learn from the healing, what wisdom they could draw from their experience of being ostracized, of being shut out of their world only to suddenly and unexpectedly have it fall within their reach again.

Is that what we find here?

In a society that has taken the radical nature of Christianity and, to one degree or another, neutered it, made it in some ways a shadow of what it can be – a cataclysmically counter culturally transformative force in the lives of individuals and communities – and nations.

There are times when I think the worst thing that could have happened to the Christian faith was that it became acceptable to be one. That’s the contradiction, isn’t it? Such a powerful force, that it swept through the ancient world, and eventually took over the seats of power – and became infected by the very thing it was set against – that same power it acquired through acceptability. Becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Do we find ourselves here today celebrating communion as a statement of position, a heralding to the world that ‘here we are, we BELONG!’ with the implied counterpoint being ‘and you don’t’ or as a confession of our unworthiness in the face of such a sacrifice, and an expression of thanksgiving to God, who through Jesus reconciled the world to himself?

The beauty – and grace - is always in the invitation.

Christ invites us all to the table, Samaritan. Jew, or Gentile. It makes no difference to him. Male or Female, slave or free. We are all welcomed at this table. Because this table, this meal is the epitome of a welcoming feast.

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

(1 Cor 11:23-26)

As Christ’s followers, we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes, through the sharing of the bread and the drinking of the wine. We do it out of obedience, out of the hope that we have in the promise that he WILL one day return. And so we come, regularly, earnestly, prayerfully, and worshipfully.

(Communion)

Let’s pray.

As Worthless Slaves

Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
18th after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 17:1-10

(From “The Message”)

1 He said to his disciples, "Hard trials and temptations are bound to come, but too bad for whoever brings them on! 2 Better to wear a millstone necklace and take a swim in the deep blue sea than give even one of these dear little ones a hard time! 3 "Be alert. If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him. 4 Even if it's personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, 'I'm sorry, I won't do it again,' forgive him." 5 The apostles came up and said to the Master, "Give us more faith." 6 But the Master said, "You don't need more faith. There is no 'more' or 'less' in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it would do it. 7 "Suppose one of you has a servant who comes in from plowing the field or tending the sheep. Would you take his coat, set the table, and say, 'Sit down and eat'? 8 Wouldn't you be more likely to say, 'Prepare dinner; change your clothes and wait table for me until I've finished my coffee; then go to the kitchen and have your supper'? 9 Does the servant get special thanks for doing what's expected of him? 10 It's the same with you. When you've done everything expected of you, be matter-of-fact and say, 'The work is done. What we were told to do, we did.'"

(New Revised Standard Version)

Jesus said to his disciples, "Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive." 5The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. 7 "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? 8 Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "

Quick pop-quiz for you: subject is math. Don’t yell out the answer; just get it in your heads. The question: How much is too much forgiveness? …

Okay. Remember that answer. Keep it in the back of your heads. We’ll come back to it later.

Let’s get right to the text. We find Jesus still talking to the crowds around him … including Pharisees, and his disciples. And in this instance, we find a little clue as to who ELSE was around. Sometimes you find snippets, snapshots, if you will, of what the actual scene was when Jesus was talking. We find that here, when Jesus starts off talking directly to his disciples.

He’s not so much warning them as he is stating what was probably the obvious. None of them were strangers to hardship and violence and troubles, not with the Roman occupation of Palestine going on, and none of them would end up immune to any further hardships. Where is the place we most often hear of the apostles being after the resurrection and the birth of the church? Prison. Or at least, it SEEMS like the place we most often find them.

But back to the text: Jesus now DOES warn the disciples: if you are the SOURCE of the troubles, for stumbling, as the NRSV puts it, well … that’s not a good thing. In fact, you’d be better off dead than being the source of the problem. Like we’ve seen before, Jesus is not one to mince words.

The first time it was really made plain to me that what we read in the New Testament as being the conversations of people, or sayings of Jesus, or proclamations of the apostle Paul on his missionary trips, and not just words spoken stiffly, solemnly, as though … well … from behind a pulpit, I suppose you could say, was pretty recently. I was sitting in on a youth Sunday school class, and the teacher was quoting Matthew 16:18:

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church,

The teacher made the comment that that was the verse that our Catholic brothers and sisters hold as a key moment in the history of the church, as being the point at which Jesus named Peter to be the foundational leader of the church. Her point was this: She said ‘I imagine if I were there, Jesus would be sitting next to Peter, or standing across from him, and would place his hands on Peter’s chest for the beginning of the verse (and I tell you, you are Peter) and for the second part of the verse (and on this rock …) he’d be gesturing to himself.” “You are Peter, and on THIS rock I will build my church.” It was intriguing to me that I’d never really spent any time thinking about what emphasis was being placed on which words in the sentences in the Bible. I’d seen the italicized words in the King James growing up, but that’s done for another reason.

We have another instance here of a gesture being ‘worded out’.

Picture it: Jesus is talking about facing hardship, and warning against BRINGING hardships. He looks around and there were probably kids running around playing. Their Nintendos had run out of batteries, they were bored. They saw a crowd and decided to investigate. One is running in front of Jesus just then, and as they go by, Jesus grabs the boy and says ‘Be careful! If you crush the spirit of even one of these dear little ones’ There’s no previous reference in the text as to whom Jesus was talking about, so we can only assume that he was talking about someone who was right there, standing next to him or running past him.

That might be an interesting exercise to do sometime: read passages and try to imagine what motions were going along with the words. (Just a thought.)

But now Jesus is coming to the meat of what he wanted to say. He presents the disciples with the real-life example that makes them sit up and take notice: if one of them sins, then the others must rebuke him. And if the offender repents, then there must be forgiveness.

Please note: he didn’t say “if there is repentance, then you can consider one of your options to be to forgive him”, or “you might want to think about forgiving him if there is repentance.”

In the NRSV, the word used is ‘MUST’. In both cases, for both things, they are not optional.

That is hard, but not unexpected. The capper, the demand that Jesus makes of his disciples then and us here today is the next line: Even if it’s personal against you and the offender commits the same act 7 times in a day and comes back to us after each time to ask forgiveness.

WHAT!?!?!?

Oh MAN! I was getting it fine up until that point. Treasure children, don’t be the source of evil, yeah, yeah, I got that part. I can DO that! I really can! Or I’m pretty sure I can!

Now you come out with WHAT??!!

That is nonsense! There’s no point in forgiving if the offender is not going to STOP doing what he’s doing!!! If he can’t stop, he’s sick. Stick him in a magazine rack and call him NEWSWEEK, ‘cause he’s got ISSUES!

A question you’ve heard a couple of times over the lasts few weeks, or something like it: what are we supposed to DO with that, Jesus??!! What did you mean??!!

The disciples come back to Jesus after he tells them to do this incredible thing – this continuous forgiveness in the face of seemingly remorseless sinning, and ask him to increase their faith, assuming that if they have more faith, they will be able to accomplish the task.

It’s a very human way of interpreting the example, a very natural one. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we are going to do what you just asked us to do, which is OBVIOUSLY something only YOU, Jesus, can currently do, then we must be lacking something in order to accomplish it. That’s got to be faith. So Jesus, grow our faith, makes us spiritual giants like you so we can do this thing again and again and again.

It wasn’t until I read Peterson’s translation that it hit me what Jesus was saying. It’s NOT about having MORE or LESS faith. Faith is faith. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you’re my disciples. If you don’t, you’re not. This is not about faith. It’s about obedience.

Then he makes another motion, another gesture at another person in the crowd. Actually, he makes it to two people.

There is no mention of ‘worthless slave’ in the Peterson version of the text, most likely because, as a modern translation, there is no common cultural point of reference with slavery. The reference in Peterson is to a servant, which in our current society is not unheard of, though it IS somewhat rare. In most other ‘standard’ translations, we find some reference to the ‘worthless’ servant or slave in some form or another.

‘Not worthy to serve you’ (NIV), ‘unworthy slaves’ (NASB), ‘unprofitable servants’ (ASV, KJV), ‘unworthy servants’ (AB), the point does come across. If it comes across now, 2000 years after having been written in a culture that is radically different from the one in which it was originally spoken, can you imagine how much more it got across to those who were hearing the words for the first time? I can picture Jesus looking around at the crowd, spotting a wealthy merchant who has a slave standing beside him (or her), and launching into this part of the lesson, gesturing directly to the merchant and the slave. They’ve been following the argument from the beginning, but they weren’t quite getting it either.

I think Jesus was trying to tell them, and us, not only more about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, but also more about God. To show us what kind of God his Abba, his daddy, was and is. Set aside the question of the disconnect between what we (the offenders) say we are (repentant), and what we in fact ACT like (something less than that). Set aside the task of trying to figure out why the actions (repeated offenses of the same kind if not identical ones) are not in line with the words spoken (I’m sorry, please forgive me), and focus on the message.

This isn’t ONLY about what we are supposed to do – directly. It’s about what God does on a routine basis.

We say we’re sorry. We say we won’t sin again. And we try. We really do try. And we fail. Hard as we try, disciplined as we might become, righteous as we work toward being, we ultimately fall short. We may get close, but we ultimately don’t reach perfection in this life. Forgiveness is what God does. Borne out of God’s love, we come to him much more often than 7 times a day, repentant.

If we were to walk up to an apple tree, what kind of fruit would we expect to pull off it? grapes? Of course not. We would expect apples. Jesus is telling us that we as disciples of his must do what comes as part of the normal Christian life.

This is the example we have from God in Christ. Anything else would not be normal.

What does this mean for us here today?

As we read in Philippians Sunday before last, Jesus made himself nothing, a servant, obedient, even to death on a cross.

Likewise, we are to follow in his steps. Take on the mind of Christ, as Paul said, and become obedient. Obeying means, very simply: doing what we are told to do. If Jesus has told us to be bold and rebuke, we are to do so. If Jesus has told us to be gracious and forgive in the face of repentance, we are to do that as well. But we shouldn’t expect any special notice, any unusual recognition for it.

That’s what we’re SUPPOSED to be doing all along. That’s just part of being a little Christ.

Following Christ is not a matter of living our lives like WE want to live them and occasionally rising above that and glimmering with the light of Christ in us for a few minutes. It’s about learning to change our ways and conform them to his. Conform. Like form. Form WITH. BE LIKE.

So, the question again, from the beginning of the message: how much is too much forgiveness? You tell me. Christ tells us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us. Can we imagine the situation if God were to run out of forgiveness?

Let’s pray.