Choices, Choices, Choices…

We could say that life is ultimately about making choices, but that doesn’t really capture it. It is more about living with the choices we have made. In multiple fields of study “path dependence” is a meaningful thing. In math there are things that appear reversable, but really aren’t. For example 2^2 (two squared) is 4. But if you take the square root of 4, theoretically reversing the square, 2 is one answer, but -2 is also possible. -2*-2 is 4. Squaring is technically not reversible. Most of life is not reversible. And if we try to reverse things we often end up on the negative side of the ledger satisfying nobody. Moving forward is the only real path.

I’ve been thinking about choices recently for a couple reasons. I’ve noticed in my kids and not just my kids, a hesitancy, maybe even a fear, about making choices. Something that goes beyond the simple procrastination that affects 99% of us. (Yes, I am writing this on Friday, two days after I wanted it done.) I’ll ask my youngest, “how are college applications going? Where are you applying?” And he will leave the room. I’ll ask the middle child, “So, have you had enough time off? Have any initial thoughts? Anything Dad could help with?” And he will continue playing a video game. Or positively start making dinner for us. Path dependent irreversible decisions. But like Rush (the band, not the radio voice) would say, “if you refuse to decide, you still have made a choice.” Unlike math, life comes with default decisions that the world will press on you. And the world’s defaults are usually pretty poor.

The fear of choice, or the fear of living with them, that can paralyze might be the most common, but it isn’t the only reaction. Two others are nostalgia and recklessness. If the kids are paralyzed, there is plenty of longing for the way things used to be. But decisions have been made. And those decisions landed us here. And because it is life, those decisions are irreversible. The problem of sin is that we have to live with its effects. The ultimate one being death. But it is not just sins. Most things we choose in life are not choices of black or white. We are not that good. We choose between different shades of gray. The materialist might point at the 2nd law of thermodynamics – everything ends in heat death. The Christian understands that we live in a fallen world. Perfectly fine choices can still end up troubling. And we find ourselves longing for some time we didn’t have to live with the results. The flip side is recklessness. Sure, why not become a day trader. Bet it all on Bitcoin at $100,000. I have an acquaintance who recently lost $10M paper dollars in just such a way. Easy come, easy go.

What then are we to do? We can’t go back. Wallowing in nostalgia is like Harry Potter staring at the Mirror of Erised. As Dumbledore tells him, many people have lost their one life staring at it. Yet repeatedly going all in doesn’t seem wise. And pushing it all out might be the worst – getting pushed down a path you never even chose. Three things worth keeping in minds at such times. First, “All things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).” That might sound hopelessly polyanna-ish or trite, but it is really the promise that God loves you. His providence is with you. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. Trust that even if you find yourself leaving Ur for a land you do not know (Abraham) that God is working in you for good. And he has good works laid out in advance for you to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). So Walk in them. Second, you really have eternity. This world may feel highly pressured, but try living into that promise. “We believe in the resurrection of the death and the life of the world to come.” The paths that you will walk will be infinite and better than today. So keep walking. And lastly the teacher, “there is nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; and to eat and drink and take pleasure in all your toil – that is God’s gift to man (Ecclesiastes 3:12).” Find the joy in what is set before you. Find the joy in the walk. It’s heavenward all the way.

Problem, Solution, and Zombies

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Biblical Text: Luke 17:11-19

The text is the 10 lepers. It is the standard text for Thanksgiving for obvious reasons – the one who gives thanks. But I have to admit that most sermons on it feel like they miss the gospel. Or maybe I should just say they all assume the gospel. This sermon is as clear as I can make it from this text.

We have a problem. Our problem is a lot like leprosy used to be. A known march toward death that you can do nothing about and which separates you from everything you love. You could say we have a trinity of problems: sin, death and the power of the devil. And like the lepers we are left to plead, “master, have pity on us.”

We have a solution, and that solution is a universal one. Jesus has defeated sin on the cross. His resurrection makes a way past death. And he has bound the strong man – Satan – stealing us. The only revealed God ever who has walked in our villages and streets has freed us from our problems. All 10 lepers were healed.

The question is – How then do we live? One of the ten returned to give thanks. Our new life begins with thanks. Thanksgiving aligns us with our Lord and Savior Jesus. And that Jesus tells us to “rise and go our way, our faith has made us well.” Our way is now the way of Christ. We travel with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We walk with angels all the way. And we walk that way by faith. There are the zombies of our problems still out there – The Devil, The World and our Sinful Flesh. But that is what they are, zombies. We have been healed. And in faith we walk past.

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Ruthian Apologetics

You occasionally get asked, “how do you know it is true?” It being the Bible or Christianity in general or maybe even simplistically God. And there are all kinds of apologetic answers. You could start with Anselm’s Ontological argument as one of the oldest and Philosophically speaking still an active form. You could go with Aquinas’ Five Ways. Three of them versions of the Cosmological Argument. The final one an argument from design. All of them fancy ways of saying, “Have you looked out the window? You really think that came from nothing?” I think the Apostle Paul might agree with my tongue in cheek summary, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made (Romans 1:19-20).” Paul saying “look out the window.” The problem with all such arguments is that they are really arguments for a god. And arguments for a god are not the same thing as knowing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is real. How Luther would qualify it would be that they are all arguments for the hidden god, Paul’s invisible attributes. And while we can observe the attributes, we don’t’ know God.

The Bible taken as a whole is the story of the Revealed God. It is the story of God no longer hiding behind the masks of power and might riding upon the storm. Ultimately we have the full revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. As Jesus replies to Philip’s plea, “Lord, Show us the Father…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:8-9).” In Christ we see the steadfast love of God for his creation. We see the God who says he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And so Luther would say that when the hidden god troubles us, we turn to the revealed god in faith that “yes, we have seen the father. And he is not the god we so much dread, but our savior.”

But when you ask the “how do you know” question I think someone is asking for what makes it work for you. And the final answer has to be the Holy Spirit. “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. Bu the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” That Luther’s explanation to the third article of the creed. And final answers are true, but that question might be rephrased as something like “How has the Holy Spirit enlightened you?”

And Pentecostals might say something like “I spoke in tongues.” Likewise people might have seen a miracle. Now I might personally be somewhat skeptical of this one. We seem to have an infinite ability to say “that didn’t happen.” But Jesus does say, “even though you do not believe me, believe the works (John 10:38).” Maybe you had your own personal Eunice and Lois and you believe them (2 Timothy 1:5). “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed (John 20:29).” That is probably the most common way. But for my part, it is books like the book of Ruth, our old testament lesson for today (Ruth 1:1-19).

There is no way, absent the power of God, that this story survives history. You can place it alongside the lineage of Jesus is Matthew. Not that Luke’s genealogy is bad, but Luke’s goes back to Jesus as “the son of Adam and the Son of God.” And that is something typical for ancient Kings. They were all the son of God. Like Augustus, the Son of the Divine Julius. The story of Ruth is part of the genealogy of David. And it is the type of story that ancient Kings would have stamped out. Don’t focus on the romance of it. The revealed God parts. Focus on foreigner. Ruth was a Moabite. Focus on the poverty. Naomi leaves Israel because they are poor and returns poorer without a husband. Focus on how the family line is all but dead. Focus on how they are nothing and it is the mercy of Boaz that saves. And then realize that Ruth and Boaz are King David’s great grandparents (at least in Matthew’s genealogy.) No ancient human king is admitting any of that. And even if the King does, his line three generations later would clean it up. “We were always royal.” But this is the genealogy of Jesus. This is a King who is not about his invisible attributes of power and might, but about love and salvation. Which is the story of Ruth and Boaz. And the fact that it survives is an act of the revelation of the Father of Jesus, the Christ.

God, You Cannot Be Serious

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Biblical Text: Habakkuk 1:1-2:4

I think this longer passage – the lectionary as read cuts out important parts – is one of the most important in the bible. At least to the curious. Habakkuk the prophet has had it. He asks the question that I think many people do when things are going well, “God, where are you? Why do you do nothing?” And unlike most places, here God responds. He is doing something. He’s sending “the Chaldeans.” Now the Chaldeans are just code for Assyria/Babylon/Persia, the great power that takes Israel into exile. And God elaborates on who they are. It is what God often does, set one evil against another. But we don’t like that. The prophet doesn’t like that. He pushes back at God a second time. “Really, that is what you want me to go preach? Babylon?” And God answers one more time. And he makes clear what he is after – faith.

This sermon sets Habakkuk’s story in the light of Adam, Eve and the Old Snake. What Satan is always pitching in knowledge. “You will know.” It is not that God won’t grant knowledge, but that knowledge from God comes at the appropriate time. When we have the wisdom to handle it. Satan doesn’t care the damage it leaves. The “Violence”. The “Justice perverted.” But God does this because he is not really about knowledge. He wants us to have faith. He wants us to trust Him. And that is the second answer. Habakkuk, write the vision. It’s the same vision as always. The promise of Christ and his kingdom. And its the promise, “It will come. Wait for it. The righteous live by faith.”

On a rhetorical note, these sermon gets a little hot. To me it was meant to match the prophet’s complaint.

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Scandal, Mercy and Love

In the gospel lesson this week (Luke 17:1-10) there are three distinct groupings. And in a surface reading they might seem to have nothing to do with each other. Random sayings of Jesus collected and roughly situated in the narrative when he might have spoken them, but otherwise not connected. That type of arrangement isn’t unheard of, for that is roughly Proverbs or most wisdom literature. Random sayings collected around some age or event or theme. But I think they might have a better flow than that first glace.

And I think that in the first block, our translations gets us off on a bad foot. They record, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come (Luke 17:1).” And they continue with the condemnation of the millstone around one’s neck. It is not that temptation is a wrong translation, but that it doesn’t really capture the effect of what is being said. The word used is the Greek world that we directly take as our English word scandal. And the meaning is not our contemporary celebrity petty “scandals” which are more a humorous public failing. The better meaning is an action that causes someone to lose faith, or maybe an intentional disheartening of the faithful. Scandals are sure to happen. It is a sinful and fallen world. But woe to the one who scandalizes, who intentionally disheartens these “little ones.” Now any such scandal probably involves a temptation. One thinks immediately of the Roman Church’s priestly sexual abuse scandal. But honestly I think what the Pope said this week is also just such a scandal. To have the highest bishop of the largest tradition actively dishearten the faithful in the very area the church is most prophetic is a scandal. And Jesus is talking to his disciples. If you are a teacher or a leader in the church, it is a warning about “Paying attention (Luke 17:3).” Millstones attach to these things!

But that harsh but good reminder is quickly followed up by something unimaginable. Imagining a god of vengeance and wrath has never been hard. Believing in a god who forgives “seven times in a day (Luke 17:4)” is harder. Yet that is the command of Jesus, “if your brother says…’I repent’ you must forgive him.” God is a god of mercy, and he expects his people to have mercy also. Mercy to the extent of that number of completion – “seven.” Full forgiveness. Because in Christ we have been fully forgiven. The disciples’ response makes sense – “increase our faith (Luke 17:5)!” The request feels nonsensical. Scandalize me once, shame on me. Scandalize me twice, shame on you! It only makes sense in the world of faith. When one has faith that The Father is who Jesus says he is, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. When one has faith that Jesus came for sinners. Then anything can happen. Even a tree being planted on the sea (Luke 17:6). The strangeness of the Kingdom.

The last section might be more for those disciples that have been at this a long time. Maybe you are at the end of your forgiveness. Maybe you are just tired of being taken advantage of. Or maybe you labor under some idea that if I do this – live forgiveness in this world – this world will give some back to me. I don’t think that is an uncommon feeling. “No good deed goes unpunished” as the fractured fairy tale has it. Jesus’ gives the disciples a salutary reminder. The rewards of discipleship are not this worldly. In this world we are servants (those translators again, more pungent slaves.) Christ would have been perfectly fine issuing the commands and “we would have only done our duty (Luke 17:10).” But what Jesus precedes this with is telling. No earthly master would tell his slave to “come at once and recline at table (Luke 17:7).” The slave would do the preparation and might get something after. But Christ has prepared a table. And he has told his servants to come and eat.

The Kingdom of God operates differently. It intends to overcome scandals, not with duty, but with mercy and love. Mercy toward one another for the millstones we all might carry. Who among us has not been the cause of scandal? Love from the Father in the body and blood of His Son which covers us and make us whole.

Looking Up

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Biblical Text: Luke 16:19-31

People want to use this text to get glimpses or insights into the afterlife. But I honestly think that is rather boring. There is nothing in the Rich Man and Lazarus that gives any special insight. It is a heaven of sorts and it is a hell of torment. You can argue a bit and make a distinction between sheol, the Old Testament pit or abode of the dead, to which apparently all went, which upon Holy Saturday the victorious Christ lead the saints out in triumph and the post resurrection reality. But this sermon doesn’t want to get lost in those weeds, and for purposes of the story itself, it’s a distinction without a difference.

This text is not about glimpses of the afterlife, but it is looking up in this one precious life. It’s about how the Kingdom of God operates on different rules than this world. And it’s about how one finds true meaning. It’s a plea to look up and recognize everything that is going on around you. To see the Lazarus at your gate. To see that person or that work of God that we have become blind to. And know that today is the only day we are given to do that work of mercy. In regards to meaning it corrects our understanding. We tend to think that we need the sign and wonder and that would give us meaning. But the signs and wonders are given. A man has risen from the dead. We are given the promises of God in the sacraments. And there are others all around. But without the Word we don’t know what they mean. Like poor Lazarus, they become part of the scenery we step over. It is the Word – Moses and the Prophets in the story – that tells us what the signs and wonders mean. And how they are incorporated into our regular lives in days and months and seasons. How we can live in sacred time illuminated by the resurrection.

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Why That Guy There?

Why did you send that guy to that place? Of all the questions I’ve got queued up for the hereafter, that one is the most frequent. I think it crosses a lot of theological assumptions we make. We make assumptions like everyone in the prophetic role intends for the good of the Kingdom. We assume that even looking at the history of the office. Just the Medici Popes might dissuade us of that. We assume that ministers correctly discern calls with the specificity of the Apostle Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. And we do that even after observing our share of 18 month pastorates. Of course Paul himself didn’t tend to stick around that long. And maybe the toughest one to consider is our assumption that God sends the prophets in order that the people might hear and repent. And we assume that even after reading the Old Testament and seeing these cantankerous guys who seem to have no social filter doing anything but persuading. Even Jesus said the parables were so they might hear and not understand (Matthew 13:13). I’ve asked that question of many a place and privately thought, “that is an act of divine judgement.” Of course the LORD has never answered one of those questions of mine, so I can’t say with surety. It remains private speculation, and yours is just as good as mine until that hereafter.

I bring that up as a reflection upon our Old Testament reading today from Amos 6:1-7. Of all those cantankerous guys, Amos might be the most. And he seems to be specifically chosen to get under the skin of those he is sent to. One of his famous lines is “I was neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet (Amos 7:14).” We tend to translate that line in the past tense “was”, but the Hebrew could also be rendered the present tense – “I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet.” As if that office in the Northern Kingdom of Israel has become so polluted Amos would not claim it. I’m sure that went over well with the court prophets. But even more it is followed immediately by what Amos does claim he is “A herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.” And what does that call him out as? Primarily poor. Sycamore figs were not the plump figs that we think about. They are more like crab apples compared to apples. It grows in abundance and it is edible, but you won’t find them on the tables of Kings. And one last thing about Amos, he is from Tekoa, a village near Bethlehem which is the very heart of the Southern Kingdom of Judah loyal to the line of David.

This poor crabby Southerner is sent to the heart of the rich Northern Kingdom. And he is sent at the height of the Northern Kingdom’s influence and extent. He was sent in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam II King of Israel. Both long ruling kings of peaceful kingdoms, Uzziah reigned 52 years and Jeroboam II 41 years. Both had extended their borders almost to the extent of Solomon and the United Kingdom. And the Northern Kingdom had become very rich. But “Jeroboam II did evil in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat (2 Kings 14:24).” You couldn’t pick someone less likely to be heard by the court of Jeroboam II than Amos. And that is exactly the response, the priest of Bethel – the Northern counter Temple to Jerusalem – tells Amos, “Seer, go, flee, prophesy there, but not here, for it is the King’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

What does Amos say to them? “Woe to those who feel secure on the mountains of Samaria. (Amos 6:1).” How does he classify them? As those whose every moment and thought is about leisure. “Woe to those who…stretch themselves out on couches (6:4)…who sing idle songs…and invent for themselves instruments.” And of their ways? “Who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves.(6:6).” But what is Amos’ greatest charge? “You are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.” You can imagine the laughter that might cause. What ruin? The GDP is higher than it has ever been. Our plumbers live in ways that would have made the old Kings blush. Maybe even God has blessed us from the Temple at Bethel. Long live Jeroboam the King. But the ruin was not the wealth. The ruin was spiritual. They cared not for their fellow countrymen (Amos 8:4), and their worship was correct in form but absent of meaning (Amos 5:21ff) as it did not change their hearts.

I don’t know why some are sent. But Jesus tells the story with these lines, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” Do we care about the ruin of Joseph?

Quickly, Mark it to Zero

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Biblical Text: Luke 16:1-15

The text is probably the hardest parable Jesus uttered. It doesn’t come with an explanation. The context immediately before and after it doesn’t really help. Or maybe I should say it would lead to an interpretation that would feel contrary to much of the gospel. And there really isn’t a “natural’ understanding that at least sets you on a fruitful path. It is as close to the feeling that Jesus said the parables were actually about (Mark 4:10-12) as you get – “Hear but not understand.”

I’m not so foolish as to say “I’ve got it the key.” But this sermon puts forward my understanding of the Parable of the Unrighteous Manager. And I think people shy away from this because it makes a comparison between Jesus and the unrighteous manager. They also shy away from it because it is explicitly Trinitarian. But Jesus compared himself to a thief entering the strong man’s house (Mark 3:27). And we Christians really need to drop the dregs of Unitarianism that we inherited. The Creed is the Father is the source, the Son was begotten of the Father before all worlds, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The sermon develops that and on into the parable itself.

The short key is that the Rich Man is the Father, the Unrighteous Manager is an incomplete Jesus in that he doesn’t trust the Father enough, and the debtors are us sinners. The encouragement is to trust the Father revealed by Jesus. We are never outside of the Father’s love. And there is no end to the Father’s bank account if you will. The unrighteous manager is like Abraham content with no destruction of Sodom if there are 10 righteous. We’ve all negotiated with God. It’s natural law-based thinking. And in the law we always sell God short. It’s his good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. And there we are trying to buy it. Jesus came and said to us, “write what you owe to zero.” And the Father accepted it. Because we are in his love. And it is all his anyway. You can’t empty his accounts. It’s been done, we just need to believe it.

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Subjected to Futility…in Hope

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope – Romans.8:20

I’m sorry this corner is not about one of the lessons of the day. I commend Amos to your personal piety this week. But this is something that has been in the bones for a while and I have to get it out.

If you’ve ever played team sports or especially ever coached them you will recognize this kid immediately. He’s not the fastest, or the strongest, or the meanest, or the absolute best in any category. But he will run through brick walls. He’s the first in the gym, the last guy out, and he probably goes home and does some practice there too. Absolute coach’s dream. And if you are chasing a glory story, you need that kid. When you need the ball, he will get you the ball. When you need someone to lean into the fastball, or put down the bunt, he’ll do it. And he’ll play hurt. You can’t get him off the field. You love that kid, or you think you do.

As much as I like sports movies or TV shows, sometimes they tell the truth, but more often they lie. The greatest liar in these regards was maybe the most heartfelt dream – Coach Taylor played by everybody’s all American Kyle Chandler in Friday Night Lights. He had a phrase “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose.” Absolute catnip to that kid. And it’s a great phrase. Because 95% of the time, it’s true. Maybe even 99% of the time. The Law of God is good and wise. Aristotle wasn’t an idiot. If you do this, you will become this. This being courageous, strong, whatever virtue you seek. And that kid who will run through brick walls? He’s amped up. He’s doing it. Full heart, clear eyes. Can’t lose, right?

There is another football movie that cuts closer to the truth. Keanu Reeves’ The Replacements. Gene Hackman is all his glory playing exactly that coach who assembles a team full of that kid. From the police sergeant linebacker who will get him that ball. To the former Heisman Trophy winner who is all heart. To the deaf kid who can catch anything close and will take all the pain of the hits. They are coached to run through brick walls. The Replacements is not completely honest, it’s Hollywood, so they win the game, but not before they hit the wall. Not before they have to realize it isn’t a glory story. The regulars are better. The sergeant will get bloodied and run over. The deaf kid will get separated from the ball. And all the heart in the world won’t keep you on the field. That takes grace. That takes some intervention.

If you’ve coached that kid, and you think you love him by sending him at bigger and bigger walls, eventually he is going to hit the wall. The one he can’t blow through. Because the creation was subjected to futility. God, I wish I could just preach the law. Do this and you will live. It would be so easy. And if things didn’t work out, even easier. You didn’t follow the rules. Your eyes were not clear enough. Your heart not full enough. You lose, sorry. Do better. The law makes so much sense. But it only works 95% of the time. And it usually fails at the most important moment. Because creation was subjected to futility. And if you really love that kid, you’ve got to be there to pick up the pieces. To tell him Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can lose. But this is just a finite game. And you are playing an infinite one.

Because life is not a glory story, it’s a grace story. The Replacements got to play one more game. Something every former player dreams about. Gene Hackman playing another coach in Hoosiers realizes that you can’t just “patch him up” and put your only big guy back on the court bleeding from glass cuts. And most importantly that all your plans are dust. Sometimes you have to rely on the living miracle that is Jimmy Chitwood and give him the ball. He’ll make it. Life is a grace story. We’ve already died to the law. We’ve hit that wall, hard. We’ve tasted the futility. But we’ve done that in hope. Because we have our own Jimmy Chitwood – Jesus Christ. And he’s already made it. We are already playing that one gifted game. And don’t worry, there will be more. It’s an infinite game. The creation was subjected to futility that we might see it’s not about the brick walls to run through. It’s about playing the game. You’ve already been given the victory. Enjoy the play.

Closing the Gap

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Biblical Text: Luke 15:1-10

Again, I am always amazed at how the lectionary serves up a perfect basis to preach to the day. The text really is based in Jesus’ regular habit. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. And the Pharisees hated him for it. Jesus would talk with anybody. He wouldn’t do it from a place of weakness. His proclamation was “repent, for the Kingdom is near.” He was serious about holiness. But the gap between the holy and the profane is not one we can close. That is why he came. To find the lost. To close the gap. And he did this by talking. He does this through the foolishness of preaching. He did this by a table. He does this by the table where his still gives us his body and blood. He does this by making us the body of Christ. And the parables relay to us that this is who God is. He does not give up. He keeps talking. Until every last one is found.

Of course doing this enrages the Pharisees who find their power and conception of self attacked. And while some sinners repent, others certainly feel attacked. Giving up our pet sins can feel like giving up ourselves. Even though the chasm the grows within us gets deeper and wider. Of course those who won’t stop talking are eventually killed. This is a reflection on Charlie Kirk, a man who would not stop talking. But Christ has the last word. And that last word is when we are called from our graves in the resurrection. When Christ closes the gap for all time.

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