Community with a Capital “C”

4th Sunday in Lent, Year C
Text: Josh 5.9-12; 2 Cor 5.16-21; Lk 15.1-3, 11-32

Just like the story we read last week, Jesus leaves his parable open ended. What will the elder son do? What do you think he should do? Should he stand firm and demand some recompense from his brother, or should he let go of his anger and join the party?

As I read this story, it occurs to me that, while the elder son is expressing anger toward his father, I think he is actually angry at his brother. The younger son, by demanding his inheritance early, dishonored and insulted his father; in essence, he said, “I wish you were dead.” Then, he abandoned all his obligations to his family—including his responsibility to care for his father in his old age—and got as far away as possible, leaving his brother holding the bag. In his anger, the elder assumes—or imagines—the worst of the younger and is unwilling even to acknowledge him as family—which may be appropriate, given that the younger brother is the one who cut those ties.

All this makes me pay attention to the context in which Jesus tells this parable. He’s speaking to Pharisees and scribes who are grumbling about the kind of people with whom Jesus spends time. His story is aimed at them, and seems to ask whether they will let their beliefs about morality and holiness and purity keep them from enjoying God’s party. It reminds me that Paul, too, is writing in the context of conflict. Although it’s hard to be certain exactly what happened, he seems to have had some sort of disagreement with the Corinthian church, leaving some of them upset at him. As he’s writing about reconciliation, he’s encouraging them to not only be reconciled to God, but to himself.

Just Maybe

3rd Sunday in Lent, Year C
Text: Isa 55.1-9; 1 Cor 10.1-13; Lk 13.1-9

What do you think: should the landowner listen to the gardener and give the tree another year, or should he just go ahead and cut it down now? How you answer that question will probably depend on how you read this parable.

When I come to this parable, my first instinct is to want to save the tree. I know that it takes 4 years for a fig tree to mature to the point of bearing fruit. That means this tree, being 3 years overdue, is 7 years old. 7 years is a lot of time and energy invested in it to simply tear it out. But beyond that, if I’m honest, I want to save the tree because I have the feeling that Jesus is telling this story about me; that I’m the fig tree. I don’t want to be cut down; whatever that means, it sounds unpleasant. Is that how you read it? But here’s something to think about: if I’m the tree, and Jesus is the gardener, pleading with the landowner for clemency, does that make God the landowner, ready to judge me for my sins? Does this story leave you feeling worried about God’s judgement?

Of Holding On and Letting Go

2nd Sunday in Lent, Year C
Text: Phil 3.17-4.1; Lk 13.31-35

This week in our Little Lambs preschool chapel, we began reading the story of Moses. And the story of Moses, of course, begins with the story of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who is afraid. Ironically, he’s afraid of the Hebrews, these people who have no power and no standing. He’s afraid of them because of how numerous they are; he worries that, if they wanted, they could overthrow him and take his power away from him.

So, he strikes first: he takes away their freedom, making them all slaves. Then he takes away their children. This, of course, makes the Hebrews afraid of Pharaoh. So, the story bible summarizes, Pharaoh is afraid, and the Hebrews are afraid: everybody in Egypt is afraid.

Relentless Love

1st Sunday in Lent, Year C
Text: Deut 26.1-11; Rom 10.8-13; Lk 4.1-13

Do the ends justify the means? If you had access to a time machine, would you go back in time to kill Hitler? Why, or why not?

I think this might be at least one of the questions being asked by this gospel story. Here we have Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry, even before his first sermon. He’s just been baptized, just heard God’s unconditional acceptance of him for who he is. Maybe he’s just beginning to think about what it is that God has in store for him. I wonder if he has any clue yet where this road will take him, that it will bring him to the foot of a cross.

Let’s say that he knows his job as God’s Son is to do God’s will on earth. But what is that will? The temptations set before him by this mysterious figure in the wilderness get to the heart of that question. Is it God’s will that he starve to death for his piety? Is it God’s will to rule the nations with justice and peace? Is it God’s will that Jesus entrust his entire life to God, even to the point of leaping from the temple? Each of those questions are about an outcome; but each of Jesus’ responses arise not from a desire to do the right thing, but to do rightly. In other words, for him, the “what” seems to be less important than the “how.”

The First Word, the Last Word, the Only Word

Ash Wednesday
Text: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17; 2 Cor 5.20-6.10; Matt 6.1-6, 16-21

In the beginning, when God was creating the heavens and the earth, God stooped down and scooped up some mud, and formed it into the shape of a person. “Human,” God called it, made from humus. God formed us in love from the dust of the earth; God created us in love, through love, and for love. Love is the source and the goal of our existence.

Sadly, that love is too often twisted and misdirected, turned against ourselves or one another, transformed into lust or greed or other shadows of love. In the void left by that lack of the love for which God created us, we find ourselves hungering, and we seek to fill that hunger with power, wealth, the praise of our neighbors, the comforts of luxury, the feeling of purpose. Those things become the treasures which we store up for ourselves, trying to fill the hole left by our inability or our unwillingness to love as God created us to.