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Sermon – Luke 14.1, 7-14, P17, YC, August 31, 2025

03 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Tables are a funny thing.  Tables are where families gather and catch up about how their day was.  Tables are where a young adult eats their first solo meal on the plate they got at the local thrift store and where a much older adult gets lost in thought looking at the China pattern their grandmother chose as a new bride.  Tables are where friends gather in laughter and storytelling, and where formal introductions are made over so many forks you do not know which one to choose.  Tables are where the cool kids, the nerds, or the jocks sit in the cafeteria, and where students ask the terrifying question, “Is this seat free?” 

Tables were no less meaningful in Jesus’ day.  Much of Jesus’ ministry and the stories we know from Jesus happened around tables.  As scholar Debie Thomas describes, “Though the Gospels record [Jesus] receiving and accepting many dinner invitations during the years of his ministry, those mealtime scenes usually ended in drama, provocation, or scandal.  Once, a woman of dubious reputation caressed his feet under the table.  Sometimes he interrupted a meal to heal sick people on the Sabbath.  Often, he ate with dirty hands, shared a table with riff-raff, and drank more than his enemies considered respectable.  Worst of all — he said things.  Blunt, embarrassing things that no one cared to hear.”[i]

Today’s gospel includes one of those same uncomfortable encounters at a table.  Jesus has been invited to dinner by the one of the leaders of the Pharisees – an honor, to be sure.  But after watching the other guests jockey for the seats of prestige – those seats closest to the host – Jesus begins to tell a parable – or at least, Luke’s gospel says Jesus tells a parable.  What Jesus says sounds more like advice – and his advice, on first glance, sounds oddly manipulative.    “When you go to a wedding sit at the lowest-honor seating so that you can be honored when the host insists you move up to the prestigious seat.”  Somehow humbling yourself will let you be exalted, but I’m not entirely sure how authentic one’s humility is if they are being humble just to be exalted. 

So, then what is going here?  Well, Luke’s labeling this as a parable is helpful.  Though Jesus does not tell a narrative or story, like we know most parables present, we know by the use of the word “parable” Jesus is speaking directly about something with a deeper level of meaning.[ii]  Jesus is not giving social advancement advice.  He is calling into question the entire social order and contrasting that social order with the kingdom of God.  As scholar David Lose would argue, in this parabolic advice, Jesus is calling all social orders into question, saying that “…these things are not of God.  Jesus proclaims here and throughout the gospel that in the kingdom of God there are no pecking orders.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  And while that sounds at first blush like it ought to be good news, it throws us into radical dependence on God’s grace and God’s grace alone.  We can’t stand, that is, on our accomplishments, or our wealth, or positive attributes, or good looks, or strengths, or IQ, or our movement up or down the reigning pecking order.  There is, suddenly, nothing we can do to establish ourselves before God and the world except rely upon God’s desire to be in relationship with us and with all people.  Which means that we have no claim on God; rather, we have been claimed by God and invited to love others as we’ve been loved.”[iii]

I think that realization of the deeper level of what Jesus is saying is why what Jesus says next is even more unnerving.  Jesus says the next time you have a meal, not to invite your friends or your family or even your rich neighbor.  You are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  In other words, our tables are meant to be a welcome space to outsiders. 

Dan Clendenin tells the story of family wedding.  When the young couple got married, “…they wanted to invite their entire church, but budgetary constraints prohibited that.  Instead, after the service they had the local police block off the main street in downtown Waco, Texas.  Guests danced in the streets and enjoyed refreshments from a Baskins Robbins ice cream cart.  The gazebo in the concrete park next to the theatre sheltered the wedding cake.  …[The groom] had made friends with a number of homeless men who lived under a bridge.  As a pastor [he] would employ these men for odd jobs at his church.  ‘Coyote,’ the leader of his homeless friends, came to the wedding in his usual attire of jeans with holes in the knees, a scraggly beard, and unwashed hair.  He organized his friends to clean up the streets after the wedding, then sat on the curb with a big smile and smoked a cigar.  Another guest was [the bride’s] next door African-American neighbor.  The little girl loved to spend time with [the bride], and really wanted to come to her wedding.  So the mother, the daughter, and the grandfather all came.  The 70 year-old grandfather was soon the center of attraction as he went out on the street and danced to the music.  Soon the college girls were vying to dance with him.  As passersby strolled by and inquired about what was happening, they too were invited to the wedding.  There were guests dressed in their nicest clothes alongside guests who wouldn’t feel at home at a formal occasion.  However they dressed, on this occasion every person felt welcomed as an honored guest, just as God himself welcomes us to himself, and invites us to welcome each other.”[iv]

This year, Hickory Neck is planning to launch a third worship service.  The dream for that service centers around a table too.  The guest list does not really include any of you here (no offense!).  We are hoping to create place settings for those who do not have a church home.  We do not expect to invite people who are friends, family, or even rich neighbors – though we certainly would not turn them away.  And although all our services gather around tables to share the Eucharistic meal, this service will literally be conducted around a dinner table – a table that feeds us physically but also spiritually.  Where all sorts of folks can gather, can share in community, can learn about this radically good news of Jesus’ love, and can shape disciples who invite the wideness of God’s kingdom.  Like all experiments, I am not sure how the experiment will go.  But today’s text reminds me of why we want to center that space around tables.

Of course, endorsing this new ministry doesn’t get us off the hook.  We do not leave Jesus’ parable (or parabolic teachings) today with a promise of a ministry that absolves our call to love like God loves.  Although Hickory Neck is hoping to model a communal way to live into the gospel, Jesus still offers us a personal invitation to think about our own tables this week.  “Jesus asks us to believe that our behavior at the table matters — because [our behavior at the table] does [matter].  Where we sit speaks volumes, and the people whom we choose to welcome reveals the stuff of our souls.  This is God’s world we live in; nothing here is ordinary.  In this realm, the strangers at our doorstep are the angels.”[v]  Our work this week is not quick-fix, one-time work.  Our work is the on-going work of welcome, love, reverence, and humility.  We do that work one table at a time – and all with God’s help.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Table Manners,” August 21, 2016, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/1070-table-manners on August 29, 2025.

[ii] Luke Timothy Johnson,The Gospel of Luke:  Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 3 (Collegeville, MN:  The Litrugical Press, 1991), 224.

[iii] David Lose, “More Than Good Advice [or] Why Jesus Gets Killed, Pt. 2,” August 22, 2010 as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/more-than-good-advice-or-why-jesus-gets-killed-pt-2 on August 29, 2025.

[iv] Daniel B. Clendenin, “Jesus Does Dinner:  Food for Thought for Guests and Hosts,” September 7, 2007, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3637-20070827JJ on August 29, 2025.

[v] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 12.13-21, P13, YC, August 3, 2025

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

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One of the last things that happens when you graduate from seminary is the staff from the Church Pension Group comes to talk to you about money management.  They help you understand how retirement funds work for clergy, encourage you to make sure you are doing some additional savings and investment planning, and remind you that, like tithing, how you manage your finances is a witness to your congregation about being good stewards.  Each year, you are encouraged to be a smart investor through email reminders.  We even go to a wellness conference a few times over the course of our ministry to make sure we are tending to our financial wellness in addition to vocational, spiritual, and bodily wellness.  The repeated lesson to clergy is to be good stewards of our financial resources.

You can imagine how your clergy and anyone schooled in financial stewardship hears today’s parable from Jesus.  At first glance, this is a story about smart financial management.  A man has a bumper crop – the land produces so abundantly he cannot fit the excess crops into his current barns.  Knowing the land is fickle, maybe even having taken some notes from our ancestor Joseph who prevented a seven-year famine by stockpiling during a seven-year boon, the man decides he will just have to build a bigger barn to hold all the extra crops.  His actions do not sound that far off from what any investment counselor might tell us to do – store the excess away so that when a rainy day comes, or even when retirement comes, we can still “eat, drink, and be merry.” 

But, like any good parable, there is a plot twist:  the day the newly enlarged barn is finished is the same day the man will die.  All those plans, hopes, and dreams for a secure retirement are gone.  He never gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  He never gets to retire in comfort.  He never gets to eat, drink, and be merry.  Our immediate reaction to this tragedy might be to proclaim how life or God is not fair.  But into our protest, Jesus says, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

These last words from Jesus are ones that sting.  Jesus reminds us that being a good steward of our resources means lots of things:  being smart with our money, saving for times of famine, giving to the church, and caring for our neighbor.  But most importantly, being a good steward of our resources is not just about sound financial practices.  Being a good steward of our resources is also about managing our relationship with our money – and more specifically, managing our relationship with God in relation to our money.

Now some of you may be thinking, “Here she goes.  She’s going to tell me how I need to give more money to the church to right my relationship with God.”  The good news is I do not think Jesus is looking for a specific corrective – as if to say, “Do not be like the man with the barns:  give your full ten percent to the church and all will be well.”  No, what Jesus is trying to do is help us see that our relationship with money matters.  Unlike a polite Southerner, Jesus never shies away from talking about money.  He is constantly warning us about the potential of riches to corrupt our relationship with God.  The answer to what the rich man should do may not be specific, but we get some obvious clues about what Jesus means by being rich toward God.

Going back to the story is particularly helpful.  The most obvious thing we see happening in the parable is the wealthy man has become completely self-absorbed and ego-centric.  Listen again to the words of the parable, “And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”  The list is long:  What should I do?  My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul.  All the words of the wealthy man are self-referential.[i]  Nowhere does he talk to God.  Nowhere does he talk to his family or a trusted friend.  Nowhere does he consult his property manager, or the local priest – the whole conversation is with himself.  Further, he never praises God for the abundance.  He never acknowledges that the land has provided.  He never even considers sharing his abundance.  He is self-interested, self-protecting, and self-centered.  All that focus on the self comes from a relationship with money and with God that is simply out of whack.

So how do we avoid the slippery slope that leads to self-centeredness and greed, luring us to constantly redefine how much is “enough”?  What exactly is being rich toward God?  Jesus tells us the answer to our quandary throughout Luke’s gospel.  As one scholar explains, “Being rich toward God entails using one’s resources for the benefit of one’s neighbor in need, as the Samaritan did (10:25-37).  Being rich toward God includes intentionally listening to Jesus’ word, as Mary did (10:38-42).  Being rich toward God consists of prayerfully trusting that God will provide for the needs of life (11:1-13, 12:22-31).  Being rich toward God involves selling possessions and giving alms as a means of establishing a lasting treasure in heaven (12:32-34).”  In other words, “Life and possessions are a gift of God to be used to advance God’s agenda of care and compassion, precisely for those who lack resources to provide for themselves.”[ii]

I served on a church board many years ago that received a surprise bequest of about 1.3 million dollars.  The bequest came from a woman who had seemed to be of little consequence.  Each year she had probably given the charitable group about $25 a year.  We assumed that was about all she could do.  When the gift came in, we were stunned.  After some prayerful discernment, we elected to put one million into our endowment, to ensure that we could keep helping ministries in our diocese.  But we designated the remaining three hundred thousand for us to try new and innovative ministries – and luckily for us, there was already a proposal on the table that we thought we could not afford:  a food truck that would take food around to the homeless in one of our cities, and maybe even host a social worker and or nurse.  I do not know what sort of life this woman led or how she managed her money.  But even in death, her richness toward God was obvious to us all.

Though we may be tempted to finger-point at the self-centered man of means, Jesus knows that money has the power to corrupt all our relationships with God.  And unfortunately, the consequences are not limited to our relationships with God – our ability to live lives rich toward God impacts our neighbors too.  The good news is we have a community of faith sitting right next to us who can be our support system as we work to turn our hearts and our riches to God.  Now I know we all value being good Southerners, but this time, Jesus is pushing us out of our cultural norms and patterns.  In order to turn our hearts and riches toward God, we are going to need to start talking with our friends about the place of money in our lives and in our relationship with God.  We are going to need to talk about our struggles and failures.  And we are going to need to celebrate our victories and successes.  We are basically going to need to become a giant support group for becoming rich toward God.

Pastor and scholar David Lose tells a story of a “congregation who invited families to not buy any unnecessary new thing for six months in order to break the culturally-induced habit of trying to buy happiness.  But they didn’t just invite people to do this, they formed a culture in which they supported each other.  They read and talked about a common book on abundant life, they kept in touch via small groups and email, they shared where they were succeeding and struggling and what they were learning.  In short, they formed a community so that they could stand against the all-too-human and culturally supported belief that if we just had a little more we’d be happy.”[iii]

I do not know what model or what goals are going to work for each of you.  But I do know that just by our very citizenship in this country, in this time of scarcity thinking and fear mongering, we face more temptation toward greed than in probably any other country.  If we are going to follow Jesus, to avoid a life of self-centeredness, and claim a life of being rich toward God, we are going to need each other.  Whether you want to form a small group or just find a trusted friend, this is the important work Jesus invites us into today.  My guess is that building up a community of support that is rich toward God will create much more opportunities to eat, drink, and be merry, than any bigger barn could ever give us.  Amen.

[i] Audrey West, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 312.

[ii] Richard P. Carlson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 315.

[iii] David Lose, “What Money Can and Can’t Do,” July 29, 2013, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668 on August 1, 2025.

Sermon – Mark 4.26-32, P6, YB, June 16, 2024

19 Wednesday Jun 2024

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Many of you know that I grew up in the United Methodist Church.  Growing up in the Methodist Church meant that I was steeped a particular set of hymns, many written by John and Charles Wesley themselves – John being attributed with the founding of the Methodist movement.  I can be at a retirement community or an ecumenical service and one of those songs will come up, and I am instantly transported back to the old country church where my dad was the pastor.  There is something about that music that almost feels like the music is a part of my DNA.  So, imagine my surprise when I found out in seminary that much of the music settings for those old timey hymns I love were actually pub songs – tunes that anyone who had spent time at the pub would know, just set to new words about Jesus.  Charles and John did that because they knew it would make the songs deeply familiar, while becoming teaching tools for the church.  No wonder those hymns are so catchy!

In some ways, parables from Jesus are similar.  Jesus uses story to teach truth.  Teaching through parables makes the teaching engaging, accessible, and memorable.  I bet that even today, two thousand years later, when we heard Mark’s gospel today, we probably thought, “Oh yeah!  The one about the mustard seed.  That’s about just having a little faith is all you need!”  And in part, you would be right.  But as catchy as pub songs are and parables seem, unfortunately, Jesus’ parables, while memorable, are not always simple in meaning. 

Our trouble starts with the fact that we have two parables together today – not just the one about the mustard seed.  In the first one, Jesus says the kingdom is like a guy who scatters some seed and then does literally almost nothing – he does not even know how the growing of seeds into plants works.  And then he just goes out to harvest.  So, that’s parable number one.  Parable number two compares the kingdom of God to a tiny little mustard seed that, when planted, grows into a huge bush big enough where birds can make nests.  So, this is not exactly a set of stories about just having a little bit of faith.  And quite frankly, if you take these two together, they seem to be saying that basically we do not really have much of a hand in the fruitfulness of the kingdom – that maybe we do not even understand the kingdom.  So, is that the message?  Just sit back because God does all the work to bring about the kingdom – oh, and the kingdom will be really big?

As much as I would like to send you all home today thinking you can just kick up your feet and sit back while God does the heavy lifting, especially as summer gets into full swing, unfortunately, we have summertime work to do.  You see, in both of these parables, while the miracle of growth happens through God, the planting in both stories has to be done by a person – by us, namely.  Scholar Amy-Jill Levine explains that in these parables, the seed still has to be planted.  She confesses that certainly some things need to be left alone – notice the man in the first parable.  And sometimes we need to get out of the way – notice the planter in the second parable.  But most importantly, Levine argues “The kingdom is present when humanity and nature work together, and we do what we were put here to do – to go out on a limb and provide for others, and ourselves as well.”[i]

That doing something, that lack of passivity in the bringing about of the kingdom, is what we are talking about when we talk about stewardship.  Often when we talk about stewardship, we think of that as the church’s codeword for our money.  But we were made stewards long before there was a church.  Even in the moment of creation way back in the book of Genesis, God created us to steward God’s creation – to tend to the blessings given to us.  Now that may feel daunting – as if not only are we to tend to this church but now we must tend to the whole world! 

But before you panic, let’s go back to that mustard seed parable.  I do not know how many of you have actually been around mustard plants, but mustard plants are a lot like kudzu – they tend to take over an area where they are germinated.  Jesus is telling us all we do is plant one of those teeny-tiny seeds, and suddenly we will have kudzu spreading everywhere.  In other words, our work of stewardship is like kudzu[ii] – we invest our time, our talent, and our treasure here in this place – and the results will spread like wildfire.  Suddenly, we have whole hillsides full the love of Christ, spilling over into the neighbor’s yard, draping everything in goodness.  We do not have to micromanage the growth – we do the planting, and God partners with us to bring the growth – even growth we sometimes do not understand.  Our job is simply to plant.

Our invitation today, then is to ponder what seeds we can plant here at Hickory Neck.  What gift of time can you place here that can spread to your fellow parishioner?  What gift of your unique talent can you plant here that can grow into powerful ministry?  What gift of your financial resources can you gift here that reach beyond these walls to share and spread God’s love?  Jesus’ familiar story reminds us that whatever we give, our giving allows us to participate with God in helping manifest the kingdom of God.[iii]  And God will spread our gifts like kudzu!  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper One, 2014), 182.

[ii] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text: Week Two, Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, 16 June 2024,” Center for Faith and Giving, 11, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 2.

[iii] Allen, 13.

Sermon – Matthew 25.14-30, P28, YA, November 19, 2023

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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One of the beloved pastors in my life I met in college.  She led me on my first international mission trip, opening my eyes to the realities of ethical living and our responsibilities to what scripture would define as the “least of these.”  She introduced me to the Episcopal Church in a subtle way that left me intrigued and wanting to know more.  She taught me about radical hospitality, as her family of five were constantly welcoming wandering students into their home.  And she introduced me to the Cathedral where I would ultimately experience a call to ordained ministry.  To say she played a formative role in my faith journey is an understatement.

What I knew as a loving pastor, a model Christian, and an inspiring mentor, though, had another side.  After college, I decided to volunteer for a year:  a noble endeavor, to be sure, but also an endeavor that left me with very little to spend on housing.  This pastor offered to let me live in the guest quarters of the Episcopal Center on campus in exchange for being the building’s caretaker:  cleaning it weekly, making sure the building was shut down and locked after group use, being on hand with any repairmen or women who needed access to the building.  It was a dream job, but it came with a cost.  No longer was my pastor my pastor – she was my boss.  And my pastor as a boss had a very different way of being than my pastor as a pastor.  She was firm, curt, and had little tolerance for anything other than excellence.  Gone were the niceties and loving nature, and in their place was an all-business task master.  It took me several weeks to figure out how to switch hats with her:  when to know we could be loving and playful and when to know we were being focused and task-oriented. 

The contrast between my mentor and pastor reminds me of the contrast we have seen in Jesus in these last several weeks of Matthew’s gospel.  First, we got the wedding host who seemed to be generously welcoming all to the party, only to cast someone out who wore the wrong clothing.  Then we got the feuding bridesmaids who refuse to care for one another, and the bridegroom who has no patience for a lack of preparedness.  And then we get today’s parable with the affirming, encouraging landowner and his harsh treatment of the tentative servant with his one talent.  If we simply had just today’s instance of God’s harshness or unjust judgment, we could say the parable is an anomaly, a strange outlier.  But given the repeated telling of scary-ending stories, we are cued into the idea that something else is going on in Matthew’s gospel.  Indeed, all these unsettling parables are what we call eschatological parables – stories about the end times.[i]  At this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is approaching the end of his life.  Instead of continuing to heal, preach, and lovingly teach his disciples, he starts getting real.   I am reminded of one of the first reality television shows that ever aired, MTV’s The Real World.  MTV would pair seven very different individuals and make them live together for a few months.  The tagline of the show was, “This is what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.” 

Understanding that Jesus is facing his immanent death is critical to understanding what is going on with Jesus in these parables.  Any of us who has journeyed with someone who is dying knows that at some point, they stop being polite and start getting real.  This is their last chance to tell others the essentials:  the life lessons learned, the love they want to share, and the stern encouragement they want to give.  Although this landowner seems harsh or even irrationally mean, what he is doing is communicating ultimate significance. 

Let’s go back to that third servant in today’s parable.  We know what the third servant does is not all that bad.  He does not squander the entrusted wealth, or act rashly.  He is conservatively prudent and, perhaps based on his skill level, wise to restrain himself.  But ultimately, the landowner is not upset about what the servant does.  The landowner is upset about the servant’s motivation:  fear.[ii] 

Now fear can be a very healthy thing, indeed.  Healthy doses of fear can secure survival and safety.  But fear can also be dangerous.  Fear can distort every good thing about our nature.  Fear can cut off creativity.  When we are overcome with fear, we cannot be imaginative and playful, coming to new solutions and ways of being.  Fear can mess with our sense of trust.  When we are overcome with fear, we forget the goodness of others, our previous examples of how things have gone well, or even the bold support of our God.  Fear can diminish our confidence.  When we are overcome with fear, all the good, powerful, and holy parts of us get riddled with self-doubt and inaction.  And finally, fear hinders with our willingness to take risks.  When we are overcome with fear, we cannot do the things that will lead to great payoff. 

Fear in the abstract is a normal reaction in life.  But we have to remember what Jesus is talking about in this parable to understand why the landowner is so harsh about fear.  You see, talents are not just metaphors for the thing things we are good at or even for the money we have in life.  Talents are metaphors for the vocations we each have.[iii]  Each person in this room has a calling.  Some of us are called to particular jobs or courses of study.  Some of us are called to particular roles within families or groups.  Some of us are called to use our gifts in particular ways.  We all have a call, a vocation in life.  And our vocation is affirmed by the skills or materials we are given to live out that call.  The problem with the third servant is that he is given what he needs in abundance – that single talent represents about twenty years of pay![iv]  The landowner affirms him, trusts him, and gives him space and time to live out his vocation.  But the third servant allows himself to be so overcome with fear that he does not live out his vocation.  He shuts down creativity, trust, confidence, and risk-taking all because he is afraid.  And that is the ultimate sin for God. 

What this parable invites us to do today is not to see this landowner – this stand-in for God – as a mean, cruel, reactive God that punishes.  Quite the opposite, the parable today invites us to remember that our God is trusting, discerning about our gifts, confident in our abilities, and joyful in our obedience.  God gives each person in this room a vocation, a purpose, in this world, gives us the gifts and encouragement we need to fulfill that vocation, and, ultimately, expects us to go out into the world and boldly take the risk of doing what God has already enabled us to do.  No one likes being thrust out of the nest, having to use our wings to sustain us.  But our parable reminds us we can do what we need to do.  We have beautiful wings and our flying will help others, will bring blessing to the world, and will bring us great joy.  Getting scared when God stops being polite and starts getting real is normal.  But letting fear overpower our beauty is not what God desires for us – because God knows you can do it.  God knows your willingness to live out your vocation means great things for the world.  You can do it – and you will, because the world needs you.  Amen.

[i] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 308

[ii] Douglas, 312.

[iii] Idea presented by Matthew Skinner in the podcast, “SB570 – Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 33)” November 11, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=948 on November 17, 2017.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “The Good Kind of Worthless,” November 8, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2814-the-good-kind-of-worthless on November 17, 2023.

Sermon – Mathew 25.1-13, P27, YA, November 12, 2023

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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I have never really liked this parable from Matthew.  Every time I hear it, I think of hundreds of reasons why Jesus gets the story all wrong.  Surely, Jesus does not mean that we should not share our bounty or at least figure out creative solutions to inclusivity.  Just two weeks ago we talked about loving our neighbor as ourselves, and loving means sharing your bounty.  And surely, Jesus does not mean that one moment of being unprepared means being kept from the heavenly banquet.  Even the sinner dying on the cross beside Jesus is gifted eternal life in the kingdom.  And surely, Jesus does not mean to advocate a theology of scarcity.  We are always talking about God’s abundant love, and hoarding our “oil” can only create a cold heart of scarcity that is rigidly stuck on self-preservation.  Nothing of this parable feels remotely like the Jesus I know, and yet here we are, on a Celebration Sunday studying a celebration that seems to be the antithesis of the Good News.

Though Matthew gives us this uncomfortable story, I am reminded of another uncomfortable story in John’s gospel.  Jesus is reclining with his friends, enjoying a relaxing meal.  And Mary, whose brother has recently been raised from the dead, kneels at Jesus’ feet, and pours this really expensive perfume all over Jesus’ feet.  Judas freaks out, exclaiming that the cost of that perfume could have been used to feed the poor – a group of people Jesus deeply cares about and argues that the kingdom of God holds dear.  Now, there is some commentary in John’s gospel about how Judas is a little shady and that he did not actually care about the poor.  But we know Jesus cared about the poor – a lot!  And yet Jesus shushes Judas and basically says there is a time for all things.  Certainly, they will always be time for serving the poor.  But in this moment, they only have Jesus a little longer and Mary’s undivided focus on Jesus is just the right thing to be doing, forsaking all the other good things she could be doing.  

One of my favorite theologians is Stanley Hauerwas.  There are many reasons why I love him – both personally and theologically – but Stanley has always been a theologian who has made uncomfortable arguments for followers of Jesus – always arguing that our lives must be lived radically differently than our capitalistic societies would have us live.  Following Jesus means sacrifice and valuing of the community over the self.  So, when I went to his writings about Matthew’s bridesmaid parable, I thought for sure he would have something to say about these stingy “wise bridesmaids.”  Surely Hauerwas of all people would have encouraged the wise bridesmaids to stand by the foolish ones, letting them benefit from their light.  Or surely Hauerwas would encourage the foolish bridesmaids to not go running around in the night, but to stand firmly before our God of mercy and wait for the abundant, merciful bridegroom to hold wide the door for unprepared sinners.

Sadly, that is not what Hauerwas argues.  Hauerwas says that if the bridesmaids who had thought ahead, “had shared their oil when the bridegroom had come, there would have been no light.  Those who follow Jesus will be expected to lead lives that make it possible for the hungry to be fed and the stranger welcomed, but the practice of charity requires a community prepared to welcome Christ as the bridegroom, for he alone makes possible hospitality to the stranger in the world where there will always be another stranger needing hospitality.”[i]

This parable today is not about us navigating some perceived ethical challenge about caring for the “less than.”  Today’s parable is instead about being prepared for Christ.  I may not like that the foolish bridesmaids return too late to enter the celebration, and I may not like that the groom closes the doors, and I definitely do not like that five women are left out in the cold.  I do not like any of those things, but they happen whether I like them or not.  “Windows close.  Chances fade.  Times runs out…  The opportunity to mend the friendship, forgive the debt, break the habit, write the check, heal the wound, confront the injustice, embrace the church, relinquish the bitterness, closes down.  Opportunities end.”  As Debie Thomas says, “We tell ourselves that there’s always tomorrow.  That we’ll get to it – whatever “it” is – eventually.  Because there will always be more time.” But, “what if there isn’t?  What if this parable is telling us to be alert now, awake now, active now?  What if [this parable is] inviting us to live as if each day – singular and fleeting – is all we have?  Tomorrow, if [tomorrow] comes, will be its own gift, its own miracle, its own challenge.  Don’t presume that [tomorrow] belongs to you.  Do what is needful now.”[ii] 

That is our invitation on this Celebration Sunday.  Hickory Neck offers the vehicle of your time, talent, and treasure to help you see whether you have arranged your resources to reflect your preparation for Christ the bridegroom.  That is likely the most accessible way for us to step back and look at all the things we are holding – that oil for our lamps – and see if we are using that oil in a way that allows us to welcome Christ so that Christ can make possible hospitality to the stranger in the world.  There will always be strangers for us to welcome, but today, our invitation is to ensure that we have first welcomed Christ in our lives in such a powerful way that we are invited to dance into the banquet hall with Christ, ready for the dance that will take its light back out into the world.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 209.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022),162.

Sermon – Matthew 22.1-14, P23, YA, October 15, 2023

20 Friday Oct 2023

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I cannot count the number of times I have had some variation of the dream.  The procession has started and I am not vested yet.  I run into the vesting room, only to be unable to find my alb and cincture.  Of course, I could grab one of the hundreds of albs in the vesting room but they are either too long or too short.  If I somehow manage to run into church vested, usually the service has begun without me.  And sure enough, when I look at the pulpit, my sermon is nowhere to be found.  Before I was a priest, the nightmares were about a test for a class I have not attended all semester, or a classroom I cannot find, or a mystery locker that has books I need.  We all have them – or at least I hope I am not the only one!  I have heard of church musician nightmares about unpracticed pieces of music or music missing from the music stand.  And, of course, there is the classic nightmare of showing up to an important event without your clothes.

So, in our gospel lesson, when the person who was not originally invited to the wedding banquet because he did not have enough social capital is put on the spot in front of everyone by an agitated and somewhat violent host about not wearing the right garment, our anxiety levels and sense of injustice soar.  What if he did not own a wedding garment?  Maybe he was too poor to have one.  Maybe he did not know the social mores of fancy banquets.  Surely God does not cast us out with no regard for human dignity.  Isn’t that what Jesus is all about – loving and welcoming all?!?

Truth be told, this whole parable is one of those awful parables we wish we could skip or at least skim until we reach something more palatable.  With the Holy Land crumbling into violence and suffering, the last thing I wanted to read about this week was of entitled invitees to the king’s wedding feast violently mistreating messengers from the king and the retaliatory destruction and burning of the city.  And then, when the seemingly guilty parties have done to them what they did to others, the king cannot seem to contain his anger, and lashes out at a seemingly innocent man about not wearing the right garment, even though he had very little time to prepare for the afterthought invitation to the banquet.  In what has been a week of violence, particularly violence against civilians on all sides, the last thing I wanted to hear this morning was more violence from our gospel lesson. 

If we are going to tackle this seemingly awful parable, we are going to have to step back to see what is happening.  First, as scholar Yung Suk Kim explains, “a parable is not intended for literal interpretation…  For example, while the king is like God in some sense, he is not the same as God.  Likewise, his son is not Jesus.  His slaves who went out to call the invited guests are not prophets, and invited guests are not Israel.  The king’s violent response is not the same as the fall of Jerusalem.  Allegorical interpretation is not wrong [with parables] but has limitations…  Indeed, the allegorical interpretation cannot explain the complexities in the parable of the wedding banquet.”[i]

Second, despite our ability to remove immediate comparisons of God to the violent king, Matthew does say the kingdom of God is like this parable.  So, there is some learning, even in the uncomfortable casting out of the man who shows up at the party in the wrong garb – fulfilling every anxiety dream we have ever had.  When we hear those harsh words, many called, but few are chosen, we finally understand the “so what?” of all this violence and seeming overactions.  Karoline Lewis explains, “…many are called but few are chosen indeed.  The chosen are the ones who realize that just showing up is not enough anymore.  The chosen are the ones who insist that mere acquiescence, week after week, day after day, to doctrine and dogma will not stand the test of what it means to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  The chosen are the ones who believe that a God who is Immanuel might very well stake a claim on their own humanity.  And, the chosen are the ones who understand that the time for bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven is now — not later, not tomorrow, not someday, but now.”[ii]

Today’s language is violent and somewhat despondent.  And although that may not be literally applied to God, this text comes with consequences.  Today’s text reminds us that RSVPing to church, and showing up to consume comfort and reassurance is not the totality of membership in the body of Christ.  Showing up in this community means being gifted the clothing of discipleship – clothing we will put on every week.  We are always welcome in these chairs and on our YouTube channel.  And, to belong here means to take on the clothing of discipleship.  As Lewis says, we can no longer don the clothing of “complacency, conformity, and any kind of garb that is content with the way things are.”  Today we are invited to put on “…the kind of compassion, birthed by God’s own righteousness, that cannot, anymore, leave things the way they are.”[iii] 

But no need to worry about a new anxiety dream.  If you forget your clothing of discipleship, we have that clothing ready for you every Sunday.  That is why in stewardship season, so many of us are generous with our gifts of time, talent, and treasure – because we know how precious the gift of that weekly garb is.  We know the feeling of coming to church weary, downtrodden, and tired, and we also know the feeling of leaving church empowered and invigorated to slip on that gown of discipleship anew for the coming week.  Hickory Neck is the place we come to every week to join in the communal feast.  And Hickory Neck is the place where that weekly feast emboldens us to feed others.  There is no casting out into the outer darkness from these doors – not without the garb of discipleship we are gifted with from this place of nourishment and belonging.  Amen.

[i] Yung Suk Kim, “Commentary on Matthew 22:1-14,” October 15, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28/commentary-on-matthew-221-14-9 on October 12, 2023.

[ii] Karoline Lewis, “What Not To Wear,” October 8, 2017, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/what-not-to-wear on October 12, 2023.

[iii] Lewis.

Sermon – Matthew 18.21-35, P19, YA, September 17, 2023

20 Wednesday Sep 2023

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One of the tricky things about Jesus’ parables is where to situate ourselves, especially when the parable is a familiar one.  As soon as we hear the words, “…the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts…” our brains jump ahead, “Oh, this is the one where the guy is forgiven of his debts and then two seconds later turns around and refuses to forgive someone else’s debt.”  We may have felt pity for the first slave who owed so much, we may have been shocked by his poor behavior toward the other slave, or we may have even thought, “That guy deserved what he got!”  But the thing that is the hardest to do when reading this familiar parable is to situate ourselves in the shoes of the first slave.  And yet, that is the entire reason Jesus tells the parable today. 

We know where to situate ourselves because of what happens before the parable.  If you remember our gospel last week, we talked about Jesus’ conflict resolution plan.  In the very next verse after Jesus explains how the community of faith is to handle conflict, Peter asks a question in today’s text.  The question is a fair one, and when we’re really honest with ourselves, one we may have asked God ourselves.  Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  The parable Jesus tells today is in response to Peter’s question about conflict, sin, and forgiveness in the community of faith.  Essentially, Jesus says, “Let me tell you a little story about forgiveness.”  So, we, who have resisted forgiveness ourselves like Peter, can situate ourselves with not just Peter, but with the slave who fails so miserably at forgiveness. 

Now, before you get too defensive about how you would never treat a fellow human being like the first slave treats the second, we need to think about Peter’s question first.  Theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains, “Peter’s question presupposes that he is the one who has been sinned against.  He assumes that he is in the position of power against the one who has wronged him.  But Jesus’s reply reminds Peter that he is to learn to be the forgiven.”[i]  Before we begin to think about offering forgiveness, we operate from one foundational truth:  we are a people who have first been forgiven.[ii]  Our forgiven status is at the heart of our ability to be a people of forgiveness.

But before we even talk about being a people of forgiveness, we need to talk a little bit about what forgiveness is not.  Some of us believe that forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is okay.  For those who hold that belief, forgiveness can be equated with stuffing our feelings down deep inside or downright lying in order to keep the peace.  Others of us believe that forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is so important, that we become recurring victims of offenses.  Still others believe that forgiving means forgetting what happened.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is pretending an old hurt does not still hurt.  Finally, others see forgiveness as something that we can do at will, and always all at once.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness must be immediate and offered quickly.  The problem with all these models of forgiveness – of overlooking the harm, saying everything is okay, of allowing recurring behavior, of trying to forget, or forgiving once and for all – is that these models of forgiveness would have been totally foreign to Jesus.  According to author Jan Richardson, in Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, “…nowhere does Jesus lay upon us the kinds of burdens we have often placed upon ourselves—burdens that can make one of the most difficult spiritual practices nearly impossible.”[iii]

So, if we know what forgiveness is not, we need to know what forgiveness is.  I like what scholar Debie Thomas has to say about forgiveness.  She says, “I think forgiveness is choosing to foreground love instead of resentment. If I’m consumed with my own pain, if I’ve made injury my identity, if I insist on weaponizing my well-deserved anger in every interaction I have with people who hurt me, then I’m drinking poison, and the poison will kill me long before it does anything to my abusers. To choose forgiveness is…to cast my hunger for healing deep into Christ’s heart, because healing belongs to him, and he’s the only one powerful enough to secure it.”  She goes on to say, “Secondly, …forgiveness is a transformed way of seeing.  A way of seeing that is forward-focused.  Future-focused.  Eschaton-focused.  …abuse and oppression are [n]ever God’s will or plan for anyone.  But I do believe that God is always and everywhere in the business of taking the worst things that happen to us, and going to work on them for the purposes of multiplying wholeness and blessing…Because God loves us, we don’t have to forgive out of scarcity. We can forgive out of God’s abundance.”[iv]

So how many times are we to forgive?  Not seven times.  Not even really seventy-seven times or seventy times seven, as some translations say.[v]  The forgiveness that first slave receives is hyperbolically abundant – the forgiveness by the king of ten thousand talents (or the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor)[vi] is almost ludicrous in its generosity.  But that is how abundantly God loves us.  We are invited today to love with that kind of ludicrous abundance too.  For our health, for our faith in the better world God is creating, we pray for the strength to ask God to “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  We are a forgiven people, who, because God loves us, can forgive not out of scarcity, but out of God’s abundance.  Amen.  

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 166.

[ii] Hauerwas, 166.

[iii] Jan Richardson, “The Hardest Blessing,” September 9, 2014, as found at http://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/09/09/the-hardest-blessing/#.VBOogcKwKi0 on September 16, 2023.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “Unpacking Forgiveness,” September 6, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2748-unpacking-forgiveness on September 16, 2023.

[v] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[vi] David Lose, “Pentecost 14A: Forgiveness and Freedom,” Sept. 7, 2014, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/ 2014/09/pentecost-14-a/.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 20, 2022

25 Wednesday May 2022

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As I have been watching the news about Ukraine, I find that I am in equal measures blown away by the fortitude and commitment of Ukrainians – who by all accounts had no chance in beating powerful Russia, and devastated by the suffering of Ukrainians – starving and trapped inside surrounded cities, attempting to protect children by writing the word “children” outside a safe house, only to have that safe space bombed, and even having maternity wards being fair game for destruction.  As my heart ached the question, “Why?” this week, I was so grateful when I read today’s gospel and see those gathering around Jesus asking Jesus the same question.

In Luke’s gospel today, the people come with two concerns to Jesus.  They want to know why Galilean Jews have suffered at the hand of Pilate, and why many were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed.  I feel a solidarity in their painful questions, and I have a hopeful longing when Jesus opens his mouth.  But what comes next feels like Jesus has not heard us at all.  In answer to their question of why there has been suffering, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit and had not borne fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree. 

Now maybe you hear Jesus’ parable today, and you can immediately see the correlation between the question why there is suffering in the world and the parable of the unproductive fig tree.  I was not so lucky this week.  In fact, I found myself staring blankly at this text for days.  Certainly, I understand the question the people ask, since I have been asking that same question for weeks.  And I think I somewhat understand the parable – I mean, what better parable for Lent than one about repentance.  But what I did not understand was why Jesus told this parable to answer our question of why there is suffering in the world.

Fortunately, I stumbled on the work of a biblical scholar.  She describes the idea by poet and healer Pádraig Ó Tuama of the “Buddhist concept of ‘mu,’ or un-asking.  If someone asks a question that’s too small, flat, or confining, Ó Tuama writes, you can answer with this word mu, which means, ‘Un-ask the question, because there’s a better question to be asked.’  A wiser question, a deeper question, a truer question.  A question that expands possibility, and resists fear.”[i]  I think what the poet and the scholar are pointing to is a little like that movie The Karate Kid from the 1980s.  In the movie, the main character wants an old man to teach him karate so he can stand up to the high school bully.  And so, what are the first things the old teacher has him do?  Paint a fence, wax a car, and sand a wooden walkway.  This desperate teen asks for help, and at first glance, the wise teacher is responding in a totally disconnected way.

Of course, in the movie we learn that the teacher’s method is anything but disconnected.  Painting, waxing, and sanding all incorporate the skills needed to master karate.  Jesus is a similar sensei in his telling of this cryptic parable.  In order to help us shift our work of repentance on this third week of Lent, when we ask why, Jesus says “mu.”  As Debie Thomas argues, Jesus “…says “mu” because “why” is just plain not a life-giving question.  Why hasn’t the fig tree produced fruit yet?  Um, here’s the manure, and here’s a spade — get to work.  Why do terrible, painful, completely unfair things happen in this world?  Um, go weep with someone who’s weeping.  Go fight for the justice you long to see.  Go confront evil where it needs confronting.  Go learn the art of patient, hope-filled tending.  Go cultivate beautiful things.  Go look your own sin in the eye and repent of it while you can.  In short: imagine a deeper story.  Ask a better question.  Live a better answer.”[ii] 

Jesus is not unfeeling about our angst about suffering in the world.  I suspect Jesus is grateful for our empathetic hearts.  But this cryptic parable this week is meant to shift us a quarter turn so that we move out of empathetic paralysis and into repentant productivity.  We learn from the parable we will not do this work alone.  We unproductive, rooted trees cannot exactly fertilize and aerate our own soil.  God, the gardener, who graciously asks for more time, will do that work as we focus on moving from being empathetic fig trees with no sustaining fruit, to humble, repentant fig trees who work on improving our own sinful behavior before becoming overwhelmed with the rest of the sinful world.  God will likely have to shovel a lot of manure to help transform our unproductive soil.  But as we weep with others, grab our own spades, confront evil in our own life, and fight for justice through hope-filled tending, we begin the work of asking better questions and living better answers.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “What Are You Asking?” March 13, 2022, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2944 on March 19, 2022.

[ii] Thomas.

Sermon – Jonah 3.10-4.11, Matthew 20.1-16, P20, YA, September 20, 2020

23 Wednesday Sep 2020

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Today, we hear some of the most fabulous stories in scripture.  The first is one of my favorites – the complete and utter temper tantrum of Jonah.  Jonah, the “anti-prophet”[i] who runs from God’s call so vigorously he risks an entire boat’s crew, and is swallowed and regurgitated by a large fish before doing what God tells him to do.  He finally goes to Nineveh, preaching the shortest, most reluctant sermon ever, and when the people repent and God relents from punishment, Jonah loses his mind.  Maybe Jonah hoped that Nineveh, home of the Assyrians who have battled and ruined the Northern empire of Israel, would finally get what they deserve.  Instead they get God’s mercy and grace.  Jonah is angry because he loathes the very nature of God – the God who is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  Jonah only wants that kind of God for himself – not for his people’s mortal enemies.  Jonah is angry.  In his tempter-tantrum-throwing words, “Angry enough to die!”

The characters in Matthew are not much different.  After laboring in the fields all day, as various workers are brought in from the marketplace, even up until the last hour, the day laborers are distributed their pay.  When the landowner gives those who worked an hour the same as those who worked all day – even though technically, the longest working laborers received exactly what the landowner promised – a living wage that can feed their families – the longest working laborers cannot see and praise the landowner’s generosity toward others.  No, they grumble – a pastime of God’s people from the beginning of time.[ii]  Everyone wants a gracious God – until that grace is extended in ways that violate our precarious notions of justice.  The problem, as once scholar submits, is “Justice and grace cannot be reconciled with one another.”  And yet, “they are both part of the character of God.”[iii]

Now I would love to stand here with you today and patronize these characters.  But those kinds of sentiments let us off all too easily.  If we have not acknowledged our own Jonah-like temper tantrums or our grumbled against God’s gracious mercy in the last six months, we are not paying attention.  Everything about our nation’s conversations right now are about justice, mercy, and grace:  conversations about race and privilege; anger at foreign countries where not only a pandemic originated, but where economic policies are cutting us off at the ankles; an election that has us so polarized we no longer see the humanity in our political enemies; an economy where the rich are either getting richer or are tending to their own, especially when related to the education of their children, while the poor are simply praying to keep their jobs and their homes where their kids are struggling to learn; where the death of an iconic judicial leader has us not just grieving, but taking up arms about the process of electing the next Supreme Court Justice before we’ve even uttered the words, “Rest in Peace.”  The list goes on and on, and I am sure at some point in the last six months we have all been “angry enough to die.”

I understand our emotions are raw right now.  Lord knows, I think every person in my household burst into tears about something this week.  Even the notion of singing the psalmist’s words today feels impossible when we think of “the other.”  But we have to remember when we say, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,”[iv] those words are for us too.  As much as Jonah runs, deceives, puts others in danger, resists God, half-heartedly does his work, stomps away from God, shows his anger, God keeps pursuing him.  Over and over, despite Jonah’s not deserving, God is gracious with him, full of mercy and steadfast love.  And despite the longest laborers’ grumbling, God provides them with their daily needs.  In God’s question to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” are a host of modern-day questions, articulated by a scholar.  She asks, “Could it be any more obvious that we — all of us, every single one of us — are wholly dependent on each other for our survival and well-being?  That the future of Creation itself depends on human beings recognizing our fundamental interconnectedness, and acting in concert for the good of all?  That what’s “fair” for me isn’t good enough if it leaves you in the darkness to die?  That my sense of “justice” is not just if it mocks the tender, weeping heart of God?  That the vineyards of this world thrive only when everyone — everyone — has a place of dignity and purpose within them?  That the time for all selfish and stingy notions of fairness is over?”[v]

I know today’s lessons are hard.  But when we allow ourselves to be fully consumed by God’s grace, mercy, and abundantly steadfast love, our hearts soften a bit – maybe just a tiny sliver.  That sliver is God’s gift to you this week – the gift that will enable us all to see we are all in this together.  God needs me, you, us, and them – however you are defining “them” this week.  God is not asking us to roll over and stop fighting for justice.  But God is inviting us to remember each other’s humanity while doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.  Today’s lessons remind us we can – we can see with the eyes of God’s grace, mercy, and love because we have experienced that same grace, mercy, and love.  When we start seeing with God’s eyes, we will be empowered to find a way forward despite ourselves.  Thanks be to God.

[i] C. Davis Hankins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 75.

[ii] Kathryn D. Blanchard, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 94.

[iii] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 97.

[iv] Psalm 145.8

[v] Debie Thomas, “On Fairness,” September 13, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?fbclid=IwAR1uTVaenGNYgJX-mpph8V_97k_S-kIWEbuuSMwkzJKLohX0XbYvuveEk9k on September 17, 2020.

Homily – Luke 18.9-14, P25, YC, October 27, 2019

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

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Today’s parable from Jesus is one of those short parables that seems pretty straightforward at first glance.  Jesus describes two men who go to the temple to pray.  One is a Pharisee – a law-abiding, God-fearing man who offers a prayer of thanksgiving, albeit one that is full of self-righteousness, comparing himself and his choices favorably against those of others – suggesting in a sense that others are outside of God’s favor and grace.  The other is a tax collector – a corrupt collaborator with the government who, full of shame, humbly confesses to God his sins.  Jesus tells us the tax collector, “went down to his home justified rather than the other.”

Our temptation is to hear this text and conclude something quite simple:  the Pharisee is bad and the tax collector is good; bragging about yourself is bad and being humble is good; being a faithful person who misjudges God’s abundance is bad and being a self-aware sinner is good.  The problem with reading the text in this black-and-white way is we miss little details.  With such a stark reading, we can find ourselves walking out of church today thinking, “Thank God I’m not like the Pharisee!”  And before we even notice, we realize we are praying the same prayer as the Pharisee from the parable!

But this week, I stumbled on a little translation difference that shifted this parable for me.  In verse 14, Jesus says, “I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other…”  But scholar Matt Skinner argues the preposition, “rather than,” should be translated instead as “alongside.”  So, verse 14 becomes, “I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his home justified alongside the other…”[i]  Skinner argues there is much more nuance in this parable than we often allow.  That both men are praying, both men have faults, and both go home justified in different ways.  Sure, the Pharisee limits the extent of God’s grace, and he is unaware of his sinfulness in such exclusion, but the tax collector is no innocent.  Both men go home justified alongside each other.

One of the things we have been celebrating this stewardship season is our identity.  When we say, “We are Hickory Neck!” we say we are a people who have raised over $170,000 for local charities, who have over 50 volunteers on a given Sunday, who support one another through spiritual offerings like Lectio Divina, Book Club, Bible Study, and Jam Sessions, who nurture children and young families, who welcome newcomers, who work hard, and who have fun.  We are all those things are more – I imagine each of us here has a mental picture about what we mean when we say, “We are Hickory Neck!”  One of those things is that we walk home justified alongside each other.

That is what I love about this community.  This is a community that is passionate about Jesus and take’s Christ’s light out into the world.  This is a community that is passionate about caring for one another – where all can feel loved and affirmed, and all can find a place to thrive.  This is a community that is passionate about serving our neighbors – those young families looking for a sense of belonging and affirmation, and those retirees looking for a new sense of home.  This is a community that is passionate about liturgy, music, having fun, sharing sorrows, honoring history, dreaming about future possibilities, and laughing – lots of laughing.  This is a community that is passionate about investing our individual resources into Hickory Neck so Hickory Neck can bless others as Hickory Neck has blessed us.  We are Hickory Neck!  We are a community who walks alongside each other.

But that’s just me.  I want to know what gets you excited about Hickory Neck.  I want to know what saying “We are Hickory Neck!” conjures in your mind.  At your tables is a list of ideas from our Stewardship Committee.  Reread those ideas, and then talk with the people at your table about what you think of that is not on the list.  Write them down as you talk, so the Stewardship Committee understands what is important to you as we support and fund ministry.  You have about five minutes to chat and make notes, and then we’ll regather with a word of prayer…

Let us pray.  God of abundance, we come to you as self-righteous, sinful followers, who regularly mess up.  But our heart is with you.  We want to be agents of your light and your love.  Help us to love you abundantly.  Help us to support your kingdom generously.  Help us to walk alongside one another, shining your light for others so they may give glory to you.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

[i] Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave #686 – Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 30),” October 19, 2019, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1192 on October 23, 2019.