LK 12: 13-21

Laterally Luke…Pentecost + 8…Revised 2019

Been building any bigger & better barns lately? If so, stop! Stop right now! I’m not the one telling us this; Jesus Himself is! What might this barn-building business actually mean in today terms rather than those of yesteryear? Begin with the fact that Jesus, a great spinner of yarns, tells the parable in response to a chap in the crowd, let’s call him Bill, appealing to Him to arbitrate in a family dispute. Jesus, though, isn’t buying into this!

The first thing that strikes me is Jesus noticing & responding to ‘someone in the crowd’. How many ‘Bills, or Wilhelminas’ - get lost in the crowd today? Though few of our congregations are ‘crowded’ today, it’s too easy for ‘what’s his name / what’s her name?’ to get lost in there somewhere. With Jesus, though, little people always count, & because they count, we count. With God. Everyone counts. Not, in any theoretical way, but in personal, flesh & blood, down to earth reality. Does our faith community need to learn everyone counts? What steps may we need to take to make that happen? Certainly not by building bigger & better ‘barns’ of any kind!  

Whereas Jesus chooses to steer clear of the legalities ‘Bill’ wants to involve Him in, churches of various stripes have long run on legalities. An example of our choosing to live by Law & not by Grace. God gave Moses Ten Commandments, Jesus summar-ised them in two. But parishes, dioceses, & the national church in which I've long served, keep on building bigger & better barns - Rule Books - many centimetres thick! Has that infectious disease known as ‘statute-bound’ struck where we are a member? If so, is there anything people in the pews, ‘little people’, can do about it?

Thomas (Ch.72) has an interestingly different take on this incident. Tom has Jesus asking the fellow, “Who made me a divider?” then asking His disciples, “I’m not a divider, am I?” Might it be that the tale is about both the Greed Jesus sees as the motive for the fellow’s approach to Him, & the Divisiveness such greed brings among us? Is it both that lead to Jesus’ warning about building barns? Of all shapes & sizes?

Have the man in the crowd & the rich man of the parable both lost their ability to live free & alive to God? The one bound by a family property dispute, the other by busi-ness opportunism? Jesus doesn't seem to have a problem with property as such, only with how we feel about it & what we do with it. Why not apply Jesus’ parable about barns to anything stopping us from being free & alive to God?

Brian

Afterthought: Are feeding the poor in their poverty traps, caring for those who have no-one else to care for them, providing shelter over the heads of the homeless, & the like, ‘barns’ Jesus would encourage us to build today?

LK 11: 1-13 

Laterally Luke… Pentecost +7…New 2019

To do justice to the prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, to our praying it, & to preaching it, we need to read LK’s version in conjunction with MT’s version. And, both in conjunction with Ex 3:13-15. The One we’re holding Holy, whose Rule we’re praying will come, whose Will we’re praying will be done, & from whom we ask enough Bread for each day is our ‘Father’. The One we ask for Forgiveness as we forgive, & that we not be Tried beyond our capacity to withstand, is our ‘Father’. Not only in Heaven, but on earth, too! Let’s not draw too hard a line between heaven & earth -  any more than YHWH God does! The Celts are often rightly credited with emphasising this, but it really goes back to our O.T. roots, &, of course, to Jesus Himself!

Today, rather than suggesting entry points as I often do, I’m advocating we centre our preaching on the nature of the God to whom Jesus teaches us to pray. Anything else we pray or preach needs to centre on that Nature, too!

In shepherding Jethro’s sheep (no doubt looking for strays in the process - how Jesus- like), Moses instead finds YHWH God! In the heart of a Burning Bush! When he asks God’s name, YHWH tells him, “I AM WHO I AM! I understand that to mean, “I AM BEING ITSELF!” “I AM SOURCE of all that is!” YHWH uses the burning bush to catch Moses’ attention. Are we spiritually discerning enough to notice any ‘burning bush’ God may be using to catch our attention today, whether or not we’re out there looking after our sheep? God’s sheep, before they’re ours! 

In teaching us how to pray, Jesus teaches us that praying isn’t at all, isn’t ever about what we want, but all about what God wants of us. God’s Heaven takes in the most down to earth situations like those Jesus quotes in vv. 5-13; situations He quotes to illustrate what He’s teaching us about prayer. Situations that  may even be today’s ‘Burning Bushes’ for us. Illustrations, too, that when we hold God’s name Holy, when we allow God’s Rule to come, His Will to be done, ‘on Earth as in Heaven’, there will be enough ‘bread’ to go around. Sins & debts of every kind will be forgiven. Even the worst tests & trials will be survived. For God’s Authority is being observed, God’s Power is at work, & God’s Glory shines in our midst. All in the Present Tense! 

On recent Sundays we’ve heard Jesus calling people to follow but His Call being declined; His sending out the 70 to rid people of demons; His tale of an unlikely  person coming to the rescue; & two sisters’ hospitality to Him. Jesus means these stories to continue now in us, to illustrate God’s Rule, God’s Power, & God’s Glory. 

Brian

Afterthought:What ‘burning bushes’ are still waiting for us to discern God in them? Have we come close enough, yet, to discern YHWH God, the God of Heaven, is also the God of Earth right now? Not that He will be, or might be one day? 

LK 10: 38-42 

Laterally Luke…Pentecost+6…Revised 2019

Short as it is, our passage is Alive with preaching possibilities. No doubt you can see others I’m not homing in on! How can we preach it in the Liveliest way possible? To do this we need to preach yesterday’s story in terms relevant to today. That’s what Jesus is all about! Starting points I can see include: Welcoming, Hospitality, Categorising people, Distractions, Griping about others, being Frenetic, &, of course, that all important ‘One Thing Necessary’. Take your pick, or pick your own!

How welcoming are we of people who ‘drop in’, at home, or in church? Are we as open to them as this home in Bethany is always open to Jesus when he drops by?

How generous in our hospitality are we to those who come visiting? What effort are we prepared to take to give of our best? Note how M & M express their hospitality in different ways.

Can we break out from any habits of categorising; not just M & M, but any & all of those we come in close contact with? Or, maybe, anyone we avoid closer contact with because they threaten?

I’m a fall guy for being distracted! Time & again I tell my loving & long-suffering wife, “Sorry - I was just distracted; I’ll do what needs to be done right now!” Who am I to preach to others about the dangers of being distracted unless & until I ‘fess up’ & change my ways?!

Do we find ourselves griping about the way someone else does things in our home, our congregation, our community? Could we not accept what they’re doing as their way of doing things, their contribution, even when we think they could do whatever it is better, or better still, do something else?! 

These wise words, ‘Frenetic service, even of the Lord, can be a deceptive distraction from what the Lord really wants’ (Brendan Byrne¹) may give us food for thought to get us started. What he says also fits well with that ‘One thing necessary’ Jesus expects, hopes for, or, is it demands of us? That we remain fixed on God, no matter what we’re doing. This means of course, doing things for others as we’d do them for God. And I take this to apply to everything we think or do.

Brian

Afterthought: In JN 11, after Lazarus' death, there's an element of role-reversal. It's Martha who goes out to meet Jesus & talk theology, while Mary stays at home passing coffee & cake for those calling to offer condolences!

¹ The Hospitality of God, Liturgical, Collegeville, MN, 2000, p. 103 

LK 10: 25-37 

Laterally Luke…Pentecost + 5…Revised 2019

If Jesus were telling this story today might He couch it in terms of us being ‘Good Samaritans’ to others along life’s way? Accepting others when they are being ‘Good Samaritans’ to us, rather than rejecting their would-be help? Accepting YHWH God as being the ‘Best Samaritan of all’ to us? Irrespective of nationality, race, religion, or anything else? Illustrating how to be Good Neighbours by loving even Unlikely People? By loving even Unlovely People? By loving even Unloveable People?

I take today’s passage & our preaching it to centre on v.33 where LK uses the word ‘Com-Passion’ - meaning ‘moved in our bowels’. It may be more confronting, still, to say ‘moved in your gut’, if we’re game to be even more confronting. As confronting as Jesus is when He deliberately sets out to confront His hearers! If He wanted to spare over-sensitive ears, He might have used ‘pity’ as some translations do. To settle for ‘pity’, though, takes out the bite Jesus has deliberately put into His yarn. I wonder if ‘pitying’ someone can become an excuse for doing nothing about their situation? 

Pity may lead to us giving ‘Vic’, one of today’s victims 50c., or even a small note, when that kind of giving does little or nothing to deal with the real issues they’re facing. So, are we going to play to the ‘sensitivities’ of our congregation? Or, instead, risk shocking them into the reality of what Jesus is on about here? What He expects of us? As He shocks His fellow Jews by comparing the responses of the ‘religious’ - in this case, professionals - hurrying by to get to church in time for the next service?

How many victims, felled by all sorts of violence - at a personal level, or on much larger scales - are lying by many kinds of ‘roadsides’ today. Are we in the habit of consciously passing them by? Of consciously not noticing them, as we hurry on to our ‘temples’ - religious or otherwise?

             

 Note, too, how ‘Sam’s so moved in his gut by ‘Vic’s plight that his Com-Passion continues to flow; going on to make arrangements for the victim’s care - & paying for it! - at the next motel they come too. To be ‘moved in our gut’ will inevitably lead to it costing us more than the occasional Band-aid!        

Churches today are reeling from snowballing claims of abuse of one kind or another. ‘Vic’ after ‘Vic’ is still coming forward. How do we feel about church leaders & members who seem keener on saving their ‘Temple’ than being Com-Passionate towards them? And, what are we doing - or going to do - about that?

Brian           

Afterthought: Com-Passion, by definition, has to come, not from our heads, nor from our pockets, but from inside us. From our gut! From my gut & yours! 

LK 10 : 1-12 (13-16) 17-24 

Laterally Luke…Pentecost+4…Revised 2019

If we choose to omit vv. 13-16 we still need to preach a Jesus who is no ‘Pale Galilean’! We aren’t called to ‘nanny’ people any more than Jesus was / is!

Jesus, the ‘greater than Moses’, &, following in his footsteps, appoints 70 (72?) - does it really matter to today’s congregations? - to share the burden of His work with Him. How can we interpret the strictures Jesus imposes on those He sends out, in terms more relevant to today’s settings & cultures? One possibility that appeals to me is to preach in terms of ‘baggage’ we’re carrying but don’t need to be. What lot of old rubbish are we carrying within us, but need to discard before we can answer Jesus’ call?

Why not explore what today’s equivalents of fields, lambs, & wolves we find our-selves among, might be? What ‘purses, bags, & sandals’ are distracting us from the outreach to which we’re called? Might the ‘no greeting’ along the way bit have something to do with prioritising time? Surely Jesus isn’t simply encouraging us to be rude to people? What can we tease out from this particular ‘rule’ He sets down?

Has today’s pendulum swung too far towards insipid & ineffective varieties of Christianity? So far that there’s no reason at all why Satan (however we understand that term) should feel ‘it’ needs to fall from Heaven or from anywhere else, for that matter? Can we reach out to others effectively enough to make ‘its’ tumbling a bit more worthwhile?!

As for the very down to earth snakes & scorpions (v.19), today’s ones in human form abound all around. Evil is always a more down to earth enemy than ‘up in the air’ ones. But, if we, by Grace, are wearing enough of the ‘whole armour of God’ we can combat & defeat evil at ground zero!   

‘The Complete Gospels’² I often refer to, uses, in v. 9 , the expression: God’s Rule is closing in.^’ That’s a very ‘head-on’ interpretation, I know, & I often ponder whether, read that way, God’s Rule becomes a threat or a promise! Does the answer to that depend on whether where we’re coming from is compatible with where God’s coming from, & how & when we meet? 

Brian 

  

Afterthought: Commenting ad loc, Richard Rohr’¹, SSF, suggests those sent out will be witnesses …who ‘live a believable life, a real life, an attractive life’. I find what he says believable, real, attractive, - & eminently preach-able.

¹ ‘The Good News According to Luke’, Crossroad, NY, 1997, p. 137  ² Polebridge, Sonoma, CA., 1992