Category: Faith

The Gospel Reading is Luke 6:17-31.

Today’s sermon in the gospel according to Luke should sound familiar. This is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount which appears in the gospel according to Matthew. In Matthew, Jesus begins his public ministry by sharing everything. He sits on a mountain top, surrounded by his disciples and a crowd. When we see Jesus there, he looks like he’s standing between the earth and heaven. We are looking up to Jesus. His words, in this context, point us to “a covenant made with a community to which [we] aspire to belong” (Thomas Frank in Feasting on the Gospels – Luke Volume 1, 2014). Luke’s sermon starts in a different place. Jesus isn’t on a mountaintop. Instead, Jesus comes down from one and teaches while standing “on a level place.”

The crowd gathering around Jesus is filled with different kinds of people. Some come from Judea (the area around Jerusalem) while others come from the city of Jerusalem itself. Another group, however, comes from the coast of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon are old cities and city-states founded and ruled by the ancient Philistines. The Philistines fought wars against Israel, King David, and the early Israelites. At one point, they even captured the Ark of the Covenant itself! Tyre and Sidon are also areas associated with kings and queens who ruled parts of Israel and encouraged the people of Israel to follow other gods. As cities on the coast, Tyre and Sidon did have faithful Jewish merchants and followers of God living within their walls. But Tyre and Sidon are places that should be hostile to God. But this crowd is different. This great multitude is full of the “right” kind of believers and the “wrong” kind too. There are people hear who we do not expect. But these unexpected people are standing alongside us, wanting to be healed and learn what God is doing in the world. So Jesus, seeing this crowd full of unexpected people, does a very unexpected thing. He is not standing above the crowd; he is inside of it. Jesus, when he looks at the people around him, is standing at eye level. He in the middle of this crowd full of the right and wrong kind of people. God is doing more than inspiring us to join what God is doing in the world. God is coming into the middle of us, meeting us where we are at right now, and bringing us into God’s future.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 11/06/2016.

The Gospel Reading is John 8:31-36.

“The truth shall set you free” is such a great line and is one of many great lines from the gospel according to John. This line is also beautiful and why we hear this reading every year at this time. As Lutheran Christians, the last Sunday in October is a time when we dress up the church in red and celebrate. But today is more than just the day before Halloween. The last Sunday in October is Reformation Sunday. We remember how, on October 31, a monk posted on a church door 95 thoughts about God and the church. We remember and celebrate all our faith-filled fore bearers who lived their faith out loud and passed this faith down to us. This October 31 will mark the beginning of our 500th year as a community of faith living called Lutheran. Today is a day when we remember how the past formed us and how faith is transforming us and our world. Reformation Sunday is always a Sunday looking into the future and seeing where God is taking us next. Reformation is about relationship.

Relationship is at the heart of today’s reading from John and we see that relationship when we leave these words in context. When we take verses of scripture out of context, we miss what Jesus is saying. Today’s reading isn’t about freedom as we understand it (personal liberty, autonomy, and the ability to make our own choices). Jesus is speaking during a conversation with people who followed him and then stopped. Something caused these early followers of Jesus to not buy into what Jesus was doing and saying. These early followers stopped trusting in Jesus’ identity and mission. Jesus uses this opportunity to expand our definition of faith. Faith is more than agreeing to a series of propositions or ideas. Faith is more than an intellectual experience and does not resemble the tests we take in school. Faith is, in the words of this passage, about a relationship with God. In the words of Gilberto Ruiz, professor at Saint Anselm College, “the verb translated in the New Revised Standard Version as ‘continue’ in John 8:31 is meno, a key term in John’s Gospel that is often translated as ‘remain’ or ‘abide’ and points to the permanent or enduring nature of the relationship between Jesus and the believer…by taking into consideration that Jesus’ language focuses on ‘remaining’ and that his audience is a group whose faith in him did not ‘remain,’ we see that this passage presents faith as a continuing relationship. The true disciple ‘remains’ in a faith relationship with Jesus, and it is this disciple who will be set free by knowing the truth revealed by Jesus.” Faith is more than just saying yes to God; faith is walking with Jesus over the long haul. And that’s not easy.

Relationships are never easy. Relationships take time. They require compromise, conversation, engagement, give, and take. There are times when our relationships are full of joy and other times when we are angry or sad. And our relationship with God is filled with the same kind of feelings and experiences. Sometimes our relationship with God feels completely unlike what we expect faith to be. But our faith with God doesn’t depend on what we feel or think. Our faith is a gift from God. God doesn’t wait for us to reach out; God comes to us instead. God starts our relationship through the gifts of baptism, parents, communities of faith, and the Holy Spirit herself. Faith is about what happened yesterday, who we are today, and where we are going in the future. Faith is a relationship and the Reformation is celebrating a God who starts that relationship so we can live into a future God is already preparing.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 10/30/2016.

The Gospel Reading is Luke 18:9-14.

Tax collecting in Jesus’ era was a messy business. The system we use today is different. Many of us first experience taxes when we buy something. A sales tax is added to the bill. We also might have taxes taken out of our paycheck and spend hours trying to figure out a tax system that changes every year. Our system includes lawyers, accountants, and others who help us figure out the taxes we pay. Our system is not perfect but this system provides the money for roads, schools, hospitals, the military, and countless other institutions and activities that connect us as a community.

Tax collecting in Jesus’ time didn’t work this way. Kings and emperors set a target for how much money they wanted to collect. These leaders did not have the institutions or the human resources to travel around and collect the taxes themselves Instead they hired tax collecting firms to collect the money for them. Tax collectors could even sub-contract to other tax collecting firms. These firms were legally empowered to collect the tax along with a “commission.” People who were taxed had to pay the original tax and the additional “commission.” Tax collectors did more than collect taxes: they collected their own paycheck as well.

The tax collectors Jesus called as his disciples were hated for a variety reasons. People did not like paying the tax and being connected connected to an occupying army (the Roman Empire) who set the taxes. Tax collectors worked “on behalf politically oppressed and economically exploitive system of imperial domination.” (Gregory Allen Robbins in Feasting on the Gospels, Luke Volume 2). Tax collectors supported and sustained an empire that invaded Israel, conquered it, and determined who its leaders were.

No one liked tax collectors. People avoided tax collectors and religious leaders rightly saw tax collectors as problems. But today’s text is powerful because Jesus does more than talk about tax collectors. Jesus calls one as an apostle (Levi) and he’ll eat with them in their homes. Jesus doesn’t avoid the tax collector. Instead, Jesus loves them.

Each week, I write a reflection on one of our scripture readings for the week. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship Bulletin for 10/23/2016.