Month: October 2022

21st Sunday of Pentecost, Proper 26: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 119:137-144; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12; Luke 19:1-10

When I lived in New Haven, my friend Gretchen Pritchard, who was then in charge of Children’s Ministries the Episcopal Church of St Paul and St James, taught me one of my most important lessons in ministry. She invited me to start a youth group for the middle schoolers in the church. I didn’t have a desperate need to start a youth group, but I was invited, so I said yes. I was hopelessly unprepared for the level of hormones that floated around the room sometimes, but the kids were great.

When starting up, I sent a letter to all the parents about a day retreat we were planning, asking them to get in touch so we would know how many kids were coming. Radio silence. No, she told me, you won’t hear from people. You have to call them. So I learned to make phone calls to the parents to organize events. Gretchen invited me, I invited others. And from then on, I knew that if I needed to reach people, I had to reach out to them individually.

I thought of that lesson when I re-read the story of Zacchaeus in today’s gospel. He was rich, the chief tax collector, and was curious about Jesus. He was short, so the only way he could see Jesus was by climbing a tree. And Jesus calls him. He needs a place to stay. Zacchaeus is happy to oblige. It doesn’t look good: everyone knows that Zacchaeus got rich off the backs of everyone else. But in inviting himself to Zacchaeus’ house, Jesus changed his life.

Jesus knew what he was doing. Zacchaeus welcomed him and announced that he is giving half his possessions to the poor, and will make right anyone he has defrauded. When Jesus affirms his salvation, he observes that Zacchaeus too “is a son of Abraham”, and that he had come “to save the lost”. The very fact that Zacchaeus was a surprising host was the point. When invited, he answered.

I try to remember the power of a non-judgmental invitation. People like to help. People like to be invited. So for us, as a small congregation what can we invite people to that is manageable for us but enjoyable for others? Where can we put ourselves out in the world?

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost: Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14

I lived much of my life on the east coast of the US, where rain was usually regular but intermittent; I also spent long stretches of time working in Britain, which is generally known for regular rainfall. It was not until I moved to California with its specific seasons of rainfall that the scriptural passages that describe the bounty of rain really hit me. I now understand the magical transformation of the brown landscape to green when the rains arrive.

You visit the earth and water it abundantly;
you make it very plenteous; the river of God is full of water.

You prepare the grain, for so you provide for the earth.

You drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges;
with heavy rain you soften the ground and bless its increase.

Psalm 65:9-11

In the book of Joel, we are instructed to “be glad and rejoice” in the early rain, “abundant rain, the early and the later rain”. There will be a good harvest of grain and wine and oil. The damage done by pests will be undone. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied”. This is a picture of abundance, of God’s bounty and generosity. There is every reason to “praise the name of the Lord your God”. The Lord will be in the midst of Israel, and the people will know that the Lord is their only God.

Yet this bounty is not the beginning of a stable or peaceful world. The consequences of this bounty and presence are not entirely what those in authority might want. The Lord’s spirit will be poured out on everyone, and “your sons and your daughters will prophesy”. Even slaves will receive God’s spirit. God’s spirit is not observing the usual hierarchy, but embracing everyone. This is a sign of the day of judgment: suddenly we have portents in the heavens and on earth. “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood”. At this point “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.

God’s abundance, in other words, does not just support the world as it is; it is a sign of radical transformation. God’s world is not our world. This passage from Joel was used by religious radicals during the Reformation to sanction preaching by ordinary people, especially women, but also uneducated men.

This same emphasis on God’s vision being different from that of the world is evident in the parable in today’s Gospel. Here we have two men praying at the temple. One is a pharisee, who carefully kept the laws. His prayer offers gratitude to God that he is not like others, but that he follows the laws given in the scripture. The tax collector, on the other hand, is off in a corner, asking God for mercy for his sins. Yet Jesus tells the disciples that it is the tax collector who is justified, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

It is comfortable to think that God wants the world to be a better version of what we want it to be. Today’s readings warn us against that comfortable vision, drawing our attention to the ways following the Lord will turn the hierarchies of our world upside down. It is tempting to be like the pharisee, confident in our vision of the world and our place in it. What would it mean for us to see ourselves as the tax collector, woeful failures in following God?

Credit: http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/uk/crown/large2180.html

19th Sunday after Pentecost: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

The parable in today’s gospel is designed, Jesus says, to show us the importance of praying always. It’s a short story: there is a judge who did not fear either God or the people. A widow kept coming to him, asking for justice. The judge grants the widow’s petition not because it is right, but because he is tired of being pestered. Jesus closes by saying, if the unjust judge can do the right thing, how much more will a just God hear the prayers of his people.

But that is not the end of the story. Jesus ends with a seemingly unrelated question: “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Whose faith? What faith? Is it the faith of the widow, who believes that if she persists, if she does not lose heart, her plea for justice will be answered? Is the faith that the Son of Man is looking for that of those who pray always, who do not give up? It seems like it.

I am always ambivalent about advice to pray for things. I don’t buy the idea of a God who is sitting there deciding whose prayers get answered and whose do not. Why does one person get their prayer answered and not another? You can hardly say that all those who pray faithfully always have their prayers answered.

So I don’t usually pray for specific things. Confronted with joy and with sorrow, with blessings and confusion, I find myself offering them to God. I have prayed with those doing something hard that they do not feel alone. I have prayed when those I loved were very ill. I have prayed for those who are dying, and for those who love them. Unlike the widow, I do not pray always, but I pray.

So do we, as a congregation. Our small congregation has kept going, kept on praying. Most of our services for the last 10 years have been morning or evening prayer. We pray. We don’t know what will come next. But for now, like the widow, we are persistent. We are present every Sunday, and we pray. We don’t just pray for ourselves: we pray for our friends in Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, and for those around us in Merced, and we pray for the world.

In the Gospel, Jesus suggests that praying always helps us to not lose heart. This is the faith that the Son of Man will want to see. In the Epistle, Paul is writing to Timothy, encouraging him in his ministry. He tells him to “be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable”. Keep on going, no matter what is happening.

We are human, so we do lose heart. Paul was worried that Timothy would lose heart. We lose heart as individuals and as communities. But we also persist. At our best, we keep praying, but at least we keep showing up. Sometimes showing up is the best we can do. The liturgy helps, because when we do lose heart, it gives us words to pray with and to find our way.

People sometimes think that faith is an easy way out. But faith is not easy. It was not easy for the widow in the Gospel. It certainly was not easy for Paul, and evidently not for Timothy. Todays readings offer little comfort, but do offer a way to live in faith: pray always, be persistent, and do not lose heart.

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost: Lamentations 1:1-6;  Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

Where did you learn your faith? What has supported it? What helps it grow? Paul writes to Timothy and provides a genealogy of Timothy’s faith: it “lived first in your grandmother Lois and you mother Eunice”. Timothy, Paul was sure, would follow in the faith of his maternal line. But maybe Paul is not actually as sure of Timothy as he says, as he has to tell Timothy not to be “ashamed” of testimony about Jesus, or of Paul’s imprisonment. The rest of the selection we have here is a pep talk from Paul to Timothy. Here’s what we believe, don’t be ashamed, and keep up the teaching.

In reading Paul, I was fascinated by Paul’s understanding of the way we learn our faith from those around us: in Timothy’s case, his mother and grandmother. Some of us learned our faith from our parents or grandparents; but what I learned from them has been added to over the years by teachers, preachers, and friends who modeled different aspects of faith. It was a useful reminder that our faith is not an insolated interaction between us and God, but always embedded in relationships that show us ways of being in that relationship, and help us move into a deeper relationship with God.

Today’s gospel starts with what seems like a simple request from the apostles to Jesus, to “Increase our faith”! Jesus’s response (as is so often the case) is not very satisfying, because the size of faith is not the issue. If their faith was even as big as a (tiny) mustardseed, it could move a tree from its current location into the sea. You do not need a great deal of faith to have a big impact. The problem is not needing more faith, but being willing to do the hard work of faith.

What are the apostles afraid of? Why do they feel the need for more faith? Will more faith help them do what they are commanded to do? Why do we, with at least (usually) a mustardseed sized faith, fail to move the trees in our way? Is that not the way it works today? Or are we, as Paul suggested of Timothy, ashamed? or are we afraid? If afraid, are we afraid of success or failure? What will faith ask of us? Do we really want the things we pray for? What would happen if all our prayers were successful?

These are questions many of us ask ourselves at one time or another. If there’s any comfort in these readings, it is that these challenges have been experienced by followers of Jesus from the apostles onward. We are not the first, and we won’t be the last. Just as we learn our faith from others, we share our doubts and fears with others. What will happen we we trust the power of our faith?