"God of Second Chances." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 13:1-9

"God of Second Chances"

Luke 1:1-9

            When the headlines are grim, when things go terribly wrong, we try to make sense of things.  Eventually, pretty much anyone who thinks about God eventually asks: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” They wonder if God causes calamity. Or if tragedy—either on a large scale or small—is a punishment for sin?
            I think we may ask these kinds of questions because tragedy or disasters—whether caused by nature, like the devastation we’re seeing in parts of our nation’s Midwest or in southern Africa, or caused by humans, like the terrorist attack at the mosques in New Zealand—confront us with chaos and violence and challenge our sense of order or stability.
            We try to make sense out of what happens. We struggle to figure out where God is in the midst of it. We think: there must be a reason.
            “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
            “Or:  Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”

            Jesus points to two calamities that may have been subjects of recent conversation around the local watering hole-- one an instance of state-sanctioned terror, and one a random accident. Both saw people snuffed out with little warning and for no clearly apparent reason. Both kinds of events remind us to how precarious our existence is.

            Do bad things happen because people are bad?  The victims of the severe storms, tornadoes and flooding in the United States…or the flooding from the cyclone in southern Africa—have they been suffering because they’re worse sinners than people who haven’t been affected by disasters? The victims of the latest terrorist attack in New Zealand—did they do something to deserve to be shot?

            When bad things happen, we may long for a cause-and-effect scenario, so we can explain away suffering as a way of distancing ourselves from it.  We might even wish sometimes that God would give people we think are evil or wrong the punishment we think they deserve.  The problem with that is that isn’t the way God works. 

            As Jill Duffield once pointed out, “The problem with making our relationship with God a transactional one, rather than a covenantal one—is that, at some point, the math just won’t add up.  We will be persecuted by Pilate for no reason other than Pilate chooses to persecute us.  Or the tower will fall on us because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time.  We might seek a reason, some logical explanation, some underlying purpose and it simply will not be there.  Then what?  Are we bad people?  God forsaken?”[1]

            Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke who has researched and written about the “prosperity gospel” for some time. She’s been wrestling with how a prosperity gospel theology that claims the righteous are blessed impacts her understanding of being diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35.  In a piece in the New York Times a few years ago, she wrote:[2]

            “Put simply, the prosperity gospel is the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith… and that “tragedies are simply tests of character.”

            Kate wrote, “It is the reason a neighbor knocked on our door to tell my husband that everything happens for a reason.

            “I’d love to hear it,” my husband said.

            “Pardon?” she said, startled.

            “’I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying,’ he said, in that sweet and sour way he has.”

            As Kate writes, “My neighbor wasn’t trying to sell him a spiritual guarantee.  But there was a reason she wanted to fill that silence around why some people die young and others grow old and fussy about their lawns.  She wanted some kind of order behind this chaos.  Because the opposite of “# blessed” is leaving a husband and a toddler behind, and people can’t quite let themselves say it: ‘Wow. That’s awful.’  There has to be a reason, because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else.”

            Kate thinks the “prosperity gospel” people may wonder: is she a worse sinner?  Did she smoke?  Did she eat poorly?  Not exercise enough?  Bad genes?  We hope for an answer that will explain why she has cancer—an answer that will help us feel safe from getting it.

           

            I think questions about who sinned or who is the worst sinner are irrelevant here. In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus gets pulled into a worried conversation about the latest news cycle.  Jesus implies that the victims did nothing wrong, nothing that caused their demise.

            It's such a tempting equation.  But Jesus won't go there.  He denies that there is a simple connection between what happens to people and the punishment of God.

            Does this mean that God never punishes us for our sins?   Not necessarily.  But there are natural consequences for things we do. If we build houses on flood plains, we’ll be flooded out at some point.   If we insist on fighting wars, people will suffer and die.  If we drink heavily, if we smoke, if we have poor eating habits, there will be health consequences. If we pollute the environment, there will be all kinds of negative consequences.   

            But Jesus doesn’t get into all of that.  He simply denies that there’s a simple connection between what happens to people and the punishment of God.   

            What Jesus does say in today’s gospel lesson is, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  The issue is not why the tornado hit that particular town or why the hurricane did so much damage.  God didn’t single out these people for punishment.  The issue is whether or not you and I will repent.

            For the entire previous chapter in Luke, Jesus has been calling for repentance—for lives turned around to embrace God’s mercy and gift of new life.   But people think he is talking about someone else—the Galileans Pilate had slaughtered as they worshiped, or the eighteen killed in Siloam when that tower fell on them.

            Like most of us, they try to deflect Jesus’ challenging words about repentance or avoid responsibility by comparing themselves and saying, “We’re not bad as they are." But Jesus will have none of it and makes the point that this is not about comparing ourselves with others.

            Unless you repent--you will all perish.  Unless you repent.

            Jesus follows this cheery thought with a story about an un-productive fig tree that gets one more chance.  The parable clarifies Jesus’ motivations for previously exhorting people to “repent.”

 “Give it another year.  Cultivate the soil some more, and add some more manure, and give it another chance to bear fruit.”

            A lot of people hear “repentance” and think of behavior and guilt, as if Jesus’ primary goal was to reform personal morality.  But I think this is a misunderstanding.

            To repent is not so much a matter of giving up certain habits or practices… or about being sorry—turning toward God’s way.  The Greek word that we translate as repentance—metanoia—means “to turn.”  

            When we repent, we see things differently, and we come to new understandings of what God makes possible…  about how God wants us to live… and about what the world is like when God’s will is done.
            When Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” he isn’t saying that repenting will extend our lives or offer some kind of miraculous shield against super-storms or disease or catastrophe.  Rather, our repentance will lead to bearing fruit.  If we turn toward God’s ways and see things as God wants us to see them, we will live further into God’s intentions for us.
            When Jesus calls us to repent, he’s inviting us to discover God as the source of our sustenance… belonging… meaning… and hope in this difficult life-- and into the future.  Repentance is the change that occurs within us when God meets us and re-shapes the way we see everything.

             

            As a gardener and someone who grew up in farm country, I love the parable of the fig tree-- especially the image of manure being spread over the roots of our lives, to help us grow into who we are created and called to be.   God is willing to give us another chance… and can use anything and everything in our lives to help us grow, rooted and grounded in Christ, to produce good fruit.

            So, I wonder:  What does it take to turn us around?  How much manure does it take to bend our imaginations to trust in God and to live hopeful, faithful lives?

            I believe God uses various kinds of spiritual disciplines to cultivate and fertilize our souls.  This cultivation can break up the hard soil that forms around our hearts.  Then, with the help of the good Gardener, we will bear sweet juicy fruit-- the fruits of the Spirit.

            The good news in the story we heard today is that we worship a God who doesn't want to give up on us.  In Jesus, God calls us to live transformed lives. If we will turn to the God who created us and loves us, we will have life and we will have it abundantly.

            Thanks be to God!  Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 24, 2019

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[1] Jill Duffield, “3^rd Sunday of Lent-February 28, 2016”, posted at The Presbyterian Outlook at www.pres-outlook.org

[2] Kate Bowler, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me,” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?_r=0

"She Has Shown Great Love." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 7:36 - 8:3

"She Has Shown Great Love"

Luke 7:36 - 8:3

In the 2003 movie “Luther,” an early scene portrays Martin Luther wrestling with the character and intentions of God.  Luther asks his mentor, an elder monk, “Have you ever dared to think that God is not just?... He [sic] has us born tainted by sin, then He’s angry with us all our lives for our faults, this righteous Judge who damns us, threatening us with the fires of hell!”

“Martin, what is it you seek?” the old monk asks.

“A merciful God! A God whom I can love.  A God who loves me.”[1]

Luke’s story brings Martin Luther’s concerns—and ours-- to the center:  What is the nature of God’s righteousness?  How are we saved from sin and reconciled to God?  Who is Jesus?

Once again, Jesus is in conflict with a religious leader.  A Pharisee named Simon has invited Jesus to dinner, and Jesus is there at the table.  A woman of the city crashes the party.  What causes tension in the story is that she’s a woman… and a sinner, and that she approaches Jesus while he’s at table eating.

 We don’t know her name.  We aren’t told the nature of the woman’s sins. Tradition has remembered this woman as a prostitute, but Luke doesn’t say that.  We just don’t know.

The way Luke tells the story, Simon the Pharisee doesn’t get it.  He’s hypocritical and self-righteous.  He invites Jesus to dinner, but he’s quick to turn against Jesus.  

When Simon sees what the woman does, he mutters to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him and that she is a sinner.” 

Jesus speaks up and says, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”  And then he tells the parable about a creditor and two debtors, and asks him who will love the creditor who forgives the debts more--  the one who owed fifty denarii or the one who owed five hundred denarii.  “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt,”  Simon says.  Jesus says, “You have judged rightly.” 

Then Jesus says to Simon, “Do you see this woman?  I entered your house.  You gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven.  Hence she has shown great love.  But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

Then Jesus turns to the woman and says to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

What contrasts Luke shows us in this story!  Here are two religious leaders suddenly in the presence of a sinful woman.  Simon the Pharisee has an understanding of righteousness that causes him to distance himself from her.

The root meaning of the word “Pharisee” is uncertain, but scholars tend to think it probably comes a word that means, “those who are separated.”  In their attempt to stay pure and acceptable, they have separated themselves from the rest of humanity.  The Pharisees were trying to keep all the thousands of laws that were developed to fill in the gaps between the Ten Commandments.  

In contrast, Jesus came proclaiming the good news of God’s gracious love and forgiveness, and teaching that the greatest commandment is the commandment to love God completely and to love other people.

Simon is guarded and stingy with his love.  He is quick to judge Jesus and wants to rebuke him when he doesn’t meet his preconceived expectations.  In the end, Simon is rebuked, while the woman--a sinner—was the perfect hostess and is forgiven her sins.

Simon likes to think of himself as righteous, blameless, so he responds to Jesus as one who has been forgiven little.   He “knew” the woman was a sinner, and he assumes that she has defiled Jesus by touching him.  

In Simon’s economy, righteousness is about calculating worth or worthiness.  But when Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, he revealed what Jill Duffield calls “the messy, glorious gift-economy of God’s love.”[2]

As Jill points out, Jesus knows that many of us operate out of a more “capitalistic mindset” and “don’t get it,” so he tells “a dollars and sense parable.”  So which one of the debtors is more grateful?  The one who was forgiven of the greater debt. 

A few weeks ago I shared a post on Facebook by Mark Wingfield, who’s a Southern  Baptist minister from Texas.[3]   This post on what he is learning about transgender people went viral and was read by more than a million people.  He recently wrote a follow-up blog that details the response he got to his first post. 

Rev. Wingfield writes, “In two weeks’ time, I have exchanged personal correspondence with more than 400 people and have heard the personal stories of people from all over the country.”  He heard from transgender persons, from the parents and friends of transgender persons, from clergy, doctors, teachers, counselors and lots of average people.

He writes, “One transgender woman wrote to tell me her story and signed off with these words: ‘Sincerely, a woman who hopes that God still loves her.’”

One of the most heartbreaking messages Rev. Wingfield received was from a single mom with four kids, including one who is transgender.  This entire family recently was kicked out of their church, and the mother was asking for help in finding another church in her city where they would be accepted.

Another person wrote that, as a youth, he had been a deeply devoted Bible study leader in his church, but was asked not to attend that church anymore after coming out with a non-conforming gender struggle.[4]

Sadly, the church of Jesus Christ is most known today for what we’re against, rather than who God is for.

 “Simon, do you see this woman?”   When Jesus speaks to Simon, it’s as if he says, “If you weren’t so obsessed with your own righteousness and purity, you could be celebrating God’s love and forgiveness as she is. 

Do we see this woman?  The way she throws off cultural expectations and the norms of religious purity rules, the way she gives fully of herself, in an act of love and gratitude and fearless intimacy?

Mark Wingfield says when he wrote his original post about what he’s been learning about transgender persons, he wanted to get beyond headlines.  He wanted to go deeper than bathroom wars.  He observes that parts of the corporate world are trying to learn and trying to do the right thing for their employees.  One of the key phrases being used is, “Bring your whole self to work.”  There’s even a TED Talk on it on Youtube.  The idea is that employees perform better if they can be themselves at work and don’t have to live in fear.  As Wingfield asks, why is corporate America ahead of the church on this? 

Why, indeed?   What do you think?

I agree with those who think that saying, “Bring your whole self to church” would require us to be honest—and not only about gender identity and sexual orientation.  In traditional church culture, we’ve been conditioned to be polite and nice.  We might think it’s dangerous to be our true selves at church—especially if we don’t feel like we fit the image of a perfect Christian. 

For many people, it feels safe to talk about happy things.  But what if we or our children have deviated from the norm?  What if we’ve been unsuccessful, in the world’s eyes?  What if we’ve had struggles with financial insecurity or food insecurity… with depression or anxiety or substance abuse or mental illness… with loneliness… or a failed marriage?   

            “Your sins are forgiven.  Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace.”

            “God so loves the world….”    The world.  That includes all of God’s children.

Too often we miss hearing that the good news is for us.  Some, like Simon, aren’t receptive--  so we miss encountering God’s gracious love and forgiveness in a new way. 

Do you see her?  Jesus asks.  Do you see the way she welcomes me into her heart and life?  Do you see the love, the adoration, the gratitude in her response?

Luke tells us that soon after that dinner party, Jesus went through cities and villages, proclaiming and bring the good news of the kingdom of God.  The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities and who provided for them out of their resources.

  The good news is that Jesus reaches out to people who know they’re sinners and to Pharisees and good church people.  Jesus reaches out to you and to me in love, offering a new, abundant life.

God loves you, whoever you are.  

So… what are we going to do with all this love?

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

June 12, 2016

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[1] I’m grateful to Gregory Anderson Love for reminding me of this scene in the movie in his “Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3 (Pentecost and Season after Pentecost). Westminster John Knox Press, 2010,  Kindle Location 509

[2] Jill Duffield, https://pres-outlook.org/2016/06/june-12-2016-11th-sunday-ordinary-time/

[3]Rev Mark Wingfield, at  https://baptistnews.com/article/seven-things-im-learning-about-transgender-persons/

[4] I really appreciate Mark Wingfield’s blog posts and am very indebted in today’s sermon to them.  Mark Wingfield, “Painful lessons from a pastor’s viral transgender post,” May 31, 2016, at https://baptistnews.com/article/painful-lessons-from-a-pastors-viral-transgender-post/