"A God Who Never Gives Up On Us." A Sermon on Luke 15 on the Fourth Sunday in Lent.

 

 

Rembrandt, "Return of the Prodigal Son"

"A God Who Never Gives Up On Us"

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Writing in The Christian Century, Justo Gonzalez tells about a story that made him giggle when he was a boy, about a man who went to the movies. When he saw the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer roaring lion at the beginning, he decided that he’d already seen that movie and walked out of the theater. “Silly as the story may be,” Gonzalez says, “I now take it as a warning—because many of us do something similar when we hear scripture that we already know well.”

“There was a man who had two sons,” we hear in today’s Gospel lesson. We immediately recognize this as the beginning of the prodigal son, so there’s a temptation to decide that we don’t have to pay much attention, because we think we already know the story and its meaning. But when we really listen to it, scripture can surprise us. This is word of God.  When we read it afresh, God speaks to us and our circumstances, and helps us to hear a new word.[1]

The story we know as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” is one of three parables Jesus tells in Luke 15. The thing the three stories have in common is the theme of being lost. The shepherd loses a sheep, a woman loses a coin, and the father loses a son.

The introduction provides the context of the stories. They’re a response to how the Pharisees and scribes have been grumbling and criticizing Jesus, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and even eats with them!”  The parable is responding to the Pharisees and scribes—not primarily to those whom they consider sinners or outcasts.

            Jesus doesn't argue with them.  He just tells them a series of stories, about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to fend for themselves while he went out after one stray...  about a woman who turns her house upside down in order to find one lost coin...  and about a compassionate father who deals graciously with his two sons. 

Now, I want to remind us that the Pharisees and scribes were deeply religious people. They were very concerned with obeying God and all the religious laws of Judaism. From their perspective, it was those other people—the tax collectors and sinners—who were lost. They were unlikely to identify themselves with the lost sheep or the lost son. They were more likely to identify with the ninety-nine sheep or the obedient elder son. So, they probably would have been shocked to hear in the story that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go searching for the one lost sheep…or to see the elder son missing the feast celebrating his brother’s return. These parables would have challenged their understanding that they were the faithful, obedient ones.

            All three stories address the Pharisees' concern that Jesus is condoning sin by keeping company with people they judge to be unacceptable.   All three parables reply that God is too busy rejoicing over found sheep, found coins, and lost children   to worry about what they did while they were lost. 

            Jesus declares: “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance…. I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

            I was reminded this week of Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,”[2] and I spent some time meditating on that image.  I also re-read parts of Henri Nouwen’s book with the same title.[3] 

            Nouwen tells about his first encounter with the painting when he saw a poster in a friend’s office, and was deeply moved by it.  He said it made him want to cry and laugh at the same time. 

            Several years later, friends invited him to go with them on a trip to what was then the Soviet Union, and they made arrangements for him to spend a few hours at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg with the painting that been on his heart and mind for several years.

            The painting is hung in the natural light of a nearby window.  In the hours Nouwen studied it, the light kept changing, and at every change of the light, he would see a different aspect revealed.  I think Nouwen’s discovery in this painting points us to the amazing gift this parable is to us. No matter how often we hear it, there is always a new angle or perspective, a new revelation. 

            I think it would good for us to listen to the parable of the two sons, to meditate on it a few more times this Lent, and to try moving back and forth between seeing ourselves as the lost son who is welcomed home with open arms… and the obedient elder brother who apparently thinks he is more deserving. Lent is a good time to ponder both the grace of the God who seeks us and refuses to give up on us and welcomes us home and also the temptation that religious people face, when we think that we are better or more faithful than those other people.

            Luke the Evangelist tells the story so simply and in such a matter-of-fact way that it’s difficult to comprehend that what happens is un-heard of.  Biblical scholar Kenneth Bailey says that the way the son leaves amounts to wishing his father dead.  Bailey writes:[4]

            “For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living. The answer has always been emphatically the same…the conversation runs as follows:

            “’Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?’ 

            ‘Never!’ 

            ‘Could anyone ever make such a request?’ 

            ‘Impossible!’ 

            ‘If anyone ever did, what would happen?’ 

           ‘His father would beat him, of course!’ 

            ‘Why?’ 

            ‘The request means—he wants his father to die.’”

            Scholars tell us that the younger of two brothers would have expected to inherit a third of the father’s property when he died.  Kenneth Bailey explains that the son asks not only for the division of the inheritance, but also for the right to dispose of his part.  Even after dividing the property and signing over his possessions to his son, normally the father still would have the right to live off the proceeds…as long as he is alive. But this son lets his father know that he can’t wait for him to die, and demands his money, which would have meant his father would have needed to sell off a third of the family estate.

            The son’s leaving is a rejection of his home and the values of his family and community.  He leaves everything to go to a “distant country.”  He squanders his property in self-indulgent, immoral living.  Then there was a severe famine, and he began to be in need.  He was so desperate that he—this Jewish boy—hired himself out to take care of pigs. 

            In time, the younger son hits bottom.  Out in the pigsty, he finally comes to his senses.  “Here I am starving,” he said to himself, “when back at home my father’s hired hands have more than enough to eat.”

            As he trudges along the dusty road toward home, he rehearses what he'll say to his father:  "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.  So, treat me like one of your hired hands."

            Meanwhile, back at home, the father has been scanning the horizon, longing to see his son and welcome him home.   When he sees his beloved lost son trudging home, the father is filled with compassion.   He does a very un-dignified thing.  He hikes up his robes and runs to meet him. 

            When he reaches his son, he throws his arms around him and kisses him, before the son has a chance to say anything.  The son starts to apologize:  "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son."

            Before he can say any more, the father says to his servants, "Hurry-- bring out a robe-- the best one-- and put it on him.  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet." 

            In doing this, he shows that he's welcoming his son back as a son, rather than as a servant.   The son must have been speechless with astonishment.

            But the father isn't through yet.  "Kill the fatted calf," he orders. "We're going to have a feast and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again.  He was lost-- and now he's found!" 

            The household bursts into activity, and soon a joyous feast is underway. 

            The younger son never dreamed that his father loved him so deeply.  There were no "I told you so's."  This son's life was far more precious to the father than being right, or putting his son in his place.  The younger son finally saw deep into his father's heart that day--   and what he saw was pure love.                       

            When the elder son gets back from work, he’s surprised to hear music and dancing.  "What's going on?"  he asks one of the servants. 

            The servant tells him, "Your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound."

            The elder brother refuses to go in to the party.  Luke doesn't tell us why, but my hunch is that he wasn't angry because his younger brother came back.  Maybe he wasn't even angry because his father forgave him.  But the party-- that was another matter.

            Let the sinners come home, by all means.  But what about facing the consequences of your actions?  Where's the moral instruction in that kind of welcome? What kind of a world would this be, if we all made a practice of having a party for sinners, while the dutiful, obedient folk are still working in the fields?

            His father comes out and begins to plead with him.  "Your brother has come home, son.  He was lost and now he is found.  Come in to the party and celebrate with us!"

            Do you hear how he answers his father?   "Listen!"  he says.  "For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command!  I've done my duty and followed all your rules.  Yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!"

            God help him, the elder son.  God help all of us who understand his hurt and resentment that run so deep that we cut ourselves off from the very ones whose love and acceptance we so desperately need.

            "This son of yours,” the elder brother says, excluding himself from the family in those words.   This son of yours, who is no kin to me.  The older son believes his father has chosen the younger brother over him.

            The father knows that he has lost this son to a life of self-righteousness and resentment that takes him so far away from his father that he might as well be away in a far country.

            The elder son wants his father to love him as he thinks he deserves to be loved-- because he has stayed home and done the right thing-- the dutiful thing.  He wants his father to love him for all of that. 

His father does love him, but not for any of that-- any more than he loves the younger brother for what he has done.  He doesn't love either of his sons according to what they deserve.  He just loves them.

But the dutiful older brother can't comprehend a love that transcends right and wrong... a love that throws homecoming parties for sinners and expects the hard-working righteous people to rejoice.

            He can't stand it, and so he stands outside.  Outside his father's house and his father's love-- refusing his invitation to come inside to the party.

                But his father turns out to be a prodigal, too-- at least as far as his love is concerned.  He never seems to tire of giving it away.  "Son," he says, “you are always with me.  All that is mine is yours."

            "It was necessary that we celebrate and be glad," the loving father says to his older son, “for this your brother"-- not just my son, but your brother--” was dead, and is alive.  He was lost and is found."

            In other words, the father is saying, “I’m welcoming my son back because it makes me happy to do it.  I love him as I love you—not because of what either of you deserves…but because you are my children.  I’m thrilled and relieved to have him back home.  The only thing that could make me happier right now would be to have you with me too…to have the whole family at the table together.”

            I don’t think Jesus is telling us that we shouldn’t take sin seriously.  Our Reformed faith teaches us that we are all sinners.  But I believe Jesus is showing us that we need to take GRACE seriously.

            It is by God’s grace that we are all beloved children of God.  It is by grace that each one of us receives not the love we deserve—but the love God wants to give us.  Whether we see ourselves more like the older brother or the younger brother, we can rejoice because God loves us all abundantly, out of God’s grace.

            The parable doesn't tell us how it all turned out.  The story ends with the elder brother standing outside the house in the yard with his father, listening to the party going on inside.

            Jesus leaves it that way, I think, because it's up to each of us to finish the story.  It's up to you and to me to decide.  Will we stand outside the celebration of love and grace?  Or will our yearning for love win us over?

            We're invited to go inside and join the party.  Like the loving father in the story, God refuses to give us the love we deserve...  but persists in giving us the love we need… and rejoices over the return of every lost child.

            Thanks be to God for God’s amazing grace!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 31, 2019

                 

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[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, “What if we are the Pharisees?” in The Christian Century, February 26, 2019. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/march-31-lent-4c-luke-151-3-11b-32

[2] Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669.  “Return of the Prodigal Son,” and oil painting likely completed within two years of the artist’s death in 1669.  The original is in the Hermitage, Museum in Saint Petersburg.

[3] Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.  Doubleday, 1992.

[4] Kenneth E. Bailey, quoted in Nouwen, Location 449 in Kindle Edition.

"Called to Live Courageously." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 19 during Stewardship season.

"Zacchaeus Tree." Sycamore tree in Jericho.

"Called to Live Courageously"

Luke 19:1-10; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; Proverbs 3:5-10

         The story of Zacchaeus is pure gospel.  It's a story of how a person's life was changed by encounter with Jesus the Christ.  It’s a story of transformation. 

            Zacchaeus climbed the sycamore tree because he was trying to see who Jesus was. What he’d heard about Jesus, we don't know.  But somehow, somewhere, he had heard something that caused him to wonder.

            Now, Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, and a wealthy person.  What he needed, he could get for himself.  What he wanted he could buy.  Zacchaeus was not a needy person-- or so it seemed. 

            Yet, appearances can be deceptive.  Zacchaeus, as a chief tax collector, oversaw an operation by which taxes were collected from his people-- his fellow Jews-- on behalf of the Romans who had conquered and were now occupying the country.  A tax collector paid a certain amount for the franchise and was allowed to collect and keep for himself an amount over above what was owed to the governments.  In the right hands, it was a lucrative racket.

            As you can imagine, tax collectors were not popular.  They were resented, not only for their wealth, but for the way they came by it.  They were considered traitors, both to their country and to their religion.  As a tax collector, Zacchaeus was ostracized as a "sinner,” regarded as one of the lost sheep of Israel.

            Yet on that day, when Jesus walked through the streets of Jericho, Zacchaeus had the courage to step out of his comfort zone, to humble himself to climb a tree so he could see Jesus. 

            When Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today,” Zacchaeus responded by hurrying down and was happy to welcome Jesus into his home.

            The people who were there started grumbling and saying, “Jesus is going to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

           

            The story gives us a glimpse of another side to Zacchaeus.  None of his neighbors saw it.  The label they had attached to him-- “sinner"--- kept them from seeing it.  The people who knew Zacchaeus saw him as a "sinner"-- unredeemable...unchangeable.  Maybe Zacchaeus had heard it so often that he thought so too. 

            But there was something-- some kind of inner discontent...  a yearning, perhaps, that made him curious about Jesus, and ultimately, vulnerable to change.

            Most people who looked at Zacchaeus missed it.  But not Jesus.  He looked past the "sinner" label and caught sight of a "son of Abraham."  

            Jesus looked at Zacchaeus through the eyes of love, and, beneath the layers of greed and selfishness, he saw a glimmer of God's image. He saw a spark that could light a fire.

            Something inside of Zacchaeus had urged him to get to where he could see Jesus.  Maybe he had heard that Jesus had a different attitude toward "sinners" than most people.  But, by climbing that tree, Zacchaeus may well have been seeking more than a good view.  It may have been his way of reaching out to something or someone who might help him change whatever needed changing in his life.  So it was that Jesus spied Zacchaeus and called him down-- not just from the tree-- but into a new life.

            The story of Zacchaeus reminds us that human beings have more capacity for transformation than we are apt to think.  And the story goes on to suggest that what transforms people is love.   

            Think about it.  Can you think of anything else that can bring about lasting change in human beings?

            I'm convinced of this:  you can't change another person or yourself by demanding it.  You can't coerce someone into a new way of life.  It takes something else-- something we can see in the case of Zacchaeus.

            The transformation that took place in Zacchaeus started when Jesus looked at him through the eyes of love and spoke to him as if he counted for something.  Jesus looked up at him in the tree and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."

            It's GRACE-- love and acceptance that Zacchaeus had done nothing to deserve.

            Zacchaeus met someone who looked at him through the eyes of love...  who gave him a taste of the love of God.  And that changed him.  

            If that's going to happen today, if some of the "lost causes" you know are going to experience that kind of love-- it needs to happen through you.  God's love can become real to them if they experience it in the way you relate to them.   

            The point of the story of Zacchaeus is what the whole of the New Testament wants us to know:  only love can save us.  There is no love so strong and powerful as the love of Christ. 

            But many people today will never experience that love, unless they know it through you… through us.   

            Jesus corrects the disciples' mistaken assumption about faith-- that faith is something we can measure...  something we possess or acquire. Faith is a matter of our relationship with God, that begins as a response to God's gift.  Faith is a matter of trust and confidence in the freeing power of God's love for us and the power of God to fulfill God's promises. 

            Faith means freedom-- the freedom to give up the anxious and impossible task of keeping ourselves from falling.  Faith means freedom to stop thinking of ourselves as the source of our own life and hope, freedom to give up the struggle to control everything by our own power.  It means freedom to be at home in the presence of a loving God.^[1]

            Faith means trusting that God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.  Faith means relying on the power of God who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to God's own purpose and grace.^[2]

            The membership of the Littlefield congregation has been in decline for decades, since the demographics in the surrounding neighborhoods began to change and then changes in society that have resulted in fewer and fewer people affiliating with faith communities.

            The people of Littlefield Church could have given up, saying “we’re too small to make a difference.” 

            But that isn’t what happened.  Over the years, Littlefield has reached out to the community and witnessed for peace and justice in a variety of ways.   Our summer Peace Camp has touched the lives of hundreds of young people who have learned how to be peace builders. 

            Over the years, Littlefield Church has provided a place where people can come together to hear the voices of peacemakers.  And we have brought people from different faith traditions together to learn about one another and to find ways to pray and work together.

We live in a world which gives us every reason to hunker down… to say we can’t do anything about all the injustice and violence in the world.  We live in a world that encourages us to define ourselves according to how different we are from others – from other cultures, other countries, other faiths, other tribes.   We live in a world that prompts us to be full of fear-- to hold on, and to close down, rather than to let go and open up.  We live in a world that feels like it’s tottering on the brink-- a world very like the world of first century Palestine into which walked an itinerant Jewish teacher who changed history forever.


As I was looking through some of my study notes this week, I was reminded that 7 or 8 years ago we hosted Jewish activist Mark Braverman.  Mark told us that we are living in prophetic times, and that the church is called.[3]    He quoted Jim Wallis: “when politics fail, broad social movements emerge to change the political wind.  Look at the movement to end Jim Crow in America.  Look at the global movement to end apartheid in South Africa.  Where were they born, who were the leaders?  The church in the U.S. is poised to fulfill this historic calling, as it has done before in recent history.”

This is no time for us to live small, safe lives, constricted by our fears that we don’t have enough, that we’re too small or inadequate to make a difference.

The words of Martin Luther King, writing from the Birmingham jail fifty-five years ago, speak to us with an uncanny resonance today, in the twenty-first century:

The judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

            Twenty-first century North American culture is presenting unprecedented challenges for the church and a new sense of what it means to practice our faith courageously. This includes our understanding of the spiritual discipline of stewardship and how we live that out through our generosity. We are called to trust in God’s goodness and abundance…to think generously… to practice generosity… and to do so courageously.

            It takes courage to follow Jesus and live a life trusting in God, especially if we’re seeking to be good stewards, or managers, of all God has entrusted to us-- including our own lives and the Good News itself.

            When people have courage, they usually show mental or moral strength to overcome their fears and to keep moving forward.   In the midst of troubling times, it takes courage to reaffirm God’s presence, power and love as the only foundation on which we can stand.

            Psalm 31:24 says, “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.”

            We can live courageously when we learn to recognize ourselves as God’s beloved daughters and sons, despite our weaknesses and whatever frightening things might be going on around us.

            We can learn to live courageously when we trust in the LORD with all our heart. When we honor God with our substance and with the first fruits of our lives, we will taste God’s abundance.[4]  When we set our hopes on God, rather than the uncertainty of wealth, we can be freed to be rich in good works, to be generous, and willing to share…and we can take hold of the life that is real.[5]

            We can trust that “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power and of love and a sound mind.”[6]

            Thanks be to God!

       

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 21, 2018

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^[1] Craig Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith (Geneva Press, 1999), p. 19.

^[2]2 Timothy 1:7 - 9.

[3] Mark Braverman, “A New Thing Springs Forth.”  Sermon preached at Wyoming Presbyerian Church, Milburn, NJ March 21, 2010.  www.markbraverman.org

[4] Proverbs 3:5-10

[5] 1 Timothy  6:17-19/

[6] 2 Timothy 1:7.

"Where's Your Heart?" A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Where's Your Heart?"

Mark 7:1-23; James 1:17-27

What’s at stake here?”

            Some biblical scholars argue that the conflict in this story mirrors a similar conflict in Mark’s community. Mark was a non-Palestinian Gentile, and he was writing to a mixed community of Jewish and Gentile Christians who were arguing over whether it was necessary to keep a kosher table at church gatherings.

            “’Don’t you understand?’” Mark asks. “’Don’t you see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’”  Thus, Mark says, Jesus declared all foods clean.”

            Other commentators have a different take on what the conflict is about. They say it’s about teaching humanly constructed religious ideas as God’s law. “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”  These scholars say the main point is about obeying God’s commandments, rather than human traditions and rules.

            But I agree with Tom Long when he says this is about using moral posturing to sidestep the commandments, that it’s about keeping our hands ritually washed while being up to our elbows in evil.[1]

            To paraphrase Walker Percy, it’s like getting an A-plus in ethics class and flunking life.

            What might this look like in our time?   Some government officials quote a verse from Romans 13 out of context to justify separating children from their parents at our borders, saying we are to obey the laws of the government, which has been ordained by God--which is one of the verses that has been used in the past to defend slavery and other evils.  Some people twist Jesus’ statement that we will always have the poor with us to justify not working to alleviate extreme poverty. They might say we can’t afford safety net programs that address hunger or homelessness, even though the richest people have received generous tax cuts,

            Can we understand why Jesus got angry with the Pharisees and the scribes, exclaiming, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, and calling on the words of the prophet: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”[2]

            Jesus was calling out the Pharisees and scribes for passing off human ideas as God’s commandments. 

            Now, the Pharisees were people who took their religion very seriously.  I believe they sincerely wanted to serve God faithfully. They were criticizing Jesus’ disciples for not living according to the tradition of the elders.

            Let’s back up a minute and remember the context of this encounter.  Just before this, Mark has told how Jesus fed 5,000 people… and walked on the water… and healed the sick. 

            The Kingdom of God is breaking out around them, and the Pharisees don’t seem to notice.  The sick are being healed.  The hungry are being fed.  Good news is being preached to the poor.  These are the things that Isaiah had prophesied that would be signs of the coming of the Messiah, but the Pharisees and scribes want to talk about hand washing and tradition. 

            A moment of GRACE is breaking into the midst of time and space.   Not only can’t the Pharisees and scribes see it-- but they keep asking the wrong questions.  They’re asking, “How can we protect our tradition?  How can we get folk to do things our way?

            Too often in the church, we ask the wrong questions.  How do we keep everybody happy?  How do we avoid conflict?  How will we survive?  “How do we make everybody follow our rules? How do I get everybody to do what I want?

            In the meantime, there are people inside and outside the church--people with broken hearts… broken dreams… and broken lives.  People who are lonely.  People who need to be restored to community.  People who need to be fed…and healed…and loved.

            Now, the process of spiritual growth is hard.  Sometimes it can be downright scary.  So, it’s no wonder that sometimes we, like the Pharisees, feel safer clinging to rules or traditions or familiar ways of doing things, rather than look for ways God is trying to use us to bring the kingdom of love and justice into the world.

           

            Jesus accused the religious authorities of being “hypocrites.”     The Greek word Mark uses for hypocrite has a revealing history.  It literally means an actor—a person who acts out a set dialog or script.

            In accusing the Pharisees of being hypocrites, Jesus was inviting them to put down the mask of outward appearances.  In giving them a list of things that can defile people, things which come from within, Jesus was challenging them to examine their own hearts honestly, and to pay attention to what’s really important.   We have been set apart as a holy people for a holy purpose:  to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

            It’s much easier to point a finger at the sins of others than to look inward at the things that can defile.    Yet today’s gospel lesson makes it clear that we need to pay attention to where our hearts are.  

            But what does that look like?

            In the epistle lesson we heard today, James fleshes out Jesus’ summary of the Law and giving some specific ways we need to live into “the perfect law of liberty.”

            If we are to love our neighbors, then we need to be engaged with them, relating to them, and caring for them. That long list of vices Jesus quotes defile us because they all divide us-- from God and from each other, our neighbors.

            What does it mean for us to be holy, and "undefiled"? James offers an interesting definition in his letter:  "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."[3] James teaches that religious practice is judged on what we do.  Widows and orphans were the most vulnerable members of ancient societies; they had no means of support, no means of getting any, and no one to look out for them.  Caring for them means to attend to the needs of the poorest of the poor, those whom nobody else cares about or feels responsible for.  That is true religion, true holy conduct.  That is what we have been set apart to do.

            We know God partly through our traditions.  But we worship the one true God, the God of ever-ongoing creation… and new possibilities.   God overcomes sin and death with new life.
            Jesus came proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near, calling people to repent, to change.
            In Jesus Christ, we have the perfect example of a person who is holy and whole.  The gospels tell us that Jesus went about preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives.  He taught by word and deed.  He blessed the children.  He healed the sick and ministered to the brokenhearted.  He ate with outcasts…forgave sinners…and called all to repent and believe the good news of God’s love and forgiveness.

            The world tries to set limits on what we believe is possible and sets boundaries that set us apart from “them.”   But Christ came breaking down the dividing walls and showing us that there is no such thing as a hopeless case.  There is nobody outside the circle of God’s love.   In Christ, there are no “others”—only neighbors.   Because God loves our neighbors, we are commanded to love them too.

            I like the way one of my colleagues puts it, in a sermon entitled, “Dirtiness is next to Godliness:” 

            Our hands are made clean and holy, not by washing them, but by getting them dirty.  Our hands have been set apart to reach out into the dirtiness of the world’s injustices and impurities on Christ’s behalf, to touch with compassion those considered untouchable or unclean by our social mores, cultural divisions, or political commitments. [4]

            As Teresa of Avila famously put it, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours… no hands but yours…  no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which God’s compassion will look upon the world.  Yours are the feet with which God will go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which God will bless others now."

            God has fully revealed God’s love for us in Jesus.  In response to that love, God wants us our love in return.  We are called to worship God through our total devotion…and through our ministry to all God’s children in need, as we love as Christ loves.  God’s way is a tradition of self-giving love.
            So, in the midst of the daily struggles and questions we face every day, may our hearts be in the right place.  May our hearts become more and more open to God’s love and life.  
            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 2, 2018

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[1] Thomas G. Long, “Moral Words, Evil Deeds”, in The Christian Century. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2009-08/moral-words-evil-deeds

[2] Isaiah 29:13, according to the Septuagint.

[3] James 1:27

[4] I’m indebted here to the Rev. J. C. Austin, in “Dirtiness is next to Godliness,” (Madison Avenue Pulpit, 2003), a sermon posted in the past at website that no longer exists.