"Hope in Troubled Times"

Luke 18:9-14

In late October, a lot of people are celebrating Halloween.  But in the church, many Christians are more focused on Reformation Day. 

Five hundred and two years ago, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and theology professor in the university town of Wittenberg, published his Ninety-Five Theses by nailing them to the door of the Castle Church.  In those days, the church door served as kind of a community bulletin board. 

The 95 Theses were in the form of an invitation to debate about traditional church doctrine and practice, that, in Luther’s mind, needed to be re-examined and reformed.  Luther was advocating for reform within the Roman Catholic church, but before it was over Luther would be excommunicated from the church and branded an outlaw by the Holy Roman Emperor.

As John Buchanan describes it, “violence ensued, wars were fought, martyrs on both sides were tortured and executed.  Luther’s followers and their churches were called ‘Lutherans’ in derision, but during the next century large portions of northern Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, all the way to the Italian Alps and the Scottish Highlands, separated from Rome and organized themselves into Reformed churches.”[1]

            Five hundred plus years later, as we commemorate Luther and the Ninety-Five Theses, it’s a good time to remember that the Protestant Reformation was a development that took place slowly, over time, and that it was and is an ongoing process. 

            As a former representative of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has written, “Luther and Calvin did not just fall from Heaven. Other people had worked the same field, and people at that time were aware of earlier reformers.” By earlier reformers, he was referring to Waldensians, Hussites, the Czech Brethren, and others.”

            So, with this in mind, I think it’s a good thing to observe “Reformation Sunday” in late October, but to focus on what Jean Calvin called “the many resurrections of the church,” which include the earlier reformers, and Luther and Calvin and Knox, and other examples of the Spirit’s reforming, rejuvenating work in the church throughout history and to our present time.

            The gospel lesson we heard today is a brief and straightforward parable Jesus told his disciples. Earlier in the 18^th chapter of Luke, Jesus had told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. In this parable, a widow kept going to an un-just judge “who neither feared God nor had respect for people.” Eventually, because the widow persisted and kept coming back to the unjust judge, he said, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”[2]

            Jesus said to his disciples, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to God’s chosen ones who cry out day and night? Will God delay long in helping them?  I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

            That’s the context for the parable we heard today, which Jesus told to “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and who regarded others with contempt.”

            “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

            But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

            Jesus said, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart,” wrote James Baldwin, “for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”  

Such people clothe themselves in religion while creating hell for others. They see everything but their truest selves. They hide their vulnerabilities and practice spiritual dishonesty about their own shortcomings.

Jesus is addressing a crowd of people who “trust in themselves,” but who really can’t see themselves. They can point to the flaws in others and avoid seeing their own shortcomings and sins.

This parable gives us a window into this particular Pharisee’s mentality, through the words of his prayer. He embraces the insider-outsider politics of institutional religion. His public prayer creates a firewall between him and those who are “other.”

When Luke says Jesus’ listeners “regarded others with contempt,” the Greek word for contempt suggests treating other people as nothing.  This kind of spirituality lets people pursue their idea of holiness and morality, while they treat those they see as “other” as sinful or unworthy or without value.

As the Rev. Willie Francois III writes, this culture of false perfection betrays the truth of the gospel: “that God loves us with our scars of disobedience, markers of mistakes, and wounds of worry. Such a culture creates myriad communities of throwaways, of people perceived as disposable.

Even churches consecrate categories by which they effectively label people disposable. When we fail to see ourselves as we are, we tragically fix our eyes on others—and we live with spiritual blinders on. This derails our journey to wholeness and transformation.”[3]

            The Pharisee in the parable isn’t guilty of any of the specific things he names—but there are many other sins he wasn’t willing to name. The tax collector avoids narrating a long list of his own virtues or sins to God, but he names his condition:  he confesses that he’s a sinner, and he pleads for mercy.

We live in a tumultuous time—a time of great change and polarization and anxiety— in the world and in the church. But it isn’t the first time. 

 The Scottish reformer John Knox felt compelled to leave the British Isles after the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor rose to the English throne in 1553.  Eventually he joined a fellowship of religious refugees from across Europe who had thronged to Geneva, Switzerland.

            Geneva’s most famous resident, the French lawyer and humanist John Calvin, was himself a Geneva immigrant.  Calvin helped create an atmosphere in Geneva that was welcoming to outsiders. They established a hospital for refugees, as well as an academy for their education. Knox ministered to a congregation of English-speaking refugees.

            John Knox marveled at his time in Geneva, calling it ‘the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles.’”

            Calvin’s emphasis on placing full trust in God, as opposed to any earthly ruler, aimed to infuse life in Geneva with gratitude and faith   and to ease the anxieties of a people living in an age of plague, war, and dislocation.  For Calvin and for Knox, growing in trust of God and love for God enlarged a community’s ability to respond to God’s call to love and service-- no matter where its residents came from.

Five hundred years after the Protestant Reformation, we’re living in a difficult and challenging time to be the church. 

            We need to re-learn how to love and recognize the image of God in one another.  We need to learn how to live more and more fully as beloved children of God… and become more and more fully the Beloved Community. 

And nations, like individuals and the church, struggle to look in the moral mirror.  At the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama said, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.” That’s a historical fact about the White House and our national capitol building—one that’s often relegated to a footnote or simply omitted. Yet many found the statement to be controversial. The institution of slavery funded the greatness of America—and more than 150 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the American check still bounces.

Long ago, biblical prophets like Jeremiah expressed the national need for repentance. The nation needs mercy. For over 400 years, black people have been dehumanized in America—from the trafficking of African persons from their native lands through years of slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes and predatory sharecropping, unchecked lynching, red-lining and residential segregation, mass incarceration, under-education, mass criminalization, and police violence.  

The church also needs mercy for the ways it supported the institution of slavery and structural racism and poverty or failed to resist them…for the Doctrine of Discovery which the ways it gave permission, even encouraged colonialization and the genocide of indigenous peoples.

Reverend Francois challenges all Americans when he says, “To change—to be redeemed—America has to actually look at itself. We have to stand squarely in front of the moral mirror, beat our chests, name our sins, and be justified.

On Reformation Sunday, we are reminded that we are justified by God’s grace, through faith.

The question of the day is:  how shall we live, in response to God’s gracious gift?  That’s where sanctification comes in. “Sanctification” is a theological word for how we grow in the Christian life, as we are taught and led further into the truth and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

            Sanctification is a life-long process, as we are gradually freed from our fears and doubts and brokenness-- to love and serve God and our neighbors as Christ does. As we grow in Christian faith, we open ourselves to be surprised and transformed by God’s word.  

            One sign of growing in the Christian life is maturing in love for and solidarity with all of God’s children-- especially with those who are poor and marginalized and those who are different…those we see as “other.”

The early Protestants believed that they were not only creating a new church-- but they were creating a new world, one that would resemble more fully God’s desire for humanity.   The original Protestant impulse was to resist powers of worldly dominion and domination, in favor of the power of God’s spirit to transform human hearts and society.  They felt a deep discomfort and discontent with the status quo.   They knew things were not right, and they set out to change the world.   

Today, we live in troubling times—a time of great change and anxiety, in the church and in the world. In 2019, the world groans under flame of wildfires and floods caused by global warming, as families are left shattered by sprays of bullets and the devastation of war, in this time of broken human relationships and extreme political partisanship and structural racism and poverty and corruption in governments. Things are not right.  But I believe God is working to do new things in our time.

I believe we are living in a prophetic time—a time of new reformation.   I believe that God is working to create a new church, in and through us.  I believe that God wants to use us as instruments of justice and reconciliation in our communities… in our nation… and in the world.

I give thanks that “we’ve come this far by faith”—that we’ve been hearing a new word from God over the past few decades about human sexuality and some of the other things that have consumed so much of our energy and focus in the church.  I give thanks that this seems to be freeing the church to focus on structural racism and poverty and other forms of injustice.  I give thanks that we have been gifted with strong and faithful and diverse leaders in our national Presbyterian church and the ecumenical and interfaith communities who are leading us to act more faithfully and more boldly. 

            I give thanks for the prophetic witness of Bishop William Barber and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and other leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign around the country as they work to bring about justice for all.  I give thanks for Rabbi Alana Alpert and the Detroit Jews for Justice and their work for water justice in Detroit and their work with the Poor People’s Campaign.  I think that part of this new time of re-formation is how we’re learning to work together as ecumenical and interfaith community.

            Two weeks ago, we gathered in this sanctuary to celebrate 100 years of mission and ministry at St. John’s.  The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson reminded us of the way things are changing in the Brief church and in our society and said we are living in a prophetic time.  The mission field is here around us, and we have work to do.

            This week, especially, we have mourned the passing and given thanks for a prophet of our times, the very Honorable Congressman Elijah Cummings, and we have been inspired by the witness of this man of faith and humility…integrity and courage and compassion.  

I was moved to hear that Congressman Cummings quoted a poem by Benjamin Mays during his very first speech on the U.S. House of Representatives floor on April 25, 1996 while noting that he recited that poem up to 20 times a day:

“I have only just a minute. Only 60 seconds in it.
 Forced upon me, can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.
But it’s up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Just a tiny minute, but eternity is in it.”

Elijah Cummings was living with a serious, life-threatening illness. But he was passionate about working for justice. He lived with a sense of urgency, conscious about being effective with every minute he was given.  His life can inspire and challenge us.

We are living in a time of new reformation. God is working to create a new church and a new world, and wants to use us as instruments of justice and reconciliation in the world.

So—on this Reformation Sunday and in the coming days, as we look around at the world and see things that are not right, let us be praying that we may respond to the challenges of our time with courage and hope.

   In the words of our Presbyterian “Brief Statement of Faith:” “In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.”[4]

Thanks be to God!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Guest Preacher

St. John Presbyterian Church

Detroit, Michigan

October 27, 2019

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[1] John M. Buchanan, “Values Worth Fighting For,” at his blog Hold to the Good. https://jmbpastor.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/values-worth-fighting-for/

[2] Luke 18:1-5

[3] Willie Dwayne Francois III, at https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2016-09/october-23-30th-sunday-ordinary-time

[4] “A Brief Statement of Faith,” 1990. Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

"Every Knee Shall Bow." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyteria Church on World Communion and Peacemaking Sunday.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights activists kneel in prayer.

"Every Knee Shall Bow"

Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

In the gospel lesson we heard today, Jesus is in Jerusalem. He has entered the city with the crowds cheering and shouting “Hosanna!”. He cleansed and occupied the Temple. On the second day, Jesus’ opponents begin a series of five challenges that try to undermine his authority.

            In this first challenge, the chief priests and elders of the people-- the religious authorities who pose the question-- are the very ones who will later conspire to have him arrested and put to death.  They demand to know: "By what authority are you doing these things?  Who gave you this authority to do them?"

            Jesus avoids their trap and turns the tables on the religious leaders with a question of his own: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” Then he tells the parable of the two sons and asks, “Which son does the will of his father?”

            There’s a lot in this parable--probably enough for more than one sermon. One of the things I hear in the parable is that the future is open. God is here, inviting each of us into a future that holds the possibility of receiving God’s grace, repenting of things we’ve done, returning to right relationship with God and others, and receiving the future as open and full of grace and hope.

            We live in a time of great division over politics and beliefs and values and race-- things that people feel very strongly about.   In the midst of this divisiveness, how are we called to live, as followers of Jesus?

            Over the past week, I’ve been following the conflict over the NFL. Early in the week, one of my Facebook friends who is a professor of New Testament, pointed to the Philippians text.  Heads up!

            Writing from prison, the apostle Paul has been encouraging the church at Philippi to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”[1]  He goes on to appeal for community unity and individual humility. He asks the church to “make his joy complete” by being “of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” 

            Along with unity, Paul is appealing for humility. This humility is grounded in Christ’s “humbling” himself to the point of crucifixion.

            Christ comes very near, and works in us. “God is the one working in you both the willing and the working.” God gives us the desire and energy to be instruments of Christ’s compassion in the world.  Paul exhorts the Philippians to “work out their salvation.” But this isn’t their private, individual destiny, but the quality of their corporate life, as it is lived in Christ. Paul has already described this quality of life in terms of mutual love and affection, sharing in the Spirit, unity, humility, putting others first--and all of this “in Christ.”

In your relationships with one another,

let the same mindset be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,

Being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself

And became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.

Therefore, God also exalted him

And gave him the name

That is above every name,

So that at the name of Jesus

Every knee should bend,

In heaven and on earth and under the earth,

And every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

To the glory of God the Father.[3]

            At the name of Jesus, every knee should bend.

            There’s been a lot of conversation lately about kneeling, or “taking a knee.”

             Many people have been offended or annoyed by the players who take a knee during the national anthem, while many others have supported them. 

            Those who are offended are saying things like, “They’re disrespecting the flag!” “They’re disrespecting the Anthem!” “They’re disrespecting the military!”

            Those who say this ignore what the protesters have said repeatedly about why they’re kneeling.

            Last week Eric Reid wrote in the New York Times that he began paying attention to reports about the numbers of unarmed black people being killed by police. One in particular brought him to tears: the killing of Alton Sterling in his hometown.  He wrote, “I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what or how to do it. All I knew for sure is that I wanted it to be as respectful as possible.”

            A few weeks later, during pre-season, his teammate Colin Kaepernick chose to sit on the bench during the National Anthem to protest police brutality, but nobody noticed for a few weeks. When his protest gained national attention, the backlash against him began.

            Eric Reid wrote, “That’s when my faith moved me to take action. I looked to James 2:17, which states, ‘Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.’ I knew I needed to stand up for what is right.”

            He and Kaepernick talked.  Then they had a meeting with Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret and Seattle Seahawks long-snapper. Boyer said he saw in the quarterback a person who wanted to make his message about racial injustice in the country clear, but who also wanted to find a better way to do it

which is when they decided that it would be better, more respectful to the military, to kneel.  Boyer remembers they talked about how people take a knee to pray. In the military, when they’re exhausted on patrol, they say take a knee and face out. They take a knee as a sign of respect in front of a brother’s grave site.[4]

             

            I imagine there are people here today who have felt offended or disapproving about how some have been “taking a knee” during the National Anthem and that there are others who support their nonviolent protest.  Maybe some just feel uncomfortable being reminded of racial injustice and wish people would stop talking about it. Maybe some feel conflicted about it and are struggling.

            I’m not here to tell anybody which side they should be on in this controversy.  What I am called to do is to continually proclaim God’s word, and keep reminding us that we are all called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,[5] and to keep asking us to think and pray about what that looks like for us today. What does it look like for us to be humble and to look to the interests of others?

            I think that humbling ourselves requires us to listen, to open ourselves to understanding and being in solidarity with others, especially those who are oppressed, including trying to understand why someone would decide to use whatever platform or opportunity they have for peaceful protest of injustice.

            Colin Kaepernick and some of the others who are protesting are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

            Kaepernick is a Christian who was baptized Methodist, confirmed Lutheran and attended a Baptist church during his college years.  He has a Bible scroll with Psalm 18:39 tattooed on his right arm. Underneath is written “To God be the Glory.”

            Is it possible that Kaepernick and some others kneel not out of disrespect but as an act of faith?

            I keep thinking about the kneeling and how Kaepernick decided to kneel rather than sit after talking with a veteran. But I keep thinking there’s a link to his Christian faith.

            Kneeling can show respect or reverence. It can show humility.  Many churches, especially Catholic churches, have kneelers. I remember that to take communion in the Methodist church in which I grew up, you had to go forward and kneel at the railing to receive communion.  In the church, over the centuries, kneeling has been seen as a holy, worshipful act.[6]

            Some of the beautiful things about our nation are our diversity… our freedom of religion--freedom to practice any religion we choose or not to practice any religion-- and separation of church and state.

            On my Grandmother Frances’ side of the family, I have Brethren in Christ roots, which is part of the Anabaptist tradition, which came out of Radical Reformation.  Within the Anabaptist tradition, it is believed that it is a denial of their Christian faith to pledge their allegiance to anyone or anything other than to Jesus, and it’s common to abstain from symbolic acts such as displaying the flag or singing the national anthem.  There is also a deep appreciation that they live in a country where religious differences are tolerated and gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy, including the freedom for conscientious objectors whose scruples prevent them from bearing arms in the military to perform alternative service  

            As a Presbyterian, I remember that John Calvin wrote, “The human mind is a perpetual factory of idols.” [7]

            Among the great themes of the Reformed tradition listed in our Presbyterian Book of Order is “the recognition of the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny, which calls the people of God to work for the transformation of society by seeking justice and living in obedience to the Word of God.”[8]

             As I followed the commentary this week and meditated on the questions of authority and the call to humility and unity in our scripture lessons, I kept remembering what the John Pavlovitz suggested in a post:

            “Maybe we should all be kneeling right now….

            “And instead of demonizing Colin Kaepernick and instead of blaming shooting victims, and instead of shouting down our brothers and sisters of color as they mourn—we should be listening to them.
            “More than that, we should be saying with our presence and our pain and our social media voices and our dollars, that we are grieving alongside them; that this is not okay with us, that this is not the America we want either.”[9]

            On this World Communion Sunday, we celebrate our unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.  We celebrate the good news that Christ has broken down the dividing wall between people...  and that Christ is our peace.^[10]  

             Today, Christians come together around the Lord's Table-- the one place where we are one, no matter what our race, or language, or nationality or theology or politics.

            As we come to celebrate this sacred feast with our brothers and sisters in the faith, let us pray that we may be filled with Christ's passionate dislike of whatever keeps us from his peace. Let us heed those in our time those who raise a prophetic voice against the ways of injustice and oppression and call God's people back to God's ways of righteousness and peace, and let us remember them each day in our prayers.

            As we eat the bread and drink from the cup, may we do so in thankfulness for the unity we find in Christ...  and in willingness to go out to be God's peacemakers in the world.

            Amen! 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 1, 2017

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[1]Philippians 1:27-30

[2] Susan Eastman, in “Commentary on Philippians 2:1-13, at Working Preacher. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1009

[3] Philippians 2

[4] Nick Wagoner, “From a seat to a knee: How Colin Kaepernick and Nate Boyer are trying to effect change. http://www.espn.com/blog/san-francisco-49ers/post/_/id/19253/from-a-seat-to-a-knee-how-colin-kaepernick-and-nate-boyer-are-trying-to-affect-change

[5] Micah 6:8

[6] Angela Denker, “Colin Kaepernick and the powerful, religious act of kneeling.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/09/24/colin-kaepernick-and-the-powerful-religious-act-of-kneeling/?utm_term=.2da79f11637a

[7] Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1560), Book 1, Chapter XI, section 8.

[8] Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order 2015-2017, F-2.05.

[9] https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/09/26/protests-arent-flag-anthem-military-know/

^[10]Ephesians 2:14-

.

"A Different Kind of Peace." A sermon on Luke 12:49-59 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church

"A Different Kind of Peace"

Luke 12:49-59

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No I tell you, but rather division!

We live in a broken, divided world.  With all the divisiveness in our society these days, it seems like the last thing we need is more division! 

These sound like harsh and difficult words from Jesus.  Where’s the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” we like so much?       

“You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky,” Jesus said to the crowds, “but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

            How are we to interpret what Jesus is saying?  Can it help us to interpret our present time?

I think it’s helpful to reflect on Jesus’ own sense of identity and mission, to help us understand what he is trying to say in these difficult words.   Early in the lesson, we hear Jesus saying, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”  It was in his baptism that Jesus came to a clear consciousness of who he was.  As he came out of the waters of the Jordan, he heard God saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased.” 

Jesus’ sense of himself was rooted and grounded in God’s love for him.   Filled with this deep sense of being enfolded in God’s love, Jesus was driven by the Spirit out into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan.  In that wilderness time of forty days and forty nights, Jesus had to struggle with how he would live out his identity--whether he would open his life to God’s larger purposes, and how he would respond to the mission into which God was calling him.

            Luke tells us that Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, returns to Galilee and goes to his hometown of Nazareth.  He goes into the synagogue.  In the synagogue, he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  He unrolls the scroll and finds the place where it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind…to let the oppressed go free…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[1]

            Then Jesus rolls up the scroll, and sits down.  The eyes of everybody in the synagogue were on him.  Then he begins to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[2]

            In Jewish thought, the year of the Lord’s favor is the year of Jubilee, and the year of Jubilee is the time in which all relationships are re-ordered, all patterns of indebtedness are set aside, and the whole fabric of society is restructured according to God’s desire…God’s plan that all may be free…that all may live in relationships of love and peace.  So Jesus makes a public declaration of what his mission is.[3]

            I’m grateful to the Most Rev. Frank Griswold, former head of the Episcopal Church, for pointing me to the connection to the Jewish term, “tikkun olam,” which means “repair of the world.”  This may be a familiar idea to any of you who are aware of Rabbi Michael Lerner’s writings and the Tikkun community. 

            I believe Jesus’ mission is very much about repairing the world, re-ordering disordered relationships, and overcoming the disparities that create injustice.    I think that in the strong words we just heard in today’s Gospel lesson, we hear Jesus’ sense of urgency about his call to do God’s will.  We hear an urgency to bring about God’s work of reconciliation and binding up and making whole. 

            I believe this is truly gospel—good news, because it is a message of compassion and healing.  But it is also a challenging message, because it calls people to change.  It calls us to re-order our lives, and it calls us to a new awareness.  

            Jesus saw many of the religious practices of his day as a means of protecting or distracting against the deeper demands of God, as a way of insulating one’s self against the calls of God’s greater righteousness and God’s call to reorder all things in justice and peace.

            Churches and other religious organizations can be very self-serving, rather than other-serving.  We can get caught up in the little details or the structures of our religious traditions or in the comfort of being in our “church family”, and we can miss the deeper  invitation that is the heart of all authentic religion—that is to allow ourselves to be broken open by God’s gracious love so that our own identity and the call to be joined together with Christ in mission makes us, with Christ, repairers of the world.

            Jesus says, “I came to bring fire to the earth.  How I wish it were already kindled.”  Do you sense his urgency…his passion?   On that first Easter, when Cleopas and another disciple finally recognized the stranger with whom they’d walked to Emmaus, they exclaimed, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?”[4]

            John Calvin, one of our spiritual ancestors in the Reformed faith, experienced a change in the passions of his heart and said, “My heart I give the Lord eagerly and sincerely.”   Calvin’s seal was a hand stretched out from a burning heart.

            The flames at the foot of the cross of our Presbyterian Church (USA) symbol remind us of the beginning of the Christian church, when the Holy Spirit baptized the apostles with fire at Pentecost, charging them to be messengers of the good news of God’s love.

            “Do you think I came to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus said.  No.

The way Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message, Jesus said, “I’ve come to change everything, to turn everything right-side up.  How I long for it to be finished!   Do you think I came to smooth things and make everything nice?   Not so.  I’ve come to disrupt and confront.”

            When Jesus said he didn’t come to bring peace to the earth, I think the kind of peace he was talking about here is the kind of easy, superficial peace that papers over things, sweeps things under the rug, while leaving the disorder beneath the surface.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I come to bring peace, but my peace is not of this world.”[5]

            The peace Jesus brings requires a deep re-ordering of our own interior life and a re-ordering of our relationships with one another.  It is a costly and demanding peace that requires a transformation of our attitudes and imagination.  When we allow this costly and demanding peace to transform our lives, we sometimes experience division—division within ourselves, as we struggle with our desire to open ourselves to God’s transforming work and reconciliation and our fears that the cost may be too great.  We’re afraid that following Jesus may demand too much of us.  And so we compromise, we try to “be realistic.”  We try to explain away the challenge of the Gospel.

            Jesus confronts us with the uncomfortable question:  “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”  In other words, why will you not look at the world around you through the lense of faith? 

            “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?”  Jesus asks.  The English is more ambiguous in meaning than the original Greek, which would more accurately be translated, “Judge for yourself what is just.” 

            The social and economic context for this saying is the rampant debt that was destroying families and communities throughout Palestine in Jesus’ time.  If disputes about debts reached the Roman legal system, the debtor would receive one of two verdicts.  Either the debtor would be forced into indentured service to work off the debt, or the debtor would be thrown into prison until family members managed to scrape together the money needed to pay off the debt—often by selling off their land.  It was a system that allowed the rich to get richer, and that spelled the ruin of the poor.  That’s why, when the Zealots entered Jerusalem at the start of the war of 66 C.E., the first thing they did was to burn the debt records!

            In Jesus’ time, the only way to avoid playing such blatant injustice,  would be to settle cases before they went to court.  Whatever the actual patterns of debt and credit, justice required that the system be brought to an end.    Those who have heard Jesus proclaim that God’s reign is at hand[6]  see the need to end the debts and credits of  “business as usual.”

            Now, this was not a new idea.  When the Old Testament talks about land ownership, it does so in the context of the year of Jubilee, which was supposed to be held every 50^th year, when all debts are forgiven, and all land reverts back to its original owner or his descendants. 

            In addition, every seventh year, land owners were supposed to provide a Sabbath for the land, to let it rest, to lie fallow.  The Bible envisions a relationship of good stewardship, and of faithful responsibility between people and the earth.  

            I believe our faith calls us to a new awareness, a new way of seeing things, a new openness to struggling with questions of faithful living, as individuals and as a society. 

            How do we interpret the present time?  How do we balance the rights of individuals with the needs of the community, and the earth itself?  How do we confront the idolatries of private property and mindless consumption?  Is a company’s CEO really worth 200 times what its lowest-paid employee is worth?  Is a professional athlete really worth 100 times more than a public school teacher?  What does our faith have to say about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?

            How do we interpret the present time?  What does our faith have to say about a world that seems to become increasingly violent?  What does our faith say about fear, and about what happens when we allow fear to rule us?   What does our Christian faith say about war?

            How do we interpret the present time?  What does our faith say about earth-damaging habits and desires that lead us to use more of the earth’s resources than the earth can sustain?   What does our faith say about buying products that are produced on the backs of children and  slaves?

            These aren’t just political or economic or environmental  questions.  They are faith questions. [7]

            Jesus was right, wasn’t he?   If we raise questions like these, we are likely to create division—within families, within the household of faith.  And that can make us very uncomfortable.

            Sometimes when Jesus speaks, he doesn’t leave us with peace—at least not an easy, superficial peace.  Jesus calls us interpret the signs of our present time in the light of our faith. 

            The present time we live in is confused and disordered and broken. Sometimes what we see in the world around us can feel overwhelming, and we feel powerless to do anything that would make a difference. 

            But, in the words of Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”   

In the late 18^th century in Great Britain, as awareness of the cruelty of sugar plantations in the West Indies grew, more and more British people boycotted sugar from the Indies, declaring that they would not sweeten their tea with sugar tainted by slave blood.  The boycott had an effect and helped the abolition movement  to build momentum.  The movement was led by people of faith.  The Abolitionist movement that followed in the United States was led by Quakers, Evangelical Christians, and others.

Presbyterians and other Christians have effectively boycotted companies for humanitarian and justice reasons over the years.  Whether it’s committing as an individual to buy only fair trade chocolate or coffee or deciding as a church to divest from corporations that participate in great injustice, the little things we do can help to bring about change for good and can help to heal the world.

            When we follow Jesus, he challenges us to interpret the present time in light of our faith.  He calls us into new life—not a nice, lukewarm life, but a life of passion and urgency to repair the world.  

            When we allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s love, so that our identity and calling and mission are shaped by that love, the Spirit will give us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom and peace.[8] 

            All this is costly and demanding, but we are not alone, because Christ, who is our real peace, has promised to be with us every step of the way.

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen!  

             

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 14, 2016

           

           

                       

           

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[1] Isaiah 61.

[2] Luke 4.

[3] I am very grateful to the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, former Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church USA, for his insights on this text, in “Sermon for Proper 15” at http://day1.org/609-sermon_for_proper_15.

[4] Luke 24:32

[5] John 14:27

[6] Luke 4:18

[7] I am grateful to the Rev. Julie Adkins for several of the insights and questions here, in “Interpreting the Signs of the Times,” published at www.goodpreacher.com

[8] Brief Statement of Faith, Presbyterian Church (USA), 1990.