a lot

Word association is a strong thing. When you say "DC" I think of traffic. When you say "fishing" I think of a quiet spot on the Magnolia River. When you say "disciple" I think of the number 12.

The twelve disciples: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James II, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas; or some variation there of (Nathaniel, Judas II, etc.) as a group are perhaps as widely known as any character in Scripture. The answer to the question "how many disciples did Jesus have?" is readily available from the mouths of babe and adult alike. But in the lesson for the Liturgy of the Palms this Sunday, Luke adds a curious detail.

"The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully..."

The whole multitude? That sounds like a whole lot more than 12.

OK, so the issue is partly due to terminology. The 12 were really apostles AND disciples. All apostles are disciples but not all disciples are apostles. Anyway, what matters here is that four days before his arrest and five before his crucifixion Jesus entered Jerusalem with enough fanfare to evoke Luke to say, "the whole multitude." His message had really caught on, and while most of the "whole multitude" had probably missed the point, Jesus, for a day at least, was given what he was due as they "praised God joyfully."

Today the list of apostles remains at about 12 (subtract Judas, add Matthias and Paul) but the list of disciples runs in the billions and our task remains the same. We don't lead revolutions. We don't inflict fear. We just praise God joyfully for all the deeds of power that we see.

As we rapidly fly towards Holy Week, join the whole multitude of the disciples (read a whole lot of people) and spend some time today praising God joyfully for all the deeds of power he has done in your life.

so well known

There was a man who had two sons.

Now you finish the rest of the story.

You know it, right? Dad, about the whole waiting for you to die thing... yeah, can I just get the money now? Dissolute living. Pigpen. Return. Hug. Fatted Calf. Angry brother.

I realized yesterday how autopilot this story is for me. I was reading some commentaries and they kept using the word "prodigal" in a way that made no sense to me. See I had always assumed prodigal meant "lost" but apparently it does not. As my twelfth grade English teacher would (incorrectly) say, "we all know what happens when you spell assume backwards." (emussa????)

But you see, prodigal does not mean lost. Prodigal means "wastefully or recklessly extravagant." The younger son is obviously wastefully extravagant in his spending, but more so in this story, I think it is the Dad who is prodigal in his giving of love and forgiveness which in turn makes him prodigal in giving up his honor.

Think about it. Son comes up and says, "Dad, you are dead to me. Give me what I'd get if you were really dead." Dad has no earthly reason to give his son the money, but he does. Can you imagine the shame upon his house as he sold cattle and land to pull the cash together? Can you imagine how awful it must have felt to answer the question, "so why are you getting rid of this anyway?" And then, when his lost son returns, the dad scoops up his robes and begins to run toward him. I'm told that running was not something a wealthy land owner did which tells us that a) dad is again being reckless with his love and forgiveness and b) dad is again willing to risk his honor for the son that he loves.

In my sermon last Sunday I said that God loves with reckless abandon, which this week would sound like, God is loves prodigally. He risks his honor over and against other gods in order to love us uniquely and unconditionally. He prodigally gave his son for us that we might be restored to right relationship with him. And he waits, scanning the horizon, ready to pull of his robes to sprint to us every time we repent and return to him.

Our God is prodigal.

new creation

It has been so long since the lectionary readings made any sense together that I had almost forgotten to read the Hebrew Bible and Epistle Lessons this week. Thankfully, my rector plans on pairing Joshua and Luke which sparked my pea-brain into action.

What is the "new creation" that Paul is talking about?

The Sermon Brainwave folk want us to remember that this is communal. I am not a new creation, I am part of a new creation.

But that can't work. I can't be part of a new creation and not be one myself. Old wine, new wineskins. We know it does't work. I both can't and won't enter the new creation when I myself am of the old way. I can't because my oldness will destroy the newness, and I won't because the newness will taint my oldness.

It has to be a both/and. In Christ, I am personally a new creation called a disciple who lives within a New Creation called the Kingdom of God.

To use the example of the prodigal son story
1) younger son is made new in the pigsty and enter the new place called home.
2) dad is made new in his embrace with young son and enters the new place called joy.
3) older son is offered newness if he enters the new place called party.

Robert Farrar Capon makes this all make sense with this version of the prodigal son from “The Parables of Grace” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1988, p. 144):
(The father is speaking to the older brother): “The only thing that matters is that, fun or no fun [in the far country], your brother finally died to all that and now he’s alive again—whereas you, unfortunately, were hardly alive even the first time around. Look. We’re all dead here and we’re having a terrific time. We’re all lost here and we feel right at home. You, on the other hand, are alive and miserable—and worse yet, you’re standing out here in the yard as if you were some kind of beggar. Why can’t you see? You OWN this place, Morris. And the only reason you’re not enjoying it is because you refuse to be dead to your dumb rules about how it should be enjoyed. So do yourself and everyone else a favor: drop dead. Shut up, forget about your stupid life, go inside, and pour yourself a drink.”

Become a new creation. Enter the New Creation. Enjoy the party.

leaving and returning

A lot of attention gets paid to the Father in the story of the prodigal son especially the fact that he ran out to meet his son "while he was still far off." This is, obviously, an important theological detail, but what I am struck by this morning are the Father's actions around his son's deciding to leave.

"He divided his property between [his two sons]."

That's it. That's all. His son said, "you are dead to me, give me what I'm due." And Dad did it. Dad knew that his son was making the first bad decision of many. Dad knew that without family his boy was nothing. Dad knew a lot, but allowed his son to make the choices he thought he needed to make.

There's a bumper sticker out there that says "If you feel like God's far away, who moved?" It is trite. It is not particularly helpful when someone is in a crisis. It is true, true, true. God allows us to make decisions, even bad decisions. In most cases, he goes beyond what the Father in the parable does and at least makes some of the consequences known, but he won't stop us. We are free to leave.

But we are also free to return at any time. He's waiting, scanning the horizon, hoping that you will return; not so he can say, "I told you so" but so he can wrap you in his arms and say, "I love you. I've missed you. Welcome home."

rock bottom

The dubious honor of being the first actual blu-ray disc played in our blu-ray player goes to, of all movies, "The Invention of Lying." I won't go into the theology of it here because I don't care, but I will use it as an example.

Early in the movie, the main character Mark (Ricky Gervais) tells his friend Greg (Louis CK) that they need to leave the bar and go. Greg downs two more shots and shouts, "I'm driving!" As we see the car weaving in and out of traffic, Mark asks, "are you sure you're OK to drive?" Greg responds, "Yeah, I need to hit bottom." Cue the lights and sirens as Mark says, "looks like the bottom is coming soon."

Its a lot funnier in the context of the movie.

Anyway, all that to say that we all have a bottom at some point in our lives. For some, it is in the form of a DUI. For others it isn't quite as drastic or dangerous. For some it is the moment when a lifetime of choosing work over family means your wife isn't there when you arrive home at 11pm for the sixth night in a row. We all have a rock bottom because our sins of choice lead us to that place where the consequences that we had long been warned about, finally come true.

Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 5.3 (poor in spirit) as "You're blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and his rule." Which is essentially what the whole parable of the prodigal son is all about. A series of people finding rock bottom, finding the consequences of their decisions. What we miss out on, and what we are left to determine on our own, is how the second brother will respond. Will he accept the blessing and welcome his brother, or will he continue to dig down beyond the bottom?

We all find ourselves at rock bottom at least once in our lives. Sometimes it is due to a lifetime of drunken debauchery (brother 1), sometimes it is due to our unwillingness to forgive (brother 2), but always it is an opportunity for blessings.

This one, who was dead has come to life. We must rejoice.

The Sermon I did Preach

Here's the sermon I wrote on Friday and ended up preaching. A special thank you to those who pray for me every week. It is because of those prayers that God is able to push my nonsense out of the way and speak his Word.

I don't know about you, but I'm really enjoying the Henri Nouwen devotional book this Lent. Some days, Cassie and I read it and all we can say is, “wow.” But last Saturday's reflection left me really thinking. It was entitled, “Our Father Loves All” and the take home line from it is, “God doesn't need to divide the world into those who are for God and those against God because God loves everyone uniquely and unconditionally.” Let me repeat that, “God doesn't need to divide the world into those who are for God and those against God because God loves everyone uniquely and unconditionally.”
I didn't finish that reflection thinking, “wow.” Instead, I thought, “clearly Henri had lost it by this time. He's a fool. Obviously, God likes some people better than others. Surely God likes me more than, say, Donald Trump or Kim Jong Ill or even Pat Robertson.” They say that it is in our DNA to divide things into groups. Apples v. Oranges. Men v. Women. Good drivers v. bad drivers. Whatever the basis for our groupings, we do it all the time. Rich/Poor, Black/White, Cultured/Ignorant our minds are constantly grouping people. It is a coping technique. A person is a whole lot easier to deal with when they aren't a person at all, but instead a faceless label. Oh, I don't have to deal with him because he's a troublemaker or an ignorant fool or a liberal. And we rationalize this way of living by saying, “we have to do it; its how we are wired.” We get all up in arms when Pat Robertson does it by saying that Haiti's capital city was destroyed by an earthquake because they are vodoo practicing pagans, but it is perfectly OK for me to say he's a babbling buffoon with terrible theology. Well maybe that's no OK.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus seems to be wary of the label and dismiss lifestyle. Having “set his face toward Jerusalem” Jesus and his rag tag group of Galilean pilgrims are on their way to the holy city in time for the Passover Feast. Suddenly, news reaches them that Pilate has mingled the blood of Galilean pilgrims with their sacrifices, which is an amazingly polite way of saying that Pilate had a group of Jews killed in the Temple Court while they were offering their prayers and sacrifices. This is cause for serious anger and righteous indignation. Either that, or this is the time for somebody to stand up and say, “thank God we aren't sinners like them.” Jesus preempts the self-righteous option by saying, “do you think that because they suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will perish as they did.” To this terrible story, Jesus adds one of his own. “Do you remember the eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will perish as they did.”
Jesus won't let us dismiss the bad things that happen to other people by labeling them as “sinners who deserve divine punishment” because, quite frankly, we are all sinners who deserve divine punishment. We put other gods (like money and power) ahead of God. We make idols and vote for them by phone or text message (standard messaging rates apply). We use God's name to invoke all sorts of terrible things. We never remember the Sabbath, let alone keep it holy. Our fathers and mothers are rarely honored. Murder, adultery, theft, lying, coveting – the list goes on and on. Every one of us has fallen short of God's dream Every one of us has made a mistake. Every one of us could use more time in silence after, “let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.” So when we dismiss “them” as deserving God's divine retribution, we are, in fact, condemning ourselves.
Reenter Henri Nouwen, “God doesn't need to divide the world into those who are for God and those against God because God loves everyone uniquely and unconditionally.” It has been five minutes since the last time I mentioned this line, and it seems even less true now. How can God love everyone uniquely and unconditionally when every one of us deserves God's bitter tears?
Conveniently enough, Jesus wraps up this run-in with bad news by way of a parable about precisely why God's love is universal. A wealthy man owned a lot of land. One day, he came to one of his vineyards, approached a three year-old fig tree and looked for fruit. Finding none, he told the land manager to cut down the tree because all it was doing was wasting soil. “Lord,” said the land manager, “forgive the tree for its fruitlessness. Let me dig around it and tend to it with fertilizer. If it produces fruit next year, that's great. If not, you can cut it down.”
Did you get it? Did you figure out how this story tells us that God's love is universal? No? Well its right there in two simple details. The first detail is in the timing. I'm told that three years would be plenty of time to expect fruit from a fig tree. If three years is a reasonable expectation for fruit production, then that would make a fourth year beyond reasonable expectations. God's grace goes beyond reasonable expectations, so much so that he loves each and every one of us uniquely and unconditionally, even though none of us deserve it. The second detail is in the Greek words of the land manager, “forgive the tree for its fruitlessness.” Aphes, to forgive, the same word Jesus uses when he teaches his disciples to pray, “forgive us our sins.” This takes us back to Jesus' command to “repent.” Ask for and receive forgiveness! Don't pretend like you've been producing fruit all along, admit your failures, your soft spots, your ugliness and then ask for and receive God's forgiveness. God's love is universal because it goes beyond reasonable expectations and it is based in the act of forgiveness.
“God doesn't need to divide the world into those who are for God and those against God because God loves everyone uniquely and unconditionally.” It is true, my brothers and sisters. It makes no sense, but this statement by Henri Nouwen is true. God loves with reckless abandon. He aches when he sees events like Pilate's massacre in the Temple, the collapse of the Tower of Siloam, the earthquake in Haiti and suicide bombs during Iraqi elections. He doesn't conjure up these events to punish evil doers, he laments that they happen and calls on each of us to repent and return to him. Repentance looks just like it did when Jesus called for it two-thousand years ago. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If you have two coats, give one away. If you have extra food share it. Produce fruit worthy of repentance: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let the Spirit lead you, let God's grace enfold you, and live a life of forgiveness. It is impossibly simple to do, but thanks be to God, his love that surpasses reasonable expectations. Thanks be to God we have another year in which to grow fruit. Thanks be to God we have the Spirit who fertilizes and nurtures. Thanks be to God for his ongoing forgiveness.
Repent my brothers and sister, not out of fear for God's divine punishment but out of joy for God's unending love. Repent and welcome the Kingdom. Amen.

The Sermon I Didn't Preach

Here's the sermon I wrote earlier this week, but did not preach. It is based on the work of Luise Schottroff and Tom Wright. It is a decent paper (I think), but not a good sermon.

Generally speaking, I think we like Jesus in sound bites. Or to play on my theme from a couple of weeks ago, we like Fortune Cookie Jesus. Short. Sweet. To the Point. Love God, Love your neighbor. Turn the other cheek. Drink your juice. Jesus is a whole lot easier to understand and follow when he is constrained to a text message (160 characters) or Twitter (140). His message is a whole lot easier to share when we can sum it up in a few simple words and plaster them on a bumper sticker or T-shirt. As hard as it might be to believe, we weaken the message of Jesus when we try to universalize his words. When we remove Jesus completely from all of his context, and make him the great Fortune Cookie Writer in the sky, we take away a lot of his power to teach, and removing power from the Son of God is a dangerous thing indeed. Jesus was born in a specific place at a specific time under a specific culture. He was Jewish. He was a Rabbi. And, By the time we reach the thirteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus has already "set his face toward Jerusalem."
He and a rag-tag group of Galilean pilgrims are on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus is sure of where he is headed and I'm pretty sure he knows what is going to happen when he gets there. Word comes to the group that Pilate has mingled the blood of some Galileans with their sacrifice. This is a very polite way of saying that Pilate had killed people just like them inside the temple courts while they were dutifully offering their sacrifices and prayers. Even if this story didn't exist, we don't need the Bible to know that Pilate was a royal jerk. During his ten-year reign as Governor of Judea, Pilate routinely and intentionally picked fights with his subjects in Judea. He poked at their religious heritage by sending his army into the holy city of Jerusalem carrying banners boldly displaying Rome's pagan symbols. He udner-cut their laws by planning an elaborate aqueduct system for the city and then ordering that Temple funds be used to pay for it. When the Jews tried to rebel against the injustice of it all, Pilate sent his troops in to brutally end the rumblings as a reminder of who really was in charge.
To the story of Pilate's brutal attack in the Temple Court, Jesus adds his own; remembering when the tower fell at Siloam and killed 18 people. In the light of both tragedies, Jesus asks the same question, "where these people worse sinners than anyone else?" Answering his own question, Jesus says, "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." These people didn't die because of their sinfulness. They died because of the guilt of everyone. Jesus isn't saying that God doesn't punish people, he is reminding the people that death is the result of sin. He hearkens back to the Torah and reminds the people that they are just as susceptible to death not because of their individual guilt, but because of the guilt of all people. The only avenue for salvation is repentance.
Two-thousand years later, bad things are still happening to good people. Bad things happen to normal people. Bad things happen to bad people. Death is still a possibility not because of my sin, or your sin, but
because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. When we hear the story of Pilate's blood guilt and the tower of Siloam we can't help but think of events like the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, Temple stampedes in India, and suicide bombers in Iraq and think, "were these people worse sinners than anyone else?" Pat Robertson and people of his ilk think so, but Jesus is clear. "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
"Just as they did." It is an interesting choice of wording on Jesus' part. Is he telling his followers that they'd die in the Temple courts? Will a tower fall on them? "Just as they did" is not an idle phrase in first century Israel. This is a stark reminder to the people that war with Rome was a real possibility. Even here, as Jesus speaks forty years before war would break out, the fear is real. If you continue to forget God. If you continue to rattle your sabers and flex your muscles. If you continue to live outside of Torah the land will do what it has done for generations, it'll spit you out. This isn't a generalized fortune cookie Jesus saying. This isn't a life-after death, long-way-off spiritualized story. This is real, honest, truth he's speaking. If you keep acting this way, war is gonna come, and you will not like how it ends. Jesus calls on the people to read the signs of the time. He wants them to understand that like in the times of Ezekiel and Isaiah, the life of the whole people is in danger and the only way to fix it is to repent, to return to Torah and live by God's commandments.
It took me all week to wrap my mind around this. The call to repentance isn't a call to live under the thumb of Rome, but instead a call to live under the freedom of God. God's history of using foreign armies to meet out his justice is well documented. Jesus' call makes no sense to us today, but it is the only hope for the people of Israel, "Live according to Torah, and Rome will have no power over you. Share your bread, heal the sick, be transformed from threatened victims into active disciples."
Jesus goes on to tell the people a story of a landowner who for three years has come to his vineyard hoping to pick figs from a certain tree. After what should be a reasonable amount of time, the landowner wishes to cut down the fruitless tree because it is just wasting space, but his hired manager has another idea. "Sir, leave it alone. Give it another year. Let me dig around it and fertilize it." That verb, aphes, that gets translated "leave it alone" has more of a "forgive it" sense in the Greek. It is the same word Jesus uses in the Lord's Prayer when he asks God to "forgive our sins." "Forgive the tree for its fruitlessness, Master. Give it another chance."
Here is the hope in this story. Here is where the particulars of Roman/Jewish politics get laid aside and the universal truth comes out. During this season of Lent, as we set aside time to honestly and intentionally do the work of repentance, it makes sense that we again ask for forgiveness. We are sorry that we as individuals haven't produced much fruit. We are sorry that we as the people of St. Paul's haven't produced much fruit. We are sorry that we as the body of Christ have't produced much fruit. Give us another season. Give us some fertilizer and help us to grow. Give us another Lent to work in the garden of our hearts. Give us another Easter to rejoice in the ridiculousness of your grace. Give us another chance to produce fruit, and forgive us of our past unfruitfulness.
Maybe that is the sound bite that Jesus gives us here. The words between the lines, a sound bite that never gets spoken, "There is still time - right now - for you to repent together and do everything God has commanded you to do. So repent, or you will all perish just as they did."
And for us, repentance looks just like it did when Jesus called for it two-thousand years ago. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If you have two coats, give one away. If you have extra food share it. Produce fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let the Spirit lead you, let God's grace enfold you, and live a life of forgiveness. It is impossibly simple to do, but thanks be to God we have another season to grow and the Spirit who fertilizes and nurtures. Repent my brothers and sister, repent and welcome the Kingdom. Amen.

Homily for John and Charles Wesley

Today the Church gives thanks for the lives and ministries of John and Charles Wesley. Born in Epworth, England, the fifteenth and eighteenth children, respectively, of The Reverend Samuel and Mrs. Susanna Wesley, John was ordained in 1728 and Charles 1735. They came into their own in a period of time known as The Great Awakening and are now known as the founders of the Methodist Church, even if they both went to their graves affirming Methodism as a part of the Anglican Church. John, Charles, and a fiery preacher named George Whitefield came to Georgia to share the Good News and because of their burning zeal they made a lot of enemies and won a lot of souls.
The Wesleys took on strict "methods" of practicing their faith based on the rubrics and the model of daily prayer set out in the Prayer Book. In the years that followed both found themselves having strong conversion experiences. John wrote of his conversion on May 24, 1738, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." Central to their Methods was the weekly reception of Holy Communion, and it is not doubted that the Holy Spirit was all over those two Wesley boys.
To John was given the gifts of administration and preaching. His model of ministry is still used by Methodism to this day as are his sermons which are still read by preachers as they prepare homilies. To Charles, God gave an amazing gift of music, specifically in the writing of hymns. Charles wrote more than six thousand hymns, twenty-four of which are in our 1982 Hymnal, including such favorites as; "Christ whose glory fills the skies", "Come thou long expected Jesus", "Hark! the herald angels sing", and "Jesus Christ is risen today."
The Wesleys were specially gifted by God. They took seriously the call of Jesus to proclaim the Kingdom of God, but they were no more special than any of us who sit here this noon. Just as they were gifted in preaching and composition, so are we gifted in our baptisms for the up building of God's Holy Church. You may not know it, but we have each been given gifts and are called to be a light to the nations so that God's salvation might reach the ends of the earth. It comes, like in the case of the Wesleys, when we allow God's Spirit to work within us. When we become certain that Jesus saved even me. With that trust and that salvation, we are freed to do the Good Work that God has set aside for each of us; service to the Church, the knitting of shawls, prayers for the sick and alone, the building of homes for those in substandard housing, breaking the cycle of poverty by giving children the opportunity to enjoy the fullness of their education, and on and on. You might not be out there preaching on the street corners and slaying people in the Spirit, but each of you is, in your own unique way, enabled to do the work of ministry and move forward God's great plan for his Creation.
Today we are reminded of what God can do in us when we allow him the space to work. If you find yourself cooled to God's Spirit, allow him to warm you up because God is ready to do great things through you. Let him in. Do his work. As Charles wrote, "Visit, [God] this soul of mine! Pierce the gloom of sin and grief! Fill me, radiancy divine; scatter all my unbelief; more and more thyself display, shining to the perfect day." May the Spirit of God fill you with all joy in believing. Amen.

what does repentance look like?

Jesus and I have a similar problem. We both assume our congregation knows a lot. I've been asked, in the past, to be a little more specific when it comes to the practical application of my preaching, and I would respectfully have to ask the same of Jesus.

Jesus, what does repentance look like?

I what it means: a total rearranging of life. But how on earth do I do that? How do I, to use Paul's term, renew my mind when its first order operation is sarcasm? How do I live into the kingdom when the world I live in is run by the consumerist machine? How do I produce fruit when it seems clear to me that a try doesn't think about producing fruit, it just happens based on the right conditions? Whose responsibility is it to ensure the right conditions?

What does repentance look like?

This is the key, I think, to unlocking the gospel text for Sunday, and Jesus leaves it unsaid. Sure, we've got context clues and other teachings and all that jazz, but honestly, I'd really like a 12 step road map toward repentance. Anybody out there have one i could borrow?

the problem with universals

As much as we hate to admit it, Jesus lived in a particular place during a particular time under a particular culture. We hate it, and by we I mean Christians in general and preachers specifically, because we want Jesus to speak in universals.

Love your neighbor.

Turn the other cheek.

Drink your juice.

We want what Jesus says to be easily applicable to our lives of particularity. Sometimes, however, that really screws up what Jesus was talking about. In Luke 13, Jesus has already "set his face toward Jerusalem." He already knows where he's headed, and I'm guessing is pretty sure what'll happen when he gets there. The band of Gentile Pilgrims on the road with him are not an army and they won't be called on to fight, but dang if they don't want to.

As we read Luke 13.1-9 we forget that Israel is occupied by a brutal Roman regime. We forget that Pilate had for years been setting up ways for Gentiles and Jerusalemites to look like they were rebellion groups that needed to be quelled. We forget that the destruction of the Temple is only a few decades away. "Unless you repent, you will die in the same way." This might be a universal spiritual truth, but Tom Wright thinks that Jesus is being very particular here. If you run into Jerusalem looking like a pissed off group of rebels, you will be treated that way and stories of your blood being mingled with your sacrifices will be spread throughout Palestine. We presume that the tower of Siloam fell because of an engineering disaster, but if you take up your sword, the walls of Jerusalem will fall upon you because of the strength of Caesar's army.

For Tom Wright, the repentance Jesus is talking about is one of humility. Give to Caesar what is his, live within the rule of law, and produce fruit like a fig tree planted in the midst of a vineyard. We want Jesus to speak in universals, but the only way to get there is to understand the particulars of his time. Today, I'm thankful to Tom Wright for some insight into that world.

us v. them

Last week in Sunday School our topic was Luke's version of "love your enemies." This topic is again on my mind this week as I ponder the tough lesson from Luke 13. Our Parish is reading Henri Nouwen"s From Fear to Love as a Lenten devotional book and Saturday's post was entitled, "Our Father Loves All."

This line seems to sum it up, "God doesn't need to divide the world into those for God and those against God because God loves everyone uniquely and unconditionally."

I've heard it said that it is human nature to divide things into groups: apples and oranges, men and women, friends and frenemies, whatever. We justify our label and dismiss lifestyle by saying "we have to do it." But Henri Nouwen seems to argue, and I think Jesus in Luke 13.1-9 agrees that we are all in the same boat. We are all struggling to figure out life; some of us get it a little faster than others, but none of us is perfect. When we start to label people as "sinners" or "enemies" or "not producing fruit" we divide the world into "us v. them" and we are always the good guys.

Jesus says, "nope, y'all are all the bad guys, but God is waiting patiently, tending to you, confident that one day, you'll pull it together and produce fruit." The rain falls on the evil as well as the good. We all have the chance to grow. We all have a chance at redemption. There is no us v. them.

Pick your Poison

All right preachers. You ready for a fun set of lessons? You ready to play that Sesame Street favorite, "One of these things is not like the other." Lent 3c in the RCL is for you.

• Moses and the Burning Bush
• Paul's admonition to not be like 20,000 who died because of their sexual immorality
• Jesus' explaining those whose blood was mingled with sacrifice and the death of 18 when the Tower of Siloam fell.

Pick your poison.

In my tradition, I'll be the one reading the Gospel lesson, and it seems to me that people assume that I'll flow from reading the lesson to preaching on it. So I've got to honestly deal with Pilate's blood lust, natural/engineering disasters, and the landowner wanting to cut down trees.

Keith just left my office having challenged me to really dwell on the Parable of the Fig Tree and how it gets read allegorically. Who is the landowner and who is the gardener. This isn't our usual parable in which God is always the landowner. God, or at least the God I've come to know over the years, can't be angry and capricious and ready to cut down at a moment's notice those who "waste the soil." God is more like the gardener, the one who waits patiently, tending and pruning, until the shrub he has planted blooms with a beauty unmatched by anything.

In light of Haiti and Chile and snowpocalypse 1 and 2 and the young deckhand from Orange Beach whose untimely death left his wife and 3 kids virtually helpless and stories that I've yet to hear and will never hear, in light of all of that, the Church has to deal with the ugliness of the gospel lesson today and stand firm in the truth that God did not punish the people of Haiti for a vodoo pact 400 years ago, he did not punish the people of Chile for whatever it is Pat Robertson will say they did, he did not punish DC for their leftist agenda, or that young deckhand for whatever mistakes he might have made, God was holding out hope for everyone who died in each of those cases to turn the corner and produce good fruit. Some of them did. Some died before they could. Some never knew that they were made to produce fruit. Whatever the case, God didn't punish them, events happened and they died, and God goes on pruning and fertilizing and hoping against hope that each of us will turn around and produce good fruit.

trouble all around

This week, I was intruiged on textweek.com by a post entitled, "That's why they call it the blues." Not one of my usual resources, but interesting this week, at least, Peter Woods expanded Jesus' epithet toward Herod in an interesting way. As we come off his temptation in the wilderness, where Satan tempted him with food, power, and protection, and then left until an opportune time, we see in our Gospel lesson for Lent 2 that trouble continues to come from all sides.

Herod, the fox in the hen house, is obviously a concern, but Peter notes that there is trouble from the skies too, Rome. One of the key symbols of Rome's military might was that of the eagle.

Peter writes, "As a caring lover of all people, Jesus knew how threatened the vulnerable chicks of Israel were. The poor, the widows, the outcasts, were at the mercy of the Foxy Herod and the Roman Eagle. In a homely farmyard metaphor, Jesus likens himself to the vulnerable hen who, despite the danger to herself, gathers her chicks when the eagle is soaring and the fox is stalking. Did he know even then that Herod and Caesar would rip him apart at the end? Jesus sang the blues"

Trouble is all around for Jesus, but he has already set his face toward Jerusalem and knows where that will lead. Thank God, literally, for Jesus' faithfulness in spite of all the danger.

the disobedience of one affects us all

One of the members of our lectionary study grew up on a farm. He has seen a mother hen with her chicks, and gets, a lot more than I did, what Jesus is saying in his lament over Jerusalem.

Apparently what happens when a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings is, almost inevitably, one chick tries to get away. The mother then gets up to give chase and rather than staying behind in the relative safety of the nest, the rest of the babies get up and give chase too.

What God is really saying here is, "You were supposed to be a light to the nations, a blessing for the whole world, but I've spent the last 3000 or so years chasing you down and the whole world has suffered because of it."

This runs smack up against our western individual mindset. We want to have the freedom to run away, but when we do, and when God then chases after us, we affect the whole kingdom as those left behind are left without protection and are forced to chase after God as he chases after us.

So then, how do we find a home under God's protective wing? We trust in his plan and his protection. We quit running after more and become thankful for what God has given us. It is supremely counter cultural, but it is the way of peace and life abundant.

Jesus, CEO

My undergraduate degree is a BS in Business Administration with a concentration on management. I've got management books coming out of my ears. As my call began to come into view toward the end of my senior year of college, the books began to change from "Who Moved my Cheese?" to "Jesus, CEO." These books aren't bad. They speak of Jesus' leadership style, compassionate, hard working, goal oriented. Seems to make sense that the Son of God would be a halfway decent manager, though the success rate of his inner circle during his time with them is less than spectacular.

As I read the Gospel lesson for Sunday, I'm struck by just how much Jesus sounds like a CEO in this text. The Pharisees could be warning him about a hostile take over or a lunch meeting with a rival, as Jesus responds, "today and tomorrow aren't good. Tell that lousy SOB that my plate is full until I get to Jerusalem. We can talk then." Since I am tech obsessed, I picture Jesus flipping through the calendar on his blackberry (Jesus wouldn't use Apple products - see bad translations of Gen 3) and pondering to himself, "hmmmmm, when can I squeeze this in."

Jesus knew the time was near, his death was coming upon his entry into Jerusalem, and yet he continued on the way. He didn't pull a Jonah and run toward Tarshish. He didn't dig a hole and spend the rest of his days hiding from the authorities. Instead, he confidently pushed toward Jerusalem teaching and healing along the way. And all that we might have life, but not just us, his hope was that everyone might come under his wing, even Herod and the Chief Priests and the Scribes. But people being people, this was not going to happen. Those in authority weren't going to give it up without a fight, and Jesus wasn't going to fight them. And so, as we journey toward Holy Week we see the end result.

In the meantime, I'm struck by how calm, cool, and collected Jesus sounds. Sure he calls Herod a fox, but wouldn't you? I'm surprised he continues his journey long after most (if not all) of us would have abandoned ship. He had a plan, a singular focus, and he would see it happen; humanity was going to be restored.