More thoughts from ground level

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On this fifth Sunday of Lent we hear the Apostle Paul tell us he is pressing on to the goal of life, which is the call of God in Christ Jesus. Be of this same mind, he writes. Press on to this same goal and live into new life in Christ. Everything about this season of Lent is pointing toward our celebration of that new life springing from the tomb.

Life is different now because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul uses his own ethnic and religious pedigree to show that this is true. Everything is different now. In this season of Lent we are called to deep reflection on this claim. So we press on through Lent toward our celebration of what God has done for the world.

Paul writes that he regards everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Do you know what he means? Among other things, new life in Christ means assigning new value to things of the world around us, often turning upside down the way the world assigns value.

This is similar to what I imagine Mary thinking that day she opened a costly bottle of perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet.

Six days prior to Passover, Jesus was in Bethany, a small town just outside of Jerusalem for a dinner with friends. Jesus was a guest at the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. At dinner Martha served the food, and Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, (sound familiar?). John mentions that one of the disciple, Judas, we also there. I’ll say more about in a moment.

I like the way John narrates this quiet gathering in a private home. As I’ve mentioned already in this Lenten season, Jesus’ dinner compassions were an ongoing point of contention with the Pharisees. They didn’t think he followed the rules as who was acceptable to be around and who was not—especially at a meal. It upset them when he ate with people they avoided.

So I like this meal in Bethany because no one is watching the gathering or determining whether Jesus’ dinner companions are worthy. The only negative comment comes from Judas. Apart from this, everything about that dinner looks like a quiet gathering of friends. This quiet won’t last long. Noisy, angry days are ahead. For now, however, the Jewish authorities are no where in sight and Jesus is among friends.

During the meal, Mary took something called pure nard, an expensive, scented ointment, and emptied the entire container onto Jesus’ feet. Then she wiped his feet with her hair and the whole house was filled with the scent of this perfume.

Why did she do this? In that culture, this is what is done to a body prior to its burial. It’s a very caring and tending thing to do. So what was Mary sensing about the days ahead that she anointed him for burial? Within a week of that evening meal, someone else would be anointing Jesus after he was taken down from the cross. But how did she know to do this? Here is perhaps a clue: she’s the one who used to sit at Jesus feet and listen. She’s the one who showed how much she valued Jesus first by sitting still and listening to him, and at this meal, by this genuine outpouring of care. When so much for Jesus in the days ahead would be violent and ugly, for a brief moment someone is kind and gentle.

Judas had something to say about this. He called it wasteful. Why wasn’t this perfume sold so that the money could be given to the poor, he asked. Let me make a couple of comments here about Judas. No one in the New Testament has anything good to say about Judas. You can hear that when John ads commentary to the narrative that Judas didn’t really care about the poor he wanted access to the money because he was a thief. We will hear more from Judas in the Lenten days ahead.

Apart from who asked it, don’t you think the question still a good one? Is it right for Mary to use something so valuable to wipe on Jesus’ feet? It was surely a genuine outpouring of care, but should it have instead been used to help the poor? This is a great question for the church to wrestle with. Does new life in Christ as Paul writes about it to the Philippians call us to devotion to God or a commitment to helping people? What does God want us to do? Remember ask that question first and all other questions are clearer.

Should we be spending this time in worship or should we be over in the Academy building right now making box lunches or making beautiful blankets for Project Linus or tutoring children in poverty who need some extra help in school? Katherine could tell us about some of the children at Huntertown Elementary who could use some help. Is it better for us to be gathered here in worship, or standing with people on the margins of society? Isn’t that a modern way of asking that question?

When Mary rubbed that costly ointment on Jesus’ feet, she was, as Judas correctly pointed out, removing any opportunity that the ointment could be sold and the money given to the poor.

Should a church spend money on for the ongoing care of its sanctuary or use that money to help feed homeless people? Should a church build more space to expand its ministry or support the building of a habitat house to help a family break out of generational poverty or to help the sick or friendless or those in need?

These are good question. I wish a disciple other than Judas had asked that question because it is not necessarily the question of a thief (as John calls him), but the honest question of a disciple trying to press on faithfully. Mary and Judas have competing visions of how that perfume should be used for a good purpose. What does God want the answer to be? Listen to what Jesus said to Judas. (v.7-8) Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

The answer Jesus offers is that devotion and service are not an either or. Jesus said Mary had it right, and I hear this in terms of sequence. Ministering to Jesus first shapes our commitment, desire, energy, compassion for others especially the poor. In worship we are renewed in our knowledge and love for God and our neighbor, and then inspired to reach out. Service to others can never replace devotion to God, and devotion to God can never be at the exclusion of caring for one’s neighbor. Those extremes are visible within the Body of Christ and Jesus answer to Mary calls us to some sensible balance and sequence to devotion and service.

What does reaching out look like? It might be wanting for another what you would want for yourself. It might be inviting another to this place to share in a community of people seeking to be devoted to God. It might be looking for opportunities to share the good news of this place with the world. It absolutely looks like Jesus’ commitment to love.

Jesus said Mary had it right: our devotion to God leads to the cross and a burial in a tomb. This is the Lenten path we walk. At the end of that path we discover God’s own devotion and love for the world. And this changes everything. And thanks be to God. Amen.

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Last weekend the session was at Louisville Seminary for a leadership conference. As I shared last Sunday, the keynote speaker for the conference was the moderator of the General Assembly. Rev. Joan Gray is a pastor in Atlanta. She is currently serving a two-year term as moderator of the PC(USA). Last week she challenged us to begin asking a specific question in the months ahead. No matter what other question we asked, she challenged us to ask this question first: what does God want us to do? Ask that first, she said, and all the other questions will be clearer.

Last Sunday I preached about the parable of the fig tree, and it seemed like the answer to that question was that God wants the church to bear fruit. In Jesus Christ, we have a merciful and caring gardener to tend the soil. With his work we can live into the purpose for which we were planted. What does bearing fruit mean? The parable for today, the parable of the great banquet, shows one way we are called to bear fruit.

This parable begins with invited quests offering reasons for not making it to a banquet. The host becomes angry, but does not cancel the event. He sends his slave to bring others to the house. The host tells the slave to bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. These are the people the host wants to include.

When the board of Deacons met last week, I shared this parable with them and asked them what they heard in it. Here’s what they said. They liked that the host didn’t cancel the event. The food was there the space was set up. Why not find other people to share it with? They also were all of a like mind that the excuses seemed a little weak. I just bought some land. I just bought 10 oxen. I just got married. They thought these reasons could all wait.

What about those excuses? They are admittedly significant events for people, but should they rise to the level of canceling a dinner engagement? On the two occasions when Susanne and I have concluded a real estate transaction, we’ve wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate. Someone who plans to work with 10 oxen (five yokes) needs a lot of strength, so what’s better than attending a banquet. Someone who’s married has a great opportunity to introduce his or her new spouse to friends.

The point is that the invited guests undervalue the invitation. Their priority is for something else. At the host’s direction, the slave then brings in people from the margins of society who never get invited to banquets. The poor, the cripple, the blind and the lame are the ones who fill the seats and share the meal.

Do you hear an edge to the parable which is about the reversal of favor? The neglected are valued and the elite look foolish and shallow. Whenever this kind of turn the world upside down way of thinking shows up in the gospels, Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God—that reality in which the weak are strong, the oppressed find freedom, the outcasts are invited to a banquet. The kingdom of God is also that reality in which the elite are surprisingly ignored and those who claim special favor from God are shown to misunderstand and even undervalue grace.

So back to the moderator’s question: What does God want us to do? I hear an answer to that question in this parable? It’s in verse 22. After the people from the village have been brought in, the slave tells the host that there is still room. The host responds, them go out into the roads and lanes and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. So what does God want us to do? Say it with me: Fill up the house.

Ask this question first, then, all other questions will be clearer. Fill up the house. So how do we do this? How do we expand our ministry and share the good news with others? How do we tell people that there’s room at the banquet for them? How do we invite others to join with us in worship, and study and in the ways we practice the teachings of Jesus. I’ll give you a hint the word starts with an “e.” The word is evangelism.

Evangelism means good news. In the parable, the slave brought good news to the people on the margins of society. The good news was that there is person hosting a great banquet who wants his house filled. There is room for you. You have been chosen and you don’t have to do anything but come and eat.

Evangelism is what we are called to do so that the house is filled. Now before you start thinking about the time the Jehovah’s witnesses rang your doorbell, you should know that evangelism is a perfectly good Presbyterian word—although often undervalued. Here is how we understand evangelism. It is joyfully sharing the good news of the sovereign love of God and calling all people to repentance, to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, to active membership in the church, and to obedient service in the world. (General Assembly Minutes, 1989, Part I, p. 359)

I like this wording because it doesn’t require evangelism to look a certain way—except perhaps joyful. And it should be joyful. The joyful sharing of good news can happen in many different and creative ways. Inviting a friend to come with you to church is only one way. Putting an ad in the newspaper so that people in the community know our holy week schedule with a word of welcome is another way. Taking your Pisgah Post with you to the doctor’s office and leaving it in the waiting room for someone pick up and read is another way. Evangelism is a ministry for all of us. It’s how we talk about the good news we hear in this place when where away from this place. It’s how we announce the work of God to the people who drive down Pisgah Pike and look over the stone fence at the church building and wonder, does that church still have services? It’s how we welcome someone who has come through our doors on a Sunday morning and is in inner turmoil about the events of her life. It’s how we greet that person and say there’s a place for you here.

Presbyterians have long understood that food and shelter, education and health care go along with sharing the gospel. That means we have an expansive views of what joyfully sharing the good news can look like. In our history we have established hospitals, schools, churches around the world. We don’t ask whether God wants us to share the good news, we instead ask how. The PC(USA) has mission workers around the world and in the pews of our 11,000 congregations.

There is so much tragedy in our world. The news we have to share brings hope to tragedy. There is so much conflict and war. The news we have to share is about a peace beyond understanding. There is so much that is broken all around us. The news we have is about the one who heals the brokenness of life.

The verses from Ephesians are a prayer for the church. It’s a prayer that we would know the love of Christ, that we would be rooted and grounded in that love. This is the beginning of our evangelism: to share with others the love of Christ we have experienced in faith and community.We are the servant sent out by the master into the town and the surrounding countryside to announce that a banquet is waiting and there is room. On these days leading toward Easter, as you encounter others this week, invite them to be a part of something that will change them forever. It may be exactly what they need to hear right now—a first word of welcome and care—so that this house may be filled. And thanks be to God. Amen.

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In this reading from Luke an age-old question is brought to Jesus. He is asked whether God punishes evil people and rewards good people. The writers of the Bible wrestle with this question, and, in truth, offer different perspectives. Here’s what the writer of Psalm 1 thinks about the question. The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. There is something similar in Psalm 37: the righteous shall be kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. Do you hear the perspective they offer? God rewards good and punishes evil.

The Book of Job also wrestles with this question. In the middle his suffering, Job maintains that he has done nothing to warrant the evil come his way. In spite of this, his friends hound him. Job, they say, surely you have done something evil. Why else would God send such tragedy your way? Why do you keep silent on this and not tell us what you’ve done? At the end of the book, God speaks to the friends and tells them they are wrong (42:7-8). Job has done nothing to deserve God’s judgment. Do you hear how the Book of Job offers a perspective different than Psalm 1 or 37? The author of Ecclesiastes is in sympathy with Job: “In my life,” he writes, “I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish…and wicked people who prolong their life in their evil doing (7:15).” This writer does not see the correlation of good prospering and evil suffering. You may have encountered this question through other parts of the Bible or modern-day writers like Rabbi Kushner or Scott Peck.

When this question is brought to Jesus it sounds like this: Should we conclude that those Galileans who were killed by the Romans were sinners? Is that why they died? Was it God’s judgment on them? They are asking Jesus about God’s judgment and whether he sides with Psalm 1 and Psalm 37 or with Job and Ecclesiastes? Tell us, Jesus, when bad thing happen it must mean they weren’t good people, right? Is some divine judgment being enacted?

Jesus’ answer is multilayered. The first layer is a straight forward, no. Roman soldiers killing Galileans while they were in worship is not divine judgment on them. He adds that a tower falling on unsuspecting people is not divine judgment either. In the first layer of his answer, he lands with Job and Ecclesiastes. Victims of violence or tragedy or disease are not bad people whom God is punishing, he says. Innocent people are victims of a car bomb in a Baghdad market, or a tornado hitting a high school in Alabama, or a fire in a Bronx apartment, and an earthquake in Indonesia. Terrible things happen around us and to us and hose we know and love and God is not punishing them. My counsel to you would be if anyone tells you something different, run away from them as fast as you can. That was Jesus’ first layer of his answer. No, I tell you, he says.

Here’s the next layer. He says don’t think you’re more righteous because you’re still around, and others aren’t. You’ve got to look to our own sin first. This is repentance. It’s turning from our self-absorbed ways and turning toward God. Someone wrote that repentance is not saying, “I will try to do better from now on.” Repentance is admitting that you and I cannot do any better on our own. We need God’s guidance to take our very next step forward.

Do you hear how this makes repentance not only about past missteps, but about how we walk into the future? Our best future is a life following in the ways of God. That’s the second layer to his answer. Any conversation about the judgment of God must begin first with ones own sin.

Here’s the third layer to his answer. It’s a parable about a fig tree that doesn’t produce figs. The owner wants to cut it down. The gardener promises to work with the soil so that it will bear fruit in the following season. This is a parable about God’s judgment, but it’s mercifully withheld.

Someone wrote that the signs of this parable are seen in those moments in life when someone says, wait, let’s not go right to familiar patterns of judgment. Let’s wait and try patience and nurture and care. Let’s work the soil some so that what looks like a lost cause might still bear some fruit. This is a parable about patience woven around mercy. This third layer to Jesus answer points out that we can never talk about God’s judgment without also talking about God’s mercy.

This parable challenges us with a powerful question. Have we’ve convinced ourselves to be a tree content to provide shade instead of fruit? Have we convinced ourselves that what we do here gives good shade? Is Shade is good enough? Yesterday your elders and I went to a leadership conference in Louisville. We were challenged by the moderator of the General Assembly to ask as a session, what does God want us to do. I hear that question bound up in this parable. What fruit should we be bearing? Does God really want us to be satisfied with providing shade?

The point of the parable is that we were planted to bear fruit and anything less warrants God’s judgment. Shade isn’t good enough. It might be comfortable, familiar, simple, less work, not so threatening, but Pisgah Presbyterian Church isn’t here to provide shade. It’s here to bear fruit.

The good news of this parable is that mercifully the gardener intercedes to work the ground and nourish the roots. We all deserve God’s judgment, but the gardener, Jesus Christ, brings mercy.What does that mercy look like? It looks like the gracious feast described in Isaiah 55. Everyone who thirsts come to the waters, you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

There is a word of grace in this chapter. It’s for the exiles returning from Babylon. Judgment is suspended, and they are called to come home. Repent and begin this new day of grace as a people restored and whole. The way ahead is brand new, Isaiah writes, and God provides a feast and the pathway to life. Incline your hear, he writes, and listen that you may live.

The same invitation is for us. Come home and bear fruit. The gardener will to the work in and around us. This work begins with personal repentance and the new life that follows. We have been chosen for that new life. We have been chosen to bear fruit in the vineyard. This is the journey we make together through life. With all life’s joy and sorrows, all its tragedies and triumphs, we offer the world some word of hope. That word of hope is the announcement we await on Easter Day. And thanks be to God. Amen.