"He Became Angry and Refused to Go In" (Luke 15:1-2, 11-32)

A Homecoming Story

The story of the prodigal son is a homecoming story. I imagine that it resonates so well with us because we all long for home, for the place where we belong without having to live up to any image, where we are welcomed without having to prove our worth, where we are embraced not for what we have achieved but for who we are.

I imagine this story resonates so well with us because we can all identify with the younger son who forsakes home in pursuit of the world’s attractions: wealth, pleasure, prestige. We have all looked for love and life in the wrong places. We have all taken a hard knock or two at some point and said to ourselves, “I’ve got to turn around.”

But when Jesus tells this story, he is not addressing the waywardness of his crowd. He’s not on the street preaching judgment against the debauchery of his world. He’s not calling, “Sinner, come home.” 

When Jesus tells this story, he’s addressing the people who are already “home,” the Pharisees and the scribes. Which is to say, he’s speaking to folks like you and me—folks who read scripture and pray, folks who go to worship every week and participate in various ministries. The Pharisees and the scribes are the religious insiders of their day. They might get a bad rap in the gospels, but we should be extra cautious about judging them. What we say about them, might well be said about us.

In this particular scripture, we’re told that the Pharisees and scribes have been “grumbling” about Jesus’ open-table dining policy. “This man welcomes tax collectors and sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). Is it a coincidence that the climax of Jesus’ story is a table? A feast? Where all are welcome, but the one who is grumbling misses out?

Justified Anger?

When he hears music and dancing, the elder son knows something is up. He asks one of the workers what’s going on and learns that his brother is home and his father is throwing a party. He becomes indignant and refuses to join the celebration.

We’ve heard the story so many times that we may lose sight of a simple fact: by the logic of our world, the elder son’s anger is justified. His younger brother had practically disowned his family with his actions. Should there not be consequences? Should he not at least be made to show his remorse and to make amends? How many prodigal sons and daughters of our world have come home to find the door more or less closed in their faces as a consequence of their actions? I remember once going to a wedding where the sister of the groom was consistently excluded from the family’s pictures. She had fallen into drugs and the wrong crowd in high school. Whether from shame or a sense of punishment, the family would not welcome her into its joy.

The Alienation of Being “Right”

The tragedy of the older brother, which is also the tragedy of the Pharisees and the scribes, is that his insistence on “being right” and on a system of merit alienates him from his own family. To his father, he says, “I have been working like a slave for you.” In other words, he sees his father as a slave-owner. He sees their relationship in terms of work and reward. He continues, “This son of yours… has devoured your property with prostitutes.”  In other words, he refuses to acknowledge the younger son as his own brother. And so here he stands, without a father, without a brother. Here he stands feeling like a mistreated slave, watching as a “sinner” waltzes into his home and receives the welcome of a king.

What drives home the tragedy of the elder son, the tragedy of his isolation, is that the feast inside is as much for him as it is for his brother. His father clearly loves him just the same. Just as the father had run out to meet his younger son, to embrace him before he could even get out his full apology, so the father also comes out of the home, unsolicited, to plead with his elder son. He does not defend himself against his elder son’s complaints but cuts straight to what matters: his love for his elder son too. “Son,” he says, reminding him of his true identity: “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31).^[1] 

What keeps the elder son on the outside looking in, as a stranger in his own home—what causes him to miss out on the party—is the same thing that threatens to alienate us today from God’s beloved community, the kingdom of God. Jesus says, “He became angry and refused to go in,” which is to say, he was filled with a self-righteous anger. Self-righteousness is founded on fairness, the idea of reward and punishment, the idea that life operates according to an exchange of “do this” and “get that.” And it focuses primarily on the faults of others. Self-righteousness can consume us anywhere: on the road when someone cuts us off, in the store when a clerk mishandles our situation, in the workplace when a boss plays favorites, in society when we feel our good-faith votes and values are mocked or treated as crimes, in church when others with less time in the pew or a spottier record in the world challenge our perspective, at home when we feel that our kindness and consideration are not reciprocated.

Self-righteousness effectively says, “I’m right. They’re wrong. I’ve earned it. But they have not.” It categorically refuses the idea of mercy, empathy, compassion. Which is the real tragedy. Because by refusing mercy, it refuses relationship. It refuses God. It misses out on the party.

Grumbling

Perhaps you’ve heard the question, “Would you rather be ‘right’? Or would you rather be happy?” I think Jesus’ parable poses a similar question: “Would you rather be ‘right’? Or would you rather be in relationship?”

Our world commonly conceives of God as a God of fairness. But Jesus does not. For Jesus, God is profoundly unfair because God is merciful. God cares less about people getting it right and more about people being together at the family table. God runs out to the son who practically disowned him and throws a homecoming party. God runs out to the son who is filled with resentment and pleads with him to enter his own home and join the party.

The one who ultimately misses out on the party is not the one who did wrong, but the one who is filled with resentment. The one who is grumbling. It is a common theme in the Bible, as old as the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness, complaining about what is not fair while God is literally raining down care and provision for them every day.

Today’s passage offers me this sharp and practical reminder. Grumbling may originate in a natural human emotion, but when it becomes the main script that I’m reading from, when it determines my response to a situation, then I’m likely missing out on God’s party. I’m missing out on God’s kingdom. I’m living into the older son’s tragedy of alienation, disconnection, being a stranger in his own home.

The Universal Feast of God’s Love

The flipside to this image of grumbling is the image of a feast. It is the image of a warm home and an unconditional welcome, an open table filled with food and surrounded by music and dancing. It is the image of a father running out to embrace his children and plead for them to join.

Many of the powers in our world are acting out of fear and resentment, grumbling and shaking their fists, proclaiming their rightness as they call others names. It’s safe to say, they are missing out on the feast. We as the church are invited by Christ to be different. By telling this parable, Jesus is urging his religious audience to turn from resentment and fear toward the mercy of our heavenly father, toward God’s “unfair” love. He is inviting us to relinquish our rightness so that we might receive and share God’s prodigal, indiscriminate love.  In an angry and divided world, we are called to be an embassy of God’s kingdom, an island of God’s unfair mercy,  representatives of our compassionate Father who is throwing a party based not on rightness but on his own prodigal, wasteful love, a love that goes out to all his children.

Response

Before concluding, I would like to invite your response—only if you feel so inclined. There are grey slips of paper and pencils in the pews, and if you do write a response, you may decide for yourself  whether you’d like to include your name or remain anonymous. (If you write your name, please know that I would still check with you before ever sharing your response with others.)

The question I’d like to ask is this: Where have you seen or experienced God’s “unfair” love? What happened?

Prayer

Tender Father and Mother of us all,
Who comes out to us
When we are alienated
In our own self-righteousness:
We hear your words this morning,
“Son, Daughter, you are always with me,
All that is mine is yours.”
May we find our home
With long-lost brothers and sisters
Around your table.
In Christ, whose “unfair” love saves us. Amen.

 

---

[1] Several of the insights from this meditation have come from Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: DoubleDay, 1994), 77-88.

"Under Her Wings" (Luke 13:1-9, 31-35)

Home Alone

I heard steps on the front porch and peered out the window. No car on the street or in the driveway. I heard the door begin to jiggle. It was the afternoon, and my parents were not due to be home for another few hours. My heart was flooded with fear, and my imagination began to draw from the deep repository of stories and images that had been mentally recorded from years of watching television and movies. Theft, kidnap, car trunks, dark rooms, locked doors, sinister laughter, hushed ransom messages, and so on. Perhaps foremost in my mind was Home Alone, a movie comical in style but frightening in substance, where two older men planning the theft of a home end up waging war on a solitary eight-year-old boy.

As the door continued to jiggle, I jumped out of my paralysis and made a beeline for the back door. Just as the front door began to open, and I rushed out the back door and across the backyard and began to climb the fence. As I dismounted in our neighbor’s yard, I looked behind me. The back door was opening. Was I really being followed? Was this a chase?

There in the frame of the back door stood…my brother. He looked quizzically at me, as if to say, “What are you doing?”

It is a good question, even now. What was I doing? In my ten-year-old thinking, it was quite simple: I was fleeing for my life. But in my forty-year-old thinking, I’m wondering, “Why was my heart filled with fear? Why, when I heard the front door jiggle, was my first thought, ‘Intruder!’?”

Gripped by Fear?

Today’s scripture opens with a crowd of people around Jesus talking about some Galileans who had lost their lives to the paid swords of Herod while offering sacrifices at the Temple (cf. Luke 13:1). While we cannot know for sure what sparked their conversation, it’s not difficult to imagine. Jesus has been talking to his disciples about conflict and violence looming on the horizon. He says to his disciples, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do no more” (12:4). He tells them a story about a rich fool, a man who had accumulated more than he knew what do with, and yet instead of sharing it with others, he saved it for a rainy day, only to receive what sounds like a death-threat from God: “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (12:20). Then Jesus expresses his mission in fiery terms: “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 earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” (12:49, 51).

In the context of these words, it is almost as though the crowd around Jesus has been gripped by a fearful fascination. They begin talking about a group of Galileans who lost their lives in the Temple, perhaps wondering if this misfortune is part of the conflict and violence that Jesus is anticipating.

The Fig Tree That Lives Without Really Living

For his part, Jesus does not dispense any cheap comfort. He responds by citing the tragedy in the Temple and another tragedy as well—where a tower fell and killed eighteen people—and, if anything, he takes away the conventional comfort that we often look for in such tragedies, a reason that simultaneously makes sense of the tragedy and distances us from it. Jesus’ words suggest that the crowd is blaming the victims, saying that they must have been worse sinners and that they only got what was coming to them. Such an explanation would reassure them that they would avoid such a fate themselves, if only they stay on God’s good side.

But Jesus pushes back against this idea, insisting that those who lost their lives were no more sinful than those who survived. And then he drops this bombshell, twice: “Unless you repent you will all perish just as they did” (13:3, 5). It is a claim as concise as it is ambiguous. Is Jesus making the threat that unless they repent, they will all die in a tragic accident? Surely not. Jesus is no statistician, but surely he would recognize that the odds of his entire audience dying in a tragic catastrophe would be nil. But what else could he mean?

He follows this mysterious claim immediately with a parable, in which a fig tree goes three years without bearing fruit—which is sort of like saying, it lives three years without really living. The owner has lost patience and decides to get rid of it, when the gardener steps in and says, “Wait! Just wait one more year. Let me dig around it and put manure on it and tend to it.” In other words, let me care for it. The gardener—and we can guess who the gardener is—insists that this tree, which hasn’t really lived, may yet live if it will just receive his care.

The Life That Is Really Life: From Fear to Trust

In her poem, “When Death Comes,” Mary Oliver writes:

…

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Here is an exquisite recognition of the fact that a person may live without ever having lived—that is, a person may live biologically while missing out on life spiritually. In 1^st Timothy, Paul expresses this same truth when he talks about Christ-followers who “take hold of the life that is really life” (1 Tim 6:19). In other words, there is a life that is not really life, a life that is just “visiting” the world rather than living in it, a life without the fruits of God’s goodness, without fruits like love, hope, peace, and joy. And then there is the life that is really life, a life married to amazement, a life that embraces the world.

When Jesus tells his parable about the fig tree, I think he is explaining his earlier words to the crowd gripped by a fearful fascination about their volatile, violent world. I think he is explaining what it means to “perish” and what it means to “repent.” To “perish just as they did” means to die without having really lived, like the fig tree that has not borne any fruit. While I do not think Jesus is really making a claim on the people who lost their lives—that they had all not really lived—I do think he’s implying that the general population in his world were not really living. I think he’s implying that most people are running away from life in fear—not unlike me running away out the backdoor—and that as a result of fear most people are not bearing much fruit on their trees. In this context, to “repent” is no small feat. In a world where their Roman overlords regularly terrified the population with horrific acts of violence (the cross of Jesus was also the cross of countless Jews), to “repent” means to change one’s mind from fear to trust. It means to look around and see not Roman swords but the gentle hands of a gardener. It means trusting and receiving the tender care of this divine gardener and patiently bearing fruit. In our world, perhaps it means looking around and seeing first not the rage of our politics or the violence of people bearing deep emotional and spiritual wounds, but rather the care of faithful individuals and the kingdom of God in our midst.

“We Are What We Do with Our Attention”

Our passage concludes with some friendly Pharisees informing Jesus that Herod intends to kill him. Jesus then puts his life where just a moment ago his mouth was, explaining that he will not be deterred by the threat of death. Indeed, he practically acknowledges that he will meet his own death before long in Jerusalem. But his focus is not on death or the fear it can inspire. His focus is on life, on the care of God that needs to be shared.

The poet John Ciardi once said, “We are what we do with our attention.” Jesus attended his whole life to God’s tender care. Is it any surprise that he cared for others? He received the care of the great Gardener, and walked through the garden with the same care for others. He lived the life that is really life.

When I think back to my ten-year-old self, jittery with fear, running out the back door, I wonder where my attention was…and where it has been since. I do not mean to advise against being cautious or exercising good judgment in potentially dangerous situations. I just realize that as a child I had consumed what I would consider to be an average (or even less than average) amount of television and my attention was frequently given to situations of fear and the threat of violence. And so I wonder: when my attention is fixed on fear and the threat of violence, when security ascends to the status of idol, am I running away from the gospel? When I see only potential dangers rather than opportunities for receiving and expressing God’s care, am I running away from God’s kingdom?

Jesus invites me to repent from a fixation on death, violence, and security, a fixation on scarcity, competition, and conflict, so that I may not perish as so many have: without having first lived. And while this might seem like a hard and difficult lesson, I am reminded that this repentance does not involve steeling myself up for difficulty and death. Rather, it involves trusting in and receiving the tender care of our Gardener. Or as Jesus puts it toward the end of today’s passage, it involves being gathered under the caring wing of our Mother Hen.

Response

Before concluding, I would like to invite your response—only if you feel so inclined. There are grey slips of paper and pencils in the pews, and if you do write a response, you may decide for yourself  whether you’d like to include your name or remain anonymous. (If you write your name, please know that I would still check with you before ever sharing your response with others.)

The question I’d like to ask is this: Have you ever encountered God’s care in a situation where you felt afraid? What happened? How did you feel afterwards?

Prayer

Gardener God, Mother Hen,
Ever patient and caring:
Where we live in fear,
Bowing to the idols of control and security,
Draw us toward Christ.
…
Help us to heed his call to repent,
To change our minds,
So that we might live before we die.
Help us to trust in and attend to your care,
Which reigns over all.
Gather us not behind walls of our own making,
But under your wing of belonging.
In Christ, our teacher: Amen.

"Who Acts Like a Neighbor?" (Luke 10:25-37)

A Lamb Amid Wolves

I have a friend, Billy, who wears his heart on his sleeve—a little bit like a child. When he’s happy, he’s smiling and cracking jokes; his eyes are bright and open and desperately trying to make contact with yours or anyone’s in the near vicinity. When he’s sad, you know it. He pouts. He rues whatever slight misfortune may have befallen him, like not having enough change in his pocket for a hot dog from the hot dog stand. But if you so much as mention one of his favorite movies (he’s a Disney buff), or if you express your excitement about something as simple as a cloud or a car or an animal you’ve just spotted, his sadness evaporates in a moment. His eyes light up to share your joy.

Billy is perhaps best known for his hugs. It doesn’t matter where he bumps into you, whether it’s a restaurant or the grocery store or a solemn memorial service. If he knows you, he’ll lock on and approach you with arms wide open and expectant, a grin on his face as wide as the east is from the west. On rare occasion, his sister will have to hold him back, lest he offer a hug where it might be considered inappropriate.

Billy is my friend. He also has Down’s syndrome. I thought of him when I was reviewing today’s passage, or more precisely, when I read the few verses that immediately precede today’s passage. Just before the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus has welcomed back seventy disciples who have been sent out like “lambs amid wolves,” proclaiming the kingdom of God and healing the sick (Luke 10:3, 9). (Billy, it seems to me, is like a lamb amid wolves, and his hugs and good cheer are a healing balm all of their own.) And then Jesus offers this prayer, “I thank you, Father, lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to little children” (Luke 10:21). (Billy, it seems to me, is like a little child sometimes—in the best of ways.)

What Are the Rules Here?

“Just then,” says Luke, a lawyer—which is to say, a reputedly “wise and intelligent” individual—approaches Jesus to question him, specifically “to test” him (Luke 10:25). If you’ll allow me to interpose another memory, I recall when I was in seminary meeting once with a respected lawyer from my home congregation. In fact, he was not a Christian, but his wife was. She had become increasingly involved in the church and was hopeful that he would join her. But he had his own hangups. As a lawyer, he struggled to connect the dots between sin and salvation. Having heard that I was a seminarian with a focus in biblical studies, he invited me to his home one day. As his wife hurried about to welcome me and make me comfortable, he sat down with a stony-faced scowl and launched into his hangups, the chief of which was sin. He could find no single, unified definition of sin in scripture. What this lawyer really wanted was a black-and-white list of no-nos. Otherwise, he contended, it was all unfair. How could humans be prosecuted in God’s court if they hadn’t been made aware of precisely what was right and what was wrong?

I quickly realized I faced an impossible task. There is no such black-and-white list in scripture. Scripture is not a unified witness. There are different law codes, which even include contradictory laws. There are changes in the instructions, such as when Peter receives instructions to eat what is unclean, such as when the Holy Spirit makes clear that the uncircumcised are also welcomed into the family of faith as they are. If God were running the world like a grand test, seeing who gets it right and who gets it wrong, who is good and who is bad, who is deserving and who is not, then yes—it all seems rather unfair. It seems like the deck is stacked against us. But the gospel of Jesus tells a very different story, where life is not a test but a gift, where God’s primary role is not judge but loving father, where we humans are all beloved children of God, whom God so desires to gather around the same table. And sin—sin is just a way of talking about what keeps us from the table.

Despite the two thousand years’ difference, the lawyer who approaches Jesus has essentially the same hangup as the lawyer with whom I spoke. How do we determine who’s in and who’s out? What are the rules here?  The lawyer’s first question is, “How should we live?” (Luke 10:25). After he answers it himself—love God, love neighbor, simple enough—he seeks clarification. He wants a black-and-white explanation, perhaps a list or a set of conditions. “Who’s my neighbor?” he asks (Luke 10:29). In other words, who’s in? Who’s out?

Not Who’s My Neighbor, But Be a Neighbor

Now Jesus could have answered in a much more direct manner. He could have said simply, “Who is your neighbor? Everyone is your neighbor!” But by telling a story instead and selecting a most hated enemy, he focuses precisely on where the lawyer is missing out on the abundant life about which he had inquired. He focuses precisely on where the lawyer needs to change and grow.

But that is not all that Jesus is doing with this parable. If we pay close attention, we might notice that, strictly speaking, Jesus does not answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, which is really a question of identity and boundaries, a question of “us” and “them,” a question of who’s in and who’s out, a question that divides the world, a question that lets us off the hook past a certain point. Instead Jesus reframes the question. Notice what he asks the lawyer at the end: “Who among these three was the real neighbor?” (cf. 10:36). In other words, it’s not who is my neighbor, but who is the neighbor? Neighbor is not the object of the action but the subject, not the recipient of a deed but the doer. Who acted like a neighbor? “Neighbor” is not a boundary that determines the extent of our love but is a responsibility that applies in all times and places. For Jesus, the imperative is not to figure out who is our neighbor. The imperative is to be a neighbor. Inheriting abundant life is not about who’s in or who’s out, it’s about how we live. It’s not a matter of rules and boundaries and identity, it’s a matter of responsibility, how we respond to our human brothers and sisters around us.

Living in Mercy

I’ve heard countless sermons on this parable. Commonly it is pointed out that the Samaritans were hated enemies of the Jewish people. It is suggested that we conjure up in our own minds a more relevant category for today, such as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, woke or nationalist, etc., etc. It’s not a bad thought exercise. We should learn to see others, especially those whom we might view as opponents, as beloved children of God and our brothers and sisters.

I don’t know about you, but those thought exercises usually struggle to make it from my thought to my flesh-and-blood living. They fade in the light of day. I forget about them very quickly. So instead of focusing on one group or another, today I would like to focus for myself on the thrust of Jesus’ commandment. Which is not who is a neighbor, but be a neighbor. “Do likewise,” Jesus says, which is to say, show mercy! To anyone. Everyone. To do that is to have eternal life. To live in mercy is to live in God’s kingdom now, if you would believe it.

I think of Billy, a lamb amid wolves, a heart filled with childlike trust, whose hugs are indiscriminate, whose smile is shared with everyone. There is a neighbor. There is a person, who despite all the hardships he endures, is living already in God’s kingdom. I want to be like that.

Response

Before concluding, I would like to invite your response—only if you feel so inclined. There are grey slips of paper and pencils in the pews, and if you do write a response, you may decide for yourself  whether you’d like to include your name or remain anonymous. (If you write your name, please know that I would still check with you before ever sharing your response with others.)

The question I’d like to ask is this: Have you ever experienced neighborly compassion and care at Trinity Christian Church? What happened? How did another person (or people) care for you?

Prayer

Merciful God,
Whose care transgresses our categories,
Whose compassion knows no boundaries—
Draw us out of our heads,
Out of our rationalizations,
And into the heart of your kingdom,
Where all are your children,
Worthy of love.
In Christ, who shows mercy: Amen.

"Go and Proclaim the Kingdom" (Luke 9:51, 57-62)

George had grown up in the projects and been a gang member all his life. But after 9 months in a juvenile rehabilitation camp, he had changed considerably. The Jesuit priest there, Greg Boyle, explains, “Taken out of the environment that [kept] him unsettled and crazed, not surprisingly, he [began] to thrive. [At the end, he was] nearly unrecognizable. The hard vato with his gangster pose [had] morphed into a thoughtful, measured man, aware of gifts and talents previously obscured….”

Toward the end of his 9 months in camp, he successfully completes his GED exam and is absolutely beaming. The cherry on top is that he will be baptized by Greg before leaving camp. Over the course of the nine months, he has heard the good news of God’s love that Greg has been proclaiming, and he has decided to follow Jesus.

The night before George’s baptism, his brother Cisco is walking home in their neighborhood when the quiet is shattered by several loud pops. Gunshots. He is killed instantly.

“It is the most difficult baptism of my life,” Greg shares. “For as I pour water over George’s head…I know I will walk George outside alone after the service and tell him what happened.

“As I do, and I put my arm around him, I whisper gently as we walk out onto the baseball field, ‘George, your brother Cisco was killed last night.’

“I can feel all the air leave his body as he heaves a sigh that finds itself in a sob in an instant. We land on a bench. His face seeks refuge in his open palms, and he sobs quietly. Most notable is what isn’t present in his rocking and gentle wailing. I’ve been in this place before many times. There is always flailing, and rage and promises to avenge things. There is none of this in George. It is as if the commitment he has just made in [baptism]”–his commitment to follow Christ–“has taken hold and his grief is pure and true and more resembles the heartbreak of God. George seems to offer proof of the efficacy of this thing we call [faith], and he manages to hold back all the complexity of this great sadness, right here, on this bench, in his tender weeping.”[1]

…

When Jesus says to the man who has lost his father, “Let the dead bury the dead,” I really struggle with it. What kind of pastoral care is this? Can you imagine a sympathy card with those words? It is unthinkable.

But when I heard George’s story, I began to hear Jesus’ words differently. I heard more clearly the words Jesus says next: “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

I hear Jesus now as though he’s talking to George, saying, “Let those who live in the old, dead ways of the world, do as they must. But you—you live differently. Live in God’s kingdom.”

When Jesus invites the three would-be followers on the way of the cross, he issues the same invitation: leave the world and enter God’s kingdom. Let go of your attachments to places, people, and things, and receive the freedom of love, which is always at home (no matter the place), always among family (no matter the people), always with God (no matter the things you have or don’t have).

From the world’s perspective, following Christ looks like you’re giving something up. Maybe it’s your national pride. Maybe it’s your family reputation. Maybe it’s your gang’s territory. From the world’s perspective, following Christ looks like losing.

But from the perspective of God’s kingdom, you are gaining everything. In the gospel of Mark, when Peter declares that the disciples have left everything to follow Christ, Jesus responds that they received even more in return: “[T]here is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields” (Mark 10:29-30). There is no one who will not receive a hundredfold…

So it was for George…who left behind the death-dealing ways of his world and followed Christ into God’s kingdom of love, a kingdom of more brothers and sisters and mothers and children than he’d ever known, a communion that would sustain him, even in the deepest of losses.

Prayer

God of love,

Whose kingdom begins 

With letting go, 

With a loss, that is in fact a gain–

A bigger, richer, better life

Than we can imagine

…

Inspire us with the courage we need

To leave the attachments that hold us back

And to follow Christ into your kingdom.

In Christ, who walks the way of the cross: Amen.

---

[1] Story and quotes from Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York: Free Press, 2011), 84-86

"From the Cloud Came a Voice" (Luke 9:28-36, 43b-45)

Voices in the Dark

We can all probably remember a time when we were afraid of the dark. When our fear populated the shadows with mysterious, menacing figures. When it rendered the groaning of the wind or the creaking of an old house into the sounds of something more sinister. Without light to disprove its suggestions, fear can dominate the dark.

But perhaps we have other memories of the dark. I certainly do.

I can remember as a child hearing the whispered voices of my parents as they prayed right before bed. I couldn’t hear all the words, but I heard the soft music of their blessing, and I felt peace in the faith that I was not alone.

I can remember as a child listening to the snow fall in the dark of the night. To be able to hear the snow is a surprising thing. It felt to me like being tucked into bed by God himself. I can remember as a child hearing other noises in the dark, like the hoot of an owl, or the chorus of cicadas. I can remember feeling like the world was alive, a living, breathing thing—and how great it is to be a part of it.

I can remember as a child visiting family out of town, and my brother and I would share the same room at night. I can remember talking to him after the lights went out. I don’t remember many of our conversations, but I do remember the delight I felt in being able to talk with him in the dark. We could talk about things in a way we could not talk in the light, sharing doubts and fears, joys and hopes.

I can remember in college sharing conversation with friends under the stars late at night. I can remember feeling the vastness of the future and feeling comforted not to be alone in facing it.

All of this is to say, if the dark can be a fearful setting, filled with unknown dangers, it can just as well be an intimate setting, filled with wonder and connection.

God’s “Luminous Darkness”

Today’s scripture presents us with what is commonly known as the “transfiguration” of Jesus. It comes at a crucial juncture in the story. Peter has just declared that Jesus is the messiah (9:18-20). Jesus has responded by anticipating the suffering that he will undergo and inviting his followers to share in his way—to “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (9:23). He explains: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it….[T]ruly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (9:24, 27). It is such a head-scratcher for the disciples, that even when Jesus repeats it a second time in today’s scripture, they do not understand it. Luke says, “[I]ts meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it”  (9:45).

In this context, the transfiguration of Jesus is not a moment when everything suddenly makes sense, when knowledge suddenly becomes complete. On the contrary, the light that reveals Jesus in his glory does not simply illumine but rather “bedazzles”—which, according to Webster’s Dictionary, means “to confuse…as if by a strong light.”[1] This bedazzling or confusing light is no surprise to Gregory of Nyssa, a gentle and compassionate bishop of the fourth century, who would later be called the “Father of [Church] Fathers.” He points out that throughout the Old Testament God regularly appears in a “cloud” or “thick darkness.” So also in today’s transfiguration, where the glory of Christ is overshadowed by a cloud. Gregory of Nyssa explains that the light of God is often experienced as a “luminous darkness,”[2] comparable to the effect of looking at the sun for too long. In other words, the light of God is more than we can take. We experience it as being blinded, as being in darkness. But this darkness is not bad. It does not conceal terrors or harm. It is the darkness of unknowing and wonder, the darkness of intimacy and desire. It is the darkness of relationship, the superabundance of another person that is more than we can comprehend and that fills us with awe and longing. It is the darkness of trusting prayers, the darkness of creation breathing, the darkness of whispered hopes.

To Be Not in Control…To Be Not Alone

What jumps out to me when I read today’s scripture is God’s absence. Did you notice? Technically speaking, God does not make an appearance in today’s scripture. “From the cloud came a voice”—but Luke never identifies this voice with God.

Now, I don’t for a second think we’re meant to identify the voice with anyone else. But I do wonder if the anonymity of the voice is not intentional. Could this not be an honest nod toward the mystery of God, an acknowledgment that God is often encountered not as a matter of certainty or knowledge but rather as a matter of trust, a matter of honest desire, a matter of awe and wonder, when it can only be we and no one else who name the encounter as an encounter with God?

Indeed, is not the mystery of God the mystery of relationship itself, in which we know another person intimately but never completely, because if we did there would be no space for love and wonder; our interactions would be like the functions of a math equation or the code of a lifeless computer program. “From the cloud came a voice” signals the mystery of God, in which there is always more than we know. And knowledge isn’t the point anyway. Relationship is the point.

I think back to all the voices I can remember hearing in the dark. My parents praying, the snow falling, my brother and I sharing our hearts, college friends confessing the unknown. “From the cloud came a voice”—which is to say, from darkness came not certainty or knowledge, but the invitation of relationship. From darkness came the invitation to be not in control but also to be not alone. From darkness came intimacy and trust.

From the Revelation of Christ to the Mystery of Christ

Is it a coincidence that Paul regularly talks about the mystery of Christ, that he treats Christ not as an equation of knowledge but as a living miracle of intimacy and wonder? Is it a coincidence that he regularly relegates knowledge in relation to the virtues of faith, such as peace and love. He says to the Philippians, for example, that “the peace of God…surpasses all understanding [or knowledge]” (Phil 4:7). He prays for the Colossians that they would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:19).

Today, Transfiguration Sunday, serves as a sort of pivot between Epiphany and Lent. It signals a transition from the revelation of Christ to the mystery of Christ. As we move toward Lent, we move from our confession of Christ to his confounding way. We enter a sort of darkness, a cloud of unknowing. But this darkness need not be a symbol of terror. It may be a symbol of intimacy. We enter the change and growth of relationship, where the point is not understanding but a peace that overshadows it, where the point is not knowledge but a love that eclipses it. We enter into the darkness of prayers, whispered hopes and fears, creation murmuring with life untold. We enter into the darkness of God.

Response

Before concluding, I would like to invite your response—only if you feel so inclined. There are grey slips of paper and pencils in the pews, and if you do write a response, you may decide for yourself  whether you’d like to include your name or remain anonymous. (If you write your name, please know that I would still check with you before ever sharing your response with others.)

The question I’d like to ask is this: Have you ever encountered God as a voice in the dark? What happened? How did it affect or change you?

I’m going to set aside three minutes for us to ponder and perhaps respond. You may also take this time simply to rest in the quiet and pray.

Prayer

God of bedazzling light,
Whose peace we cannot understand,
Whose love we cannot grasp—
Teach us in darkness
To live not by our own plans and expectations,
But by trust in you,
In the way of Jesus Christ.
Grant us courage to leave mountaintop moments
And to follow you on the way of the cross.
In Christ, your voice in the dark: Amen.

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[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bedazzle, accessed February 24, 2025.

[2] Life of Moses, 2.162-166.  See “Gregory of Nyssa: Moses Entered into the Darkness and There He Saw God,” https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/gregory-of-nyssa-moses-entered-into-the-darkness-and-there-he-saw-god/, accessed August 19, 2016.

"Great Love" (Luke 7:36-50)

Superheroes

Superheroes were born in the United States. I’m not talking about the characters themselves, but the mythology of superheroes. The stories of Batman, Spiderman, Superman, and many more originated in the minds of 20^th-century American comic artists. Their stories quickly captured the imagination of their American audience. Today they dominate at the box office, regularly grossing over $1 billion per movie,[1] suggesting that they tap deeply into our culture’s psyche. They resonate with us in a profound way. They certainly resonated with me as a four and five-year-old, when I would ask my mom or my brother to design various superhero badges or emblems for me, so that I could tape them onto my chest and then pretend to save the world. Because saving the world is what superheroes do.

But before a superhero saves the world, he must be motivated to save the world. This is why a crucial part of the superhero myth is the origin story, the explanation of not only how they got their superpowers but more importantly why they use them the way they do. At the heart of many superheroes’ stories is an experience of death and often violence. Bruce Wayne grows up to become Batman after witnessing the murder of his parents. Peter Parker learns to channel his spidey-powers toward fighting crime as Spiderman after his beloved uncle is murdered on the street. Clark Kent becomes Superman after the death of his adoptive parents prompts some soul-searching, and he decides to fight against whatever might cause the needless deaths of others.

All of this is to say, for a superhero, saving the world is simply an extension of an intensely personal quest to fight back against what has hurt him. A superhero fights bad guys because, first, he has suffered or seen the suffering of others at the hands of bad guys. At the heart of things, this is what a superhero is. Someone who fights bad guys. Someone who fights back.

Sinners: See Outcasts

Today’s scripture is a familiar scene for many of us. An anonymous woman, who is simply identified by Luke as being a “sinner,” scandalizes a Pharisee’s home when she bathes Jesus’ feet in her tears. The Pharisee has probably already heard enough about Jesus to suspect that something like this might happen. After all, last week we read that some of the Pharisees were calling Jesus “a drunkard and a glutton, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners” (7:34). But now that the Pharisee is seeing it with his own eyes, he loses whatever respect he had for Jesus. “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner” (7:39).

In the index of one of his books, biblical scholar Marcus Borg lists the word “sinners,” but instead of a corresponding page number there is a reference instead that reads “See outcasts.” Which is a helpful reminder that “sinner” is not just a moral category, not in Jesus’ day nor in our own. “Sinner” is more broadly a social category. A sinner is a part of “them,” not a part of “us.” A sinner is a “mess,” not someone who “has it together.” A “sinner” has no conscience, unlike us who do. A “sinner” is a “bad guy,” whereas we are “good guys.” A “sinner” is an outcast.

We may not actually use the word “sinner” out loud. After all, a spiritual person shouldn’t fling words like this around so judgmentally. But even so, it may get thought in our heads and felt in our hearts. It is human to divide the world into us and them, right and wrong, good and bad.

And it’s precisely here where the gospel pierces my soul and perhaps pierces yours. How do I treat a person whom I identify as a “sinner,” or “bad guy”? Like the Pharisee, I might do nothing at all outwardly other than give a slight frown of disapproval. I might keep my thoughts to myself, thoughts such as, “What’s that person doing here? They don’t belong.” In other words, my response is to separate myself from them. I exclude them, mentally if not physically. I want them out, elsewhere, not here. They are outcasts. I have nothing to do with them.

The Difference Between Superheroes and God’s Kingdom

I wonder if it’s more than coincidence that this same thinking is baked into our superhero mythology. What does a superhero do with bad guys? He eliminates them. Either mortally or physically by confining them and removing them to the separate space of a prison.

To be clear, I think that much of what resonates with our culture from the superhero myth is quite noble. The superhero myth teaches us that meaning can be found in death and loss. It inspires us to stand up for the weak and the helpless, even against all odds. It enlists us in the struggle for justice.

But…and this but is the very difference between our world and God’s kingdom…but the superhero myth sees the problem as “bad guys” and the solution as redemptive force or violence. A superhero fights the bad guys. And eliminates them.

The Origin of a Christ-Follower

What does Jesus do? Jesus loves the so-called “bad guy” or “bad woman.” He loves the sinner. He makes it a point to welcome them at tables, to break bread with them, to show them God’s love and forgiveness. And their response? Jesus explains the woman’s scandalous behavior: “Hence she has shown great love” (7:47).

I think here of the early Christ-followers who wrote about God’s transformative love, who said that how God treats us, becomes the way we treat others. “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you” (Rom 15:7). This is what we see in the gospels, in our scripture today, where the “sinner” or “bad woman” or outcast who receives God’s love then overflows with love of her own. “Hence she has shown great love” (7:47).

If the origin story of superheroes is that they suffer loss and violence and thus decide to fight the bad guys, then the origin story of Christ-followers is the inverse. It begins not with loss but a gift. And it ends not with fighting but with kinship and connection. They receive love and decide to live in love. They do not fight the bad guys to eliminate them. They love them into the family, just as they have been loved into the family.

Loved People Love People

One of the invitations that I hear in today’s scripture is to identify with the sinful woman. If I want to live in great love, as she does, then I must first open myself up to receive God’s great love. Which is to say, I am invited to recognize my own wounds and sinfulness and need. I am invited to recognize that good and bad, or sinful and upright, are not distinctions that divide one group of people from another, but rather are distinctions that run down the center of every heart. I am invited to recognize that in God’s eyes there is not “us” and “them,” but only God’s children, who belong to each other and to God.

The Jesuit priest Greg Boyle, who helped found Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention and rehabilitation program in Los Angeles, shares the two principles that orient the program: everybody is unshakably good, and we belong to each other. Sometimes, he says, he is asked: does he believe “every vexing complex social dilemma would disappear if we embrace” these two principles? His response is clear and simple: “Yes, I do.”[2] He puts it another way: “God doesn’t share in our moral outrage”—at bad guys or sinners. Moral outrage feels good but it actually gets in the way of love. God only sees woundedness and “invites us into [the healing of] kinship and connection.”[3]

God leaves us with a lot of details to parse out. I can already hear my inner superhero saying, “That’s all well and good, but how do you love a man carrying a gun, or a person intent on doing harm?” I don’t know that I have an immediate answer to that. All I know—from the example of Jesus, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell—is that moral outrage and force will never bring us together into God’s family. It will only ever separate us, as it did when Simon the Pharisee looked with disdain on the woman in his home, as it does when people look with resentment or outrage upon others.  The only thing that will bring us together into God’s family is God’s transformative love. Loved people love people.

There are a lot of details to parse out, but the foundational truth in Jesus is clear to me, and it’s opposite from what I learned from superheroes. The problem is not “bad guys” but forgetting or doubting that we are all beloved children of God. And the solution is not fighting but living in the great love we have received. And so the world is not saved through a righteous war between good guys and bad guys. It is saved through a table where all are loved into God’s family. It is saved through a love that redeems each and every one of us into the child of God that we are.

(Taken from https://authorryanc.com/2018/11/12/jesus-is-our-real-super-hero/)

Prayer

God,
Whose great love is the source and center
Of all things—
Soften our hearts
To know others as kindred who belong to us,
To know wrongdoing as woundedness,
To know your love as the power to heal and restore.
Inspire us to show others
The great love you have shown us.
In Christ, who came to save: Amen.

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[1] See https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/creative-types/super-hero, accessed February 17, 2025.

[2] “Belonging Gone Right with Father Greg Boyle,” interview at Oregon Humanities, https://oregonhumanities.org/rll/podcast/episode/belonging-gone-right/, accessed February 17, 2024.

[3] “Father Greg Boyle: Moral outrage can feel good. But it does nothing to heal our divided world,” interview at America: The Jesuit Review, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/09/19/greg-boyle-homeboy-industries-241462?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA2cu9BhBhEiwAft6IxDg3J-mULYqH33D7Z6dt4L10XAoqVpDNEy75zQ1WiRGrTwHGBje2TBoCWOkQAvD_BwE, accessed February 17, 2025. 

"Weeping and Dancing" (Luke 7:18-35)

Many Tears

Bill became the pastor of an evangelical church in the 1990s. As a “self-proclaimed ‘Jesus Freak,’” he immersed himself in the evangelical world, listening to Christian music, reading Christian books, witnessing to the person next to him “on a plane or in line for the D.M.V.”[1] He ate, slept, and breathed Christianity.

Bill was in his day what a Pharisee was in Jesus’ day. I don’t say this as a criticism of Bill so much as I say it as an attempt to rehabilitate our view of the Pharisees. A Pharisee was just a Jew who cared so much about his religious tradition that he immersed himself in it, following the diet to a T, praying before every meal, going to synagogue as often as it was open. A Pharisee tried to make every part of his life Jewish, just as today some people try to make every part of their life Christian.

When Bill welcomed his newborn son, Timothy, into the world, he wrote a letter to Timothy’s future wife, to give to her on her wedding day. He wrote, “I pray that somehow through your family you would grow up and have a profound experience of grace — that at the core of your soul you would feel cared for in spite of your blunders, embraced in spite of your weaknesses, cherished in spite of your selfishness. You are a dear, dear woman to me and to [my wife] Katy. We love you. We look forward to meeting you. We will be praying for you over the years.”

Fast-forward thirteen years, and Bill is walking home from Starbucks with his son, Timothy, who is tentatively sharing that he has noticed certain feelings when he is around other guys. He says, “At one point I wondered if I was gay.” Later, when Bill is alone, praying to God in his journal, he writes, “I will not disguise to you what is going on in my heart and soul and mind. I think down deep, I hate homosexuality. I hate it more than just about anything else in the world. I hate it because it seems sometimes to be stronger than you, God. … Father, you have to spare Timothy from that. You have to.”

Bill’s tears were many over the next few years, as his son officially came out. His fears were many, too. He feared for his son. He feared that his church would reject him. He feared that his son would live in constant shame and insecurity. But his fears were also for himself. How would he reconcile his love for his son and his own beliefs about homosexuality? And how much patience and grace would his church have for him as he navigated this uncharted territory?

Repentance, or an About-Face

Over the next three years, Bill had many conversations and read many books and prayed many prayers. Slowly he came to question some of the certainties of his religious tradition. Here is a journal entry three years after that first conversation with his son: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Paul and how he turned from the Law to Jesus — he really did an about face. And now he says crazy things like, ‘The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6) and whoever loves others has fulfilled the law (Romans 13:8) and love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10) and the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14).’ Paul really does want to move us forward to the core message [of love] and to let go of a lot of the other ‘rules.’” Bill then muses on his own evolving about-face: “Life and morality and God and religion were a lot clearer [before Timothy came out] than [they are] now. And yet the strange thing is that I’ve never felt closer to Jesus — more intimate, more interested, more willing to sacrifice for him, and more free to be a Christian.”

He acknowledges there will be consequences to the changes in his theology, so he prays for God’s help: “It’s actually pretty scary, because people are going to judge me, Christians are going to proclaim that I’ve lost my faith, and I will lose certain privileges that I’ve had in the community. I won’t be asked to do some weddings or speak at certain churches or events, etc., especially as I come out more and more into who I see you leading me to be. … Father, have mercy on me. Help me be nothing but gracious and believing and loving. I don’t want to have a big agenda for others. I just want to follow you and to help others do the same.”

“A Full, True, Vibrant Life”

Over the next couple of years, Bill’s church grew smaller and smaller, until it was half the size it was before. But Bill saw grace even in this: “[Those who have left] have plenty of places to go — none of the people who have left our church have gone church-less. But if we ceased to exist, [the few] who remain would have nowhere to go.”

In a recent journal entry, Bill reflects on the profound changes he has undergone over the last decade: “When Timothy came out, I was wracked with insecurities and questions, doubts and fears. But now, I’m just in a different spot.” “I find myself so much less afraid, less anxious.” He then shares, “As Katy [his wife] prayed last night she thanked you for the remarkable gift of Timothy coming out — and how we thought it was the end, but it was only the beginning of a full, true, vibrant life in Christ.” 

Who Are the Ones Who Weep and Dance?

As I read Bill’s story, I see a man who wept and a man who danced. He wept for the growing pains of following God, for the repentance necessary to open up to God’s gift. He wept for the woundedness of a world where religious tradition got in the way of God’s love, where culture got in the way of compassion. But he also danced for the discovery of God’s grace and freedom. He danced for delight to have a son who despite all his differences loved and followed God, who taught him a lot about the welcome of God’s table and the joy of outsiders who are welcomed in.

Jesus talks in our scripture today about a faith that weeps and dances. Drawing on the image of children who do not respond to the game that is called, he says that John the Baptist came fasting and preaching repentance but many of the religious folks would not weep, and that he himself came in the opposite manner—proclaiming a feast—but many of the religious folks would not dance. He seems to say that God can’t win for trying.  The irony, of course, is that there are people weeping and dancing. But they are the “wrong people.” They are the tax collectors and sinners! The people who wake up to their own woundedness and the woundedness of the world, are the people who rejoice when they hear the gospel of God’s boundless, unconditional love.

I wonder what kept so many of the religious folks, such as the Pharisees, from weeping and dancing. Perhaps it was fear—fear of losing control, fear of the unknown. Perhaps it was complacency, a sort of self-satisfaction with their religious routine and worldview that ultimately left no wiggle-room for God. When I consider today, I see these inhibitors—fear and complacency—prevalent in the world around us, where we are bombarded by advertisements offering personal security and satisfaction, teaching us that if we just have this one thing, we will be safe and happy. If we listen long enough to this message, we can become like zombies, our eyes glazed over as we chase one thing after another, continually distracted from our woundedness and also from the possibilities for love and healing, with no real reason for tears and no reason for dancing.

The good news of today’s scripture is not comfort and convenience. It’s much bigger, better than that. The good news of today’s scripture is abundant life, an adventure with God, where we grow and change, where we weep and dance, where our wounds and the wounds of the world are always met with the compassion and healing of God. The feast of God’s love is not reduced to a bubblewrapped package from Amazon, opened in the privacy of our own home. It is so much larger than that. God’s love gathers us together, with our tears and our wounds, and restores us to wholeness, to dancing.

The NC State basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, who gave a memorable, inspirational speech in the face of his own cancer, explained how he got through the day. “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. … Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think, you should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears. Could be happiness or joy, but think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

The kingdom of God is a heck of a place. It is filled with tears and laughter, weeping and dancing. It is where difficult wounds are exposed, and where they are healed.

I shared Bill’s story earlier, not with an agenda toward a single issue (although I do think the story makes a compelling case); but I shared it with wonder at a modern-day Pharisee who heard the wailing and wept, who heard the flute and danced. I shared it for the good news that I heard in it, that at the very moment Bill faced his own woundedness, he also found himself in God’s embrace. As he put it, “The strange thing is that I’ve never felt closer to Jesus.” Or as Jim Valvano put it toward the end of his speech, “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities… It cannot touch my soul.” Which is to say, when we weep for our woundedness and the woundedness of the world, we open ourselves up to the good news of God’s love. We open ourselves up to the one who comes eating and drinking. We dance, and invite others to join us.

Prayer

Holy God,
Whose kingdom comes with wailing and weeping,
With singing and dancing—
Open our hearts
To the wounds and difficulties
That invite change and growth,
And to the invitation
Of your boundless compassion.
May we be people of your dance,
Celebrants of your feast.
In Christ, who comes eating and drinking, a friend to all: Amen.

 

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[1] This quote and others, as well as the story they accompany, come from the following opinion piece: Timothy White, “How My Dad Reconciled His God and His Gay Son,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/05/opinion/coming-out-evangelical-pastor.html, accessed on 2/10/25.