The Heart of a Heartless World (Luke 18:1-8)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on October 16, 2016, Proper 24)

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“I Pray You, Grant Me Justice”

In a certain city there was a judge who cared more for preserving power and privilege than he cared for justice.

In that city there was a woman who kept coming before him.

The first time the woman came before the judge, she said, “My family has always lived with the fear that something might happen to us. Many families we know have been disappearing. Finally it happened to us. My father disappeared. Left on an errand and never returned. I pray you, grant me justice.”

The next time the woman came before the judge, she said, “It happened again. This time, my husband…disappeared…on his way to work. Now I am left alone and without a way, without work, without money. I am in agony, thinking about what has become of my husband, whether I will see him again. I pray you, grant me justice.”

The third time the woman—the widow—came before the judge, she said, “Days, months, and years have gone by, a long wait, and now I know I will never see my father or my husband again. Ending up alone to raise and feed my children...how am I to survive? I pray you, grant me justice.”

The final time that the widow came before the judge, she was not alone. She came with other widows. They spoke together in loud voice, “Our fathers and husbands have disappeared, never to return. Our sons have been forced to serve in the same military that destroys our families. And we are left alone, grieving and suffering. We pray you, grant us justice.”[1]

A Nameless Widow with Numerous Names

As you may have guessed, this is not quite the same story that we read in scripture today. Or rather, it is the same story, but this time the blank spaces have been colored in. The parable that Jesus tells is timeless. The nameless widow whom Jesus praises has, in fact, numerous names. Her story is like a blank coloring page that countless widows throughout history have colored in time and time again.

The widow who lost her father and husband is Rosalina Tuyuc, a native Mayan woman in Guatemala. Her experience is a common one among Mayan women. In recent history, soldiers frequently drove the Mayan farmers from their homes, kidnapped their leaders, and forced their sons into the same army that was oppressing them, all because the military regimes that dominated the country did not trust the communal lifestyle that Rosalina and her Mayan people practiced. (Sadly, the United States supported these oppressive regimes because it too did not trust their communal lifestyle. No matter that the native farming communities, many of which were Christian, exemplified the life shared in common that Jesus preached and the early Christ-followers lived. For the U. S. government, this was communism plain and simple, and could not be tolerated.)

When Rosalina lost her father and her husband, she did not take up arms but rather took up a plea for justice. She pled always and never lost heart. Her plea inspired countless widows like herself, who eventually formed a national assembly of widows. This army of widows protested against the military and pled for peace. They pushed for the identification of their dead husbands and fathers and for their proper burial, for their sons not to be forced into the army, for a future free from the injustices of militarism and nationalism. It has been a long road, but because of these widows, Guatemala is now taking steps toward reconciliation with its native Mayan peoples. The disappeared are being given funerals. The Mayan farming communities are receiving reparations for their immeasurable losses during the repression. Perhaps most importantly, they are now gaining a voice and a place in society, whereas before they had been marginalized through violence and persecution.

Rosalina’s story—the story of the widow—echoes all over the world. It echoes in Argentina, where for years mothers wearing white headscarves marched weekly in the capital to protest the unjust disappearances of their children. It echoes in Serbia, where the Women in Black who have lost fathers and husbands and sons protest against militarism and nationalism and plead for a future of peace, so that their children may have life. It echoes the world over: wherever there is injustice, you can bet there is a widow raising her voice.

What Does Prayer Look Like?

Unfortunately for these widows, the church is too often far behind them. When the church gets its hands on today’s parable, it tends to domesticate it, de-claw it. It overspiritualizes it. It reads the instruction to pray always and never lose heart not as a call to justice but as a call to a privatized piety, an ask-in-your-heart-and-wait approach. Such an interpretation suggests a God who gauges our prayers, and if they measure up, we get justice. Such an interpretation suggests that our prayers stay locked up in our head and heart, that they don’t make it beyond to our hands and feet and most importantly our voice.

Which is a very curious way of understanding prayer, when the very story that Jesus chooses today to illustrate prayer is not an old woman kneeling serenely by her bed, but rather an old woman pleading desperately in public. Jesus’ parable points to a very different kind of prayer than what is seen in many churches. For Jesus, prayer is not something that remains by the pew or the bedside.[2] For him, prayer is earthy and desperate; prayer is a plea for justice that bubbles up from the unplumbed depths of the heart and cannot help but burst forth into the public realm.

What does prayer look like? It looks like a widow who is powerless but persistent, whose plea is personal but political, whose words are peaceful but plucky. Prayer is not a word sent up to some God who carries the ace up some divine sleeve, just waiting to be played. It is a holy word that becomes flesh and lives among us, a word that does what it says, a word that trusts so much in the truth that it will not rest until the truth is done; it is a word that performs, like the words, “I do,” or, “I promise.” It is powerless—it never takes up the sword—and yet its voice persists and never dies. It is personal—it arises from the heart of our own experience—and yet it is political, concerning the people around us. It is peaceful—it renounces the way of force—and yet it is neither passive nor indifferent, for its voice must be heard.

The Prayer of a Widow

Just half a chapter before today’s scripture, a group of people ask Jesus, “When is the kingdom coming?”

It’s difficult not to wonder if today’s parable is part of Jesus’ answer. When is the kingdom coming? The kingdom is already among you (cf. 17:21), Jesus suggests, in widows like this one. The kingdom is coming when you take notice of the widow and make your prayers like hers. This widow—and widows like Rosalina and the mothers in Argentina and the Women in Black in Serbia—give teeth to prayer. They show us where the rubber of prayer meets the road of reality.

You may have noticed that there aren’t too many folks of my generation in churches these days. Many of my generation are cynical and jaded. They’ve experienced a world that runs on the cold calculations of money and power and prestige. Anyone who’s followed the elections can sympathize with them. Anyone who’s fallen through the cracks of bureaucracy can sympathize with them. Anyone who’s observed the millions of dollars splashed around in our plastic entertainment industry can sympathize with them. To my peers, the world is heartless.

What they really want, I think, and what the world really needs, is a heart. And if today’s scripture is anything to go by, the heart of the world is to be found not in the right president or effective policies or successful programs. The heart of the world is to be found in the prayer of a widow.

Many in my generation would scoff at the idea that prayer is the heart of the world. But then they would be thinking about the kind of prayer that they see and know, not about the kind of prayer that we see today in the widow. I imagine that if they saw the church praying like today’s widow, like Rosalina Tuyuc and the women of Argentina and Serbia, then they might take notice, take interest, take part. The prayer of a widow is an earthy performance, a cry of the heart that reaches the lips, a plea for justice that persists until justice comes. It is borne of personal experience, but it extends to the lives of others. It is as weak and powerless as a request, but as strong and undying as love. It is peaceful, but it never stands down.

The Mustard Seed of the Kingdom Coming

This kind of prayer is how God lives and breathes in our world. It is God’s very heartbeat in our world. It is not so much a prayer that we consciously pray as it is a prayer that overtakes us, a prayer that makes us: like the desperate tears that turn widows into beggars for peace; like the quiet dreams that turn underprivileged children into teachers and mentors; like the gut feeling that turns a hospital patient into the founder of a teddy bear care program; like a deep yearning for home that turns a homeless Jew into the shepherd of a lost world.

The widow kind of prayer is the mustard seed of the kingdom coming. It is the heart of a heartless world. It is what real church looks like, whether it’s found under a steeple, at a dinner table, or on the congested streets of the capital.

Prayer

Compassionate God,
Whose justice comes
In the shape of a powerless widow:
May our prayers
Neither stay quiet
Nor stand down,
But instead give a voice to justice
And a heart to the world.
In the name of the crucified one:
Amen.

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[1] This story is inspired by and adapted from the autobiographical account of Rosalina Tuyuc: “Rosalina Tuyuc’s Story,” http://pudl.princeton.edu/sheetreader.php?obj=bg257g27v, accessed October 12, 2016. Her words are italicized in this retelling of her story.

[2] The obvious objection to this interpretation of prayer would be Jesus’ words in Matt 6:6: “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” In response, I would offer two considerations: first, in Matt 6:6, Jesus is speaking in the context of an admonishment of ostentatious prayer; second, the present interpretation of prayer does not preclude the possibility of prayer in private, but rather contends that such private prayer necessarily finds embodiment in the public and the political.

A Safe Distance (Luke 17:11-19)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on October 9, 2016, Proper 23)

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Cooties! 

It was such a relief for Mary to get home. At home, nobody knew anything about her dreaded condition. Her parents hugged her. Her brother ruffled her hair. Her cats rubbed up against her leg. At home, she felt well again. There was talking and joking and laughing together, there was dinner together, there was sitting around a board game together.

Back at school, there had been nothing together.

It had all started when Erik teased her about her freckles. “What’s wrong with your face and all those little brown spots, Mary? When’s the last time you washed yourself?” Erik’s friend, Adam, peered closely at Mary’s face and then began to back gravely away: “Be careful, man. She may have cooties.”

And that was the word that did it. “Cooties.” All of the sudden, the boys around her started squealing, “Eww, cooties! Get away from her!”

Second grade can be rough. To this day, physicians have been unable to determine the precise origin or cure of cooties.

As the day wore on and the gossip chain made its round, more and more classmates kept their distance from Mary. Even the girls. Even her friends. Everything that Mary did that day, she did alone.

“Leprosy” 

Like Mary, the ten lepers of today’s scripture had “cooties”—or at least, that would be my diagnosis. In the Bible, leprosy refers not to Hansen’s disease but rather to the skin condition of having suspicious spots. Leprosy, in other words, was not a disease but a difference that people feared. (No one knows for sure exactly what would have qualified as leprosy, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Mary herself would have been considered leprous because of the freckled spots on her face.)

The ten lepers in today’s scripture shared Mary’s experience: they lived a life of isolation because they looked different. In the same way that the boys cried, “Cooties,” and everyone scattered from Mary, the leper in ancient Israel was supposed to cry, “Unclean! Unclean!” as he walked around, so that others could keep a safe distance. Just like Mary who did everything alone that day, the leper was supposed to live alone outside the town. Away from family and friends and anyone else in the community.

Healing Beyond the Skin

This is exactly what we see at the beginning of today’s scripture. Jesus is on the outskirts of a village, and it’s here that he encounters ten men with cooties. They all keep a safe distance so that Jesus won’t catch their cooties, but they raise their voices, crying for help. In response, Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests, the men with the authority to declare them free of cooties.

The common interpretation of Jesus’ instruction here is that he was promising that their leprosy would soon disappear. But if we think of cooties as a manmade idea, as an imaginary disease, then an alternative interpretation presents itself. Perhaps Jesus was really saying, “Look, I’m telling you right now that you don’t have cooties. Go ahead and show yourselves to the priests. They’ll make it official. They’ll pronounce you cootie-free.”

So the ten men with cooties set off to see the priests. Luke tells us that on their way to the priests, they were “made clean.” Which is a way of saying either that they lost their cooties or that the imaginary cooties lost their power over the ten men and the other villagers. Luke tells us that, in either case, one of the ten men noticed a difference. Listen closely to what Luke says here: the man noticed not merely that he had been “made clean,” but that he had been “healed.” In other words, he notices something deeper than the surface of his skin.

Here’s how I imagine the scene. When this one man notices that he has been “healed,” he is not looking at his skin like the other nine are doing. He’s not observing spots magically disappearing from his skin. Rather, he’s observing a remarkable change in his surroundings. No longer are the villagers keeping a safe distance. Their shadows are crossing his. Their voices are close enough to hear. For the first time since he can remember, he is not alone. He is together with the community.

“You Who Were Dead in Cooties and in Safe Distances” 

And when he realizes this, he cannot help but cry out, “Thank you!” It erupts from him, the same way we might involuntarily cry “Yes!” when we receive spectacularly good news or when for an instant our heart touches its desire. In other words, he says this “thank you” to no one in particular. Only after he cries it, does he realize he’s addressing God.

In any case, he turns around and rushes to Jesus. And it is here in the story that we witness the fullness of his healing. Remember how earlier he and the other nine men with cooties had kept a safe distance from Jesus? Here we see a complete transformation. The man falls right at Jesus’ feet. And we can imagine that now his loud cry of gratitude has softened to an intimate whisper: “Thank you. Thank you.”

As if this picture weren’t moving enough, Luke proceeds to inform us that this man is actually a Samaritan. To the ordinary Israelite, the Samaritans had cooties just by virtue of being Samaritans: they had married outside the people and they worshiped on the wrong mountain, which is to say, they were foreigners and heretics.

But Jesus has no more regard for the cooties of religion and ethnicity than he does for the cooties of spotted skin. In fact, he almost seems to take a secret delight in the reversal of expectations: “Has no one returned and given praise to God,” he says, “but this foreigner?” (cf. 17:17-18). To cap off the wonder of this spectacular scene, he tells the man, “Get up,” using the same word that is used for resurrection. In other words, Jesus tells him, “You who were dead in cooties and in safe distances, are now raised to new life. You are now a part of the community.” And then he adds, “Your faith has saved you,” which I think is Jesus’ way of saying, “Salvation comes when your faith brings you into community.”

From a Safe Distance to a Saving Communion 

This story brings to mind a recent conversation I had with Leslie, who has been worshiping with us for the last several months. With her approval, I share with you what she shared with me:

Leslie had been attending a bigger church before. Because of several medical conditions, Leslie must take extra care in moving about and exerting her energies. She told me that at the previous church, she never felt a part of the community; she felt anonymous there, and sometimes she felt like a burden. It felt like people were keeping a safe distance from her.

One day, she decided to come to this little church that she had kept passing by. Upon stepping through our doors, she felt completely different. No longer was there a safe distance between her and others, but a saving communion. Here people hugged her, made her feel a part of the church. Here folks raised her up to new life. Whereas before she felt alone among a crowd of people, here she feels the life of togetherness.

The Blessing of Small Churches 

Mary at school, the Samaritan leper in the Bible, and Leslie, each in their own way show us the funny thing about cooties, which is that they’re ultimately not real. The myth of cooties tries to persuade us that because someone is different, they are dangerous. But the gospel proclaims otherwise. The good news proclaims that all people are beloved by God and worthy of embrace. There is no infection not worth risking for the love of another person. Jesus’ entire ministry was essentially one of saying, “Cooties don’t exist! This safe distance you’re keeping from one another is in fact death-dealing. It’s unsafe. What will save you is not safe distances but a saving communion with one another.”

It’s difficult for me not to be reminded here of the blessing of small churches.

We live in “a world that worships bigness,” a world that discriminates on size and strength. When Paul talks about the invisible powers and principalities that rule this present age, he wasn’t just talking about racism and sexism and ageism. He was also, I believe, talking about “sizeism.” Sizeism tells us the story that what is bigger is better. Unfortunately, many churches believe this story, and consequently they are burdened with unspoken shame. They say, “Because we are small, we must be doing something wrong. If we were doing things right, we would be bigger and better.”[1]

But I think today’s gospel challenges the myth of sizeism. The gospel of today declares that the salvation of new life is found not in size but in community. The danger of bigger things is that they lend themselves to a more impersonal way of life. In a bigger group, people often feel less together; they often feel like faceless cogs in a wheel or like an anonymous audience. In this world of bigger and better, the small church carries an immeasurable blessing, because in a small church there is no such thing as a safe distance. In a small church, there is community: there is intimacy, immediacy, involvement. There are people caring for each other, hugging each other, praying for each other, asking about each other, welcoming new faces with real attention and concern. Instead of safe distances, there is saving communion.

May it be so!

Prayer 

God of healing, 

Who saves us
Through the risky closeness of community:
Free us from our fear of cooties,
Bless our differences,
And lead us to find life
In each other.
In the name of him
Who draws near to us, Jesus Christ.
Amen.


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[1] David R. Ray, Wonderful Worship in Smaller Churches (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2000), 14.

What a Mustard Seed Means (Luke 17:5-10)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on October 2, 2016, Proper 22
and World Communion Sunday)

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Moving Mountains

The father pushes hurriedly through the crowd of people. “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,” he repeats, bumping from shoulder to shoulder like a frenetic pinball. People stare at him, muttering complaints under their breath, but he presses on, frantic to reach his destination. The swarm of people becomes denser as he nears the front. So he pushes harder.

Finally he breaks through, and he collapses before the man at the front of the crowd: “Master,” he says, speaking between heavy breaths, “have mercy on my son. He suffers from seizures, sometimes falling in the water or the fire. I brought him to your followers, but they couldn’t heal him.” “Bring him here to me,” says the man in front. The father retrieves his son, and the man talks to the young boy. Nobody can hear what he says, but they can see the man smiling, then frowning, and then smiling once more. The boy returns to his father in an air of happiness. He is healed.

Hours later, the man’s followers come to him alone. “Jesus,” they ask, “why could we not heal the boy?”

Jesus replies, “Have a little faith. If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could move mountains.”[1]

The First Mustard Seed:

A Little Faith Can Go a Long Way

There are three different mustard seeds in the Bible.

And my hunch is that this mountain-moving mustard seed is the one that we all know and love. This mustard seed means that a little faith can go a long way. When Jesus tells his followers that a mustard seed faith can move mountains, he’s suggesting that they in fact have no faith.[2] If they had a little, even faith the size of a mustard seed, then they would have been able to heal the suffering child.

This mustard seed is a celebrated image in America, the land of opportunity, the home of the American dream. According to our national mythology, it all starts in your heart. If you have the seed of a dream, then you can achieve it. You can accomplish anything if you have faith in yourself and work hard.

I imagine that this is part of the reason America loves an underdog story. The underdog appears powerless—whether it is money that they lack, or strength, or popularity. But whatever worldly power that the underdog lacks, he or she makes up for it with faith, with the power of the heart. In the end, the underdog’s faith moves mountains. Just think of all the movies you’ve seen where an underdog defies the odds: Rocky, Rudy, Remember the Titans, Karate Kid, The Mighty Ducks—the underdog genre is nearly endless.

Just to be clear, I think these underdog stories and our national appreciation for the power of the heart is a good thing. I think it’s pointed in a good direction.

But today’s scripture suggests that this way of thinking—that a little faith can go a long way—can also lead us the wrong way.

The Second Mustard Seed:

Is There Such a Thing as “More Faith”?

In today’s passage, we see a very different mustard seed than in the healing story.

In today’s story, Jesus’ followers beg him, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5), as if to say, “A little faith is not enough; we need more.” In response, Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree to plant itself in the sea, and it would obey you” (17:6). In effect, Jesus seems to say, “You want more faith? A mustard seed is enough.”

Whereas before, Jesus told his followers, “Have a little faith!” here he tells them, “Have a little faith.”

On the face of things, this seems a bit counterintuitive, a bit upside-down.[3] Why would Jesus brush off his followers’ request for more faith? Isn’t that as holy a request as you could make?

It helps to remember, though, that the disciples who make this request are the same disciples who have argued about who among them is the greatest (9:46-48), the same disciples who have fought over who will sit on the right and left of Jesus in glory (Mark 10:35-45), the same disciples who have kept little children from Jesus because Jesus couldn’t possibly be bothered with concerns as small as theirs (18:15-17). In other words, these disciples often have their hearts in the wrong place, worrying as they do about power and prestige and money, about being the greatest or the first. And so I cannot help but wonder if here they’re asking for more faith in the same way that a person might ask a genie for more magic powers.

If that were the case, then it would make sense for Jesus to say, “No, a mustard seed is all you need.” It would make sense for Jesus to say, “Have a little faith.”

When I consider who the disciples are, how much they resemble us in their desire for power and security, here’s what I hear Jesus really saying:

“If you’re asking for an increase in faith, it’s not actually faith that you’re asking for. It’s control. If a person’s faith is as big as a fortress, it’s no longer faith but a foregone conclusion, a self-fulfilling certainty. A faith as big as a fortress is more concerned with protecting what’s inside than sharing life with what’s outside.

“A little faith is not a fortress but a seed. Which is to say, it does not close things off but opens things up; it’s not the end but the beginning. Faith is not a big, final word that finishes the conversation. Faith is the first word, a small word, like the ‘I do’ that begins a journey.”

A Little Faith

If Jesus’ first “mustard seed” told the disciples that a little faith goes a long way, then his second “mustard seed” warns them that anything more than a little faith is not really faith. In other words, the danger of the American dream and our love for underdog stories, is that they may act like steroids for our faith, unnaturally enlarging it to the point that it is no longer trust but certainty and control.

When I think of faith as something that I need more of, something that will help me achieve my goals, I’m no longer really thinking about faith in the way of Christ. “If only I had more faith,” I might say, “I could be the person I’ve always wanted to be—I could be more dynamic and charismatic; I could always have the right words.” “If only I had more faith,” I might say, “I would never feel sad or lonely or inadequate.”

The danger of desiring more faith, Jesus suggests, is that we might actually be exchanging faith for our own selfish success story. We might be exchanging faith for control and power and certainty. In contrast to the “never say die” motto that rules our land, a little faith always says die: die to self, die to power, die to privilege.

A little faith is not about control or certainty or getting what we want. Faith is not big and overpowering. Faith is little and trusting, like a little child crying out for help, like a man on one knee, like a servant setting a table and putting others first, like a seed that falls to the ground and dies (cf. John 12:24).

The Meanings of a Mustard Seed

A little faith sounds weak and foolish. How will something so small secure our safety and self-interest? If the example of Jesus is anything to go by, it will not. A little faith led him to the cross. A little faith can be frightening.

But we’ve still got one more mustard seed left. Jesus once said, “The kingdom of God…is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches” (13:18-19). Which is to say, a little faith does not secure our safety and self-interest because it is seeking something much greater: the kingdom of God.

The mustard seed means many things. It means that a little faith can go a long way. It means that anything more than a little faith is not faith. And it means that the kingdom of God comes not by a divine finger snap; rather, it grows from seeds of little faith. It means that the kingdom of God is growing every time we have a little faith: every time we entrust someone else with a second chance, every time we give a gift without return, every time we give others the benefit of the doubt, every time we welcome the stranger, every time we look beyond the bad in order to bless the seed of goodness that dwells deep down in this world.

Prayer

God of mustard seeds
And kernels of trust:
Plant your kingdom in our hearts,
So that it might grow in our world.
Encourage us to remain faithful,
Especially when we are tempted by power
And its empty promises of our own success.
In the name of Jesus,
Who called himself servant and friend.
Amen.

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[1] Adapted from Matt 17:14-20.

[2] Cf. the “faithless” generation of Matt 17:17.

[3] Which is just to say, it has the mark of the kingdom of God, which is in the habit of overturning our way of doing things.

A Brother's Touch (Luke 16:19-31)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on September 25, 2016, Proper 21,
and for Lakewood Manor's Vespers Service)

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Hand-Holding, High-Fiving, Hugging—and Tickling

Since before I can remember, I have been blessed by the helping hand of a brother. I know this because my family has a single home video, recorded with our neighbor’s camcorder (back when camcorders were a big deal). In that video, there are several scenes of my early childhood. And in each of those scenes is my brother. He is holding my hand: helping me to stand upright, attending me as I totter across the kitchen, guiding me safely down a slide.

My first conscious memories of my brother’s touch are of a completely different order. No longer is he holding my hand. Now he is tickling me! I particularly remember our vacations. My parents kept my brother and me under tight wraps. Thank God for grandparents! With them, we had a bit more freedom. We called my grandparents’ room the “fun room”—for obvious reasons. It was fun: we could run around, jump on the beds, have pillow fights, and, as I’m remembering now, our escapades would nearly always end with my brother tickling me until I was nearly out of breath. His tickling gave meaning to the expression “side-splitting.” It was unbearable…and perhaps also the most fun I’ve had in my life, at least if my laughter is counted as evidence.

From these first conscious memories of my brother’s touch proceed other memories. As I began to play soccer, my brother would always be on the sidelines, cheering me on. At the end of the game he might give me a high-five, or if we lost a consoling pat on the back. Later my brother would leave for college, and thus ended our day-to-day life together. Even so, we now see each other nearly every Christmas and the occasional summer too, and during these reunions we greet one another with hugs.

These are the many ways that I have known my brother’s helping hand. How about you? Perhaps you have known the helping hand of a brother or a sister, or maybe a lifelong friend. Perhaps you have special memories of how their hand guided you or supported you, made you laugh or encouraged you. Whether it was hand-holding or side-splitting-tickling, high-fives or hugging, we all have known the blessing of a helping hand.

A Parable about More Than Morality or Merit

On the surface, our scripture today has nothing to do with brothers or hand-holding. The distance between the two men in Jesus’ story could hardly be greater. On the one hand, there is a rich man, and he wears the finest clothing, feasts sumptuously everyday, and lives in a gated home. On the other hand, there is the poor man Lazarus, who is covered not with fine clothing but sores, who does not feast but fantasizes over crumbs, who lives not within the gate but without.

In this story, there is no hand-holding or tickling, no high-fiving or hugging. The two men who live side by side could not live further apart. But is that a bad thing, we might ask? Does the rich man actually do anything wrong? Jesus never says so. In fact, there is a notable absence of detail regarding the moral lives of the rich man and Lazarus. Perhaps the rich man lived respectably, tithing at the Temple, praying all the right prayers, studying the scripture. And perhaps the poor man lived in a manner that would make us suspicious. Perhaps he preyed on people’s generosity. Perhaps he used people’s donations not for money or bettering himself, but for the cheap comfort of strong drink. Who knows? Jesus doesn’t tell us, because his concern here is much more than morality or merit.

A Parable about Wealth?

What is Jesus’ concern? To begin, it helps to know that he’s addressing this story to a crowd who were, we are told, “lovers of money” (16:14). With that one detail in mind, we might assume that this is a simple parable about money. We might suppose that Jesus is telling folks to stop pinching pennies, to share what they have with folks who have nothing. We might guess that Jesus’ concern is a world where wealth is unhealthily distributed, where great abundance can sit next to great poverty without any show of concern or care.

This undoubtedly is a concern that weighs heavy on Jesus’ heart. Do you remember the first words of his ministry? “The Spirit of the Lord…has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (4:18). Jesus desires that the poor might have an abundant life. And only two chapters before today’s scripture, he tells us, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:13). Oh that the rich man of today’s parable, who was in the habit of eating banquet feasts all his life, could have only heard Jesus’ words. 

But in fact Abraham’s brusque replies to the rich man suggest that he has heard these words, for they are the same words proclaimed by Moses and the prophets, whom the rich man has had with him all his life. Throughout the scriptures at the rich man’s fingertips, God calls God’s people to care for the orphan, widow, and stranger (e.g., Deut 26:12), for the hungry and the homeless (e.g., Isa 58:7).

Or a Parable about Brothers?

So the unjust distribution of wealth must be a concern of Jesus—it has been a concern for God from day one. But if wealth is part of Jesus’ concern, it is really just the tip of the iceberg. His parable hints that an unhealthy distribution of wealth is really just the symptom of a deeper illness.

Our first clue to the parable’s diagnosis is the curious stage appearance of Father Abraham as the divine spokesperson. We would perhaps have expected instead an angel, or even God Godself. Why Abraham? If we pay close attention, we notice that the rich man always address Abraham as “father.” Likewise, Abraham addresses the rich man as his son.[1] We also see Abraham strike a fatherly position with Lazarus, keeping by his side and comforting him (cf. 16:23, 25).[2]

Sometimes what remains unspoken speaks the loudest. If Abraham is the father of the rich man and also the father of Lazarus—then what does that make the rich man and Lazarus? 

Today’s parable is about more than money. Today’s parable, at its heart, is about two brothers, one who is blind to the other. And even in death, the rich man cannot see his kinship with Lazarus. The only brothers he acknowledges are the five who live in his father’s house, for whom he requests a supernatural warning. Is it any wonder that there is an unbridgeable chasm between the rich man and Lazarus? It was not really the gate that separated them. In death as in life, the rich man cannot see that Lazarus is his brother, and so in death as in life there remains an impassable distance between them.

“Do Your Hands Touch?”

Today’s parable does not merely tell us to give money to the needy, to help out the poor. The poor and the needy are the symptoms of a deeper illness. And Jesus does not want merely to treat the symptom; he wants to touch and heal the painful illness itself. According to our great physician, the problem lies within our hearts. When we look at the people outside our gates, we do not see our sisters and brothers. The reason that there is an impassable chasm between the rich and the poor—as well as between right and left, black and white, man and woman, [gay and straight/young and old]—is because we see other people as other people, and not as our sisters and brothers. We have not followed Jesus into the kin-dom of God, that kingdom in which every person is our kin.[3]

On this experience, the pope has some wise words. (Now I know he’s not Baptist—but that doesn’t mean he’s any further from the truth than we are!) The pope once asked a crowd of people, “When you give money to the poor, do your hands touch the hands of the poor, or do you just toss the coins?”[4] What I think he was really asking, was, “Do you treat the poor as a check box or a duty, or do you treat them as your brothers and sisters?” Do you merely throw money over the gate by which they sleep, all the while the gate stays closed? Or do you step beyond the gate and welcome them with a brother’s touch?

To reduce today’s parable to a simple message about what to do with our money is to domesticate the kingdom of God, to make it manageable and convenient, to make it to conform to our own world, which runs on money. It is to try to serve Christ with our checkbooks rather than with our hands and our hearts. Today’s story is about much more than money. It is about having the scales fall from our eyes, so that when we look at others—the poor or the wretched, or perhaps simply the people who think differently than we do—we see not some strangers to be kept at the gate, but rather brothers and sisters.

We all know the meaning of a brother’s touch, or a sister’s or lifelong friend’s. We all know the meaning of a hand holding ours or tickling us, high-fiving us or hugging us. A helping hand, a hand that actually touches us with love, means family. Not just the blood kind of family, but the gospel kind of family. It means the kin-dom of God, the kingdom where all are kin. It is the gospel of today’s story: the good news that God has been proclaiming since Moses and the prophets and the good news that God may be proclaiming today through our very own lives, if you would believe it.

Prayer

Loving God—

We all have gates,

At which there lie strangers

In need of a brother’s or sister’s touch.

May your kin-dom come:

Through hand-holding and high-fiving,

Tickling and hugging,

Given and received.

In the name of our brother, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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[1] The Greek here, teknon, “child” is commonly used in the vocative in a sense interchangeable with, “Son.” 

[2] In the Greek, Lazarus is in “the bosom of Abraham.” 

[3] For more on the idea of the “kin-dom” of God, see Tripp Fuller, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic—or Awesome? (Minneapolies: Fortress, 2015), especially chapter 3, “Abba Says, ‘Drop the G.’” 

[4] Paraphrased. David Uebbing, “Touch the Poor and Needy, Pope Tells Argentineans,” http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/touch-the-poor-and-needy-pope-tells-argentineans/, accessed September 21, 2016.

Currency Exchange (Luke 16:1-13)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on September 18, 2016, Proper 20)

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A Currency Deeper Than Dollars

It’s a familiar scene. Just a father and his son—and two tickets for the baseball game. The son walks through the turnstile with a sense of wonder, as though he knows he’s stepping foot onto holy ground. And no expense is spared as they make it a day to remember: popcorn, hot dogs, soda. An autographed baseball. And then the real glory of the occasion: the father and son sitting side by side, drinking the game in together. Enjoying real conversation together.

“There are some things money can’t buy…. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”

With that, MasterCard struck gold. This was the first commercial in what would become a timeless ad campaign that centered on what we might call holy life experiences. At the heart of each commercial was a “priceless” life moment, something that money could not buy—oftentimes something that involved family and friends, like building a sandcastle with a little child at the beach, or celebrating a graduation or a wedding.

Many of these commercials are touching. And if I might be so bold, I would suggest that this is because many of them bear the fingerprint of the Holy Spirit. They are marked by a deep truth that we all know, a sacred sense that we all share: there is a currency deeper than dollars. What ultimately moves us is not money but moments shared with others.

Caught in Money’s Currents

Now the more cynical among us might be rolling their eyes. To propose that these MasterCard ads are somehow sacred seems absurd. In fact, one could make the argument that they are not sacred but sacrilegious. They speak the truth, sure, but they do the opposite. These ads proclaim that there is a currency deeper than dollars, but they make this very proclamation in the hope that MasterCard might make more dollars. They praise what is priceless, all the while sticking a price on it. It seems a bit hypocritical to glorify meaningful moments over money, all with an eye toward making more money.

It is hard to think of a better example of how money runs our world, how even our most sacred moments cannot escape its gripping currents. Money truly is the “currency” of our lives, which is to say, its currents carry us, as an ocean’s currents carry boats or the air’s currents carry kites.

“The Money of Injustice”

The overpowering currents of money not only move our world today. They moved the world of Jesus too, and they seem to be the reason that he tells today’s parable.

Now if you found yourself scratching your head after hearing through the parable, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in the good company of theologians and biblical scholars, who for once find themselves agreeing on something: this is one puzzling parable. Perhaps the most perplexing part of it is that Jesus advises us to handle dirty money, what he calls “dishonest wealth.” He invites us to “make friends for [ourselves] by means of dishonest wealth” (16:9). I have to admit: when I first read that, I did a double-take. Is Jesus counseling us toward dishonesty—toward things like fraud and deceit?

It helped me to learn that things look a little bit different in the original language of the story. In the Greek, Jesus is inviting us to make friends for ourselves by means of “the money of injustice” (16:9). “Ah,” I thought! “A loophole!” Maybe Jesus isn’t saying we should be dishonest with money, but rather that we can put bad money to good use. Maybe Jesus is saying that the rich master in the story had been exploiting his debtors with unreasonable charges, and so the manager—the middleman in the story—is redeeming this wrong by cutting the debts. The manager is making good on bad money. It would be a little bit like if the police run a drug bust, and not only do they find a load of drugs, they also find a load of money. That money is dirty, or dishonest, but now it’s in the hands of folks who can do good.

The Injustice of Money

But if I’m being honest, reading the story this way—believing that Jesus is talking about how we can make good with bad money—is just another piece of evidence that I am awash in the currents of money. In other words, I want to hear Jesus say to me, “Money’s not a bad thing, it’s just how you use it.”

But I am convicted that this story is saying more than that. In his explanation of the story, Jesus talks about two different ages: this age, this world that we live in, and the age to come, the kingdom of God, in which “the money of injustice” will be gone and all that will remain is what Jesus calls “true riches” (16:9, 11). It almost sounds like Jesus is saying that the difference between this age and the next, is its currency. In the one age, money is what runs the world. In the next age, that money is gone, and in its place are “true riches,” which I must believe are things like love and forgiveness, giving and trusting.

So when Jesus talks about “the money of injustice,” I believe he is also talking about the injustice of money, the way that money easily sweeps us up into unjust currents. If we look closely at the story, money is what alienates people. It is what fragments society, what makes for an unjust society. The characters see dollar signs instead of people. When the master looks at his manager, he sees the squandering of his money. And when the manager looks at his clients, he sees a pile of debts.

This way of looking at the world is not bad, not if you want money. It will make you calculating and efficient, and ultimately it may make you rich. But it may also make you sad. My brother, who lives in Waco, Texas, remembers how when he first moved out there, a man in his church showed him around town. When the man took him to an upmarket neighborhood, he pointed to one of the streets, and remarked in his brusque, Texan manner: “That there’s the richest street in town. It’s also the saddest.” Each house on the street had an unhappy story: domestic dispute, drugs, escorts. When I hear Jesus’ phrase, “money of injustice,” I cannot help but wonder if what he meant is that the currents of money tend to sweep us toward an unjust society, tearing apart rather than bringing together.

How We Respond to a Currency Crash

Therefore, Jesus advocates a currency exchange. He says that in the kingdom of God, the currents that move the world are not money but friendship, and so if we want to be swept into the kingdom, we should do like the manager. We should swap the money that sweeps us into injustice for new friendships that will sweep us into the hospitality of others’ homes.

Imagine that you had insider knowledge that the US dollar would crash beyond repair. According to the logic of our world, the appropriate response would be to exchange it for a stable currency. That way we could hold onto what was ours. But according to the logic of the kingdom in today’s text, the appropriate response would be to exchange it for new friendships—to spend it, to let it go, to relinquish it, not on ourselves, but on strangers. In such a way, we enter the justice of the kingdom, where people care not for themselves but for one another.

It is foolishness, indeed, according to the world. But such is the kingdom of God.

Converting to the Kingdom Currency

Today’s parable is an antiquated story and difficult to relate to personally. What might it look like today when a person converts from the currency of money to the kingdom currency of making friends?

I read the story recently of a father and a son who were walking through the inner city. We might imagine it was the same father and son on their way to the baseball game. In any case, a homeless man approached them and asked if they had any spare change. The father dug into his pockets, and spread out in his hands all that he had. “Here,” he said, “Take what you need.” The homeless man was surprised. “Well, I’ll take it all.”

The father and son walked on, when the father suddenly realized that he still needed money to make a phone call. (Which dates this story to an age before some of us were even born, an age long ago, before cell phones existed.) The father turned and caught up with the homeless man: “I was going to make a phone call later today, but I’ve given you all my change. Could I have a quarter?”

The homeless man extended his hands in return. “Here,” he said, “Take what you need.”[1]

No longer were the men two strangers, one socially positioned above the other. They were friends, sharing what they had in common.[2] Like the manager of the parable, they had exchanged the currency of money for the currency of making friends.

The “Kin-dom” of God

MasterCard came pretty close. There is a currency deeper than dollars. But MasterCard stops one foot short of the kingdom, because its commercials nearly always feature family and friends as the deeper currency, as what is priceless. But according to Jesus, what is priceless is not the moment shared with family and friends, but rather the moment when no expense is spared so that a stranger becomes friend, a friend who in return also spares no expense. 

Today’s parable offers us a curious glimpse into the kingdom of God. We don’t see streets paved with gold or magnificent gates. Instead we see the homes of strangers-turned-friends. The kingdom of God, Jesus implies, is where strangers spare no expense for one another and welcome each other into their homes. It is where not money but new friends are being made all the time.

We might call this kingdom of God the kin-dom of God,[3] for it is a world where all strangers are treated as kin, to whom we extend our hands and say, “Here, take what you need.”

Prayer

Sweep us up, God,

In the currents of your kingdom—
Exchange our currency. Convert us,
So that we see abundance of life
Not in money
But in making friends.
In the name of him
Who forfeited his life for friendship.
Amen.

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[1] Adapted from Thomas G. Long, “Making Friends,” Journal for Preachers (2007): 56.

[2] In this, they resemble the intended way of living among the early Christ-following community (Acts 2:44-45).

[3] For more on the idea of the “kin-dom” of God, see Tripp Fuller, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic—or Awesome? (Minneapolies: Fortress, 2015), especially chapter 3, “Abba Says, ‘Drop the G.’”

Search Party (Luke 15:1-10)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on September 11, 2016, Proper 19)

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“This Fellow Welcomes Sinners and Eats with Them”

I wonder how we would feel if Jesus came to Gayton Road one Sunday morning, but instead of entering our doors, he sat outside the trailer next-door and shared the company of a solitary smoker, and occasionally spasms of laughter could be heard through our sanctuary doors. My guess is that we might feel just a smidgeon of what the Pharisees and scribes feel in today’s scripture.

What is it, exactly, that irks them so much about Jesus hanging out with the tax collectors and sinners? I imagine it was the little things, like hearing Jesus crack up at a tax collector’s joke, or seeing him smile when a pair of dirty hands passed him a loaf of bread. I imagine it was Jesus’ obvious joy that got under their skin the most. We can almost hear the disdain in their voice: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (15:2).

Perhaps we can hear a little hurt, too.

“Rejoice with Me!”

I think Jesus hears the disdain and hurt in their voice. I think that’s the reason he responds with the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin, stories that invite a response completely opposite to the grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes. The point of these two parables is simple. There’s a party going on. Stop grumbling, get outside, and join it. Both parables end with the same invitation: “Rejoice with me, for I have found [what was] lost” (15:6, 9).

God’s kingdom party, Jesus suggests, cannot be contained by any four walls, no matter how sacred they are. Why? Because it is a search party. It is a party that happens outside the gates, rather than inside. It is a party that happens with the lost, rather than with the found. This party is yet another kingdom reversal, yet another kingdom wave that capsizes our safe and settled reality. According to the Pharisees and the scribes—who are the first century equivalent of good churchgoing folks like us—sinners deserve our disapproving glances. They deserve our finger-wagging reprimands. In this way, shame and guilt may eventually convict them of their sin and lead them home. Then, and only then, may they be admitted to the saintly celebrations.

But Jesus does quite the opposite of what we do. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” He doesn’t finger-wag or frown on them.[1] Nor does he tap his foot and wait until they realize the error of their ways. He goes outside the walls of the righteous in order to be with them, not to correct them, but to bring the party to them—to befriend them, to love them, to sit at their tables (cf. 5:30; 7:34).

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Seeing Sinners with Jesus:

Lost—and Homeward Bound

I wonder how Jesus saw sinners. Not once in the gospel of Luke does Jesus scold a sinner. But numerous times, he eats with them.[2] The way that he talks about them in today’s parables hints that Jesus saw wayward souls with more grace than our world does, and certainly with more grace than many religious folks do.

Generally speaking, people do not get lost on purpose. Much less so, coins and sheep. To figure sinners as a lost sheep and a lost coin, then, is to suggest that they are not willfully wicked people. They don’t get lost on purpose any more than do sheep or coins. I wonder, in fact, if by describing them as lost, Jesus is suggesting that they’re trying to get home. For what else is at the heart of sin but a mistaken attempt to find happiness, a misguided attempt to get home. By describing sinners as lost, Jesus graciously paints their hearts as homeward bound.

It reminds me of a suggestive quote by Scottish writer Bruce Marshall: “The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.”[3]

Would Jesus Hold Your Protest Sign?

Speaking of brothels and…those sorts of places—I don’t know if you heard or read about a small group of men here in Richmond who were protesting strip clubs down in Shockhoe Bottom. They wanted the clubs to shut down, and so they stationed themselves outside with placards and well-intentioned arguments, trying to dissuade the clubs’ patrons. One man held a sign that read, “Lust hurts everyone.”[4]

Jesus would undoubtedly agree with that sign. But he would not be holding it. At least not on today’s evidence.

What would Jesus be doing?

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

This Gal Welcomes Dancers and Eats with Them

Yes, but what would that really look like? What does God’s search party look like inside a strip club?

I have a hunch it looks a little bit like what Lia Scholl, a Baptist minister in Richmond, has been doing. Lia visits strips clubs, wearing not a clerical collar but just plain jeans, bringing not posters and protests but “a gift” to the dancers, “a smile,” and “a compliment.” She tips, too.[5] She says that she is “called to build relationships with the dancers and to love the dancers.”[6]

This gal welcomes dancers and eats with them.

While some may grumble that she does not do enough to confront them in their sin, just as the religious folks grumbled about Jesus, she cares first and foremost about connecting with them rather than challenging their sin. She is part of God’s search party, a search that is also a party, a search that takes the party of God’s kingdom out into the world, where it welcomes sinners and eats with them.

A lot of religious folks get hung up on joining God’s search party. They’d prefer it to be more of a search crusade, a quest on which we annihilate sin and then gather in whatever’s left. Their motto is “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” My guess is that the Pharisees and the scribes said the same thing. But Jesus doesn’t make that distinction. This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. He doesn’t say, “I love you—but only once you’ve repented.”

“Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a nice theory, as it allows us to maintain our disgust for a person’s behavior, but in practice it allows hate to contaminate our love. Jesus simply loves the person. He’s not blind to the sin. If anything, he sees it more clearly than we do. He sees it for what it is, for what it means. He sees a heart that is lost, which is to say, a heart that is homeward bound and needful of love.

The Church’s Biggest Mistake?

I wonder how the Pharisees and scribes responded to Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. I wonder how most religious folks respond today. My guess is that they might fixate on that bit at the end, where Jesus explains the meaning of the story, where he talks about the joy in heaven when one sinner repents. “Exactly!” they might cry. “Jesus, listen to your own story,” they might say. “What matters is that sinners repent first. Only then can we really share the joyful welcome of God’s kingdom with them. We need to get them to repent of their sin before we can rejoice with them.”

But in saying this, they would be making the same mistake that the church has made through the years. In fact, I believe it’s the biggest mistake that the church makes: mistaking itself for God. In the parables, it is God who finds the sheep and the coin; it is God who restores the lost to the fold. It is God who leads the search party and God who changes the way of wayward hearts. If anyone is getting the sinners to repent, it is God, not us.

Our part in the story, according to the parables, is simple. We are to share the joy of God’s kingdom. We are to welcome sinners and eat with them.

The Chicken and the Egg,

Or Joy and Repentance

Now we could decide to constrain our joy, to hold it in for the moment that a lost person walks through our church doors, the moment when God brings the search party home. But I read the story a little bit differently than that. Remember what the people are saying about Jesus?

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Jesus takes the party outside to the people who are lost. He smiles on them. Maybe gives them a small gift, notices something awesome about them and compliments them on it. Makes them to feel welcome right where they are. In a word, he shares God’s joy with them—right where they are.

And here’s the sneaking suspicion that I cannot get rid of. I wonder if we’ve been getting it wrong all this time, thinking repentance comes before joy. If Jesus’ life is anything to go by, it looks like the joy of the party comes first, and then repentance. In fact, could it be that our joy is precisely what leads the lost to repentance?

A “Search Party” Worthy of the Name

And that’s why I think that God’s search party is literally a “search party,” the “search party” par excellence. It gives a fuller meaning to the phrase “search party” than the phrase itself ever knew it had. It is not merely a search that becomes a party, a moralizing quest that only allows the party to begin once everyone’s returned home and cleaned up. It is both a search and a party at the very same time.

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Jesus is taking the party to them, and like the shepherd and the woman, he invites us to share his joy. The kingdom of God takes us on a search party to the very people whom we are quickest to judge. Instead of judging them, Jesus shares his joy with them. This fellow welcomes them and eats with them, embraces them and loves them, and all while they are still sinners, all while they are lost. And who knows…perhaps it is this joy that leads them home. And perhaps if we share this joy, it will lead us, who are also sinners, home too.

Prayer

Friend of sinners,
Whose table is found
Not only inside these walls
But wherever sinners are welcomed—
Lead us not to judge
But to rejoice.
May we seek the lost
And bring your party to them,
Until all are found in your love.
Amen.

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[1] If anything, he reserves this behavior for the righteous and the religious.

[2] Greg Carey, “Commentary on Luke 15:1-10,” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=674, accessed September 7, 2016.

[3] Bruce Marshall, The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith (Garden City, N. Y.: Image, 1957), 114.

[4] Melissa Hipolit, “Christian Group Protests ‘the Devil’ Inside Richmond Strip Club,” http://wtvr.com/2016/04/08/club-rouge-protest/, accessed September 7, 2016.

[5] Lia Scholl, “The Borders I Cross,” http://www.bpfna.org/about-us/news/2015/05/11/the-borders-i-cross.1501062, accessed September 7, 2016.

[6] Interview between Michel Martin and Lia Scholl, “Getting Dancers from Poles to Pulpits,” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17495976, accessed September 7, 2016.

Counting in the Kingdom (Luke 14:25-33)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on September 4, 2016, Proper 18)

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Of Payments and Payoffs 

Jesus would probably not make a good campaign manager, at least not on today’s evidence. It’s true, of course—his message about the immeasurable love of God is a promise hard to beat. And so it’s no surprise that, as today’s scripture tells us, he already has large crowds following him. But instead of building on this promise, today Jesus invites his followers to think twice about their commitment. Following him will mean giving up their families, their possessions, even their very lives.

If there’s one word that seems to sum up today’s passage, it’s the word “cost.” In my Bible, the heading for today’s scripture is “The Cost of Discipleship.” Jesus tells a couple of stories, one about a builder planning to build and the other about a king planning to wage war, and in both stories the basic message is this: before you make a big commitment, you need first to “sit down” and count the cost (14:28, 31).

You would think that this kind of message would have crippled Christianity. But on the contrary, Christianity has made a curious living off this message, for the flip side to an infinite cost is an infinite reward.

And that’s one way that today’s passage could be preached. I could tell an inspiring story about a man or woman who counted the cost and then bravely paid it. I could encourage us all to aspire to such sacrifice, and I could reassure us that our payment would be returned with an equal payoff. For some people, the cost of giving up one’s life means receiving the reward of eternal life in heaven. For others, such a costly payment is rewarded by the continued life of others. In any case, the message remains the same: for every payment there is a payoff.

Counting: An Induction into Our World? 

But I have a sneaking suspicion that Jesus is doing more than teaching Accounting 101, in which the sheets must be balanced and every costly payment is met with an equal reward. We don’t need to be taught that. We’ve known that from the first moment we knew ourselves.

Ask any child who knows his or her own name how old they are, and they will proudly show you on their fingers. Chances are, they’ll tack on a fraction to let you know they’re even older—not just four, but four and a half. If their parents have made a habit of measuring their height, then they’re sure to know that too. I remember just how important my height was back in the days when I wanted to ride rollercoasters like the Rebel Yell and the Shock Wave at Kings Dominion.

Through numbers and counting, children learn to measure themselves. Soon enough, through this same system of numbers, they learn to measure the world. Perhaps they are given an allowance, or a small payoff for chores, and they discover that this amount will only buy them so much.

I’ve been wondering lately if it’s not through counting that we as children are inducted into the ways of the world. Through counting, we learn to assign value to ourselves and to the world—sometimes in superficial ways, such as age and height, but sometimes in much more consequential ways, such as when we measure a man or woman by the number on his paycheck or the square footage of her house. Through counting, we learn to measure our own deeds. What is the cost of this action? What is the payoff? Is it worth it?

It’s a curious question to ask: why do we count? The temperature? The sports scores? The cost of a ticket? When I ask myself this question, and follow my answer as far as I can, I nearly always end up at myself, at my own interests.

Counting comes down to the question of what’s good for me. I am the bottom line. Counting is the language of self-interest.

A Different Way of Counting— 

Or Not Counting at All 

To a world that lives by counting, Jesus insists on a very different way of life. To follow him, to step foot into the kingdom that he is proclaiming, we must count a different way—or perhaps not count at all—because one thing is for sure: Jesus is not counting the way we do. Our family, he says today, counts for nothing (14:26). All our possessions count for nothing (14:33). Even our lives themselves count for nothing (14:26).

To the world, this way of counting—or not counting—is foolishness. And if we should want to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt, to pardon him a single moment of madness, we will have no such luck. Because this is the way he is always counting. According to Jesus, two small coins count more than all the gifts of the rich people (21:1-4). According to Jesus, you should forgive someone not just once or twice or even seven times, but seventy times seven times, which is another way of saying until you lose count (Matt 18:21-22; cf. Luke 17:4). According to Jesus, the wages for a single hour of work are the same count as the wages for a full day’s work (Matt 20:1-16). According to Jesus, one sheep counts more than 99 (Luke 15:3-7).

If Jesus ever visited Sesame Street, he and the Count would have a lot to talk about.

“Stop Counting” 

When Jesus tells the two stories about the builder deciding to build and the king deciding to go to war, what is his point? Is he telling us that these decisions are like the decision to follow him? Is he telling us that we need to count the cost? Is this a bit of divine parenting, an invitation for us to check the piggy bank of our soul to see if we’ve got enough?

I’m not so sure. Jesus’ strange way of counting leads me to think he’s saying more than simply, “Count the cost.” In fact, part of me wonders if he’s not saying something more like the opposite: “There’s no counting to be done here.” Whenever I count, I’m focused on myself. I am the bottom line. And so Jesus says to me, “Stop counting. Step outside yourself—out of all that you count as your life.”

Or as he actually says in the passage: “Carry the cross” (cf. 14:27)—which is a way of saying, don’t live for yourself, or for your possessions, which are a part of yourself, or even for your family, which is also a part of yourself. Live for others.

How Not to Count 

In his book, In His Steps, Charles Sheldon tells the story of a young woman, Virginia, who lends a helping hand to Loreen, a town tramp. Virginia welcomes the drunken and unwashed Loreen into her home to help her get back on her feet. The trouble is, however, that Virginia’s grandmother also lives with her, and her grandmother is repulsed by the idea of this unkempt woman staying even one night under the same roof. Virginia’s grandmother counts the cost—and finds it way too high. But Virginia is not counting at all. She’s not thinking about herself but about Loreen. Listen to a snippet of their conversation:

“You shall not do this, Virginia,” the grandmother says. “You can send her to the asylum for helpless women. We can pay all the expenses. We cannot afford, for the sake of our reputations, to shelter such a person.”

“Grandmother, I do not wish to do anything that is displeasing to you; but I am going to keep Loreen here to-night, and longer if I think it is best.”

“Then you can answer for the consequences! I do not stay in the same house with a miserable—” and here the grandmother is lost for words.

“Grandmother, this house is mine. It is your home with me as long as you choose to remain…. I am willing to bear all that society may say or do. Society is not my God. By the side of this poor, lost soul, I do not count the verdict of society as of any value.”

“I shall not remain here, then,” her grandmother replies. “You can always remember that you have driven your grandmother out of your house in favor of a drunken woman.”[1]

A World of Love 

This is a painful exchange, and one that captures well what Jesus means when he talks about hating your family. It’s not literal hate. It’s the step that a follower of Jesus must take, a step from the land of self-interest—whether that’s family or possessions or one’s reputation in society—into the kingdom, where the self is second place to the other, where counting no longer dictates our lives. While Virginia’s grandmother counts the cost of hospitality and finds it unbearable, Virginia simply lives for Doreen.

As long as we live by counting, the gospel will always sound like a threat. It will always sound like a costly exchange, like a payment followed by a payoff. But I have a hunch that that’s not how Jesus intends for it to be heard. I have a hunch that in the kingdom there is no counting. There is no self, no me, no I, that is tallying up what matters and doesn’t, who matters and doesn’t, like family or possessions. And if there is no counting, then the gospel is not a threat but indeed good news—the best news. In a kingdom where there is no counting, we live not for ourselves, but for each other, and that means that everybody, from family to stranger, has literally an entire world of love raising them to new life.

Prayer 

God,

Whose love cannot be counted—

Haunt the equations by which we live.

Lead us beyond costs and payoffs,

So that we may live not for ourselves,

And not for a reward in the future,

But for the kingdom in the here and now,

Among family and stranger and enemy alike. Amen.

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[1] Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2010; orig., Chicago: Advanced, 1897), 94.  Emphasis mine.