"Turn Your Hearts Inside Out" (Luke 11:37-44)

The Loneliness of the Screen

No one knows exactly when Yvette died. “According to the Los Angeles coroner’s report, she lay dead for the better part of a year before a neighbor and fellow actress…noticed cobwebs and yellowing letters in her mailbox, reached through a broken window to unlock the door, and pushed her way through the piles of junk mail and mounds of clothing that barricaded the house. Upstairs, she found [Yvette’s] body, mummified, near a heater that was still running. Her computer was on too, its glow permeating the empty space.”[1]

Yvette Vickers had once attracted the attention of many people as a Playboy playmate and B-movie star, famous for her roles in horror movies, such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. She had been famous as a young woman. Yet she died in utter obscurity. No one noticed when she stopped leaving her home. No one noticed when she stopped tending to her yard. At the height of her life, you would have thought she was well known. At the end, it became much clearer that she was not known at all.

Yvette had no children, no religious community, no immediate social group of any kind. Her neighbor who discovered her body later told Los Angeles magazine that she had looked through Yvette’s phone bills for clues that could explain such a lonely existence. She discovered that “in the months before her grotesque death, Vickers had made calls not to friends or family but to distant fans who had found her through fan conventions and Internet sites.”[2]

There is a tragic symmetry in Yvette’s life. She had gained notoriety on the silver screen. And she died unknown in front of a glowing screen. The screen had promised connection, and for a short time it had seemed to deliver on that promise, but it had in fact left her lonely and unknown. Her death is arguably more haunting than any of the horror movies in which she starred, because it strikes so close to home in our world filled with screens. Who among us hasn’t been caught staring into that little rectangle in our hands? And is it a coincidence that new research is suggesting we live in a lonelier and more narcissistic world than ever before? Some people blame cell phones and tablets and social media for our increasing detachment and division, and it’s true that some people are literally dying because of it—looking at the screen instead of the road, paying attention to fantasy instead of reality. But our ancestors in the Christian tradition would probably point out that technology is just a tool that we use to accomplish the desires of our heart. The real reason for our loneliness is not some external device. The real reason resides within us, in a harmful thought.

That thought, which the desert fathers and mothers identified as “vainglory,” goes something like this: Being seen will make me belong. Being admired will mean I am accepted. Being noticed will make me known. But as the word itself suggests, glory in the eyes of others is ultimately an empty (“vain”) reward. Being noticed is not the same as being known.

Like Looking in a Mirror: The Pharisees

A couple of weeks ago at the Lenten Bible study, we looked closely at the Pharisees—and discovered that, in some ways, we were looking into a mirror! It’s true that in the gospels, the Pharisees are often painted in a negative light, as legalistic and self-righteous, smug and superior. But then that is also how Christians are sometimes seen by the world. Much that has been said about Pharisees in the gospels, has also been said about Christians in our own newspapers. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the word “churchy”? It’s usually spoken with negative connotations. Someone who is “churchy” believes they’re always in the right, knows what’s best for everyone else, and is closed off to the world around them. Sort of like our stereotypical Pharisee.

If we read the gospels closely, we can begin to discern what most historians would tell us, which is that the Pharisees were actually among the most respected Jewish practitioners of their day. They were the ones who took their faith seriously, who lived as though God mattered. They were the ones who showed up first at the synagogue and helped to set up. They were the ones patiently teaching the children. They were the big donors, the ones who tithed regularly. They were the ones who knew scripture inside and out, who could pray the right prayer and make everyone feel at ease. The Pharisees were the guys you could trust, the good old boys you could rely on when there was a need in the community. In fact, it’s a group of Pharisees who warn Jesus that Herod intends to kill him (Luke 13:31). So before we leap to any judgments, we should remember that the Pharisees are not Jesus’ enemies. They’re his Jewish brothers, who share his concern for the kingdom of God.

Outside and Inside

But today’s scripture reveals that the Pharisees—and faithful folks like ourselves—sometimes get turned around in their priorities. The story begins, as so many with Jesus do, around a table. A Pharisee has invited Jesus to dine with him. Now, the Jewish law never mandates washing before a meal. Only the priests must wash before serving at the altar (Ex 30:19-20). But the Pharisees, who are a movement of the lay people, have assumed this practice for themselves as a symbolic reminder that we are all ministers of God, called liked priests to be pure and holy. So Luke tells us that the Pharisee is “amazed” when Jesus does not wash before dinner. Presumably he’s keeping this observation to himself, being gracious in his behavior while judging Jesus in his heart.

But Jesus picks up on the Pharisee’s judgment. Perhaps he notices the Pharisee looking quizzically at his hands, or perhaps he notices an awkward pause before the meal, while the Pharisee waits for Jesus to wash up. Well, Jesus gets to scrubbing pretty quickly, but it’s of the heart, not the hands. He addresses the Pharisee’s vainglory. He points out that the Pharisees often care more about what other people think, than they care about other people. On the outside, they do everything that is right, everything that will win them honor in the synagogue and respect in the marketplace (cf. 11:43). But within, there lingers greed and wickedness. In truth, they care only for themselves, not for others.

Your Pockets and Your Hearts

The result, according to Jesus, is tragic—not unlike the tragedy that befell Yvette in front of her glowing computer screen. Jesus repeatedly proclaims “woe” to the Pharisees, an expression that was commonly employed at funerals (11:42-44). Indeed, Jesus concludes his lament by comparing the Pharisees to “unmarked graves” (11:44). To live in vainglory—to thirst for attention, to pursue praise, to strive to be right or beautiful or pure in the eyes of others—is to be like one of the living dead. An empty shell. Why? Because, quite simply, others never get to know the real me. I am putting on a show, whether I’m on a screen or in front of people’s eyes; and even if people love it, their love never comes close to touching me, in all my humble limits and quirks and interests and failures, all that I am. It is a horror story like Yvette’s, to be so seen and so visible, and yet so unknown and so disconnected.

Amid his many laments, Jesus does offer the Pharisee (and us) one word of hope. And it’s a curious expression: “Give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you” (11:41). I like Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase: “Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out!” There’s no doubt that many Pharisees turned their pockets inside out when it mattered, when people were looking. But their hearts? Are “churchy” people known for sharing their weakness and vulnerabilities? Their doubts and uncertainties? Are they known for listening (because maybe they need help too)? Are they known for being gracious and admitting their mistakes and changing their ways?

Honesty and Being Known

One of the reasons I love the desert fathers and mothers, those Christ-followers who left the civilized world in order to unlearn its ways and to learn the way of Christ, is their honesty. There’s a story of a man who is plagued by temptations. He hurries off to an elder and asks what he must do to be saved. The elder responds, “How should I know? I have been on the path for years, and just this morning I was tempted myself. Therefore, we must pray and trust in God’s help.” This old monk did not trot out some pious platitude to demonstrate his wisdom. He bared his own struggle, turned his heart inside out. He gave the younger man what he could, which may not seem like very much. But in fact it was more precious than gold. It was his faith that what mattered most was not honor in the church or respect in the marketplace, but being known in all his weakness by the love of God.

The thing about vainglory is that it promises something that is good, something that we need. It promises being known and accepted. But as the stories of Yvette and the Pharisee remind me, I will never be known or accepted as long as I am posturing or pretending. The difficulty about becoming honest and turning my heart inside out, is that I risk dishonor or disapproval in the judging eyes of my peers. But when I take the risk, I discover something much better than short-lived fame or the fleeting, fickle attention of others. I discover that I am fully known and loved, by God, and by all who bear God’s love. I discover that I am not alone.

I guarantee you: that older monk, when he was honest, strengthened his connection with God and with his brother.

Prayer

Innermost God,
Who dwells within our hearts—
Sometimes you feel so distant
Because we are so distant
From our own heart
…
Help us to live honestly
That we might be known and embraced by your love;
And that we might bear witness to its goodness.
In Christ, whose love raises us to life: Amen.

---

[1] Stephen Marche, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/, accessed March 20, 2023.

[2] Marche, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”

"Distracted by Many Things" (Luke 10:38-42)

Everything but the Thing Itself

Sometimes when I sit down to write, I suddenly find myself with a craving for coffee. So I fix myself a cup. And as I take my first sip, I think maybe a little quiet music would help ease me into the writing process. So I start playing some music in the background. But something’s not quite right. Maybe I’m not in the mood for guitar. Maybe I’d like some piano instead? So, after trying another two or three albums, I settle on a selection of quiet piano music. Now what was I doing? Oh yes, writing! But maybe I’m not quite prepared for the subject. Maybe I need a little more inspiration. So, I open an internet browser and begin scrolling through the days’ headlines. Ooh! I see something about a new breakfast restaurant opening up nearby, and I find myself craving something to go along with my coffee. Maybe just a piece of toast and some jam. After all, I am writing. It’s not time for a meal.

You can probably see where this turn of events is taking me. I have sat down to write…and promptly done everything but write. I never make an overt decision not to write. I just keep preparing, or fine-tuning, until the thing itself—writing—has gotten away from me.

Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Have you ever unintentionally distracted yourself from what you needed to do? Our unconscious minds can be pretty clever. Maybe your task is to do some yard work, but you end up deciding you need new tools first. The trip to the hardware store evolves into an afternoon of trivial errands, and you never get around to the yard work. Or maybe you know it’s time to have a certain conversation with someone. You pick up your phone and wander onto Facebook to check up on the person to whom you’ll be speaking. Before you know it, an hour has gone by and you’re off somewhere else on the internet watching videos of cats and dogs doing crazy things.

Acedia

What is it that keeps us from doing what we are called to do? The earliest followers of Christ identified a deadly thought at the root of much of our distracted behavior. It eventually came to be known as sloth, but that word can be misleading. Today sloth is equated with laziness, with moving slowly and not getting things done. But what the earliest Christians have in mind is not a laziness of the hands, but a laziness of the heart. They originally called the deadly thought acedia, which comes from a Greek root that means “a lack of care,” and they recognized that acedia often manifests itself in busyness. Idleness is not the only path of avoidance. Another way to avoid what you need to do, is to do everything else.

In Christian tradition, sloth is not being lazy about work. It is being lazy about love. It’s a lack of care, whether through sluggishness or busy distraction.

Of Distraction and Diligence

I would imagine that most readers of today’s scripture, if they accused anyone of sloth, would accuse Mary. Martha certainly accuses her. Having welcomed Jesus into her home, Martha makes busy around the house, presumably preparing food and making sure everyone is comfortable—doing everything a good host would do. Her sister, Mary, just sits at Jesus’ feet. So Martha asks, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?” (Luke 10:40).

Jesus’ response capsizes Martha’s expectations and perhaps our own. Listen closely to how he gently chides Martha. He does not tell her that what she has been doing is wrong. He does not tell her that she should stop readying refreshments. His diagnosis has not to do with her hands, but her heart. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted” (10:41). It does not take much work to imagine what thoughts are distracting Martha, because we’ve all been there. When we become resentful about how hard the work is, how little help there is, how long it will take, or how it will never get done, then we are distracted—and liable to become lazy about love, to become overwhelmed and dispirited, to say, “This is too much. No one cares. Why do I care?” Martha may be a flurry of activity and she may be doing things that need to be done, but her busyness is poisoned by sloth. She is not acting from love, out of care for others, but rather in a distracted spirit of self-concern.

In Christian tradition, the remedy for the distraction of sloth is diligence. If diligence sounds rugged and painstaking, like something you do with a white-knuckled grip and gritted teeth, it may help to know that its roots are in the Latin verb diligere, which simply means “to value” or “to love.” In other words, the opposite of sloth is not hard work but loving devotion. I am reminded that Jesus himself characterizes his way as gentle and humble (cf. Matt 11:29), and so I wonder if diligence is about simply doing the one thing that you’re doing, with love. “There is need of only one thing,” Jesus says (10:42). I wonder if diligence is about not being distracted, but just doing one thing at a time with love, trusting God with the result.

A couple weeks ago, the Lenten Bible Study group read the story of Martha and Mary, and we could sympathize with Martha because much of what she was doing, probably needed to be done. So part of me wonders if Jesus is not calling Martha to sit at his feet in the same manner as Mary, but rather to cook and to prepare diligently, which is to say, to do one thing at a time with love, appreciating that it may take a little longer, and it may taste a little rushed, and the presentation may be a bit skewed, but all of that is fine because her diligence is allowing others like Mary to rest and to learn at the feet of Jesus.

She Didn’t Always Work, but She Always Cared

This past week, I heard a story that exemplifies diligence. It’s a story about a woman who experienced much hardship but was able to do what needed doing because love was the reason. Love gave her strength.

When Fannie was just a child, the daughter of black sharecroppers in early twentieth-century Mississippi, she noticed some striking differences between the black and white people in her community. When she was in the field, she saw black folks working hard. When she went to town, she saw white folks spending money and enjoying little comforts and pleasures that she barely knew, such as eating cracker-jacks or drinking a soda. One day when she was thirteen, she observed, “White people have everything,” and then she asked her mother a freighted question: “How come we isn’t white?” Her mother answered, “You don’t understand now, but you will. There’s nothing wrong with you being black. If God had wanted you to be another color, you’d be another color. Don’t be ashamed of being black. Respect yourself as a child, and when you get older, respect yourself as a black woman.” A little bit later, her mother gave her a black doll. It was the only doll that Fannie ever owned.[1]

This little girl grew to become a pivotal leader in the Civil Rights movement. We all know about Martin Luther King, Jr., but fewer people know about the tireless Fannie Lou Hamer, who traveled across Mississippi and the South to encourage black folks to register to vote. For her efforts, she endured unspeakable trauma. One day after speaking to people on the streets, she was imprisoned without cause for a night, and the police officers forced two black inmates to beat her to within an inch of her life. Afterward, one of the officers raped her.

She had plenty of reason to stop, or to become bitter and wonder if it really mattered, but she did not. She cared too much for the dignity of her black brothers and sisters. For this reason, she worked hard. But she also rested and waited. She knew the joy of front porches, where one would sit and watch and talk and listen. She knew the joy of kitchens, cooking, tasting, sharing, eating. She was the antithesis of sloth. Not because she was always working, but because she always cared. Sometimes care sits and listens, sometimes it walks countless miles on a hard road.

When I look at someone like Fannie Lou Hamer, I see someone full of care. To begin with, she knew she was cared for; her mother made sure of that. As a result, she was inspired and empowered to care for others. I see in her someone who was diligent, not distracted, someone who could do the one thing she was doing, who could cook when she was cooking, who could sit when she was sitting, who could speak so honestly and inspiringly when she was speaking. Her life had its share of difficulties, but because she was cared for and because she cared, she never became lazy about love. Whatever she did, she did diligently—which is to say, she did it with love.

Prayer

Caring God,
Who proclaims,
“You are my beloved child,
With whom I am well pleased”—
When we are fatigued by our desire for results,
And would prefer distraction over diligence,
Direct us toward the gentle and humble way of Christ
…
So that we may not give up;
So that we may do small things
With great love. In Christ, our brother: Amen.

---

[1] Carlton Winfrey, “Daughter of Civil Rights Icon Fannie Lou Hamer Honors Her Mother’s Legacy,” The Seattle Times, March 10, 2023; accessed at https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/daughter-of-civil-rights-icon-fannie-lou-hamer-honors-her-mothers-legacy/, March 12, 2023; Diana Butler Bass on Homebrewed Christianity podcast, February 28, 2023; accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUtjEgKi4D4&t=63s, March 12, 2023.

"He Became Angry and Refused to Go In" (Luke 15:25-32)

Always in the Right

These last couple of weeks, I have spent more time than usual with my twin four-year-old nephews, Nathan and Matthew. I’ve built a lot of towers with blocks. I’ve make-believed a lot of visits to the restaurant. And I’ve played a lot of games: board games, guessing games, run-around-outside games. Nathan and Matthew love life right now, and I love it sharing it with them. And as I watch them, I regularly glean insight into myself because they are like me, but they’re more transparent. They don’t hide their feelings as much. Their desires are a little more obvious.

One thing that I’ve observed, is the rather one-sided nature of their justice system. Each one of them is always in the right! When there is a dispute of ownership, I hear angry complaints and accusations, “But it’s mine! I was playing with it first!” Yet moments later, the helpless victim becomes the offender. And when he is confronted with his wrongdoing, there appears on his face a look of pure innocence, as he justifies his behavior in the most creative of ways. “Oh, well, Uncle Jonny…he doesn’t really want to play with this toy. I think he wants to play with that toy!” All of this while his brother smolders and looks with envy at the toy that has been taken from his hand. Needless to say, stories like this one do not hold up in the court of Uncle Jonny.

Life Is Not Fair!

So, when I read today’s scripture, I am convicted. Because I am not sure that the case of the prodigal son would hold up in the court of Uncle Jonny either. Of course, this fraternal conflict has escalated way beyond a disputed toy. It is a matter of disputed inheritance. The dutiful older brother has watched his younger brother disrespect his father by demanding his inheritance early. He has watched him waste his inheritance in shameful behavior, bringing dishonor to the family’s name. But when he returns, his father gives him still more. I hope we can all be honest enough to sympathize a little with the older brother, because I think we all probably feel the same way from time to time. Life just isn’t fair!

According to the desert tradition of early Christianity, anger is the deadly thought that life should be fair. Good deeds should meet with reward, bad deeds should meet with punishment. The catch is that anger always presumes itself to be the proper judge. What is easy to spot in four-year-olds, may be a bit more difficult to spot in ourselves, but it’s true of anger at any age. The angry person is always in the right. Just a coincidence?

A close cousin of anger is envy, or what the desert tradition originally identified simply as sadness. Envy is the peculiar sadness that originates in another person’s blessing or success. Usually operating by means of comparison and competition, envy feels “less than” because someone else has more. It is the deadly thought that we are the center of the universe, the standard by which life ought to be dealt out. Notice how the older brother weighs his younger brother’s behavior up against his own and finds it wanting.

But his envy and his anger distort reality. The older brother feels like a slave, like life is all work, no reward. He is blind to his father’s love: all the meals prepared for him, all the wisdom shared with him, companionship in days of difficulty—everything his brother had lived without. He has forgotten all of this.

If we boil them down, anger and envy behave in the world a little bit like a petty police officer who has taken something personally, who cannot see the bigger picture. Their concern is not the wellbeing of everyone. Their concern is the settlement of a personal grievance. The tragic result is what I saw in my nephews. One becomes angry and refuses to play with the other. We see the same tragic result in Jesus’ parable. “He became angry and refused to go in” (15:28). Envy and anger hold us back from God’s feast, God’s table of reconciliation. They hold us back from relationship, from communion, from the joy of God’s salvation.

Acceptance

If anger and envy behave a little bit like a narrow-minded cop, then what is the opposite? How does God respond to the hurt and conflict in our world? There are two divine metaphors that predominate in scripture. There is the divine shepherd who cares for all his flock. And there is the divine parent: several times scripture compares God to a mother eagle (e.g., Isa 31:5), and Jesus regularly refers to God as a loving father. So maybe our image of God is one practical place to begin repenting from anger and envy. How do we see God? As a cosmic cop, out to write tickets and dole out punishments? If this is the case, then we may be predisposed to anger and envy. We may risk reducing God to a spiritual sidekick who validates our self-centered agendas.  But what if we were to know God as a parent, who cares for her all her children?

The Desert tradition of early Christianity proposes two remedies for envy and anger: kindness for envy and patience for anger. At their root, kindness and patience are what we might call acceptance. Acceptance of God’s kingdom in place of our own. Accepting God’s kingdom means accepting that life is not fair, as Jesus makes clear in his parables. There is the wasteful son who is embraced and given everything; there is the worker who receives for one hour the same wages as the one who worked all day. That life is not fair is also made clear in the beatitudes, where Jesus declares blessing for the poor and the persecuted and the grieving, everyone who seems to have ended up on the wrong side of life. Accepting that life is not fair is not, however, just a passive resignation. It is an active trust in the divine parent who loves and cares for us all. It is accepting that God’s justice is not fairness but grace. It does not happen through force, but through love. It does not happen with a sword or a gun, but with a cross—one that we are all called to bear in love.

Right or Happy?

I want to share one other observation from my extended time with my nephews. One afternoon, I went to wake them up from their nap. As I opened the door, I was immediately given a fright. Nathan was not in his bed. Nor could I find him anywhere else in the room! But before my worry could grow into outright terror, I spotted two lumps underneath the blankets in Matthew’s bed. Nathan had crawled out of his bed and joined his brother. They looked as though they might have in the womb, both curled against one another, both faces content and at rest. It was perhaps the happiest I’d seen them.

And I thought of that old saying, “Would you rather be right or happy?” Because being right all the time is an exhausting and lonely endeavor. Just look at the older brother, filled with envy and anger, feeling like a slave. The older brother in Jesus’ parable is right in every way, yet he is bitterly unhappy. His story is a tragedy. He refuses to go into his father’s home because life isn’t fair.

It is a helpful lesson for us who may occasionally confuse ourselves as always being in the right. The kingdom of God is not about fairness and a God who measures out consequences. It is better than that. The kingdom of God is about justice. It is a kingdom where God the loving parent seeks the wellbeing of all his children, where consequences do not have the final word. It is a kingdom where the offended are blessed and lifted up, where the offenders are forgiven and invited back into the fullness of life. It is a kingdom that happens not by force but by nurture and care, like a seed planted and watered and tended, as it grows and grows.

To repent from anger and envy, to begin thinking differently, I am encouraged to ask myself a couple of questions. First, the tried and true: “Would I rather be right or happy?” (And I might find it helpful to remember Nathan and Matthew, how they were happiest when they were together.) And as I take a deep breath, and as I  remember that I’m not the center of the universe and it’s not all about me, I may ask myself a second question: “Would I rather live in God’s kingdom or my own?”

Prayer

God of infinite nurture,
Like a mother eagle brooding upon her young,
Like a loving father who declares,
“Child, you are always with me,
And all that is mine is yours”—
Soften our hearts
To let go of our ways
Of comparison, judgment, and retribution
…
And to accept your strange ways
Of love and grace.
In Christ, brother of all: Amen.

"No Longer Worthy?" (Luke 15:11-24)

A Long Christmas List…

One of the Christmas stories in Kruschwitz family lore that generates shudders from my parents and laughter from my brother and me, has to do with when my brother Curt was a young child. Apparently he would write a note each year to send to the North Pole. And each year he received what he’d asked for. The story goes that his first few requests were modest. One year he asked for a soccer ball. The next he asked for a book series. But as each wish was fulfilled, the little gears started turning in little Curt’s head. Everything he asked for, he got. Why settle for one or two gifts? Why not ask for more? And so the next time Christmas came around, little Curt shot the moon…and sent my parents into a veritable state of panic! The latest game console, a collection of soccer gear, toys, clothes—anything my brother could think of, went onto that list. I won’t go into the details of how that Christmas ended, other than to say that my parents had to sit my brother down for an honest little chat about Santa Claus and the virtue of modesty. After all, Santa has millions of children to take care of.

My family can laugh at that memory because the desire for more things is relatable. And in little children, it’s cute and comical. It has not yet grown into a voracious, destructive habit of the heart. It’s nothing like what we see in today’s scripture.

Choosing Things over Relationships

The story that Jesus tells is known today as the parable of the prodigal son. But we could just as easily call it the parable of the greedy son, because the son’s brash demand for his inheritance boils greed down to its essence. Greed is choosing things over relationships. It is choosing wealth, possessions, materials, over people. It is nothing like a little child asking for toys, a little child who takes it for granted that what is most important is his loving family. The prodigal son—the greedy son—is making a clear choice. He wants his inheritance, not his father. Some scholars have suggested that the son’s demand for inheritance is equivalent to telling his father, “You are dead to me.”

But as the son leaves with his sudden fortune, he is not happy. Greed is never satisfied; it always wants more. And so we find the greedy son squandering his fortune, pursuing pleasure and seeking the best money can buy. Later in the story, his older brother will accuse him of squandering his money on prostitutes, in which case his greed would have been exchanged for lust. If greed is the deadly thought that things will make us happy and whole, then lust is its close cousin, the deadly thought that people are things. Lust sees bodies but not hearts. Like greed, lust seeks personal gratification rather than an interpersonal relationship.

Degrading Thoughts

But lust leaves the greedy son just as unsatisfied as before. So, as his circumstances get worse, he finds himself thinking about home. He hatches the idea of returning. But listen closely to his idea and you will see the tragic consequences of greed and lust. He plans to tell his father, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands” (Luke 15:19). I’ve heard greed and lust described as degrading, but rarely have I thought about what that actually means. Greed and lust both devalue us. Greed locates value in things, not in people. Naturally, the greedy son has long lost any sense of his own value or worthiness. Lust does the same thing, as it drains the world of relationship and any sense of the heart’s value. The novelist Alan Paton gives a heartrending depiction of how lust can leave a person feeling worthless. Listen to this short excerpt that shares the feelings of a man who has committed adultery with a young woman late at night in a vacant lot outside town:

His body and clothes stank with the smell of weeds, and the stinking was a symbol of his corruption…. And he thought…of his children with special agony, for what kind of man would destroy what he had created, and hurt what he had loved? … What madness makes a man pursue something so unspeakable, deaf to the cries of his wife and children and mother and friends and blind to their danger, to grasp one unspeakable pleasure that brought no joy, ten thousand of which pleasures were not worth one of the hairs on his children’s heads? Such desire could not surely be a desire of the flesh, but some mad desire of a sick and twisted soul. And why should I have this desire? he asked himself. Where did it come from? And how did one cure it? But he had no answers to these questions….[1]

“Son of Mine!”

Christian tradition does offer a couple of answers: generosity as a cure for greed, and chastity as a cure for lust. But I like Jesus’ parable even more than these answers, because it shows us that the real remedy is not just something we work out on our own, but something that God is working on our behalf.

Imagine with me our lost son, covered in shame and regret, trudging home. He walks past a puddle and winces at the sight of his muddy reflection. A history of fevered daydreams and half-remembered nights haunts him, and he feels worthless. With his head pointed down, he doesn’t even see his father running toward him. When he looks up, he can barely believe his eyes. He finds himself fully embraced and kissed by his tearful father. He blubbers out his apology and his own unworthiness, only to hear his father calling out for a celebratory feast—“for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” (Luke 15:24). His father does not chastise him for how badly he messed up. He does not instruct him to make amends. He embraces him and calls him, “Son of mine!”

What this story suggests to me is that the first step to repenting from greed or lust, the first step in thinking differently, is simply to learn that we are loved. We are worthy of love. Not because of what we’ve done, but because of who we are: God’s beloved children.

A Teacher Learns the Most Important Lesson

How do we learn that we are loved?

Recently a Harvard research project published a book called The Good Life. The project had studied the same individuals and families for over 80 years, trying to determine how happy they were and why. Their primary conclusion is that happiness has one key predictor: relationships. The authors tell the story of two men: one was a very successful lawyer, and the other took a second-choice career as a high school teacher.  The lawyer made tons of money, was respected widely, and had the means to do just about anything he wanted. The teacher, on the other hand, was more strapped for cash but had a network of close friendships through his students and their families and his role in the community. What fascinated me most were these two men’s answers to a series of true/false questions when they were 55 years old, at the height of their professional lives. The lawyer indicated by his answers that life has more pain than pleasure, and that he often felt starved for affection. The teacher indicated the opposite: life has more pleasure than pain, and he did not often feel starved for affection.

Somehow, the teacher had learned the most important lesson. He had learned that he was loved. How? I can’t help but think it was because he had chosen relationships over things. Not all at once, of course. But over time he came to see that his many friendships—with his wife, his family, his students, his colleagues—these were what made his life good.

I’m sure that, like anyone else, he was visited by thoughts of greed and lust. But he could say “No.” Because he was already “home,” so to speak, surrounded by family. He was already sitting at his father’s banquet table, where he knew himself to be worthy of love.

Prayer

Compassionate God,
Who calls us his own—
Help us, like the wayward son,
To wake up to the futility
Of our pursuit of things
…
Lift our eyes from shame to grace,
To see your feast prepared for us.
May your love be our joy and our salvation. 

In Christ, who guides us home.

---

[1] Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope (New York: Scribner, 1996), 154, 163, 200.

"Not by Bread Alone" (Luke 4:1-13)

We’re All Cookie Monsters

Recently my nephews have started watching Sesame Street. I know my brother was excited at this development. “This is great,” he thought. “It’s not just entertainment. They’ll actually learn some good life skills.” What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was their new obsession with cookies. They love Cookie Monster. After a show finishes, they run around the pantry like little monsters themselves, screaming, “Me want cookie!” It’s gotten so bad that some mornings the first thing they ask for when they wake up is a cookie.

As I pause to think about it, their behavior is no surprise. Cookie Monster himself has a problem. A problem with cookies. A couple of weeks ago, in a Valentine’s Day episode, Cookie Monster’s obsession is front and center. In a spoof on the popular teen series Twilight, Cookie Monster is dressed up as a vampire and has a decision to make. Does he marry his true love Bella, or does he obey his inner thirst for cookies? Every time he gets close to love, he’s tempted by the smell of cookies and abandons Bella altogether. It’s funny…because it’s true. We’ve all been there. All of us have habits, pleasures, temptations, that distract us from what matters most. In a sense, we all have a bit of Cookie Monster in us, whether it’s cookies we turn to or something else.

“All I’m Living For”

Consider Bob, as he fidgets on the couch, waiting for his therapist to look up from her computer and begin their session. Finally, she lifts her head and smiles. “So, how have you been, Bob?”

“Worse than ever,” he responds. A cascade of grievances quickly follows. “My manager at work has been a real jerk lately. I swear, he’s completely forgotten what it’s like to work on the floor. Or maybe he remembers, and he’s just taking pleasure in making us suffer.”

“Hmm. How is he making you suffer?

“Well, for example, our lunch breaks are only thirty minutes long, but it takes five minutes to cross the campus to the cafeteria. I feel like I’m being cheated out of a real lunch.”

The therapist nods, “I could understand that feeling. How do you deal with it?”

“I don’t know. Lately, I’ve been chewing gum on the job, or sometimes even tobacco—just to feel like I’m eating. I mean, I deserve more than twenty minutes.” The therapist nods but stays silent. Bob continues, “Leaving work and going home is no better. My wife is constantly nagging me about our finances and asking when we can afford a move out of our current dump of a home.”

The therapist gives another sympathetic nod. “Hmm…I imagine that’s hard to hear. Do you find yourself avoiding her now?”

“We still eat dinner together,” Bob says in feeble protest.

“How are your dinners together?”

“I don’t know. I find ways to tolerate them. I enjoy a beer. Sometimes I grab an extra handful of chips or whatever snack we have around.”

“Hmm. You don’t enjoy what your wife is saying, so you find other things that you do enjoy?”

Bob shrugs. “I guess you could put it like that.” After another silence, he says, “Only after she goes to bed do I have any real peace. I mean, I should probably go to bed too. I’m always tired. But that little sliver of the day that I have to myself—it’s all I’m living for right now. I grab another beer and another handful of chips, and I sit down in front of the television where I can laugh at some other people’s problems for a few minutes. It may not be much, but I wouldn’t give this time up for anything.”

Feeding Our Face, Starving Our Heart

Long ago, in the third and fourth centuries, a number of Christ-followers in Egypt and the Near East left civilization and went to live in the wilderness. They recognized that the world around them lived according to some unhealthy patterns of thinking, and they took seriously the call of Christ to repent, or “think again.” They wanted to unlearn unhealthy thought patterns and learn instead what Paul calls “the mind of Christ.” These Desert Christians developed a rich tradition that identified eight “deadly thoughts” (which would eventually become popularized as the “seven deadly vices”). Over this season of Lent, we will explore each of these deadly thoughts: how they distort life and disconnect us from God and others, and how Jesus shows us the way back to God and our true selves.

This Sunday we’re exploring the deadly thought of gluttony. Today, many people think of a glutton as someone who eats excessively. But that idea can be a convenient way to avoid or deny our own struggle with gluttony. In the Christian tradition, gluttony has nothing to do with our weight. It has to do with our heart. Gluttony is any preoccupation with food. A picky eater, an anorexic food-avoider, a compulsive snacker—all of these people struggle with gluttony. The common denominator is an obsession with food. Gluttony is thinking that our appetite is the key to becoming happy and whole.

Think back to Bob for a moment. He is not a glutton in the popular sense of the word. What is so insidious about gluttony is how innocent it can appear. (“Just turn a few rocks into bread,” the devil tells Jesus. “Escape reality for just a second. What’s the harm?”) For Bob, gluttony isn’t even on the radar. But for the therapist who is listening closely, it is the common thread in how he responds to all his anxieties. He’s unhappy with his boss and his lack of lunch time, so he compensates with chewing gum or tobacco. He finds conversation with his wife difficult, so he offsets the struggle with a little extra junk food. He’s tired and run down, so he seeks peace in a solitary beer in front of the television. Bob may not even realize it, but his compulsive snacking reveals a repeated thought, namely, “I am having some difficult feelings, but the pleasure of eating will solve them. If I satisfy my appetite, I will be safe and happy.”

But as Bob’s own testimony makes abundantly clear, he is feeling neither safe nor happy. Why? Because as he is feeding his face, he is starving his heart.[1] Gluttony thinks that pleasing our appetite will satisfy our soul. The irony is that when we act on this train of thought, we often find ourselves deeply unhappy. Not only does the food itself become less and less of a pleasure, but we are also neglecting the things that really matter. Bob has given up on his relationships; he’s not taking care of himself and allowing himself enough sleep; he is living without any meaningful purpose. In a word, he has lost his sense of self-worth.

He is the opposite of Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus has struggles of his own, not least of which is going without food for forty days. But when the devil confronts him and suggests turning a few rocks into bread, Jesus recognizes the idea for what it really is. A rejection of reality. Those are stones, not bread. Jesus can say no because he is nourished by more than just food. His heart is already full and satisfied as with a rich feast. Just moments before being led into the wilderness, he hears a voice from heaven at his baptism, saying, “You are my beloved son” (3:22). What gives Jesus life is not a momentary pleasure, a small escape from reality. What gives Jesus life is God’s love. He knows he is God’s beloved child and trusts that God will care for him.

Hungry for Love

Traditionally, the Christian tradition has proposed fasting as the remedy for gluttony. Abstaining from food can remind us of our physical limits and our needs. And our needs can turn our attention to God—as it did for Jesus, when he was famished but told the devil that he trusted in God’s provision, not his own.

But I find it curious that after Jesus fasted in the wilderness, he soon developed a reputation as a glutton. “Look,” people would say, “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). Of course, Jesus was not really a glutton. He was not preoccupied with food. He was preoccupied with something else. Every time we find Jesus eating, he is always in the company of other people. He is not hungry for food. He is hungry for love. He desires to be in relationship with others, especially those who are hurting or unloved.

The real remedy to gluttony is not just turning away from food. If that is all we do, we will be deeply unhappy people. The real remedy to gluttony is turning toward others in love.

For Jesus, turning away from gluttony meant not only going without food for forty days in the wilderness, but also feasting regularly with sinners and showing them God’s favor. For Bob, letting go of gluttony might mean putting away his gum and having an honest conversation with his boss; or refraining from the extra helping of chips and asking his wife how her day was. For Cookie Monster in the Twilight spoof, turning away from gluttony means turning toward his true love Bella. For me, repenting from gluttony means reminding myself of what I really want. It’s not that extra coffee or ten more minutes of munching before I get back to writing. What I really want is to know and be known.

What might repenting from gluttony mean for you?

Prayer

Loving God,
Who smiles on us
And calls us his children—
Wean us off the temporary pleasures
That keep us preoccupied
And turn us away from others.
We are hungry for your love.
Help us to trust in you
And to turn toward each other. In Christ, our teacher: Amen.

---

[1] Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung uses this expression in Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009), 139.

Re-attachment (Matt 6:19-21)

All Will Be Lost

Life is full of loss.  For every gift that we receive, we will some day be bereaved.  Whether by time or by change: by the slow decay of moth and rust or by swift and sudden theft.  Family, friends, homes, jobs, possessions, whatever we count as ours—all will be lost.

At around the age of twenty-one, Saint Augustine lost one of his closest friends.  For a time, he was inconsolable.  Eventually, the company of other friends helped to repair his soul.  But according to him, this consolation “was all one huge fable, one long lie.”[1]  “The place of one great grief,” he writes, “was slowly taken…by the seeds from which new griefs should spring.”[2]  In other words, he had not defeated grief but only deferred it; not mended it but in fact multiplied it.  For he had exchanged one friend for many.  And one day he would lose these friends too and would endure much more grief anew.

Letting Go

The tragedy, according to Augustine, is that he was looking for life in the wrong place—“where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.” Life comes not from the things of this world that we can see, but from the Giver who is in all things unseen. Writing to his past self, he cries out, “[Do] not cleave too close in love to [other people and things].  For they go their way and are no more.”[3]

In one sense, Augustine was telling himself to “let go” of that to which he grown so attached.  That is part of what Lent is about. Letting go. It makes sense. If attachments are what bring us suffering and grief, then letting go is the solution.

But by itself, that’s a sad solution. It’s like giving up. It’s like saying, because love might bring heartbreak, I won’t love anymore.

Loving Anew

But this is not what Augustine was saying, and it’s not quite what Lent is about either. Letting go is only half the story. Augustine urges his past self earnestly, “The good that you love is from [God].”[4] “If [other people and things] please you, then love them in God because they are [changeable] in themselves but in [God] firmly established.”[5]

In other words, Lent is not simply about letting go of God’s gifts. We let them go so that we might love them anew, more fully, more truly. Not as they are by themselves, but as they are in God. We learn to love our family and friends and all the good gifts of life as echoes and reflections and revelations of God. They become handles by which we hold on to God, and when they leave, we find that we are not clinging onto thin air but onto God. Storing up treasures in heaven is another way of talking about treasuring the heaven that is here on the earth, loving the Giver whom we discover in the passing gifts.

Lent is not about non-attachment, but about re-attachment. We let go of things, so that we might hold them more lovingly—which is to say, so that we might love them in God. We learn to love the world not as a collection of things that stand on their own, for our momentary satisfaction or benefit, but as a slow dance that brings us closer and closer to our Beloved—God, the Giver, the One from whose love nothing can separate us.

Lent is about letting go, yes—but it is also about falling in love. “Blessed,” Augustine writes, “is the person who loves Thee, O God, and [their friends] in Thee, and [their enemies] for Thee.  For [this person] alone loses no one that is dear…if all are dear in God, who is never lost.”

Prayer

O Great Giver,
Whose gifts
We love dearly:
Family and friends,
Gardens and tables,
Bread and wine.
Loosen our grip
On the outside of these gifts,
That we may love
The You deep within.
In the name of our Treasure, Jesus Christ. Amen.

---

[1] Augustine, Confessions (trans. F. J. Sheed; rev. ed.; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 57.

[2] Augustine, Confessions, 57.

[3] Augustine, Confessions, 58.

[4] Augustine, Confessions, 60.

[5] Augustine, Confessions, 60.

Covered in Dust and Glory (Matthew 17:1-9)

The Jesus Whom the Church Knows

“He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (17:2).  This—this, I think, is the Jesus that many Christians worship. This is the clean, spotless Jesus. This is the good-looking Jesus of blonde hair and blue eyes, who wears a winsome white robe, whose portrait hangs in Sunday School classrooms all over the world. This is the triumphal Jesus, the Jesus whom much of the church hopes for, who will descend from the clouds in power, whose light will overpower the darkness of the world. Chances are, this is the Jesus whom we envision when we pray: wrapped in white, serene, heavenly. Even in Bruce Almighty, which famously imagines God as Morgan Freeman, God sports a sparkling white suit, which exemplifies his character: cool, calm, and collected, he is a God who is ultimately above it all and in control.

It is no wonder that Peter suggests building a dwelling for this Jesus there on the mountain. This is the Jesus he’s been waiting for; this is the messiah in all his glory. Peter sees this Jesus as the victor, the winner, the champion. Once the world sees this Jesus, there will be no question. Peter wants to keep this Jesus around, to preserve this dazzling white Jesus—and so he proposes a dwelling place. It is, perhaps, his way of saying to this glorious Jesus, “Please don’t leave us!”

The Jesus Whom the World Knew

But this triumphal Jesus whom Peter worships, whom many churches put on a pedestal and proudly proclaim—this Jesus looks strikingly different from the Jesus whom his own world knew. The glorious Jesus is wrapped in regal robes of white. But Mary and Joseph and the shepherds knew a Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a lowly manger. The glorious Jesus shines and dazzles. But the fishermen of Galilee knew a Jesus whose tunic got soaked in water and caked in dust. The glorious Jesus stands high above everyone else. But the lepers and the lame, the people who were considered unclean, they knew a Jesus who stretched out his hand and touched them. The glorious Jesus has a home in heaven. But the crowds in Galilee and Judea knew a man who had nowhere to lay his head, and probably occasionally smelled to high heaven. The glorious Jesus keeps the company of heroes, like Moses and Elijah. But the nameless children of Capernaum knew a Jesus who held them and declared their like the greatest in the kingdom of God. The glorious Jesus reigns high up on a mountain. But the people who came to Jerusalem on that fateful Passover knew a Jesus who hung high on a hill, crowned not in glory but in shame, flanked not by heroes but by outlaws, covered not in brightness but darkness.

“Listen to Him!”

The Jesus whom the world knew, looked much different than this momentary glimpse of glory that Peter, James, and John have. The easy way of reconciling this difference in appearance is to say that the transfigured Jesus is a vision of the future, that this is a preview of what is to come, that only after the dusty struggle will God’s glory be unveiled. Jesus must endure the dirt of the earth in order to bring it to heavenly, spotless glory.

My guess is that this is what Peter thinks. But then when a bright cloud appears over him on the mountain, and a voice from the cloud proclaims, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!”—Peter falls to the ground with the other disciples, and I imagine those last words were ringing in his ears, “Listen to him!  Listen to him!” Because not long ago, Peter had done just the opposite: he had not listened to Jesus.

Before Peter had followed Jesus up the mountain, the two of them had butted heads (Matt 16:21-28). Jesus had been anticipating his visit to Jerusalem, speaking strange words about death and resurrection, to which Peter had said, “This cannot happen!”  But Jesus wouldn’t budge one bit. He proclaimed that only by losing yourself for others would you find yourself. He proclaimed the paradoxical gospel of death and new life, the good news of loss and more life.

So when Peter hears these words from the clouds, “Listen to him!” I imagine that he remembers his heated disagreement with Jesus. Maybe now, for the first time, he really listens to what Jesus had been saying. Maybe now he starts piecing two and two together. If Jesus had insisted on death as a part of new life, and loss as a part of more life, then maybe this glorious Jesus wasn’t the triumphal victor he had been hoping for, the messiah who would simply overpower his enemies and establish heaven on earth by force.  Maybe this glorious Jesus was one and the same with the dust-covered Jesus he already knew, the one who was living his life for others, the one who would ultimately give his life in love for others.  Maybe that is the glory of God.          

Seeing the Dust That Covers Jesus for What It Really Is

This Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, begins the Lenten season. What is Lent?  It’s basically a time of preparation for Easter, in the same way that Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas. (In fact, Advent has been called the “Little Lent” in some church traditions.) Lent prepares us for Easter by inviting us to follow Jesus on the way of the cross. The cross means many things. For us Christ-followers, it means that love lays down its life for others; it means that loss can lead to new life; it means that our wounded and weak bodies are the very vessels that share God’s powerful love in this world.

Transfiguration Sunday, which is today, always comes right before Ash Wednesday.  As I reflect on Peter—and the way that he had been hoping for a triumphal, glorious Jesus, only to realize, perhaps, that this glorious Jesus is in fact the same as the dust-covered Jesus—I think maybe he unwittingly ushers us into Lent.

Because Lent is about letting go of control and trusting in the way of love. When Jesus starts talking about losing ourselves, dying to ourselves, death on a cross, we may find ourselves agreeing with Peter, who says, “This cannot happen!”  But according to Jesus, this is the way of abundant life itself.  His glory is not in success and triumph, in gain and getting our own way.  These things keep us focused on ourselves; they make us small and close us off to the world. His glory is in the dust—in touching the untouchables, in keeping the company of outsiders, in welcoming strangers, in breaking bread for hungry hearts, in giving without return, in blessing your enemies. It is these little gestures of faith that reveal the grandeur of our world. It is these little gestures that open up the possibilities of resurrection, which dwell in all of creation.

The transfiguration of Jesus is a vision. For a brief moment, we see what God sees. And God sees all the dust that covers Jesus for what it really is: the glory of love.

Prayer

Glorious God,
Whose love steps foot
Into the dirt of our world:
Divert us from our quest
For success,
And lead us into a love
Covered with the dust and glory
Of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.