The Waking Dreamer: Gospel of Luke

Showing posts with label Gospel of Luke. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Backward Victory

Luke 23:33-43[1]

We live in a world where somebody has to lose for anybody to win. As I mentioned earlier this year in connection with the NCAA basketball tournament, in some cases, a lot of people have to lose for somebody to win. There are all kinds of examples of this win-lose scenario in life. Mathematicians and economists call it a “zero-sum game.” Although I wouldn’t say that I fully understand all the details, the idea is that if someone has to lose in order for someone else to win, then there is no real net benefit for the whole “system.” The alternative is a “win-win game,” where a win for one can be a win for many. In my mind, the many “collaborative” games out there, where everyone works to “win” together, are a good example. They point out the option that I wish the human family would learn: we gain more when we all win together than when we try to “beat” everyone else!

I realize that there are so many aspects of our lives that reinforce the “win-lose” scenario that a “win-win” scenario may seem positively alien. It’s almost as if we believe it’s the “American way” for there to be at least one loser (if not many) in order for there truly to be a “winner.” But there are so many examples in daily life that disprove that. Like when one farmer is injured and can’t harvest crops and the rest of the community pitches in to help out. I know that I’m an idealist, but I believe that everyone wins in that situation. I may also be a fool, but I think the world would be a better place if we all adopted that approach toward more than just the people we know. When you think about all the resources in this world—food and other commodities, money and the ability to generate it, talented and hard-working people—it really makes no sense for us in a global economy to think of anyone as an “enemy.” I may be a foolish dreamer, but I believe that if all the peoples of all nations worked together, we could make this a much better world.

Some of you may consider that to be “backward” thinking. I’m okay with that. There’s a lot about our faith that can seem “backward.” For example, today is the day in the Christian calendar when we remind ourselves that we believe that Christ reigns over all things and all people. I can think of no more “backward” way of doing that than with a Gospel lesson that describes his death on the cross! Kings don’t get dragged before their subjects and mocked by them. Kings don’t allow themselves to be spat upon and beaten. They’re the ones who are usually doling out those punishments. And on the rare occasion when a King or any other powerful person is publicly humiliated, that’s pretty much the end of their “reign.” But here we are, on this Sunday when we celebrate our faith that Christ is reigning over us all, reading the “good news” of his death on the cross.

The irony in this has raised questions since the day Jesus faced that ultimate test—especially for people who look at Jesus’ life and ask whether he actually accomplished anything. He gathered some disciples. He stirred up the Jewish leadership. And he got himself killed in the end. And while he was hanging there on that cross, vulnerable, showing all the weakness of his humanity, some in the crowd asked the question that many have repeated through the centuries: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” (Lk 23:35). In the light of Jesus’ humiliating death, many have asked what a Jewish preacher from the First Century can do to make my life any better in the Twenty-First Century. And many have concluded that Jesus may have had some fine ideals, but he really can’t do anything to help us in this day and time.

But that conclusion misses some important signs that point out just how powerful the reign of Christ is, even in this passage that apparently presents Jesus at his weakest. One thing we need to notice is that in Luke’s Gospel, while hanging on the cross, enduring unimaginable agony, Jesus has the presence of mind to respond to his hecklers by saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34). And when Jesus dies, he simply says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk. 23:46). In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus gives up his life calmly and intentionally, full of trust in God.

But there’s another detail that we’re familiar with, but I think it’s easy to miss point. While Jesus is hanging on the cross, seemingly undergoing the ultimate humiliation, one of the criminals with him saw something that most all of those who witnessed this event firsthand missed. He saw that there truly was something about Jesus that set him apart. And so he took an amazing step of faith: hanging there on a cross, he looked at Jesus and asked, “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42). How or why he had the faith to see Jesus hanging on the cross and believe that one day he would come into a “kingdom,” we may never know. But he did, and he asked Jesus to remember him.

I think what we need to pay attention to is Jesus’ response. It really was astonishing, if you think about it. There he was, having been beaten, having been humiliated by some of the Jewish leaders, having been strung up to die by the Roman empire. And he said to this man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk. 23:43)! If you think about it, there was nothing about the situation that would have made anybody believe such an incredible claim under normal circumstances. And yet Jesus made the claim: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” The unnamed criminal left his request open-ended: “when you come into your kingdom, remember me.” He expresses faith, but he doesn’t pin Jesus down to anything specific. Jesus makes that astonishing claim any way: “Today,” not at some indistinct point in the future, “whenever.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” By doing so Jesus demonstrated not only that he was more than just an “exceptional man,” but also that what he was doing was not weak in any way. It was the ultimate display of the power of the one is the truest example there has ever been of a “king.”[2]

Despite the fact that it all seems “backward,” I think it is ultimately fitting to remind ourselves that Christ reigns over us with this story, because his death on the cross defines the way in which he exercises that reign even now. As one of our confessions puts it, “With no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross.”[3] The reality is that the only way for Christ’s reign of justice, peace, and freedom to be truly established in this world was through the path of the cross, where he exercised no power but the power of love. But his cross also led to his resurrection and ascension, where he was exalted, as St. Paul puts it, “far above … every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come” (Eph. 1:21). And that means that “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” We associate those words with Georg Friedrich Handel, but he was quoting from Revelation: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15, RSV). When you take the cross by itself, it can seem like the early Church got it all backward. But in light of the resurrection and ascension, I would say that they were able to see the true victory that came from giving up his life for us all.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 102, where he says that when we celebrate Christ as “king” it represents “the most radical reversal of the ideal of rule that can be conceived.”

[3] The Study Catechism, question 41.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Endurance

Isaiah 65:17-25 Luke 21:5-19[1]

Some of you know that I’m a fan of cycling. I’ve been riding a bike since I was six years old! I’ve been riding seriously for about thirty years. When I started, I was riding with the Fort Worth Bicycling Association. We did a 35-to-45-mile ride every week, and a 60-to-70-mile ride about once a month. Of course, I didn’t start out riding that far. And these days I don’t ride as much or as fast as I did then, but I still enjoy getting out on the bike in the beauty of the world along with the health benefits that putting in miles on the bike provides me. You may know I’m also a fan of watching cycling. I particularly enjoy watching the three “Grand Tours” every Summer. They’re the Tour of Italy in May, the Tour of France in July, and the Tour of Spain in August. Each of them covers about 2000 miles over 21 days, including flat stages for the sprinters and some of the steepest mountains in Europe for the climbers. What blows my mind is that they ride a stage per day, usually over 100 miles, at average speeds that are typically (at least) twice as fast as I could ride, and then they turn around the next day and do it all over again. It’s like running 21 marathons in 3 weeks!

That kind of endurance is impressive on so many levels. I would say, however, that it not only applies to the world of sports. There are some among us who complete the equivalent of a Tour de France every month. Not by how many miles we ride on a bicycle, but by how we handle the circumstances of our lives that are well beyond our control. For example, most of you know that farming is something that takes a long perspective to be able to do year in and year out. But that can be true for any of us in our personal lives. There are challenges that some of us face that are out in public, for all to see. And then there are challenges that some of us face that are inside, and perhaps nobody else knows just how hard it can be just to make it through a day. Endurance is a part of life for many of us.

Our Scripture lessons for today present us with two different perspectives on the hope that St. Paul reminds us results from endurance. He says it this way: our problems and trials “help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation (Rom 5:4-5, NLT). Both of our lessons today present a perspective on the ultimate outcome of our faith. As I’ve mentioned before, there seems to be a lot of confusion about our what our hope is. There are those who speak of the “end of the world” in terms of the majority of humanity “left behind” to face whatever painful tribulations an angry God is going to unleash upon them for their unbelief. Then there are those who speak of the final victory of God’s saving love in a world where all people have the joy of sharing a life, peace, and freedom together. These two views can be found not only in books and sermons, but also in Scripture.

Just a quick reading of our lessons for today sounds like they’re contradicting each other. The one from the prophet Isaiah holds out a beautiful hope for a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah’s vision is filled with the language of freedom, new life, and hope. In a setting where conquerors continually displaced people, taking their children away from them, throwing them out of their homes and off their own lands, Isaiah envisions a people returned from exile to live in their own land free from fear. But Isaiah’s vision doesn’t just concern Israel; their restoration leads to the restoration of the whole world. Beyond that, this vision of restoration and renewal extends to all creation—even the animal kingdom is to be transformed when God fulfills his promises and liberates the people. Isaiah’s vision is that what God will do at the end of all things will be consistent with what God did at the beginning: create a world full of beauty and love.

On the other hand, in the lesson from Luke’s Gospel Jesus seems to warn his disciples that the end of all things will be gloom and doom. Rather than being spared from the “tribulations” of the end time, it seems that Jesus was saying his followers would be right in the middle of it all. He said they would be arrested and persecuted (Lk. 21:12), that they would be betrayed even by members of their own family (Lk. 21:16), and that they would be “hated by all because of my name” (Lk. 21:17). It’s pretty clear that Jesus envisioned Christians enduring whatever painful hardships and trials the future holds along with everyone else.

Unfortunately, his warnings are easy to misread. For one thing, some of what he says refers to events that would happen in their lifetimes: the Jewish people falling by the sword and Jerusalem being trampled by the Gentiles (Lk. 21:23-24). In fact, about 40 years later the Jewish people fought and lost a war to free themselves from their Roman conquerors. And many people got caught up in the violence—Jewish people and Christian alike. So some of what Jesus has to say talks about what would happen in their lifetimes. But some of what Jesus has to say points to a time in the distant future when all the nations would see “‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory” (Lk. 21:27).

So it’s hard to know if Jesus was warning his disciples about hardships of the near future or those of the end times. I think the answer is that he was talking about both. He knew that the Jewish war would be just as devastating for Christians as it was for the Jewish people, and he used that catastrophic event to warn them about the hardships that they would face until the final turmoil when he would return. Jesus urged his disciples to “be alert,” praying for strength, so that they wouldn’t be caught off guard when the day of his return actually came (Lk. 21:34-36). And he urged them to hold on until the end, promising that the final outcome of the trials and hardships they might go through would not be their destruction but their salvation! In our lesson for today he says it this way: “By your endurance you will gain your souls” (Lk 21:8).

I think the best answer to the question of our final destiny is that it includes both hardships and final victory. I started studying the Bible seriously over 40 years ago when I was a Freshman in college. As a seminary Professor I taught the class on the book of Revelation. So I’ve given the matter a fair amount of thought. The result of all that is that I believe God isn’t some cruel bully just waiting for the chance to torment the vast majority of humankind. When it comes to God’s final purpose for us, I think we have to remember that God showed us who he is by creating a beautiful world for us all to enjoy. And the Scripture promises that one day he will renew that world. We also have to remember that God showed us who he is by coming as one of us to heal our brokenness and our suffering by taking it on himself. And the Scripture promises that one day he will complete that work of restoring all things and all people.

Endurance is something that we all need. You know, I didn’t start out riding all those miles the first time I joined the Fort Worth Bicycling Association. My first ride was pretty much a disaster. I “blew up,” to use one phrase that cyclists use. I ran out of energy halfway into the ride. Fortunately, one of the members of the club was there to shepherd me back home, because I didn’t know the way. But I didn’t go home that day and hang up my bicycle and say, “I’m not doing this ever again.” I kept training on my own. I kept riding with the club. Sometimes I would get dropped, but eventually I was able to finish with a group of riders who were at my level.

I think that’s how it is for us in life. The old saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” is true. I know it may be so commonly repeated that we don’t hear it anymore. But it’s still true. And I think we might add that “You finish a journey of a thousand miles by continuing to take one step after another.” Even and especially on the days when you don’t feel like it. That’s what we call “endurance.” Many of us have won the equivalent of “gold medals” for endurance over the course of our lives. Maybe many times.

Our faith is based on the promises in Scripture. And as we continue holding onto our faith, no matter what we may have to go through in this life, we develop endurance. And as St. Paul reminds us, our endurance gives us hope. But I think you can turn it around and say our hope also helps us endure whatever we may have to go through in this life. Endurance gives us hope, but our hope also helps us to continue to endure. Our hope helps us keep trusting that God’s good and loving plans for the human family will ultimately win out over all the evil that may be present among us now. Our hope gives us the endurance to keep trusting God, to keep following Jesus, and to keep serving others. And we do that by continuing to take the next step. That’s how we complete the journey.

More Than We Have Seen

Luke 20:27-38[1]

I was reminded recently that our “vision” is always limited. I can wholeheartedly echo the sentiment that I’ve heard many times: we typically don’t do well when we try to predict the future. I would say my ability to predict the future is virtually non-existent! Maybe that’s something we could all say. Just when we think we know what’s around the bend, life has a way of proving us wrong. If we averaged our success at predicting the future as a “batting average,” I would say that most of us wouldn’t make it very far in a baseball or softball league! Our vision is always limited.

At least part of the problem for me is that I try to use the past to predict the future. I think I’m not alone in that. When we try to envision the future based on the past, we are necessarily limiting our perspective. Some of the best things that have come into my life have come as a total surprise. Nothing in my past could have made it possible for me to foresee them. You might say the same. Sometimes, using the past to determine our view of the future leads to a pessimistic outlook. It’s the viewpoint that says with Benjamin Franklin that “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” That kind of attitude is common, but it’s a pretty hopeless view of life. Since everyone dies, that way of looking at things gives death has the final word on everything. And if death has the final word, then we’re all trapped in the vicious circles of selfishness, hatred, poverty, violence, injustice, and despair that we can see all around us. That’s not an approach to life that gives us much enthusiasm for living today, let alone looking forward to tomorrow.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus was responding in part to this kind of pessimism about life. He had been answering questions from various groups of Jewish leaders, each one intent on embarrassing him in front of the people. One question came from the Sadducees. They were the ruling priests who controlled the Temple. They were also the ones who held most of the wealth and power in their society. And as Luke tells us, the Sadducees didn’t believe in any “resurrection.” They lived in a closed system, and they weren’t open to the idea that there could be any more to life than what they had already seen. The Sadducees came to Jesus and asked him about the practice of a man marrying his brother’s widow. Moses had told them to do this so that the first child would be the descendant of the dead brother, to ensure that his name would continue to live on among the people. Their question to Jesus was about seven brothers who in turn married the same woman. They asked him, “In the resurrection … whose wife will the woman be?” (Lk. 20:33). I don’t think they were seriously looking for an answer. They didn’t believe in any “resurrection.” They were just trying to make the idea of a “resurrection” look ridiculous. And Jesus with it.

But Jesus “corrected” them. In another Gospel, he tells them “You understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mt 22:29, NASB)! He said this to the people who were in charge of the Temple! Jesus corrected them by recalling the time when Moses met God at the burning bush. This was foundational for the Jewish faith. It was the episode when God revealed his “name” as “I am who I am.” There, God spoke of himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exod. 3:6). When Moses had this encounter, the patriarchs had been dead for centuries. Jesus drew the inference that this proves that the dead are raised, for he said that God is “God not of the dead, but of the living” (Lk. 20:38). More than that, throughout the Bible, God is known as the “living God.” The prophets described God as the one who “lives” in contrast to the idols who were “dead” statues of wood and stone. But if God is the “living God,” and if God’s very being is defined by life, then it makes no sense to view the patriarchs, or anyone else, as truly dead. As Jesus put it, “to him all of them are alive.” In other words, God’s very nature as the “living” God challenged their pessimism.

I think one of the most important points Jesus was trying to make here is that you cannot limit God’s work in the future by what we have seen in the past. If God is the God of life, that means that our future is not one that’s defined by death, but rather by life. God’s work in the world is based on promises that point toward a future that is full of hope precisely because it’s based on God’s life. Promises like “I will wipe away every tear,” and “they will beat their swords into ploughshares,” and “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry,” and “I am making everything new.” Our Psalm lesson for today reminds us that God always keeps his promises. The Christian faith is at heart the hope that God has begun to do just that through Jesus Christ. Our faith insists that from God’s perspective, the final word that defines everything and everyone is not death, but life.

I think that how we choose to look at all of this makes a great difference in our the work we do together as a congregation. For example, in the Reformed tradition we believe that stewardship is not just about money. It’s essentially a stance of faith in the “God of the living.” Because we believe in the life that God is bringing into this world through Jesus Christ, we practice stewardship by committing all we know ourselves to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be. I had a professor once define “conversion” that way. I think the whole Christian life is like that: committing all we know ourselves to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be. And as we grow in our understanding of who we are and who Jesus is, we’re able to see our lives more and more as a gift from God to be invested for the sake of the Kingdom.

On the other hand, if we choose to live within a closed system and assume that there’s only so much to go around, we’re probably not going to be willing to risk much when it comes to investing our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God. But if we can look at things from the perspective of God’s future, a future in which the final word is life, then perhaps maybe we can step out in faith. If we can see the future as essentially open to all that God is doing in and through us, we have a whole different motivation for practicing our faith, including practicing our stewardship. In that kind of future, our “labor in the Lord” is “not in vain” but rather makes an important contribution toward advancing God’s purposes in our community and our world. I think that puts our stewardship, our faith commitment, and everything we do, in a whole different light.

We all have the choice: we can live as if the past overrules any hope for the future, and death ultimately makes life “useless.” There have always been people who have taken this point of view, living without hope, clinging desperately to their lives out of fear. If we choose to assume that our best is back there in the past somewhere—which means it’s gone—I doubt that we’re going to invest much of anything for God’s Kingdom. But if we choose to live based on the faith that the “God of life” is at work among us and through us to make everything new, then maybe we can have the courage to stake our lives on God’s promises. It’s a risk, because there’s a lot about life that seems to contradict those promises. But when we embrace God’s vision for the future, perhaps we’ll begin to realize that God’s vision very likely includes much more than we have seen. In fact, I would say that God’s vision is such that we really have no idea what God can or cannot do in our lives, in this congregation, and in this community!

The next step is to put our faith into practice every day by praying without ceasing, by giving back what we’ve been given, by helping those in need, by inviting others to join us, by promoting a sense of community among us, by studying the Bible together, and by joining together for worship on the Lord’s Day. When we invest our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God, it’s a big vision we’re taking on. When we open ourselves to God’s vision, we can begin to grasp the full weight of the hope that God has things in store for us that we wouldn’t believe if we knew them in advance! When we base our lives on this vision for the future, we humbly recognize that we can’t do it alone. We need the living God who is the source of everything we have to send us what we need to do the work. More than that, we need God himself working in and through us, remembering that God’s last word is not death but life!

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Pleased With Ourselves?

Luke 18:9-14[1]

As you may recall, I’ve spoken occasionally this year about some of the criticisms of religion. Especially those people who avoid church use to justify that choice. And you may recall that I’ve mentioned that Luke’s Gospel, which is the foundation for the Lectionary readings this year, lends itself to this topic. Like the other Gospel writers, Luke recounts the conflicts Jesus had with the Jewish religious leaders. Because of this, many have concluded that the Jewish leaders of that day were just bad people. Beyond that, some throughout history have used these passages to conclude that all Jewish people are corrupt. But those who do so read into the Gospels something that’s not there. To be sure, Jesus exposed the flaws in the Jewish religious leaders’ traditions and the way they selectively observed them. And they attacked him for it. Some of them even engineered his death. But that was more about a grasping for power that is a human trait than anything inherent to Jewish people.

In fact, if you read the Gospels thoughtfully, you have to recall that they were not only written to record Jesus’ life and teachings, but also to instruct early Christian churches about the practice of their faith. What most Gospel scholars like myself conclude from this is that the attention paid to the flaws of the Jewish religious leaders was, at least in part, meant to serve as a warning and even a rebuke to Christian leaders. It’s likely that Luke, like the other Gospel writers, already saw the same behaviors emerging in early Christian churches. They called attention to Jesus’ conflicts with the Jewish religious leaders of his day in order to correct the missteps of the Christian religious leaders of their day.

I think what we have to acknowledge is that all the criticisms and shortfalls of religion that we’ve been discussing don’t just apply to certain groups of (other) people. That would be much too convenient for all of us. No, the truth of the matter is that all of the flaws in religion we’ve addressed are pitfalls we all can fall into. “Religion,” as some theologians like Karl Barth have often pointed out, is a human endeavor. Faith, on the other hand, can be a spiritual matter, something that God brings about in and through us. But the ways we express our faith are all inherently human. And because we are all flawed people, the pitfalls of religion apply to us all.

I wanted to say all of this as part of my sermon today because it deals with a topic that can potentially be offensive. And I think it’s important from the outset to recognize that all the pitfalls of religion can apply to all of us. None of us are immune. I would say that one of the reasons why some people avoid church is because they have encountered Christians who are really quite pleased with themselves. Often you see it in a kind of “humble bragging” about one’s faith and how thankful a person is for the “perfect” life that God has “blessed” them with. It can come across as a kind of smugly condescending look, a pity-filled smirk that basically communicates to those “outside” the church that it’s just too bad they haven’t made all the right choices (like we have). At times, it can come across as outright arrogance. Like when someone asks you, “if you died tonight, do you know for sure you would go to heaven?” The very question assumes that they do! And it comes across as if they’re assuming the person to whom they ask the question doesn’t!

Our Gospel lesson for today presents us with two men. One man, a Pharisee, would have been a respected member of the community. He was respected because of his devotion to studying and obeying God’s word in all aspects of their lives. Now, in and of itself, that’s what we’re all called to do. But the problem was that this particular man was very satisfied with himself. I like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: Jesus told this parable about some who were “pleased with themselves over their moral performance” (Lk. 18:9). Judging from his prayer, this fellow was very pleased with himself. It’s hard not to think that he was bragging about himself to God![2] But perhaps more importantly, his spiritual arrogance translated into looking down on the other man who had come to pray as inferior. I would say that’s a clue that there’s something wrong with his religion. Again, we’re not talking about a uniquely Jewish problem. It’s a problem we all can have with our religion.

The other man in the Gospel lesson is the exact opposite. In fact, as a tax collector, he would have been despised by more than just the Pharisee. He would have been viewed as a traitor to his people and a thief. That’s because of the way taxes were collected in that day and time. It was an inherently corrupt system. Whoever was in control gave the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder. As long as the tax collector paid off his “bid,” he could keep anything else he could extract from people. And so he would hire a whole team of people who would work under him, each collecting a portion of the taxes. And as long as they paid their quota, each of them could keep whatever they could get. and it’s not hard to imagine why people despised tax collectors in that day.

Two very different men came to the temple to pray. The one had become a respected leader of his community by following the letter of the law. The other had thrown virtue and decency to the wind, and was basically robbing his own people, taking the fast-track toward getting rich. But the point of the parable was that the first man was quite convinced that his life was right and righteous and even pleasing to God. The other man came to the temple not satisfied, or pleased, but broken.

And while the people to whom Jesus told this story would have expected him to say what a good man the Pharisee was and what a rotten scoundrel the tax collector was, he surprised them. In fact, he shocked the living daylights out of them. Speaking about the tax collector, he said, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other” (Lk 18:14). That was the exact opposite of what they expected. But he was pointing them to something important: when we are “pleased” with ourselves and our religion, it raises a huge red flag regarding the genuineness of our faith. Biblical faith, the kind of faith that actually makes a difference in our lives, comes from experiencing the healing power of God’s mercy in response to our brokenness. And when we experience God’s mercy that way, our faith will look more like the humility of the tax collector than the smugness of the Pharisee.

Again, it’s too easy for us to walk away from a parable like this and think that those silly Pharisees really missed the point of it all. But the truth is that one man’s self-satisfied arrogance in this story is there to remind us all that we can fall into the same temptation. There was a time when I fell into this temptation. Everything in my life was going just the way I hoped it would. My life was going “according to plan.” A few years later, it all came crashing down, and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

There is room in our faith for genuine satisfaction that comes from looking back over our lives and recognizing how far we’ve come. But for it to be truly genuine, it will always be mixed with generous helpings of humility and gratitude. That’s why religious smugness is so offensive. We might as well be wearing a neon sign that says, “you need God, but I’m doing just fine!” But the truth is that we all need God as much as anybody else. The truth is that at the end of the day none of us are really “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” We all are who we are only by the grace and mercy of God. And anyone who truly knows that will never be “pleased” with themselves, in the smug way that first man in the parable was. Rather, like the other man we will humbly and gratefully acknowledge that God’s mercy is a gift beyond what we could ever deserve.

[2] In fact, although many English Bibles translate the passage to say that he prayed “standing by himself,” and many others say that he prayed “with himself,” there are several that render it with a significant difference: he “stood and prayed about himself” (Lk 18:11, CEB, NET, NASB).There is actually a textual variant in the Greek New Testament that alters the word order to emphasize the latter interpretation. Cf. Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 143. J. A. Fitzmyer, Luke X-XXIV, 1186, differs from the majority view and supports the variant because it has some of the most important early witnesses to the text of the New Testament in support.

Is Anyone There?

Psalm 121; Luke 18:1-8[1]

There is a question that has haunted the human family since the beginning. If you look at the religious beliefs and practices through the ages, and if you “read between the lines,” I think you’ll find that question. From ancient times we have wondered whether there is a God, and whether that God cares about us at all. I think this question was even at the heart of the earliest religions, when people worshipped many “gods.” The stories they told themselves about their “gods” betray a fundamental anxiety about our place in the world. The “gods” of ancient mythologies aren’t even good people, let alone “gods”! And underneath it all lies the question whether whatever “higher power” there may “out there” be is able to help us at all, and whether that power cares enough about us to do so.

When science and the church taught that the earth was at the very center of the universe, I think it may have been easier to believe in a God who cares for us. Our relative importance in the whole scheme of things was huge, and we felt more confident about our faith in God. But even in those times, there were catastrophes and tragedies that made people ask that question whether God can really do anything to help us, and whether God cares enough to do so. In more recent days, with our scientific perspective on how small the earth is compared to the rest of universe, I think that question has become even more pressing. At least for some people. Given the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, we can easily question whether there is a God, and whether any God there might be could or would pay much attention to us.

Even in a Christian context, this anxiety has been expressed through a centuries-old question: If God is both loving and all-powerful, how can there be evil in the world? The presence of tragedy in our lives suggests that God loves us but he’s not powerful enough to stop these things from happening. Or it suggests that God is powerful enough to stop them, but since he doesn’t he must not be loving. Although many have tried to address this question, I don’t think any of the “answers” really help. Most of them offer some sort of rational explanation. But that doesn’t really do much for the feeling of anxiety that the traumas and tragedies that life can bring. The only answer to the heartbreaks of life is to find a way to trust that God does indeed have the power to help us and does indeed care enough about us to do so.

Our Psalm for today addresses this question. The Psalmsinger looks to the mountains to try to figure out whether there is anyone there to help. The reason for looking to the mountains is because in ancient times people believed that the “gods” lived in the high places of the world. So when the Psalmsinger looks to the mountains and asks himself where he can find help, he’s looking for God. In this case, looking to the mountains reminds the Psalmsinger that “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth!” (Ps 121:2, NLT). I think at least a part of the meaning here is that God is bigger than any mountain, because God created all the heavens and the earth. The Psalmsinger’s hopes aren’t confined to a so-called a “deity” that lives on a particular mountain. His hope and his help come from the God who made all the heavens and the earth, the whole cosmos and everything in it!

I think there are a couple of linked ideas here that can help us. As powerful as a mountain can appear, God’s power is far greater. I think many of us experience mountains as a display not only of grandeur but also of power. But God’s power is far greater, because God is the creator of all the heavens and the earth. That’s one of the most basic ideas of the Bible. It’s where Genesis begins: God created all the heavens and the earth. And that means whatever you can find in creation or in the whole cosmos that impresses you with its beauty, its grandeur, or its display of power, God’s power is greater. The Psalmsinger reminds himself and us that our faith that the God who created all the heavens and the earth is the God who is our help and our hope means that he most certainly does have the power to help us!

But the other part of the question concerns whether God cares enough to use that power to help us. That’s at least part of the lesson from our Gospel reading for today. In it, Jesus tells a parable about a woman who was a widow, very likely in danger of losing her home because she was at the mercy of a corrupt judge, who had no interest in protecting her. Jesus’s parable tells us that this man doesn’t care about God, and he doesn’t care about people. It seems clear that the only reason he held his position was to enrich himself. But this is no ordinary widow. She persisted relentlessly in demanding that this judge grant her what was rightfully hers, and she kept doing so until she annoyed him! That’s why the traditional title for this passage is “The parable of the importunate widow.” That’s what “importunate” means: demanding what’s rightfully yours and doing until you annoy somebody. That’s what she did. And this corrupt judge confessed, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming” (Lk. 18:4-5)!

One point of this parable is the contrast between the unjust judge and the God whom Jesus demonstrates as gracious, loving, and caring. If a godless, inhumane judge will finally give in to a powerless widow’s unceasing requests for justice, how much more will our merciful and loving God “grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night” (Lk 18:7). And I think the answer is that he will most certainly do so! The promise of God’s justice throughout the Bible is that God will make things right, ultimately if not immediately. But perhaps that’s precisely where the problem lies. We have lots of affirmations in the Bible that God cares about us and will take care of us. We have promises that God will set things right. But life doesn’t always confirm those promises. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Sometimes bad people do bad things to good people. And when that happens and we cry out to God for help, there are times when when all we can hear is silence. And that experience can leave us wondering whether there’s anyone there. That’s when we come back to the age-old question whether there is a God, and whether that God cares at all about us.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that at times like those, our perspective can get quite narrow. All we can see is the hardship or tragedy or the loss we’re dealing with. And all we can ask is, “Why?” or “How long?”, stuck in our pain and our fears. But in this parable, I think Jesus wants to help us focus our attention elsewhere. He wants to remind us that we believe in a God who is a loving Father who knows what we need, who wants what is best for us, and who is working constantly for our good. And he does all of this despite our inability to understand how our lives are unfolding. There are simply some questions we may never be able to answer. That’s one of the lessons faith teaches us. It’s okay to ask those questions. We just have understand we may never get an answer.

Sometimes people asked Jesus those kinds of questions. In response, Jesus pointed them to the God whose care we can trust in all the circumstances of our lives. Regardless of what we may have to go through here and now, the promise remains: God has all the power he needs to help us, and because he cares for us he will most definitely do so, if not immediately, then ultimately. We see that promise confirmed most clearly in Jesus. Through his life and his example, through his death and resurrection, we learn that God’s love is stronger than anything. The mountains do indeed remind us that God has the power to help us, but the cross and resurrection show us that he cares enough to use that power to help us. When we wonder whether there’s anyone there, we can remember God’s love never gives up, and never will until God accomplishes all the good he has planned for us all, for the whole human family, and for all creation.

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Not Too Difficult?

Luke 14:25-35[1]

Like many of you, I do love a challenge. I’ve recently decided to start taking guitar lessons again. I took them 20 years ago, and learned to play guitar solos from classic rock songs and chord melodies from Jazz standards. Over 20 years, you can forget a lot. It’s a bit humbling to start over again, but that’s life. I’ve tried to keep up on my own, but you just learn more, and more quickly, when you have a teacher you have to meet with on a regular basis. I’ve always been that way about loving a challenge. I took all the “hardest” professors in college, just to prove to myself I could. I’ve tried to read the books that have been considered “difficult.” And in the middle of working on my PhD dissertation, I took my family to Germany for a year of study abroad. One of the reasons I did that is because one of my professors encouraged me to do so. He believed I would be up for the challenge. Some, perhaps many, might call taking a wife and two small children overseas “crazy” rather than stepping up to a challenge. But for me, it made a significant difference in my ability to step outside the box I had been living in when I was working in the Baptist world. I don’t regret that, and I don’t think I’ll ever regret rising to a challenge.

In our Scripture lesson from Deuteronomy for today, Moses encourages the people of Israel that the challenge of obeying God’s commands and following God’s ways was not “too difficult” for them. Rather, he urged them to follow the inclinations of their hearts. He believed that if they only followed the voice inside that was telling them what was right, they would be able to live up to the challenge he presented to them. Unfortunately, the history of the people of Israel demonstrates that it’s not quite that simple. Because along with the voice of conscience telling us what is right to do, we all have other voices. Especially the voice that tells us to do whatever we please. It’s a voice that tells us to take the easy way out and just avoid having to do what’s difficult. Then Jesus came along and did the most difficult thing. He gave up his life in obedience to God’s will, and then he called us to follow him in that same path! I’m not sure we always fully appreciate just how difficult that is for us to do in our daily lives.

I think our Gospel lesson from Luke illustrates that difficulty. The call to follow Jesus is one that demands that we shape our whole identity based on the kingdom of God. It’s a call to a way of life that defines all of life. Of course, none of us starts out there in our faith journey. Most of us start out simply hoping to have a better life here, and in the afterlife a home in heaven. But Jesus spoke about something more: about the kingdom of God that is in the process of changing all things and all people here and now. Most of us don’t start out with that in mind. If we continue to seek God’s kingdom, however, we will have to face a call that claims our whole lives, just like it did Jesus’ life.

One of the reasons why this can be difficult for us is because we don’t have to face the likelihood that following Christ will mean the loss of family ties, being cast out of our circle of friends, or even being stripped of the means of making a livelihood. We celebrate the fact that in this country we’re free to embrace our faith without suffering the hardships that many people have suffered for Christ throughout history, and many others still suffer to this day. It’s good to have the freedom to worship according to our conscience. But I think it makes it harder for us to appreciate how difficult it is to follow as our “Savior” and our “Lord” one who suffered a humiliating death.

I believe our Gospel lesson for today places this question front and center. In fact, it’s hard to avoid when you read this passage and really listen to it. It’s one of the hardest things Jesus ever said. Some of what Jesus says here about what it means to follow him can sound pretty harsh to us. Because of the difficulty of this passage, it’s easy to miss the “forest” for the “trees.” I think the point is that Jesus is calling us to shape our whole identity, from the roots up, around our commitment to following him and to seeking God’s kingdom. It’s a call to a way of life that defines all of life. And that means being willing to “leave everything behind,” at least to let go of it in our hearts.

Right off the bat we hear the challenge: Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26)! Cannot be my disciple! It’s just plain jarring to hear. As is often the case with difficult passages of Scripture, we have to look elsewhere to gain the proper perspective. I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally “hate” their families, or that he wanted anyone to literally “hate” themselves. But I would say that we have plenty of evidence that the Christians for whom Luke’s Gospel was intended actually went through this kind of thing. Their choice to follow Jesus literally put them at odds with their families. Their choice to follow Jesus meant they had to leave everything behind.[2]

Jesus follows this up with another hard demand, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27). For us, the cross is a symbol of our faith. We decorate it with flowers and make jewelry out of it. But no one in the First Century would have made jewelry out of a cross. It would make about as much sense as making jewelry out of a hangman’s noose. There was nothing “pretty” about the cross in the First Century. We’re familiar with the sentiment of “taking up our cross,” because Jesus had earlier called those who would follow him to “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). I’m just not sure we understand what it means for us to take up our cross. After telling them that his path of seeking God’s kingdom was going to lead him to die on the cross, he called them to follow a similar path. He called them to “take up your cross daily.” Again, I think this brings us back to what it will cost us to follow Jesus: our very lives, and more than that, all of life.

Perhaps even more difficult for us is that Jesus sums up what it means to follow him by saying, “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (Lk 14:33). This is not so much offensive as it seems downright impossible. Who can afford to give up everything they own? But perhaps the idea here is broader than just our “possessions.” Some translations say, “none of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have” (GNT). That’s the way older versions translated this passage. I think it’s more to the point: Jesus calls us to leave everything behind just as he did the first Apostles (Lk 5:11, 18). I think that means holding everything we have “loosely,” recognizing that it belongs to God anyway, and holding it with the freedom of offering it all back to God to use however he pleases. Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of life. And that means letting go of everything else. We may still “have” it, but we don’t “hold” it so tightly. It doesn’t define us.

I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally “hate” their families or themselves. That makes no sense! I also don’t believe Jesus expected everyone who follows him to literally become a martyr for their faith, although many have done so. I believe that Jesus made the shocking statements in this passage to make clear that the kind of demands it would take for people to follow him would claim their whole lives. He was calling people to shape their whole identity based on the way of living he demonstrated for them. And he said that it was nothing short of leaving everything behind for the sake of the kingdom of God. And he used the shocking language of this passage to impress upon all who would follow him how difficult it would be to actually do that.

Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of life. And here we learn that “leaving everything behind” to follow Jesus applies not just to the first disciples, but to us all. That’s difficult for us to hear. We begin our faith journey hoping that it will make for a better life for us. When we hear something like this it may sound like Jesus is taking all that away. Because it doesn’t fit in with our approach to faith, we may be tempted to ignore it. But we cannot do that! Although they are difficult for us to hear, I believe we must pay attention to Jesus’ demands in this passage. The fact that they are so difficult for us to hear today, and they probably always will be, makes this passage so important. They create a tension that I think is purposeful on Jesus’ part. It was meant to draw us continually deeper into our commitment to following Christ. I’ve been reading this passage personally, professionally, and academically for over 40 years, and it continues to challenge me to this day. I hope it continues to challenge you as well. I think that’s the point: these demands continually call us to follow Jesus in a way of life that defines all of life. That means continually learning what it means for us to leave everything “behind,” to let everything go, for the sake of the kingdom of God! Perhaps Moses was right in that this means we have to seek to put into practice what our hearts are telling us is right, even and especially when the whole world may be telling us it’s wrong! But despite what Moses said about it being “not too difficult” for us, I think that’s always going to be difficult.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 204, where he expresses the value of the decision to follow Jesus in discipleship: “Anyone who participates in ‘Christ’s sufferings’” becomes a witness “to the coming truth against the ruling lie, to coming justice and righteousness against the prevailing injustice, and to coming life against the tyranny of death.” This by definition sets those who follow him at odds with the current status quo.

Thursday, September 04, 2025

Toxic

Luke 14:1-14[1]

I find it interesting how words and symbols change. I think just about everyone here, from young to old, knows the word “toxic.” It’s a word that’s fairly commonly used these days. But when I was a child, we used the word “poison.” And there was a skull and crossbones symbol that marked things that were poisonous made the warning clear: stay away from this, because it can kill you! In our day, that symbol is still used, but the one on the PowerPoint slide today is much more common. It’s called the “biohazard symbol.” It tends to be used for anything that can pose a significant risk to life. Even though you can find it pretty much everywhere in our world these days, and those of us who are adults tend to recognize it, I’m not sure it’s as effective a symbol as the skull and crossbones was, especially for children. When I was a child, the skull and crossbones symbol was fairly scary, and it got the point across. Of course, I’m sure that there were people back in the day who routinely ignored the “poison” symbol just as much as we may ignore the “biohazard” symbol today.

The idea that something is toxic is much more widespread in our day than “poison” was back then. But then that’s also because we’re much more aware of how widely toxic substances have spread in our world. I personally find myself dismayed at the information we just recently gotten about “microplastics.” Apparently, they are everywhere. In the soil, in our food, in our water, in our very bloodstream. What an irony that plastic, a substance that was designed to make our lives more convenient, has turned out to be toxic. And these microplastics are so widespread that they are not only affecting us and our children, but also just about every species of wildlife. More than that, they are threatening the very wellbeing of the planet itself. I refer you to the huge “islands” of plastic pieces floating in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at this very moment.

But my sermon is not about the dangers to the environment posed by short-sighted thinking on the part of policymakers. My sermon is about our reading from the Gospel of Luke for today. Essentially, Jesus used the situation of healing a man with a chronic illness on the sabbath to point out the fact that the religion of the Jewish leaders of his day was toxic! If you are familiar with Jesus’ interactions with the Jewish religious leaders, you know that this wasn’t the only time they clashed. I find it significant that Jesus clashed with them more often than not over the sabbath day. Their focus on the religious rules of their own devising was so single-minded that they valued their rules over the welfare of people. Jesus had to remind them that the whole point of the sabbath was to honor God by helping people. Their rules for observing the sabbath prevented them from saving life. The scenario of rescuing a child or an ox that had fallen into a well was literally a matter the Jewish religious leaders debated! That should have been a huge red flag!

Of course, Jesus didn’t specifically call the religious leaders out for being “toxic.” He used other words. One that we’re most familiar with is “hypocrite.” He chastised them for putting on a show of being “holy” while their hearts were selfish and full of their own ego. They were more concerned about using their religion to make themselves look good than they were with the welfare of other people, particularly those who were “beneath” them. The very people God wanted them to help! Another word that Jesus used for the religious leaders was “wicked.” That may come as a surprise. It may come as a shock. For centuries, the word “wicked” has been used in our language to describe “sinners,” those who are judged to have turned away from God, those who are judged as morally defective, those whose life is characterized by vice or addiction. In short, “wicked” is a word that has been used to stigmatize anyone who doesn’t live up to the social conventions that define what makes a person “good.”

The Bible has a lot to say about what it means to be wicked. But most of it directly contradicts our social conventions about what it means to be “good” or “bad.” In the Bible, the wicked are those who take advantage of the weak and the vulnerable just because they can.[2] In the Bible, the wicked use lies, dishonest schemes, and even violence to enhance their power or enrich themselves at the expense of those who have no way to protect themselves.[3] And in the Bible, because they have the means and the power to get away with it, the wicked take their wealth and their power as evidence that they are right, maybe even “blessed by God,” in what they do. But the Bible calls that being “haughty” and “arrogant,” and defines it as renouncing God and God’s ways.[4] The Bible’s definition of “wicked” is very different from ours. And in the Bible, the definition of God’s ways is “justice” and “righteousness.” One of the cornerstones of God’s justice is caring for the weak and vulnerable, including specifically orphans, widows, and resident immigrants.[5]

Now, of course, you may have noticed that the word “wicked” doesn’t appear in our Gospel reading for today. Only once in all the Gospels do we have record that Jesus called the religious leaders “wicked,” and we probably shouldn’t be surprised that it’s in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 11:39).[6] But he did so in other ways. He told parables that highlighted all the ways that they directly contradicted God’s justice and used their position to benefit themselves.[7] He praised Zacchaeus, who was the very definition of a “sinner” in their eyes, because he vowed to give half his wealth to the poor. Jesus called them out for “devouring” widows’ houses (Lk 20:47), for their need for their obsessive need for attention and recognition (Lk 10:43), and for the fact that they only added to the burdens that the weakest and most vulnerable people in society were already carrying by the religious rules they imposed on them (Lk 10:46).

But mostly Jesus called the religious leaders out for being “wicked” by doing on the sabbath what their rules branded as “sinful.” He healed people who needed healing. He helped people who needed help. And by doing so, he was actively confronting him for their refusal to practice true “righteousness.” He was effectively saying through his actions on the sabbath that the religious leaders were the “wicked” ones in the world of the day. They knew it, and they plotted to kill him for it!

I think in this day and age, the word “wicked” means too much to be of any value. In traditional circles, it still designates those who are judged to be morally deficient. But “wicked” is also a way of saying that something is “outstanding.” That’s why I think toxic is a better word for what Jesus was trying to say to the religious leaders. He was trying to help them see the folly of their ways. He didn’t give up on them. He was trying to open their eyes! But because of their obsession with their rules, they were blind to the people who were in genuine need. That made their religion toxic, and because they defined themselves by their religion, it made them toxic.

We’re familiar with “toxic” people, “toxic” work environments, and “toxic” relationships. These phrases are commonplace in our world. But those of us in the church haven’t tended to even consider whether that our religion might be toxic. The sad truth is that religion always brings with it a temptation to be so focused on what we believe is right that we can overlook our own shortcomings. As Jesus put it, we can be so offended by the “speck” in someone else’s eye that we overlook the “log” in our own (Lk 6:41). I think if we’re going to take to heart the message of our Gospel lesson for today, we may need to take a long hard look at ourselves through Jesus’ eyes. Perhaps we need to take a look at ourselves through the eyes of the most vulnerable people in our community! It may be disturbing, but there are times when we need to be disturbed! We may need the words and actions of Jesus to disrupt our routines in order to take a hard look at ourselves. Sometimes that’s what it takes for us to make the changes that the kingdom of God demands of us!

[2] Cf. Ps 10:2, “In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor”; Prov 29:7, the “wicked” ignore the “rights of the poor”; Isa 32:7, the “wicked” “ruin the poor with lying words.”

[3] Cf. Ps 10:3, “the wicked boast of the desires of their heart; those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord”; Ps 37:14, “The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy”; Prov. 17:23, “The wicked accept a concealed bribe to pervert the ways of justice.”

[4] Cf. Lk 16:14, where Luke calls them “lovers of money.” Cf. also Ps 10:3; Prov. 17:23, “All day long the wicked covet, but the righteous give and do not hold back”; Isa 13:11, “I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and lay low the insolence of tyrants”; James 3:16, “where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.”

[5] Cf. Deut 10:18, God is the one who “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing”; Deut 27:19, all the people are to acknowledge that “‘Cursed be anyone who deprives an alien, an orphan, or a widow of justice.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’”; Cf. also Isa 1:17, where “doing good” and “seeking justice” means to “rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow”; Jer 22:3, among other things, “acting with justice” means to “do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow.”

[6] Cf. Lk 16:15, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts, for what is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God,” which is again a somewhat indirect rebuke (cf. Prov 15:9, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord”!).

[7] Especially the Good Samaritan (Lk 10), the Widow Seeking Justice (Lk 18), and in our Gospel reading for today the Parable about Places of Honor at Table (Lk 14).

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Returning to Peace

Luke 12:49-56[1]

Sometimes the Bible is easy to read. God’s love just seems to leap off the pages and fill our hearts. There are other times when the Bible is confusing. It just doesn’t seem to make sense with what we have been taught about God, about Jesus, or even about life. The way we tend to read the Bible doesn’t help. Because it’s the Bible, we tend to think every verse has to be just as important as every other verse. When we do that, we are “flattening out” the Bible by taking every verse at what seems to be the “face value” to us. Many people call this reading the Bible “literally,” and they’re proud of themselves for doing so. But that approach to the Bible leads to all kinds of confusion.

For example, 25 years ago, Bruce Wilkinson published The Prayer of Jabez, a book that became a New York Times bestseller. The “prayer” of Jabez comes from 1 Chronicles 4:10. We know next to nothing about Jabez. He’s just a guy who shows up in the extended genealogy that occupies the first ten chapters of 1 Chronicles. And basically, the prayer that Jabez prayed was for God to make him prosperous and protect him. Nothing wrong with that. But also not a model of devotion to God. We have another prayer in the Bible that does a much better job of modeling devotion to God. It’s the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. And there’s good reason why we’ve been praying “The Lord’s Prayer” for centuries, not the “prayer of Jabez.” There just really is no comparison between the two!

Thinking the “prayer of Jabez” might be some formula for success is one example of the confusion that can result from flattening out the Bible. And I would argue that it’s not really reading the Bible literally. What it does is turn the Bible into a convenient “container” for whatever opinion or viewpoint of ours we want to claim is “from God.” But the Bible isn’t meant to reinforce what we think we already know. As our lesson from the prophet Jeremiah for today puts it, “‘Does not my word burn like fire?’ says the LORD. ‘Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?’” (Jer 23:29). That sounds ominous, but the idea is that when the Lord truly speaks, it tends to shake up our lives. The Bible is not meant to just keep us comfortable!

Part of the problem is that when we read the Bible we tend to forget how language works. We use language in all kinds of ways that don’t make a lick of sense to take the words at face value. For example, if we say someone is “barking up the wrong tree,” we all know what that means, because it’s a figure of speech in common usage. Can you imagine someone coming along from another planet centuries from now investigating these “earthlings” and how they lived their lives scratching their heads and trying to figure out why they were acting like canines and “barking” at trees? It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I think you get the point. The way we use language doesn’t always work “at face value.” We’re so used to it that we think it’s “face value.”

I bring this up because there are people who somehow think it’s scandalous to think that Jesus may have used figures of speech. We all know that he told parables to make a point. There are still some people who want to insist that some of Jesus’ parables were factually true. That’s because for us, truth has to be “factual” in an objective sense for it to be “truth.” We forget that truth can sometimes be conveyed much more powerfully through a poem or a work of art than through a paragraph. That commonsense approach to the “truth” of the Bible leads us to what I would consider a truly “literal” way of reading it. We recognize metaphors, idioms, figures of speech, and even exaggeration for what they are, and seek to discern the original intention behind the words. It’s not as convenient for us as just throwing out a verse and claiming it supports our favorite opinion, but it’s more consistent with the truth of Scripture.

That’s a long introduction for our Gospel lesson for today. The reason is because when you simply read our Gospel lesson for today at “face value,” it’s confusing at best. And to some it could be downright disturbing! Here Jesus tells us that he has not come to bring peace to the world, but rather “fire” and “division” (Lk 12:49, 51)! And in another gospel, he says he came to bring a “sword” (Mt 10:34)! That sounds so contrary to what we believe about Jesus that it may be painful even to hear it! How are we supposed to reconcile the idea that Jesus came to bring division and not peace with the joyful announcement at Jesus birth in this same Gospel of Luke that he came to bring “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14)?

In the first place, we have to understand that Jesus was speaking to a world in which religion was used to keep a few in power and privilege in a way that beat down most people. The religious powers of the day used the language of “clean” and “unclean” to maintain their position and power and to keep most people “in their place.” After all, if being “unclean” means you can’t get too close to God, then you have to rely on those who are “clean” enough to represent you. That gives them all kinds of power over you! I’m afraid the language of “sin” and “forgiveness” still creates a similar situation for many people to this day.

Into that world, Jesus came offering God’s love freely to anyone and everyone. He preached the gospel of God’s goodness to all people, regardless of their place in society or lack of place in society. And all his talk of a kingdom of God where the first are last and the last are first overturned the way the whole world worked. It was like setting fire to the whole religious establishment, and with that, their whole way of life. It was like smashing the “rock” of religious oppression in pieces. Jesus’ message threatened everyone who had worked hard to climb their way to the top of the social ladder by virtue of their “holiness,” or their wealth, or their power. As you can imagine, a lot of them didn’t like that. It was a threat to their very way of life. And they responded to him with rage and hatred, and they killed him for it.[2]

When you look at our Gospel lesson in that light, I think it makes sense to recognize that Jesus was exaggerating when he said he came to bring division rather than peace. Of course Jesus came to bring the peace of God’s kingdom. He makes that clear with virtually everything he said and did! But the whole Bible is equally clear that God’s peace comes with a cost. It comes only by righting the wrongs in this world, especially those that benefit the privileged few. God’s peace comes only by exposing the untruth of structures that beat people down in this world.

That kind of message is always going to divide people. Those who benefit from the how things stand will fight tooth and nail to oppose anyone who tries to change things for the benefit of the “least of these,” as Jesus calls them. And at times, they’ll quote the Bible to keep things as they are. At times they’ll kill the people who are trying to benefit the “least of these.” The sad truth is that we still live in a world where “holiness,” wealth, and power determine one’s place (or lack of place). But seeking the peace of God’s kingdom will always be perceived as a threat by those who benefit from beating down others. I think Jesus was warning all who would seek the peace of God’s kingdom that their work would be met with hostility and even violence.[3] I think that’s why Jesus used exaggeration in our lesson for today. History has borne out the truth of his warning. We must be clear: Jesus never endorsed violence.[4] But he knew how far people would go to protect their status and power. And yet he called the people of his day to return to God’s peace, a peace that exists only where there is true justice and compassion. And he calls all who would follow him to extend that peace to the people of our day. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not always going to comfortable. But if we’re going to follow Jesus and align our lives with God’s kingdom, there’s really no other way but to seek peace by helping the “least of these” have a place in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/17/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. J. T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, 275–276: “The depiction of Jesus’ fire-dealing, division-engendering mission in 12:49–53 thus stands in tension with some aspects of the preceding narrative but also anticipates the heightened conflict that his activity will provoke en route to Jerusalem.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 18-19: The promises that the hope inspired by the Gospel makes “must stand in contradiction to the reality which at present can be experienced,” which is a reality of suffering and death. Cf. also ibid., 103, 118, 225-226, 330. For this reason, he says (p. 324) that “Christians must venture an exodus and regard their social roles as a new Babylonian exile” in which they must proclaim the hope of the Gospel and work for the transformation of society.

[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.2:60-61: “That Jesus comes to bring about the ruin of any man is a thought which is wholly foreign to the New Testament.”

The Waking Dreamer