A Case for Ignorance

Christ the King Sunday C, November 24, 2013, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                O infinite Creator, who in the riches of Thy wisdom didst appoint three hierarchies of angels and didst set them in wondrous order over the highest heavens, and who didst apportion the elements of the world most wisely: do Thou, who art in truth the fountain of light and wisdom, deign to shed upon the darkness of my understanding the rays of Thine infinite brightness, and remove far from me the twofold darkness in which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance.  These are words of a prayer often prayed by St Thomas Aquinas. 

            Today is Christ the King Sunday, or in some traditions it is known as The Reign of Christ.  A number of people object to the assertion of Christ as King perhaps because of the legacy of numerous kings that reigned on earth that were probably best described as the exact opposite of what Jesus, in his earthly ministry stood for, did, taught and modeled.  It is not surprising that the shapers of the revised common lectionary which I and many others follow chose this Lucan text for the gospel lesson for this day.  Here we see the opposites juxtaposed; the mockery, scoffing, utter lack of respect for one who only did the will of God as he, in his wisdom saw it.  You really could make a case for ignorance.  Jesus failed in many ways to get his message across to the people.  The people were largely unable to grasp that this was God’s son before their very eyes.  It would take years to sink into God’s faithful Christians just who this Jesus was and is.  There are still many who are ignorant, including even us, who profess belief in him.  People have argued for centuries in many branches of Christendom as to whether it is sin, ignorance, or both that separate us from God and God’s love for us.  In fact, if we leave out the verse that appears to have been added to Luke at a later date, it is ignorance that is the focus of this text as well as it is in Luke 2:50, “But they did not understand what he said to them.”  Luke 9:45, “But they did not understand this saying.”  Finally, Luke 24:45, “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”  The gospels of Mark and John are even fuller of the notion of not understanding or ignorance.  In Acts, the sequel to Luke, we recall a conversion story of an Ethiopian where he asks for guidance to understand the scriptures he is reading.  As I have stated before, Luke is a gospel of opposites.  In this case, the blind will see, but not in a physical sense, but rather, a spiritual sense.

            What is the blindness or ignorance that Luke would speak to today?  I would say hands down that it is self-sufficiency. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me has been replaced by I am able to do all things by myself.  I can and will do whatever I want because I know what is best for me.  We live in a culture that has the inability to see beyond the self.  There is no group cohesion or thinking that is brought about by a community of shared values. We are self-satisfied individuals in our world, chasing after other gods, thinking that in doing so; we will find happiness and even joy.  We wander here and there expectant, yet so many times we are disappointed, forgetting that our greatest joy is in the words we hear spoken, read and digested from the gospel. We are no different from the government leaders, the soldiers, and the others who witnessed the crucifixion. And yet, what Jesus says to the criminal whom we have a strong dislike for if not outright hate, is what we long for the most.  “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” All we have to do is put our trust, belief, and obedience in Jesus.  That’s it.

            As CS Lewis put it, “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

            We are simply attached to the wrong things in life and we allow the little things to lure us down paths that don’t really matter in the long run, the larger vision of life.  When the people of the Old Testament asked God for a king, God did not understand. God said that they didn’t need a king because God was their king.  I Samuel chapter 8, verse 7 reads, “…and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  Even back then, there was the concept of God as king.  But asking for a king to rule over the people of Israel was an act of rebellion against the commandment of God.

            However, the concept of a king was misinterpreted by the people.  It was about the people keeping the law.  As time continued, the various leaders of the Jewish people interpreted the law differently.  They could not allow the law to be ambiguous.  And we are the same today.  We want someone to set things straight for us.  We want the structure of what is right and what is wrong because we also do not like to live with ambiguity.  However, Jesus came along teaching us that we are not to set up a law, but to proclaim Christ because Jesus is both the fulfillment and the cancellation of the law.  It is not our self-achievement, but God’s alone.  To be a disciple is to share in Jesus’ suffering, his rejection, and crucifixion.  Only the person who is dead to one’s own will, can follow Christ.  We do not need to understand more than that.  God’s grace really is sufficient. It is proven over and over in the New Testament and it is proven in the exchange between Jesus and the criminal who said, “Jesus, remember me in your kingdom.”  That was a simple request made in pure faith.  It had nothing to do with sin or making a confession.  It was simply an act of humility before God, a trust in God’s mercy.  It is a parallel to the story of the prodigal son.  The father forgave the son even before the son said anything and the father embraced him and welcomed him home.  That is what the kingdom of God is like.  If in Jesus is the fulfillment and cancellation of the law, then there is no sin and therefore no judgment. We are simply called to be disciples of Jesus and to walk before God and all that God has created with the grace and the compassion given us to make this world a better place in the present.

            If we are to take Jesus at his word in Luke, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” means that Jesus’ fulfillment of the law occurred when here on earth before the crucifixion.  Today, it means we are living in that paradise as believers in him. The salvation of God is happening in the present.  It is happening each and every day that we take that leap of faith in him.  Eternal life begins before we die in this earthly frame and continues beyond our death.  We do not die.  We are all eligible for life with God when we place our trust in Jesus.  Today, Jesus offers salvation to us, all of us, as unlikely as that might seem.  Our sins are forgiven.  Our wounds are healed.  We may enter Paradise with Jesus.

Are you Chicken?

Proper28C, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 17, 2013 by Annette Fricke

            When I was born and a few years after that, my dad was a poultry farmer.  What did that mean?  It meant that he had 1,000 Leghorn chickens.  I don’t imagine he kept many roosters for breeding purposes although I know he must have had some because he also had an incubator to hatch eggs.  The other roosters were likely to show up on the dinner table. The rest meant gathering and sorting eggs, lots of them. I was young and impressionable.  My favorite childhood story was that of the Little Red Hen.  In the second grade, I wrote a paper about different breeds of chickens.  This was not surprising considering I grew up on a poultry farm. 

                The story of the Little Red Hen goes like this: The hen found some  grains of wheat scattered in the barnyard and asked for help to plant it from the other animals and they all said, “Not I!”  All through each step to making bread out of the wheat, each animal continued to say, “Not I!”  The little red hen, after the bread has been baked and ready to eat asks who will help her eat it and the animals say, “I will!" said the lamb. "I will!" said the cat. "I will!" said the pig.

"No, you will not," said the Little Red Hen. "You didn't help me plant it, or water it, or harvest it, or mill it, or bake it. I shall eat it myself!" And so she did.

"Oh me!" said the lamb.

"Oh my!" said the cat.

"Oh me, oh my!" said the pig.

The next time the Little Red Hen found some grains of wheat, the lamb planted it in the rich, brown soil, the cat watered it carefully every day, and the pig harvested the wheat when it had grown tall and strong. When the dough was baked, together the animals made hot chocolate and ate the fresh, warm bread. It was delicious! The animals lived happily ever after, cooperating and helping every day.[1]

                Similar to our second lesson from 2 Thessalonians, the moral of this story is that those who show no willingness to contribute to a product do not deserve to enjoy the product: "if any would not work, neither should he eat.”[2]

            In my mind for many years the lesson was quite straightforward, you don’t work, you don’t eat.  It was that simple.  But it’s not that simple any more.  In my research for the origin of this story, I only find that it is thought to be Russian in origin.  If I look at the context of this text, I see the repeating of the word idle once as well as idleness twice and busybody once. In the dictionary, the word busybody is a noun meaning a meddling or prying person: a meddler, interferer, mischief-maker, troublemaker, gossip, scandalmonger, eavesdropper, snoop, buttinsky, and a host of other synonyms.

            In this epistle, the context is the Christian community.  The purpose of this section is to give guidance and encouragement in the form of some very direct language.  We are not to be mean to people who are idle.  In fact, we are to love them with the same love that Christ showed us.  We should show our inclusiveness and concern for all in the Christian community. This text also is not about those who are unable to work. We are to care for all regardless of ability. This text rather, is directed to those who are perfectly capable of work, but aren’t working.

            On Thursday, since it was one of my days off, I decided to visit with a friend of the family from Mt Hope.  For those of you who don’t know where that is, it is close to Rockford and Fairfield, south of here about 25 miles.  I went with a friend from the church.  After that, she suggested we see another person in an Adult Family Home in the same vicinity.  So we got back into my car and drove about a mile south.  We were told that the person we came to see was taking a nap.  We decided that we would stay since she would be getting up soon for lunch.  While waiting, the therapy dog, Bentley, came up to greet us, seeming to favor me of the two of us.  In time, the resident appeared to us in a wheelchair.  The connections were made.  She had sung in the choir where my friend and I still sing.  She excitedly informed us that she wanted us to come for her birthday on February 8^th and she would be 96 years old! Then she looked at me and said, “How old are you?”  I said, “56.”  She said, “Do you want a job working here?”  I hesitated.  “Well,” as the main provider of the facility approached, “I work pretty much full-time at Rockwood, but I could work part-time.”  The Adult Family Home provider gave me her card so I could apply.  She said the job was posted on Craigslist, but I never found it.  So, I applied.

            From our first lesson is addressed all the arrogant and evildoers.  This goes beyond idleness into outright purposeful behavior meant to do harm to others.  I was observing one of our residents one day.  He blatantly told one of the servers from the kitchen that he disliked her newly colored red hair and will sometimes refer to her as the one with the mouth.  A couple of minutes later, he made it a point to apologize to her formally.  Previous to that, one of the staff decided that she did not want to put this resident’s hair into a pony tail, as he had requested.  These are just some of the examples that I see around me.  I am sure that you are able to fill in the blank for your own conversations.  It is OK to be different.  We are all different, but that is what our make-up is as a community.  And so we are admonished, “Brothers and sisters do not be weary in doing what is right.”

            Do not weary in doing what is right.  Many temptations will surround you and you will be tested in your faith many times over.  The early Christians knew this well, especially as they experienced the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ words about the coming destruction of the temple in 70 AD are still valid and we are called to remain faithful to him.  There will continue to be wars, revolutions, rebellions, and resistances against civil authorities and established governments.  But, as the text also says, the end will not follow immediately.  That means that we will continue to see phenomenon like the typhoon which devastated much of the people and land of the Philippines.  We will continue to see bad things happen to people over which we do not have any control.  There will be famine and disease.  There is an ongoing controversy about immunizations in this country.  Many of my co-workers and some of the residents in my care refuse to get flu shots because they believe that they will become sick with the flu when they get the shot.  Right now, some would say that is a choice and we should respect those who choose that path. Others would say that it increases the possibility of passing along the flu.

            But, regardless of how you might feel about contagion or the severity of the weather systems of the world, this will continue till we are at the end.  What are we to do?  Jesus says that we are to endure.  False prophets will also come.  Never mind them.  They are not Jesus.  Do not follow them or pay attention to their new teachings.  Be strong and of good courage because Jesus is ever near around us and inside of us to comfort and lead us.  He has conquered the world.  Dear brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.  Do not be frightened. Your reward will be your faithfulness to God.  Put your trust in God who will safely bring you from this life to the next.  You will never die in God’s hands. Amen.

           

  

 

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[1] © Copyright 2003-2013, StoryBus

[2] 2 Thessalonians 3:10

I will go to Jesus

Proper27C, November 10, 2013, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                To borrow a quote from the internet, “Jesus just happened to be a long-haired socialist who condemned the rich, challenged the religious elite, and told people to pay their taxes.” That basically sums up what is going on in the gospel according to Luke.  One of those groups known to be the religious elite was the Sadducees.  The Sadducees pictured God and humans as independent and distant, both in this life and the next. Rewards for righteousness were in this life, and thus they were keen on wealth and influence as evidence of divine blessing. The problem with this quote is that it says Jesus was, not is.  It denies that Jesus is alive today.  The same goes for that phrase WWJD, a confusing abbreviation which means “what would Jesus do (?)” rather than “what is Jesus doing (?)”. I can, however, properly say in the past tense that the Sadducees were because they did, in fact, cease to exist by the time of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.

            We do not know much about the Sadducees for two reasons.  They did not write anything down and what we do know comes from their adversaries. We do know that many of them were from the aristocratic class and were generally in power alongside the government.  The ordinary people did not share their belief system, but were more likely to side with the Pharisees. An early church historian, Josephus, confirms that the Sadducees denied the resurrection, the immortality of the soul, eternal rewards, or the "world to come."  The Pharisees did believe in resurrection and became the forerunners of modern-day Judaism.  Thus, this “debate” of Jesus is with the Sadducees.  A very popular joke passed around in the seminaries to remember what they believed is that they did not believe in the resurrection, therefore they were sad, (pause) you see?

            In reading the scriptures, tense is very important.  In reading the scriptures, we need to focus on past versus present tense.  This is the point that Jesus is trying to make with the Sadducees.  They did not see what they supposedly believed.  Yet, as Jesus pointed out, it is right there in plain view.  How did they miss it?  And how did I miss it.  I have also read the scriptures many times, but this argument of Jesus really makes sense.  God’s name is “I am” and God says also in the present tense, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It is all present tense.  It is the tense of the living.  Jesus’ point is that even if we only have before us the first five books of the Old Testament, we have the confirmation that resurrection is a reality.  If we look back into Luke itself, we see the story of Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham.  I don’t know a better way of connecting the dots.  Luke narrates clearly for us the relationship of Jesus to God, both the continuation of God’s teaching from many years ago to the new age of believers in Jesus.  Jesus’ message is so powerful, that even some of the Sadducees are converted or so it seems from just beyond our gospel text.  The rest of them, not unlike the Pharisees, wanted to snuff out his life, thinking that was all it would take to bury him and his teachings forever. Jesus is a radical rabbi that needs to disappear from the face of the earth, never to be seen or discussed ever again.  Jesus’ teaching does not agree with that of others, even today.

            The taunts towards Jesus continue throughout the gospel of Luke, only this one is from the Sadducees.  Who is God?  God is God of the living, not of the dead.  According to Luke, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living.  Pay close attention to the text: they are not angels, but like angels.  Those who talk about their children who died at a young age becoming angels are contradicted by this gospel text.  They do not become angels, but like angels. They are like angels in that they live in the presence of God through eternity, never dying.

            We, like the Sadducees, will continue to wonder just what the resurrection will look like.  We are given many images, such as those in the book of Daniel or Revelation, and here in Luke. Although our questions to Jesus about the resurrection may never be fully answered and we may be disappointed in our seeking and searching, that things may not be at all as we imagine or dream, still we trust that what little we know about what Jesus tells us in these readings will be enough. Isn’t it enough to know that Jesus will take us home to be with him in everlasting love and joy?  Isn’t it enough to know that the love of God is eternal?

In the words of an early American hymn: Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and pow'r. I will arise and go to Jesus; He will embrace me in his arms. In the arms of my dear Savior, Oh, there are ten thousand charms. Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, ev'ry grace that brings you nigh. Come, ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all.

We are not perfect and probably never will be in this life and yet we carry on our lives in faith, faith alone.  That is all we have.  God’s grace which supports and sustains that faith is sufficient because God is our redeemer. Because Jesus suffered and died on the cross, you and I can say with full confidence as in the book of Job, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has thus been destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.”  Because of what Jesus interprets from the Torah, even before the stories of his own resurrection, you and I are children of the resurrection.  We cannot die anymore.  To God, we are all alive.  Those saints that we celebrated last Sunday are alive in God.  It doesn’t matter that we don’t know the details, that some of us believe differently from others.  The details are not important.  The important thing is that God does not abandon us, but continues to love us and embrace us with a love far beyond our imaginings, even beyond the love experienced in the best of our marriages and relationships with each other.

And so it is that we are left with a mystery.  Even resurrection itself is thought of differently by different Christians.  Some say it is only spiritual, not bodily at all.  If we are talking about this life, yes; it is only spiritual.  But beyond that, how do we even go about defining what “only spiritual” really means?

Do you believe that God can change your life around 180 degrees?  That what you see now can become just the opposite?  Do you believe that all the pain and suffering you have been through in this life will eventually lead to utter bliss, love and joy of immense quality and quantity beyond what you could ever possibly imagine?  That your longings and yearnings will someday become a reality, living with God eternally?  Do you believe or reject such a proposition?  Do you believe the words formulated by the Council of Nicaea, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”?

Perhaps our best response to that is that of the hymn, “I will arise and go to Jesus.  He will embrace me in his arms.”  Amen.

           

 

Weep no More

AllSaints’SundayC, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 3, 2013

                “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

I begin this sermon with the words of Yentl as sung by Barbra Streisand.  This movie is about a young woman who is caring for her elderly father.  Her father teaches her with the books that a Jewish father would use to teach his son, not his daughter.  She falls in love with the scriptures and the instruction from her father to such an extent that she wants to become a rabbi.  Her father dies. The only problem is this: she cannot become a rabbi, because she is female and no females in Europe are allowed to become a rabbi.  Her solution is to cut off her long hair and dress as a man and run away from the village to school where men become rabbis.  This is the song of grief she sings in the woods. Our Heavenly Father, O God, and my father, who’s also in heaven, May the light of this flickering candle illuminate the night the way your spirit illuminates my soul. Papa, can you hear me? Papa, can you see me? Papa, can you find me in the night? Papa, are you near me? Papa, can you hear me? Papa, can you help me not be frightened?
Looking at the skies I seem to see a million eyes: which ones are yours? Where are you now that yesterday has waved goodbye and closed its doors? The night is so much darker. The wind is so much colder. The world I see is so much bigger now that I'm alone.
Papa, please forgive me. Try to understand me.
Papa, don't you know I had no choice? Can you hear me praying,
anything I'm saying, even though the night is filled with voices?
I remember everything you taught me, every book I've ever read. Can all the words in all the books help me to face what lies ahead? The trees are so much taller and I feel so much smaller. The moon is twice as lonely and the stars are half as bright.
Papa, how I love you. Papa, how I need you. Papa, how I miss you kissing me goodnight.

          These words belong to a spirituality that I had not previously considered. I don’t know if she is addressing God, her own father, or both.  Is her own father fused somehow into God? What happens to those whom we love in this world?  In one of our discussions, our deacon made the point, simply stated, “…we don’t know.  We die, and then, poof!  We really don’t know what happens.”  However, the fact that we don’t know has certainly not stopped the speculation over the years.  In fact, Paul himself claims to have been caught up into heaven.  It sounds nice, but it is hardly the proof that our scientific minds can wrap themselves around. A priest I know tells us that he talks to his father every day.  But I think that for most of us, we believe something somewhere in between.  I think of the story of the rich man and Lazarus and that is pretty much my belief.  I believe there is a chasm between the living and the dead.  I also believe that when we are grieving, we are in a different state of mind to where our minds may be open to suggestions that may or may not be true in reality.  Each Sunday, I recite the Nicene Creed in which I state that I believe in the communion of saints. I listen to the Eucharistic prayer where the presiding priest says, “And therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope…”

          Christians have long believed that there is intercommunion of the living and the dead.  They have believed that those who have professed the faith in the past continue to live in God and near God.  The Church has made a distinction between saints in the colors on the altar.  The commemoration color of the saints is either white or red.  Red is reserved for those who were martyred for their faith.  The Church decides through various criteria and procedures who is a saint and who is not.  Some saints are local and some are remembered worldwide. These are the identified saints which we recognize on All Saints’ Day November 1 or on the designated transfer of All Saints’ Day on this, the following Sunday.  Everyone else, like our grandfathers, is relegated to the day after All Saints’ and it is called All Souls Day.

          Except the Protestants came along and decided that they would side with Paul who said that basically we are all saints and sinners simultaneously.  We are all living into the grace of God in Jesus Christ by virtue of our baptisms and the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives who perfects us in that grace, transforming us day by day to be the people of God we are called to be.  If there is just one thing that I believe Paul got right, it is this: we may strive all we want in this world to be like Jesus, but we continue to struggle with sin.  Sin is ever before us in what we say, do and think. We really and truly are dependent on God’s gracious gift of life.

          Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Peter wept when he realized he denied being a follower of Jesus three times. Jesus understands fully about humanity.  He understands that deep, grieving sorrow about someone we loved in life who died.  Only a person who has loved much will grieve much. As healthcare workers, we are not allowed to show such emotion.  We are taught to insulate ourselves from such emotional involvement.  We are not allowed to have favorites.  There are consequences if we do.  My sister-in-law once told me that the reason she does not make a good veterinarian is that she wants to take all the pets home with her!  Jesus did not insulate himself, but became immersed in humanity. Jesus wept over the death of his friend, Lazarus, brother of Martha and Mary. Jesus grieved in much the same way as either you or I. Jesus’ grief was borne out of love for us, those of us left here on earth who daily struggle to make sense out of a world that frequently does not. He demonstrated for us what it meant to love others with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, yet when we try that, it is ever so hard to let go.

          When we are in the midst of grief, we are looking only at death.  We cannot see beyond our grief.  We mourn our loss and, like Yentl, we feel lost and alone in that grief.  We cry to God and each other, but the pain persists.  The pain of that abandonment remains like that of an open, infected sore that won’t heal.  Our crying seems to go nowhere but into an empty vacuum.  Just where are those who would have helped us and guided us, who cheered us on in this life, those whom we still love and cherish?  We remember those who are gone from our lives by death sometimes like it was just yesterday when they parted.  Where are they now?  Luke has little to say on this subject.  He says only, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”  He doesn’t tell us specifics in a way that we might hope for.  He tells us only what he has been saying in his gospel all along: your status will be reversed when you live into God’s kingdom. Those who laugh at you and mock you for your belief in Jesus now, will mourn and weep. God will turn everything upside down.  This is the point of it all in Luke: what you see now will become the opposite.  There is a power in Jesus that is way beyond what anyone had seen before.  We are told in the verse just preceding this one, “And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

          Hang on, dear little ones who are mocked by those who do not believe in Jesus, for your life in Jesus gives you the power to overcome even the deepest grief you could possibly imagine.  And do not fear your own death, for Jesus has gone before you and led the way.  He who also knew the agony of aloneness and abandonment on the cross has gone to prepare a place for you, you who have loved much and grieve much.  God knows your pain and your sorrow as you bid goodbye to those you loved in this life. God remains forever with open arms to welcome you home where you shall weep no more.

An Apple a Day

Proper21C, September 29, 2013, Sullivan Park Care Center by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP

            I was aware at a very early age that Washington State is the apple capital of the world.  It produces more apples than any other geographical entity. Such knowledge made me very proud to be a native Washingtonian.  At a later age, when I was in my thirties, I attended a meeting at the Bethel Bible Series where a tune was played and we were to name the tune as quickly as we knew it.  The tune associated with Washington State was, “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.”  Apple trees are common in this state, not only as a commercial enterprise, but as backyard favorites.  I once suggested planting an apple tree to help stabilize our ever-sliding backyard in Astoria, Oregon because I read that it had a deep tap root.  But, for one, the actual production of good fruit requires regular treatment to prevent the infestation of worms, a common apple pest.

My mother would at times, give me words of advice in the form of a saying that as a child, I often times found difficult to understand. One such phrase was, “Don’t upset the applecart.” Looking it up in the dictionary, which was frequent advice from my parents, was of no help because it was a phrase, not a single word. In addition to that, I didn’t know then that applecart is one word, not two. After knowing that, the dictionary would only give me one definition and that would be “applecart [ˈæpəlˌkɑːt] noun, A cart or barrow from which apples and other fruit are sold in the street.  But what she meant would be the meaning rendered as “to spoil plans or arrangements.”  Although I knew what a wheel barrow was, I would more likely be confused by the word ‘barrow’ and would be thinking about a male castrated pig.  It seems quite clear that my interactions with Mom and Dad were about equally split. In other words, be careful what you say and how you say it.

          Today we will talk about apples and upsetting applecarts, sustenance and the balance between needs and wants.  In the summer of 2008, I decided that I wanted the experience of being a camp counselor, something I had never done.  I was already fifty years old and experiencing the arthritis in my knees and had been in physical therapy the previous spring.  As in my camp days as a camper, we sang the old grace song for meals, “Oh, the Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need: the sun and the rain and the apple seed the Lord is good to me. Amen.”  All worm infestation prevention aside, if you are to ask apple orchard growers from Green Bluff how to grow apples, they would tell you that growing apples from seed is not the way to do it.  In addition to that, the production of a crop is more likely to occur by making cross pollination something that is planned.  You need more than one tree or at least a neighbor’s tree just a few feet away. Otherwise, you are relying on the wind and bees to pollinate by randomness.  Randomness does not create apples, except by accident. Growing apples in this manner would label you as a foolish farmer or an accidental arborist.

          Here, in the gospel text, we have another story about a rich man, probably also aimed at the practices of the Pharisees.  If you recall from last Sunday, the Pharisees were lovers of money who ridiculed Jesus.  They justified themselves.  They claimed to follow the Law of Moses and the prophets.  They didn’t like Jesus’ teaching, because it meant that they were wrong about how they followed the teachings of Torah, handed down from their ancestors. The pure teaching of God had become clouded by interpretations and explanations to the point that God’s Word had been perverted.

          The same thing happens today.  People use phrases from the Bible out of context to justify their way of thinking or their own agenda.  A Bible verse used most recently to justify not funding the food stamp program known as SNAP is this one taken from II Thessalonians 3:10, “He who does not work shall not eat.” The context of this statement is that of a preaching party of early Christian disciples.  In the early days of Christianity, it was common to go out with at least one other person to preach in order to convert others to Christianity.  Many of them also worked for a living, rather than simply begging or the staying in one place scenario presented earlier in Luke.  We know that Paul worked as a tent maker.  They didn’t have the formal church structures of today with professional clergy.  I surmise that they did similar to what I do.

          The food stamp program in this country is designed to help those who are unable to work.  Lazarus is unable to work.  He is not the Lazarus of the other gospels, for example, the brother of Mary and Martha.  This is a different Lazarus.  Lazarus, to the rich man, is an eyesore who lies at the rich man’s gate, hoping for just a few crumbs from the rich man’s table.  He is in poor shape, near death, with sores that ooze all over his body, a truly homeless man who lives without shelter in all kinds of inclement weather. His needs are multiple, but he gets no response from the rich man. As stated in Proverbs 29:7, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

          Compared to last Sunday’s gospel text, the contrast between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless is even greater.  Now, at death, because of the extreme differences in life in which each of them lived, there is a chasm. The chasm is so great that no one is able to cross it.  This is a story that upsets the applecart. There has been so much stalemate in our federal government over the past year that this is now what I think of when I picture the proposed cuts in our nation’s budget---especially to the poorest of our nation.  But I think we misinterpret the chasm when we think of it as a space between heaven and hell.  I propose rather that we think of it as a challenge to fill the ever widening gap between people of different economic statuses.

          One such organization here in town is called Second Harvest.  I just happen to know the director there because she was in my class in school.  She is perfect for the job because I know that she grew up in poverty.  Who could be better?  She knew what it was like to be poor and without much to eat or proper clothing.  It is an organization that takes some of their donations from the apple orchards of Green Bluff.  I was part of a team once that went to pick the leftover apples and place them into several bins, one of a number of teams from Lutheran congregations in the Spokane Valley area. I know that Second Harvest makes a difference in the lives of the homeless of Spokane and I take comfort that my friend was chosen at some point, to be its director.  They are helping to fill the chasm between the poor and the rich, those who have and those who have not.

          The next time you eat an apple or take your medicine with applesauce, remember that there are some simple ways in which people can help to bridge the gap between the wealthy and the poverty-stricken.  I am sure there are other community service projects available that are similar, ones in which even children can be taught to care for the poor. And certainly, it is a way in which children can benefit the welfare of other children. Be thankful for them and encourage these sorts of activities in your children and grandchildren.  That’s the best time to learn, before one’s heart is hardened.  Continue to be a source of inspiration and a moral compass to your children, nieces, and nephews.  Encourage what you know in your heart to be the right path of mercy. They still need your input.  They still need to hear you.  It’s up to you to plant the seed. It’s up to you to give that seed nourishment to grow. Amen.

           

         

Mismanaging Money

Proper20C, Sullivan Park Care Center, September 22, 2013, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP  Also preached on September 25, 2014 at The Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, Spokane, WA

                Frederick Buechner wrote in his book, The Longing for Home, "We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live."

            We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. That is a point of view I think most of us would endorse. We seek to be reasonable, ethical citizens of the world who seek out work that is suitable to what we feel we can do with the gifts and talents that God has given us. As we age and circumstances change, what we previously worked at as an occupation or way of life may take on a different form.  We may, for example, pursue what may have been only a hobby in the past or only a curiosity.  Some see getting older as the freedom to pursue other interests or to teach and mentor the young, guiding them in their search for a meaningful vocation.

But our gospel text assigned to this day has us shaking our heads. We are accustomed to texts, which in our minds, are supposed to give us a picture of the kingdom of God.  Jesus’ stories are usually a bit more straightforward than this one.  We also do not have the luxury of finding a parallel in another gospel to elucidate its meaning.  There is none.  Luke is the only one with this story. But here it is.  This is a gospel text that baffles many.  Even those who write commentaries on the meaning of these texts label this one as a tough nut to crack. This one simply does not make sense.  It seems to be quite the opposite; quite mind boggling because, on the surface, what we see in this text is a very selfish man who does everything he can to take advantage of his boss financially. Most of us would not do what this man does because we would fear being fired because we see what he does as being immoral. In modern times, what he does is commonly known as embezzlement which is subject to paying back the employer and imprisonment. Such an employment situation can go on for years before it is finalized between the insurance companies and the embezzler. That part of the story does make sense to us and the man is fired.  What follows this does not make sense.  The man who “cooked the books” so to speak is asked to straighten them out. Why would a person even have opportunity to do anything with his job after he is fired? Or want to? Am I wrong or isn’t that usually what the person does who is hired in his place? The story clearly lacks logic and that is why, previous to now, I have never preached on this text.

            You might explain this text by saying that perhaps this man had a change of heart and that is what living in God’s kingdom is all about.  He made a mess of things by selfishly taking money for himself that belonged to his employer. Similarly, we are called to repent of our sins, which is a change of heart, and try to do better which is the forgiveness of debt to his master’s clients. Luke actually does inform us later that this story was told to the Pharisees who are lovers of money. The meaning that Luke attaches to this story is, as he addresses the Pharisees, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”  Doesn’t this correspond to the second part of the Buechner’s text? “We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more.”

            In Luke, we hear this theme of self-justification over and over.  Think about the story of the Good Samaritan.  It begins with someone who would like to justify himself by doing the works of the law.  Jesus quickly points out that we do not possess salvation by playing that game in life. The temptation is always there. What are our priorities? Two Sundays ago, the gospel text read, “…none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  Whom or what do I serve?  Are our lives revolving around money or possessions or our own way of thinking?  Do we cling with such tenacity that we rarely think of nothing or nobody else? Are we seeking the mercy and justice of God in the world or are we allowing some or most other things to take our focus away from serving God?

            If you are looking only with literal eyes to interpret this gospel, you will only see it as being addressed to a rich man and therefore only applies to rich men.  If you see it thus, you will see that it does not apply to you and you can dismiss it’s teaching.  Either you are not a man or you are not rich—or both.  But the truth is that all of us have the resources of richness.  We all have the ability to be the compassion and justice of God to everyone around us, even if we are unable to travel far. Your world, small as it may be, confined to a small living space of just a few feet or a small neighborhood out of which you venture on rare occasions, is God’s.  God invites you to work for justice and peace in that neighborhood as though you were Jesus and doing as Jesus would.  It does not always mean being nice, but it does mean always seeking justice for the poor; both the poor in spirit as well as those unable to provide a living for themselves.  We always have something we can give to others. The point of this parable is that we are to make the most of our resources.  If we have the talent of gathering resources from others, that is also commendable.  God calls us to right the wrongs of the world, a world that is filled with many people clamoring to be recognized for self-achievement or how well they managed to make money.  We need to beware as to how we represent Christ and follow him, not the poor examples in our world.  We need to ask ourselves, “What are the needs?” and “How can I help?” in every moment of encounter with another person. You never know when one kind act or one kind word will change a life forever.  And the same goes for any life event, even when what we view as negative life events happen to us, if we are open to the possibilities, it may change us. The opportunity is always there for us to change our minds and do something we never did before. Even when someone we love very much dies, we can choose to see it only as a loss or as an opportunity or blessing to move forward.  God has blessed us with many gifts.  It is up to us to use them and up to us to receive the gracious gifts of others. As John Wesley has so eloquently put it, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”  We are to make friends with the poor in our midst, for we never know when the tables will be turned and we may be in need of their help.  Do not deceive yourselves into thinking that you are self-sufficient. We search to love and be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live. That something holy and beautiful and life-transcending is what I call God. I invite you to take that leap of faith once more and fully put your trust in God who gives in order that you may receive God’s love for you and may distribute that love to all of God’s creatures.  God who loves you is faithful and sent his Son to sacrifice his life on the cross as the seal of a love that remains eternal.
* this sermon can be found on Youtube at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFZQzSc7ZKo

Costly Discipleship

Proper18C, Sullivan Park Care Center, September 8, 2013, by Annette Fricke

            A now, made quite popular way of praying, is posted on Facebook.  It is the new Pope Francis’ simple way to pray that he taught before becoming the current pope. It is a simple method, not dependent on any other tool than ones hand.  It goes like this: 1) The thumb is the closest finger to you.  So start praying for those who are closest to you.  They are the persons easiest to remember.  To pray for our dear ones is a “sweet obligation.” 2) The next finger is the index.  Pray for those who teach you, instruct you and heal you.  They need the support and wisdom to show direction to others.  Always keep them in your prayers. 3) The following finger is the tallest.  It reminds us of our leaders, the governors and those who have authority.  They need God’s guidance. 4) The fourth finger is the ring finger. Even that may surprise you.  It is our weakest finger.  It should remind us to pray for the weakest, the sick or those plagued by problems.  They need your prayers.  5) And finally we have our smallest finger, the smallest of all.  Your pinkie should remind you to pray for yourself.  When you are done praying for the other four groups, you will be able to see your own needs but in the proper perspective, and also you will be able to pray for your own needs in a better way.

            Proper perspective is what we all need to keep in mind when we aspire to be a disciple of Jesus. Purely and simply, the gospel text for today is all about the cost of discipleship.  There just happens to be a whole book about that subject written by a man who lived out that cost.  His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of the first things that Dietrich warns against is reflection.  Remember the Pharisees?  The Pharisees were so caught up in reflecting on the law in order to illuminate it that in fact, they obscured it. We see it today in the places where local citizens insist on displaying the Ten Commandments.  Along with many others, I wonder why those should be displayed in a public place?  Why not exhibit the Beatitudes instead?  Wouldn’t that be more in line with the New Testament interpretation we have from Jesus? The meaning of beatitudes is one of an "exclamation of the inner joy and peace that comes with being right with God".[1] It is Jesus who makes us right with God. This whole section in chapter fourteen of Luke’s gospel, today’s assigned gospel text, is about the individual.  Each person stands before God by him or herself.  And because we stand by ourselves, we need the mediator Jesus Christ.  We are not able to approach God without Jesus because we are not capable of keeping the letter of the law as it is written in the Ten Commandments.  That is why Jesus is so critical of the Pharisees, because they don’t seem to understand that.  We are not able to stand on our own. Jesus is the way to stand before God because Jesus supplies the way to a right relationship with God which means keeping the spirit of the law.  The spirit of the law is to attach ourselves to Jesus and to be committed to Jesus’ way of relating which is centering all our preaching, teaching, and healing in a prayerful relationship with God. We are to put others head of us, therefore the last person we pray for is ourselves.  Our prayers and our actions are mutually interactive.  It is difficult if not impossible to be angry with a person when we are in constant prayer for that person.

            So what then are we to make of this text? You must love Jesus above all else in order to be his disciple.  That’s what it means to hate your relatives and to hate yourself.  That is what it means when he says to carry the cross.  It means that our total loyalty to Jesus means that we must be prepared to suffer martyrdom for Jesus and the sake of the kingdom of God.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer did just that, and his struggle was also that of keeping one of the Ten Commandments versus joining in a plot to kill Hitler.  It was when he finally decided that it was a lesser evil to be involved in the annihilation of Hitler rather than allow the commandment of “Do not kill” to cloud what he finally chose to be the best choice, a situation of two evils.  Yet despite his decision, in the end, he still felt the guilt of longing for the death of another human being. Bonhoeffer never saw himself as a martyr.

            I think that the reason that many people are attracted to the use of the Ten Commandments is because it is concrete and gives very specific directives as to what we should not do in regards to our neighbor.  The problem comes when we divorce the commandments from the overall positive command to love God and our neighbor.  When we start being specific, we limit our sense of wrong to a cultural setting.  The Ten Commandments were written during a time when men were allowed to have wives and concubines as well as slaves.  We no longer live in that world view.  We are better off to follow the broader application of whatever it takes to have a positive relationship to God and neighbor—to make peace and to be merciful, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you---Do to others as you would have them do to you.  These are not culturally determined.  They apply today just as much as they applied in Jesus’ time.  They are commands and we are to take them seriously and whole-heartedly.  Commands imply that we are called to obedience.

            In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about the difference between cheap grace and costly grace.  Cheap grace is forgiveness which does not ask for repentance or a change in one’s behavior.  It is merely an intellectual assent to belief in God’s grace.  It costs nothing and discipleship has no behavioral corollary.  It is like going to church, hearing the words that we are forgiven, and then leaving as if nothing happened and there are no expectations beyond the walls of the church. When we do this, we are in fact, forgetting what discipleship is all about.  We are listening to Jesus’ command to “Follow me,” but assenting to discipleship only if we are allowed to continue to feel comfortable.  Discipleship with Jesus is not about feeling comfortable.

            This text is about sacrifice which in essence is about priorities.  We each have a limited amount of time each day.  How do we decide to spend that time?  How much time do we allot to prayer, to Bible study, to being the hands of Jesus to our neighbor?  Have we counted the cost of discipleship?  Do we invite others to church?

            If we truly desire to follow Jesus, do we not need to remind ourselves daily to follow Jesus into that path of being his disciple?  Following Jesus means we must follow in perseverance, knowing that all is possible including persecution for our beliefs and chosen behavior.  But there is infinite reward knowing that God will see us through in every step.  It is God who goes with us through every stormy trial, no matter how turbulent. Even in a nursing facility, such as this one, simply showing compassion on someone who has lost a husband or wife by giving them your condolences in either public or private goes a long way.  It lets people know that you care about their time of grief. It is good discipleship.  Jesus also grieved when he lost his friend Lazarus.  The depths of loss are better shared.

           

If you want to follow Jesus, you must deal with the cost of discipleship.  And what is that cost?  That cost is that you decide to whole-heartedly follow his lead every day of your life, never looking back but always forward, reaching out with the hand of mercy. Amen.

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[1] Ross, Allen. "The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) An Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew". Retrieved September 4, 2013.