Exodus 16:1-3
David A. Davis
October 13, 2019
Jump to audio

---

Wilderness. A desert place. Wilderness. Desert. In that ancient part of the world, not lush but arid. Windswept. A desert place. A deserted desert place. An isolated, isolating, lonely place. Wilderness. Not inhabited. Not easily inhabited. A desert place then. A desert place now. Desert. Wilderness.

When God called to Moses from the burning bush, it was in the wilderness. Aaron and Moses got together in the wilderness. They asked Pharaoh to let the people go out into the wilderness to worship. When God led the people of Israel to the Red Sea crossing, it was through the wilderness. After Pharaoh let the people of Israel go, they camped on the edge of the wilderness. After God saved the people from the hand of Pharaoh, Moses and the people sang a song to the Lord. The prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, led all the women in dance. And right after those moments of praise, Moses led the people back to the wilderness. After three days the people were thirsty and the water was bitter. The people complained. The Lord showed Moses a piece of wood. Moses tosses the wood in the water to sweeten it up. God gave the people a statute, an ordinance, and told them to do what is right. To keep God’s statutes. They come to an oasis of twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees and they camped there. But then it was back to the wilderness. To the desert place. The desert. The wilderness.

The whole congregation of the Israelites, two months and 15 days since they left Israel are back in the wilderness somewhere between Mt. Sinai and that oasis they just left. “The whole congregation complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.” They told Moses and Aaron it would have been better to die in Egypt with a full belly rather than come out into this wilderness, this desert place, this desert. It would have been better to die in Egypt rather than have this whole congregation, this whole assembly, this entire people killed by hunger.

They complained. They murmured. They grumbled. When the water was bitter in the wilderness, they complained. When they were hungry in the wilderness, they complained. Whey they were thirsty, they complained. Whey they thought they were going to die, they complained. They grumbled. They murmured. They complained when they were hungry; when they were thirsty. The whole congregation of the Israelites. They weren’t being whiney. They weren’t nagging. They weren’t just being nasty. They weren’t being sticks in the mud about change. They weren’t just mouthing off because it was supposed to be all about them, about what they want, about what they like. They weren’t acting entitled, or copping an attitude or even being ungrateful for their new freedom. No. They were hungry. They were thirsty. And they thought they were going to die. Because they were in the wilderness, they were in the wilderness for a long time. Over and over again, they kept finding themselves in the wilderness and the wilderness can be really, really hard.

Here in the wilderness chapters of Exodus, Amalek shows up to fight with the people of Israel. Joshua led the battle for Israel. Moses sat at the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand. Whenever Moses held up the staff, things went well in battle for Joshua and the people. When Moses was tired and couldn’t hold up the staff, things quickly changed for the worse. So they brought a stone for Moses to sit down and Aaron and Hur helped hold up Moses’ hand with the staff until the sunset. Until Amalek was defeated. Until Joshua and the people of Israel claimed victory. The old Sunday School lesson tells of that scene, that staff, Aaron and Hur helping to hold up Moses’ arm. But the takeaway is that in the wilderness there is hunger and thirst and there are enemies too.

The wilderness is a place of struggle. A place where the most ordinary and basics of necessities can’t be assumed. A place that eats away at humanity. Where enemies lurk. Where spirits abound. Yes, the wilderness can come with connotations of a pilgrimage. It can be one of those spiritual “thin places” unlike any other. It can offer profound encounters with creation and with the Creator. But here for the people of Israel, the wilderness is more like the one Jesus experience. For Jesus, it was the place to be tempted, to be tormented, to be turned away from God. A place of the devil. A desert place. The desert. The wilderness.

In the witness of scripture, the wilderness is all of that. All of the above. But it is not a God-forsaken place. Moses didn’t let God have it when the water was bitter and the people complained about being thirsty. No, the Lord showed Moses that sweetening branch. When they were hungry, God sent manna from heaven before Moses came to give voice to the complaint. Yes, Moses finally lashes out at God when the people were thirsty again with no water because the people were ready to kill him. The Lord told Moses to strike the rock and the water came. And there was that staff of God hovering over Joshua in battle. Water from a rock. Bread from heaven. And the people spared in battle.

There in the wilderness, God hears God’s people’s cry. God never judges the people’s complaints. With ever-growing patience, God hears their cry and God works to mold them into God’s people. God strives to establish the people as a whole congregation, a people with an identity. A people related to creation itself. A people grateful just for bread and water. God mold’s God’s people with statutes, and a means of honoring the sabbath. God shapes the sacred memory in the people. A memory of all that God has done. A people, a relationship, and a God; all shaped, molded, bound together in the wilderness. Wilderness formation.

I was in Minneapolis this week with my peer group of pastors. One of the powerful experiences came in a meeting with some Native American leaders. We learned more of a tragic history we had never been taught. We listened as representatives of three different generations told us their story and their intimate connection to the stories of their ancestors. Then we went to the Fort Snelling state park which sits at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers and the sacred land of the Dakota people. A storyteller told us of the Dakota War of 1862. The pastor told us how in the Native American oral tradition, the valley was considered a Garden of Eden, a place where creation, and life itself, was divinely created. And how with that War of 1862, the valley became also a sacred place of death, where hundreds of indigenous men, women, and children were rounded up, encamped, died, and were buried along the riverbank. The pastor/preacher/storyteller wanted us to know that for indigenous people in every generation one story never replaces another. The stories are not time-bound and that the current generation, and their identity, is shaped as they are drawn into, relive, hear and then experience for themselves a sacred place of life and of death.

I’ve told you before that when I was very young, after my brother’s death at the age of 21 in a car accident, I heard my mother tell one of her good friends from church “don’t you ever tell me that this was God’s will.” And I’ve told you before that a long, long time ago, a woman in the congregation sat in my office almost a year after her husband died and she said “if you tell me to just take it one day at time I am going to punch you in the nose.” After his son Alex died in his twenties, William Sloane Coffin said this in his first sermon back in the pulpit he talked about all the reverends in his life who tried to shower him with scripture and bad theology and that the comfort came from those who just wanted to hold hands, bring food, and sit quietly rather than quote anything. “Scripture” he said, “is not around for anyone’s protection, just for everyone’s unending support”. Scripture and its witness to God’s presence in the God-forsaken places of our lives. And as for the comfort, it came from those who had the strength and the faith and the theology to hear a people’s cry. I’ve told many, many people and I have probably told you from here that when you murmur and grumble to God, when you complain when you find yourself in the wilderness, you are in very good, biblical company. Few experiences in ministry have moved me more, touched my heart more deeply, shaped my faith more profoundly than coming alongside one of the saints of God who is courageous enough to let God hear their cry.

This wilderness story. To hear again of the whole congregation of Israel in the wilderness. To hear again of the sacred place of wilderness, complaint, and a God who hears the cry of God’s people, is to be drawn in once again to the holy presence of a God whose promise never ends. It offers the assurance that God is present to you in the most God-forsaken places of life. It comes with the proclamation that when life is really, really hard, and the suffering is real, and when you have absolutely every reason to grumble, murmur, and complain, that God hears your cry with no judgment at all. To be taken again into the wilderness of the sacred story is to be reminded again of how in life and death, you and I are being molded, shaped by the God who created every part of this earth, this blessed, groaning, murmuring, complaining earth. And that the God of the covenant, the God of our salvation is still working on the formation of God’s people, on the mountaintops and in the wilderness, to be the people God has called us to be; for once we were no people, and now we are God’s people. A servant people called to a kingdom life of love and care for one another, for the others, for the stranger, and yes, for creation itself. Hear again of God, God’s people, and their shared wilderness formation and dare to believe that absolutely every place, every corner, the most ordinary place and the most extraordinary place, every joy, every sorrow or your life is sacred. It is sacred because God is there. God is here. God is with you. And God loves you.

---

Luke 16:1-13
David A. Davis
September 22, 2019
Jump to audio

“His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” That’s where the parable ends. Jesus keeps talking to the disciples. He keeps on going. Luke’s Jesus keeps teaching but the parable proper, the story ends with “His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”
The rich man had discovered that the man was mishandling his business affairs. The employee was skimming money, stealing from him. Maybe he was faking expense reports or shaking down customers or inflating prices. Whatever it was, “he was squandering the rich man’s property.” “Turn in your accounts, all the paperwork, the contact list, you’re done. You can’t be my manger anymore.” Then the dismissed manager had one of those hard conversations with himself. A discussion not unlike the one the Prodigal Son had when he was up to his eyeballs in pig slop after squandering his inheritance. The result was that the Prodigal Son decided to go home and throw himself at the mercy of his father. Here in the parable of the “unjust steward”, he says ‘I can’t dig and I’m ashamed to beg.” His “come to Jesus” moment must have taken a while, at least through a long, dark night. But this is a parable, so he reaches the conclusion right away. He said to himself “I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.”
In order to collect as much as he could quickly, in order to try to recoup something of the business loss incurred by the owner, in order to try to make some amends with customers he had strong-armed for years, the manager went door to door inviting people to pay at a reduced rate. He took off his commission, reduced the bill, told folks to pay just a part of what they owed. “If you owe a hundred jugs of oil, make it fifty. A hundred bundles of wheat? Make it eighty. Each customer, one at a time. And after all of that, he was able to return to the owner with some portion of the outstanding bills. “His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”
Jesus knew this parable was a tough one. He knew the disciples, the listeners, the readers, the church wouldn’t get it. He knew the disciples would understand and it would leave a bad taste in their mouths, even a knot in their stomach. It wouldn’t make sense and it wouldn’t feel good either, the parable of the unjust steward. Like a mystery novel that leaves the reader disappointed because the resolution wasn’t as satisfying as the rest of the book. Like one of those British police dramas where the protagonist has a dark side and some demons and isn’t very easy to like or root for. It’s not just that it’s hard to understand, the parable leaves a visceral negative reaction.
Most English translations place a semi-colon hereafter “he had acted shrewdly”. Semi-colon and then “for the children of this age are more shrewd” Some offer a period there. A hard stop before Jesus continues. You have to figure Jesus flat out stopped, paused, waited a bit to let the whole uncomfortable parable sink in. “His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”
“For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Shrewd. Shrewdly. Prudent. Thoughtful. Wise. Shrewd. It’s an uncommon word in the bible. At least in English translations. The King James uses the word “wise.” And Greek forms of the word are easy to find in the gospels when it comes to the teaching of Jesus. Like the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and when Jesus tells the disciples to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” With Jesus’ first attempt at an explanatory word after the parable proper, he repeats the word for wise, prudent, thoughtful shrewd. The translators opt for the “shrewd” instead of wise. As if to emphasize the edgy, disorienting wisdom the manager displayed. He was shrewd.
“His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly…. for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” And the disciples, the listeners, the readers, the church, you and I still aren’t getting it. So Jesus keeps going. “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Jesus, now you’re just messing with us, aren’t you? Dishonest wealth. Make friends for yourselves with the mammon of injustice is a closer translation. Maybe not messing with us, but it doesn’t help at all with how much your head hurts trying to figure it out and how it all just doesn’t feel very good. It doesn’t feel right.
So, I am thinking at this point even the Gospel writer Luke knows this parable isn’t going well. Luke anticipates the lack of an “ah-ha” moment for his readers. So, Luke tosses in some more teaching from Jesus; a familiar theme from Jesus that runs all through Luke and it runs deep. When the lecture gets bogged down and the student’s eyes glass over, come back to the basics. Get back to what they’ve heard before. Give them something familiar. So, Luke’s Jesus says, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest in much.” Yes, Lord, we can understand that. “If then you have been faithful with the dishonest wealth who will entrust to you the real riches?” Ah, okay. If you can’t be responsible when it comes to things of this world, why would God entrust to you the matters of salvation?
“And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Jesus isn’t just teaching now. He’s meddling. That’s what one faithful listener of sermons here at Nassau used to say to me at the church door when the sermon would hit too close to home with the discomfort and challenge of the gospel. “You were meddling today, preacher” Then, in case the disciples, the listeners, the readers, the church, you and I still aren’t getting it, Jesus and Luke bring it home. “You can’t serve God and mammon” Boom! Jesus and your money. You may not like that either, but you can understand it!
But the parable ended way back at “his master commended the dishonest steward because he acted shrewdly.” Shrewdly. Shrewd. Shrewdness.” So, it’s not just about money. It can’t only be about money. In the parable of the unjust steward, what Eugene Petersen calls the story of the crooked manager, Jesus is calling the disciples to manage all that has been entrusted to them by God with a wisdom that even the world would admire. To bear witness to and work for the kingdom of God while being so boldly prudent and jarringly thoughtful that the world admires it. The world admires it even at the risk of being completely turned upside down. To discern how to make this incredible gift of faith that God has given us, to figure out how to put faith together with life. And to put faith and life together in a way that changes you, those around you, and the world for that matter. In the movie “Good Will Hunting” a friend in a bar describes the South Boston character played by Matt Damon as “wicked smart”. With the puzzling, jarring parable of the crooked manager, Jesus is calling his disciples, his followers to be “wicked smart” when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ and your life of discipleship. The parable is about the shrewdness of servanthood.
Professor Matt Desmond is a sociologist here at Princeton University. Together with Tessa, also a university faculty member who led adult ed last week, and their kids Walter and Sterling, they are also part of our church community. In his compelling Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”, Matt writes about the national crisis of poverty, homeless, and affordable housing. My experience with most books written by sociologists is that they are intended to tell of research, either quantifiable or qualitative, and the conclusions reached through the observation of human society and behavior. There are fewer sociologists who write about or are willing to offer solutions to the human predicament being studied; in the case of “Evicted”, it is the problem of affordable housing. In the epilogue to the book, Matt Desmond does offer a road map of solution.
“All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary,” he writes. “Because it is unnecessary, there is hope. These problems are neither intractable nor eternal. A different kind of society is possible and power solutions are within our collective reach.” In offering both small and large parts of a solution, Professor Desmond argues convincingly that the crisis isn’t from a lack of resources. It is the absence of the will to serve the common good. These are the last sentences in the book, “Whatever our way of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering—by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”
It is a plea for both the will and the wisdom to offer a solution to poverty, homelessness, and affordable housing. It is a plea for faith communities to have the voice and vision of the prophets. The world’s sinful cynicism and the powers of darkness would say there can never be, there will be a solution. Jesus would point to will, wisdom, voice, and vision. And plea for those who follow to be more shrewd. Shrewd: to manage all that has been entrusted to you by God with a wisdom that even the world would admire.
“His master commended the dishonest steward because he acted shrewdly.”

 

 

I Timothy 1:12-17
David A. Davis
September 15, 2019
Jump to audio

Biblical scholars categorize I Timothy as one of the “pastoral epistles”. I and II Timothy and Titus. The label points to the content of the letters which focuses on authority, leadership, worship, and life together in the community of faith. Biblical scholars, not all but probably most, also argue convincingly that these pastoral letters were most likely not written by the Apostle Paul himself but by a devoted follower of Paul invoking his authority, his honor, his name while continuing to shape the earliest practices and traditions of the early church. It was a common practice in antiquity in the church and beyond.

I Timothy has it’s share of bulletin board material. “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…Train yourself in godliness, for while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way… Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity… Do not speak harshly to an older man, but speak to him as a father, to younger men as brothers, to older women as mothers, to young women as sisters…There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it…The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith…”

            I have been doing this too long to stand here before you and mention the highlights of I Timothy without acknowledging the troubling parts, the verses easier to just ignore. Like women being silent, not having the authority to teach and being saved through childbearing (whatever that means). That deacons must be first tested and if they then prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. That the only widows to be put on the church list of care should be the older ones who have no other family. Younger ones should get married. Widows with children aren’t really widows and if believers have real widows that are relatives, they should take care of them so the church would not be burdened. And, of course, let slaves regard their masters as worthy of all honor.

The common practice for a long, long time of those of us in the theological traditions that push back against literalism and scriptural inerrancy and infallibility has been to acknowledge the historical context of the ancient world knowing and believe that God is not calling us to recreate, repristinate a first-century church. To use language from another discipline, we are not “originalists” and we hold to a view of the authority of scripture as a living, breathing, Word of God. The Word of God made all the more authoritative, powerful, and meaningful through the work of the Holy Spirit, interpretation and proclamation rooted in the community of faith, and the deeply held affirmation that we do not worship the book. We are called to worship the Word made flesh, the Living Word, Jesus the Christ. In addition to drawing upon centuries of biblical scholarship to better engage the historically and culturally rooted parts of scripture, it is more and more clear to me that it is essential for the church and for preachers like me to be willing to say that the material regarding women and authority and slavery isn’t just cultural, it’s wrong. To put it another way, it is inconsistent and a contradiction to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in conflict with the heart of the Apostle Paul’s own writing and teaching about Jesus Christ, his cross and his resurrection. I don’t say any of this lightly and I realize I may be offering it at some risk. But in a day and time when some are increasingly and dangerously weaponizing the bible and using it (as it has been done in Christianity forever by the way) to exclude, demonize, refuse, harm, ignore, and in some cases destroy people, while justifying their own sinful bigotry, lust for control, and living like it is better to be right than to love, a stronger response is warranted. Stronger voices must rise up and speak. The bible and its authority don’t belong to the loudest, or the biggest, or the most powerful. That would be inconsistent and a contradiction and in conflict to the gospel itself, wouldn’t it?

If I were writing an academic paper, the above thoughts would have been placed in  the dreaded “explanatory footnote.” So forgive me, please. The slight digression either has very little to do with the sermon or it has everything to do with it. You will be the judge. But scroll with me back up to those quotes, those verses, those snippets from I Timothy I shared with you. “The saying is worthy and sure…Do not speak harshly…great gain in godliness… the love of money…fight the good fight of faith. For perhaps the most important take away, the most profound theological assertion, the deepest, most meaningful impact in your relationship with God to be gleaned from I Timothy, never makes it to the bulletin board. “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, it says here in I Timothy, “because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service….even though…”. Even though, even though I was a blasphemer, even though I was persecutor, even though I was a man of violence. Even though. “Even though” doesn’t get underlined or memorized or put on a poster. “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” That probably makes it. That quote is up there. It’s a common assurance of forgiveness in the liturgy for worship. But not this part: “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the foremost.” The foremost. Nobody up here ever says, The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of which I am the foremost, of which you are the foremost.”  In Jesus Christ, we “foremosters” are forgiven.

Even though. “I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, the author of the letter writes, “and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus.” “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ.” The faith and the love of Christ, and the grace of God comes first. God’s grace. Grace alone. First. Prevenient grace. God’s reach. God’s gift. God’s action. First. God’s first touch of grace to me, me…even though, I am the foremost.

Even though. Remember it. Circle it. Underline it. Put it up on your bathroom mirror. Because every one of us has our own “even though.” Our own finish to the clause. Our wrestling with the sinfulness of our own lives, and the constant tug of our humanity. And then, our own wonder at God’s touch.  God’s grace and how it pours out to me…even though. How it flows unconditionally, day after day. “Morning by morning, new mercies I see”….even though. For by grace I have been saved through faith…even though. Nothing in life or in death can separate me from the love of God made known to me in Jesus Christ…even though. God’s grace is sufficient for me, for God’s power is made perfect in weakness….even though. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me…even though. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me….even though. For God so loved the world, for God so loved me….even though.

When Jesus ate with and touched and healed and called fishermen and tax collectors and women and children, every one of them had an “even though.” Martin Luther would start every day with his hand on his head remembering “I have been baptized”. He could have said to himself, “I have been baptized…..even though.” The theologian Karl Barth wrote about how the only way preachers can dare speak is because God has spoken. No one can rise to proclaim the gospel without the “even though”. God has spoken…even though. When you listen to Mahalia Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Jennifer Hudson sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow”; “when Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is he, you know his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he cares for you and for me.” What makes that gospel song, why that song strikes deep,  is the “even though” of our lives even when it isn’t mentioned. “Jesus cares for you and for me….even though.”  The only way to wrestle with all work of the Apostle Paul in scripture, and especially the parts you don’t like, is to never forget his “even though” and his confession that he was “the foremost”.

Instrumental musicians, from the newest to the oldest, have their arpeggios, their exercises, their scales. their rudimentary practice. The best never stop when it comes to them. Athletes and coaches never stop talking, working on the fundamentals. The strongest of families and the deepest of relationships are shaped by the simplest of experiences the deepest of memories, and most never stop talking about them, reliving them, laughing and crying with them, remembering them. A parent sends a child off to school, off to the new job, off to another part of the country or the world and always finds someway to say “don’t forget who you are”.

When it comes to our life in God, our witness to faith, our call to the way of discipleship, the “even though” part is a fundamental, an arpeggio, an essential that is always to be remembered and never forgotten. Because when you stray from the knowledge deep within  your soul that you are sinner in need of God’s grace, when you turn for just a moment from the awe of the first touch of God’s grace, when you find yourself forgetting that like Paul, you and I are the foremost, when you forget the basics, the insipid sinfulness of salvation arrogance is soon to set in; whose faith is better, whose walk is closer, whose place next to Jesus is surer. Jesus didn’t like that when the disciples thought about it and he has to not like it now either. Salvation arrogance; as in how easy it is rest on the laurels of a place in heaven while taking a pass on an ever-growing understanding of God, and constantly being convicted and challenged by the teaching of Jesus as to life today and tomorrow, and a deepening life of discipleship and serving the kingdom of God now. Salvation arrogance: as in I am feeling really good about my faith. Thank you. You, you’re pretty much the foremost.

Even though. Even though. A daily infusion of the remarkable wonder of grace’s in your life. Part of what’s so remarkable about that taste, that sip, that daily reminder of God reaching out to you, is that as you tell yourself again and again, as you allow God to mind you again and again, as you live in and are shaped by nothing other and nothing short of God’s unending, abiding, steadfast grace is that you start to see that very same grace in everyone else. God, by God’s grace, changes how you see the world.

God changing the world, one “even though” after another. That belief, that knowledge, that assurance gives me hope. “For in hope we were saved, the Apostle Paul writes, “Now hope that is seen I not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Yes, the people of God, the followers of Jesus we still hope….even though.

 

 

Luke 14:25-33
David A. Davis
September 8, 2019
Jump to audio

I never realized until this week how often the gospels talk about the crowd. I never stopped to think how often the gospels refer to those gathered around to hear and to see Jesus as a “crowd”. Click on some bible software and do a word search on “crowd” and a really long list of references pops up on the screen. I didn’t check but probably about as many as if you typed in “Jesus”. Our reading today is from the gospel of Luke. Luke is full of “the crowd”.

Early on in Luke when Jesus first comes upon the soon-to-be disciples at their boats, Luke tells that Jesus was standing next to the lake and “the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God.” That memorable story of the man on the mat being lowered through the roof by the men who wanted to bring him to Jesus, they did that because of the crowd. In Luke, after Jesus tells Levi the tax collector to follow him, Levi throws a big banquet. Luke records that ‘there was a large crowd of tax collectors” at the table with Jesus. When Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Plain in Luke it was to a “great crowd”. Jesus comes upon the funeral of the son of the widow of Nain. He brings life back to the man in front of a “large crowd”. In Luke, Jesus teaches the parable of the sower to a “great crowd”. Jesus returns to Capernaum after being on the other side of the Sea of Galilee and sending the demons from the Gerasene into the pigs. He returns to an awaiting crowd. The whole loaves and fishes scene in Luke begins with the disciples telling Jesus to send the crowd away to get something to eat. After the Transfiguration when Jesus appears on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, they came down to a great crowd. The blind man in Jericho cried out and asked about Jesus because he heard the crowd passing by. Luke is so full of “the crowd’.

Back in my office this week with my trusty bible software at my desk, after I typed in “crowd”. I went ahead and typed in crowds as in “Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus” – the first words of the reading I offered to you. I typed in “crowds”, as in crowd plural. Crowds in Luke. There’s a whole other list. How much “crowd” can there be in one gospel? When Jesus was heading to the home of Jairus to heal his daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage touched his garment? That happened while “the crowds pressed in on him”. In Luke when Jesus asked the disciples “Who do you say I am”, that conversations start with Jesus asking them “Who do the crowds say that I am?” The man who couldn’t speak who was healed by Jesus? He spoke and “the crowds were amazed”. And then here in our reading for the day, in the 14th chapter of Luke’s gospel, “Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus.”

As this chapter unfolds, as the reading comes upon this hard teaching of Jesus, Jesus is heading to the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees for a sabbath meal. Jesus heals a man along the way and challenges them on sabbath law. At dinner, he points out who has the seats of honor and who doesn’t and tells them “All who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Jesus tells them when they host a banquet to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Because when you invite your friends, your family, and rich neighbors, they always pay you back with an invitation. One of the dinner guests, I am guessing one who was not a Pharisee and one who was rather enjoying Jesus kind of putting to the Pharisees when it comes to the poor and the sick and vulnerable, that guest blurts out, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

That’s when Jesus tells the one about the person who hosted a great banquet. When the servant goes to fetch the people, who were invited they all make an excuse. I have to get out to the farm. I have to check on my oxen. I just got married. Word comes back to the dinner host who gets angry and he tells the servant to “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” And when the servant did that there was still room. The dinner host says, no doubt with quite an attitude, “Go back on the street and compel people to come so my house will be full! None of those who were invited will taste my dinner.”

At this point the crowd was listening — the non-important people and those very far from the seats of honor and the widows in the back, and the children that are invisible to the powerful and the servants waiting tables and cooks out in the back and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, they all started to hoot and holler. They were shouting “Amen” and telling him to “keep preaching”. Go, Jesus! Go, Jesus! Go, Jesus! Okay, the bible doesn’t say that at all. I just made that up. But that’s what I imagine happening. Because in almost every case, “the crowd” connotes, implies, refers to those nurtured, healed, lifted, touched, fed, loved, and saved by Jesus. Yes, in Luke Judas arrives with a crowd for betrayal and arrest of Jesus. And it no doubt was a crowd shouting “Crucify him. Crucify him.” And Luke’s description of the torture and execution of Jesus concludes with this: “And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts.” Luke is so full of “the crowd”. And the vast majority of “the crowd” in Luke are those thirsting for and soaking in and crying out for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Which makes me wonder why Luke never tells of a time when the crowd begins to shrink. A time when Jesus teaches about first being a servant of all, or turning the other cheek, or taking up your cross and some in the crowd hear it and say “No, not so much!’ and walk away. Yes, there was that time right near the beginning, back in his hometown, when folks were all abuzz about Joseph’s son and Jesus was being praised by everyone for his teaching. Once they heard him tell of Elijah being cared for by the widow of Zarephath, someone who wasn’t like them and Elisha cleansing the sickly Naaman who was a foreigner who was from across the border, they were enraged and wanted to toss Jesus off a cliff. But Luke doesn’t call them “a crowd”. There had to be a time when “the crowd” so enthusiastic for his love and passionate for his teaching, when the crowd hears Jesus’ teaching about discipleship, and loving not just your friends but your enemies, and showing mercy, a time when Jesus talks about the narrow way, a time when Jesus talks about how blasted difficult this life of faith is going to be, a time when they hear it and about half the crowd walks away. A time when the crowd begins to shrink.

Like here in chapter 14 when Jesus talks about hating father and mother and family and life itself. Here when Jesus doesn’t say “well, we all have our crosses to bear”. No, he says “whoever does not carry the cross, thee cross, my cross, and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Here where he talks about counting the cost before you’re all in and knowing ahead of time what you are in for in terms of life and death. Here…” So, therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possession. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears hear listen!”

You can’t tell me that there were not those in the large crowds traveling with him those who were all in on having a place at the feast, those who were down with his gospel word of inclusion and his preference for the most vulnerable, those in the large crowds who heard what he just said and turned and walked away; That the large crowd didn’t begin to shrink a little bit. Or at the very least, there wasn’t someone who didn’t turn to the person next to them and say, “Did he really he just say all that?” Someone else who said “Yes” and then it all started sinking in, and they said, “No”; Someone who said to themselves “That’s not what I signed up for.” Or “I want to be saved. I don’t want to do all that”; Someone heading the other way saying to anyone and no one all at the same time, “This is way too hard. I’m done”

It is just so uncomfortable to hear and try to take in the examples and word choice of Jesus here: hating life itself, waging war, giving up all. It’s puzzling, to say the least; hating family and the imagery of battle and giving up every possession. But don’t get so turned off by the language, or maybe even the use of hyperbole, that you miss the point. The life of discipleship isn’t supposed to be easy. It isn’t going to be or really is ever, easy. Nobody said that a life of faith is going to be easy; without struggle, without hard choices, yes, without sacrifice. Nobody said it was going to be easy. At least Jesus didn’t. He never did.

No, it isn’t easy. To commit to a faith journey with growing edges and learning opportunities and allowing the gospel to both comfort your hurts and challenge your opinions. To heed the call to a life of generosity and serving others and giving away more of your money than your parent taught you or modeled for you. To be willing to speak up at work, or at a party, or a family holiday dinner as someone lets yet another inappropriate joke or comment fly. To consciously make the effort to listen rather than speak when someone who is of a different faith, or a different theological tradition, or a different race, or a different sexual identity, or from a different country, or a different part of the country, or a different school, or different gender, to listen to the story of someone different from yourself and just listen to that child of God. To sit and pray and talk and discern with your life partner how your walk with Jesus can set the priorities in your life together. To cling to your relationship with God when God doesn’t answer the most important thing you have ever prayed for in your life and you are left absolutely heartbroken. No, it isn’t easy.
Some of the crowd had to have left. There has to be a time when the crowd shrinks. I bet Jesus saw it all the time. He still does. And he turns to those who are still there, and he says, “I’ll go after them, one by one. You, you follow me, still. Follow

Luke 14:1-6
Lauren J. McFeaters
September 1, 2019
(Audio only)

Luke 7:36-50
Lauren J. McFeaters
August 25, 2019
(Audio only)

Exodus 16
Nathan Stucky
August 18, 2019
(Audio only)