Good Samaritan Narrative (with sloths)

Date preached: July 10, 2022
RCL: Proper 10C
Text: Luke 10:25-37
Subject: Who is my neighbor?
Complement: My neighbor is the one to whom I come near
Exegetical Idea: Jesus turns loving neighbor on its head. Be the neighbor 
Homiletic Idea: Overcoming resistance to the demands of love
Purpose: Hearers will interact with the parable of the Good Samaritan. They will consider God’s love and their own resistance to love
Type: Narrative


Adam the Sloth was traveling down the hill from Jerusalem to Jericho. All of a sudden robbers jumped out from behind some rocks and grabbed him.  
Jesus was telling this story because the teacher of the law kind of ambushed him too. He was trying to pull one over on Jesus, trying to determine if Jesus was a good follower of the law or not.  He was trying to catch him out.  Was he one of them, or was he not one of them?
So he asked about what was the best part of the law. Jesus turned it back to him and asked him “how do you read it?”
The expert in the law started with the thing that defined being Israel, one of the special people of God. He knew from deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” 
Then from Leviticus “ ‘Do not try to get even. Do not hold anything against any of your people. Instead, love your neighbor as you love yourself. I am the Lord.”
Did you catch the context there? Do not hold anything against your people. 
 ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your strength and with all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ ”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do that, and you will live.”
But the man wanted to make himself look good. So he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Adam the sloth was feeling lonely laying on the side of the road. He was far from his home, far from help and maybe he felt far from God. 
The church fathers saw in this story a picture of Adam going down from paradise to the world. That's why I called this sloth Adam. The robbers were the powers of darkness, and the wounds were the hurts of disobedience that Adam suffered. The consequence of sin. 
Sometimes in this world we feel lonely like Adam here. We look around and feel abandoned. We are wounded by a broken world. We hear stories on the news about people hurting and we feel it. The world is not how it should be. Can you think of a time when you felt like Adam here? Crushed and alone on a broken road?
Ah but here come some other people.  Adam’s people no less. A priest comes along the road. But he sees adam there bleeding and broken and passes by on the other side of the road. 
Perhaps being a priest in the line of Aaron, one of the lineage of prophets and workers of miracles, like Moses, he was too busy and important to stop?
A levite, a helper in the temple services comes along and sees Adam lying there.  Will he help his fellow Israelite? No he also tries to pass by as far away from him as he can get.
Maybe he is going to the temple to serve and doesn’t want to be ceremonially unclean? Maybe there is some other bit of the law that applies?
The church fathers saw here that neither the law or the prophets could fix what was wrong in the world.
Lets leave the priest and the levite up here for now and think about what stops us from coming near when the law of love would demand it. Is it fear? Busyness? Lack of energy? What keeps us away from each other?
But look now, we see another sloth coming down the road, and he is our clue to the question as to who is our neighbor. Uh Oh, this one isn’t one of Adam’s people.  He is a samaritan. Someone the Jewish people didn’t get along with very much. They stayed away from each other as a rule. 
But surprise he comes near. This reminds me of one of my favorite bits grover would do on sesame street. Near.  Far.
Did you know the word neighbor means literally the one near me?
Who does the samaritan remind you of? The church fathers thought he acted an awful lot like Jesus. Let that sink in, our God, our human God as Father Ken likes to say, came near us. He became like us so that he could be our neighbor. God sings like one of my heroes Mr. Rogers, won’t you please be my neighbor. Sit with that for a second hear God sing it to you. 
Would you be mine, could you be mine? Wont you be my neighbor?
What does Jesus the good samaritan do for Adam the sloth? He pours oil and wine on his wounds. Oil soothes, wine disinfects. He cures his wounds. He puts him on his own animal. The church fathers saw this as his own body, the animal flesh the incarnate God took up, and he brings him to an inn. A place of refuge, a homely house with people. Off the desolate and dangerous road. 
Jesus sees this broken and messed up world. He knows it is not yet as it should be. He would preach how that the Kingdom of Heaven was near. When he was telling the story the disciples ears perked up when he said the samaritan came near. They suspected the Kingdom was about to break into the story just as they had seen day after day. Jesus brought the kingdom near when he healed, when he cast out demons, when he fed the thousands with fish and bread or turned water into wine.
Jesus sees the mess we are in, but he is near! His kingdom is breaking in!  We have already had a taste, our wounds are bandaged, we are made whole we are brought into the fellowship of the Inn that is the church.
Think for a moment, what is your testimony? What has Jesus done for you? How have you experienced the gospel? How have you entered into the kingdom? Take a moment to thank him. 
Finally the next morning he comes to the inn keeper and gives him a deposit of two silver coins. Please take care of Adam the sloth here, and if you spend more than this on his care, I will repay you when I return. 
Now the church fathers saw in the innkeeper a picture of themselves. They felt the charge to care for people like them who had been found wounded and bleeding on lifes road. They were grateful for the deposit of the spirit and the image of God stamped in their lives. They were in awe that they could use those gifts to minister to each other and see the kingdom of God break into a wrong world. 
But who are they supposed to minister to?
Jesus asks at the end of the story: who was a neighbor to the man who was beaten?
He turns the question on its head. Not who is my neighbor, who acted as the neighbor. 
The expert in the law had no excuses left. He was supposed to be the neighbor, not just to his own people, not just to those who thought like he did, but to everyone. All those who bear the image of God, our human brothers and sisters.
So he replied, “I guess the one who showed him mercy.”
“Then go and do the same,” Jesus said.
But why don’t we? Why is it so hard sometimes.  Lets come back to these two little guys. There is a reason I chose to tell this story with sloths: Acedia
Augustine: God our Lord wished to be called our neighbor… He shows mercy to us because of his own goodness, while we sho mercy to one another because of God’s goondess. He has compassion on us so that we may enjoy him completely, while we have compassion on another that we may completely enjoy him;

Jesus won't be your citizen

Luke 4:21-30

The people in Jesus' home town expected favors from their hometown son.  Yet Jesus had mixed news for them.  He had come to proclaim the good news to the poor, the release of captives, sight for the blind, the year of the Lords favor - and surely the people of a little village like Nazareth were poor and sometimes oppressed.  Yet something in their attitude stopped Jesus from offering the signs of the Kingdom's in-breaking. They expected him to be theirs.

And here is where it gets uncomfortable.  My town, Sebewaing, is a small village like Nazareth.  We also long for Jesus to do something for his church long struggling.  Don't we have a claim on him like the people of Nazareth?  Moreover don't we think that America has a claim on him? We tout our status as a Christian nation and make impassioned speeches about American Exceptionalism, but Jesus refuses to be called a good ol' boy, or the citizen of a place or kingdom.  He tells his neighbors that he is a prophet like Elijah and Elisha who went to the gentiles.  This angers them to the point of murder.  Would some in our churches be enraged if Jesus said that about the US?

Where do we find him then? He is serving the poor and disenfranchised and not the expectations of those who would lay claim to him.

The Thief on the Cross

Justified

The Thief on the Cross

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Download: Audio

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By John Piper December 15, 1985

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It was as though a thousand layers
Of fraud and murder and affairs,
Each wrapped around his shrinking heart,
And hard as steel, had come apart.
He hung there silent, numb and hoarse
From screaming at the pain. The coarse
And filthy language of his soul
Dried scarlet on the splintered pole.
No strength remained to comprehend
How these few, quiet words could rend
The wicked wineskins of his life
Where every other moral knife
Had snapped like twigs against the rock.

The man had heard the soldiers mock
The Lord, and joined them at the first.
He saw him keep his peace, and thirst,
And with this tongue he whipped and sliced
The folly of a feeble Christ.
And then by some strange providence
Of grace, above his impudence
He heard the word of Life—not preached,
But whispered low; and that it reached
His ear above the blasphemy
Of his own lips was gift, as free
As gifts could ever be. He heard
Above the mockery the word:
"O Father, please, I beg of you,
Forgive, they know not what they do."
A curse, half-formed beneath his teeth,
Fell silent to the ground beneath,
Like slaving ropes and prison chains,
Like fears and rage and guilt and pains.
But then the lurid memories
Like waves from demon-laden seas
Broke savagely against the light
Of hope.

The lad had learned to fight
For garbage just to stay alive
Before he reached the age of five.
When he was nine he stabbed a man,
A beggar, just to have his pan,
Then threw up in the alley where
He ran to count the coins. He'd wear
A holy garment like a priest
When he was grown and rob the feast
And desecrate the holy meals.
And set the stage for his appeals
To lonely women in their grief,
Until they learned he was a thief,
And he escaped to Jericho.
He formed a group called Ganavo
And worked the wealthy routes until
The roads to Jericho were still,
And Roman legions searched the woods
And found him drunk among his goods.

The prosecutor's case was built
With ease. He bragged about his guilt,
And cursed his way from court to cross
Without remorse, as if the loss
Of his own soul to endless woe
Were sealed, and he would have it so.

But now his vicious mouth was still,
And something deep within his will,
Begotten by the quiet prayer
Of this reputed King, was there
As new and strange to wickedness
As orchards in the wilderness.
And from his lips there came a word
That none from him had ever heard.
He turned his head so he could see:
"Jesus, is there a hope for me?"

At first he feared the Lord was dead.
But then he lifted up his head
To see the fruit of his travail,
And softly spoke around the nail,
"Today with me in Paradise
You'll reign beside the feeble Christ."
And when he heard the Savior die,
He gave his agonizing cry:
"My God! My God! How can this be!
Why hast thou not forsaken me?"

And do we not this time of year
Repeat these words with godly fear,
And stand in awe of sovereign grace
That put a God in sinners' place,
And turned his head to hear our plea!
Who is a pardoning God like thee!

The awesome truth of candle three:
A sinner justified and free!

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© Desiring God

Christ the King: 25 November Luke 23:33-43

Christ the King: 25 November Luke 23:33-43: "Luke presents Jesus from the beginning as one who is addressing Israel’s hopes of liberation. The songs of the birth narratives are full of it. Jesus marches into the synagogue to link his mission to Isaiah 61 in 4:16-20. He announces good news to the poor, hungry, those who wept. He asserts and expresses the value of those considered valueless. He gathers people and announces change. He is not beginning a school of meditation for personal enrichment (though that will have its place); nor is he promising a utopia at another time and another place. Rather he is announcing change and embodying it already in himself and in his community. Dangerous? Certainly not harmless for those with a vested interest in the status quo. Is he one with Barabbas and the brigands? Certainly not; yet we need to see that in some sense there would have been shared goals. He would have more in common with them than with Christian quietists. To affirm that Jesus is king is to affirm a different kind of kingship. But it is not a kingship which abdicates into an inner or other world. Powerlessness is simply passivity if no power is taken up. Jesus was enormously powerful and assertive. He did not come to create a set of doormats, but to spread a revolution of love and grace, which entailed identifying and embodying a new kind of power and priority. The feast of Christ the king is something very assertive. The paradox and irony of the passion is not to be dissolved by dislocation, by saying Christ’s concerns lie elsewhere. It is rather to be entered as representative of a fundamental conflict in the here and now: about God, about Christ, and about being Christian."

Parable symbolism

When I want to find a perspective behind the symbolism of the parable, I look to Catholic writings, they embrace the symbolism so much more than my fundamental literalist upbringing. So here is one that grabbed me:

Recall that Jesus' parables are intended to both inform and challenge. It's easy, in hearing this gospel, to distance ourselves from the Pharisee. But notice that if we do so – thinking, for instance, "I'm glad I'm not like him" – we end up committing the same sin of pride! People who are religiously inclined can easily struggle with self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

30GoodMinutes.org - Thomas Long, "Praying Without Losing Heart"

There's a famous story about a young boy named Frank who was walking along the bank of the Mississippi River and he noticed in the river another boy about his age wrestling with a homemade raft. He said to him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I'm going to take this raft out to that island in the middle of the river. I dare you to go with me!” Well, Frank couldn't resist the dare so he scrambled down the bank and got on the raft. The two boys headed out to the middle of the river but the current was swift and strong. As they approached the island, the raft broke up and sank and they had to swim to the island. And there they were, abandoned on an island, late in the afternoon. Nobody knew where they were. What would they do? Right at that moment, one of those paddle-wheel steamers started coming down the river and Frank ran to the edge of the island and began screaming and waving his hands, “Help! Help!” The other boy said, “Don't waste your breath. They can't hear you and even if they could they wouldn't pay any attention to boys like us.” But just at that moment the paddlewheel steamer turned toward the island. The boy said to Frank, “How did you do that?” And Frank said, “Well, there's something you don't know. The captain of that boat is my father!”

Well, the captain of the universe is our father and how much more will one who has formed us in the womb respond to our every cry. So pray always and don't lose heart.

Give me Justice!

How do you preach social justice to Pentecostals?

Faith on the Border

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee.
Now most Jews don’t do that. They go down to Jerusalem along the Jordan so they don’t have to risk talking to a samaritan and defiling themselves, but not Jesus. Quite remarkable since he must have already know what he was going to Jerusalem for. But I am getting ahead of my story. For now just know Jesus was heading to Jerusalem for a purpose but that didn’t stop him from changing my life.

As he entered our village, ten us, all lepers, met him. We kept their distance but raised our voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" That’s right I’m a lepper. Just listen to what it is like… (Song)
Its not easy being a leper and life in the leper colony is a lonely one, though at least we have each other. My friends are all Jews. Go figure. If it wasn’t for our common affliction we wouldn’t even talk to each other. But leprosy has made us all outcasts more than that, it made us all one.

When we saw a traveler coming we went out to meet him to beg. Have mercy on us! We cried. We understood from the crowd and the things they were talking about that this must be Jesus, but we didn’t ask for anything specific, we said, “Have mercy on us!”

We didn’t dare to come near, though we had heard rumors that this man touches lepers. We

Taking a good look at us, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
We had heard that he touched lepers, that he could heal with a word, but this time he healed in another way. We turned to go - to obey his command. As we did, our sores closed up, our numb fingers worn down to the nub with out our feeling it grew back, our bodies became whole again. We patted each other on the back and congratulated each-other. We quickened our pace, to show the priest, to return to our families and our lives. Then I stopped. I realized I couldn’t go into the temple and show myself to the preist, I’m no Jew, and worse than that I am a Samaritan! I realized my bond with these friends was over, they were returning to their lives.

You see we lived on a border, Jesus had come to our boundary, a fuzzy zone where Jews and Samaritans could live together because they were outcasts. All of that was about to change. Jesus came to our boundary and came to heal it. He was all I had now.


4.I turned around and came back, shouting my gratitude, glorifying God. I knelt at Jesus' feet, so grateful. I couldn't thank him enough

He placed his hand on my head—and I was a Samaritan!

Do you ever notice that it is the outsider that catches fire more quickly when they meet Jesus? I mean all these Jews knew that they were a special people to God. They kept reminding us Samaritans of it. Maybe they took it for granted when the very Son of God healed them. But when an outsider, someone who doesn’t know the hope in Christ comes and meets him, realizes that there is nothing outside of hope in him, how can he take it for granted? Jesus just met us on the outside of the boundary! How marvelous.

Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you."

Are you like the other nine, or do you shout for joy with me today? I know you have seen the power of God working inside your borders just as he worked outside them for me. You have the symbols of it before you in these emblems. You are here together as one body! You have witnessed the power of God first hand. What a miracle you are made one with each other, once strangers now one body one family! Do you shout with joy? Or do you go on your way to do your duty without the shout of thanks to God.


Jesus followed the other 9 to Jerusalem. Like I said before he was on his way there for a purpose. He was there to be striped, like we were stripped, clothed only in rags. He was to be beaten and his flesh hang from his body like ours did. And by his stripes we are healed. I wonder if the nine Jews who went to show themselves at the temple ran into Jesus again. I wonder if they were in the crowd that watched him carry his cross. I wonder if they sang his praises at last in the midst of the jeering crowd. Will you?

If they did, we are one again, regardless of borders, because all we have now is Jesus. You are one with me too if you will shout his praises. Shout for joy with me!

Uproot this tree

Oh, What to Preach?

I’m going very slowly in my sermon prep this week. I’m planning on preaching on Luke 17:5-10, but I may use verses 1-4 as well.

1 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7 “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” Luke 17:1-10 (NIV)

Verses 5 and 6 talk about faith and verses 7-10 talk about our duty to God. Verses 1-4 talk about sin. I think they really all go together, but I’m not exactly sure how. I think that we need faith in order to perform our duty to God without expectations of glory for ourselves. I also think that we need faith in order to continue to forgive those who sin against us and in order not to be the one “through whom (things that cause people to sin) come”.

So, I guess that is what I’m planning on elaborating on. I found it interesting that the Mulberry tree is known for it’s very deep root system. In other words, it’s not the easiest tree to uproot (it’sprobably the hardest). It’s great how Jesus always used the most extreme examples to illustrate His point. He didn’t pick just any tree with roots, but a tree with one of the deepest root systems. To me, that shows He’s God. Of course, people of Jesus’ time probably knew about the Mulberry tree’s roots, but Jesus, being God knew even more. And of course, He still knows more today.

The Good Fight and The Good Confession

Paul says to fight the good fight for the eternal life for which we gave the good confession. This confession isn’t the positive confession of the name-it-and-claim it brand, it is the confession of trust in God that Jesus offered Pilate. This trust is reflected in the name Lazarus (Eleazar - God helps).

On the other hand we have Dives. Rich-man. He is self-sufficient, and duped by deceitful riches. “But those who want to be rich,” says Paul, “fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” He no doubt thought with the pharisees that his riches were a sign of God’s approval. But in the flames he discovers something different, and he finally learns to look beyond himself asking Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers. He’s discovered that he didn’t really believe in God at all, not as the prophets and Moses describe him. I wonder if its beginning to dawn on the pharisees... Jesus said in John, “If you believed Moses and the prophets you would believe in me, for they wrote about me.”

Rich-man says, “No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”
Abraham replies, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

We are invited to the Good Confession. Will we put our money where our mouths are? Rich-man didn’t live as though he believed God. If he had he would have lived like Paul says,

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life
that really is life.

Stewardship/Discipleship Series

Week	The Giving Way
Proper C17	Giving Honor
Proper C18	Giving when It Hurts
Proper C19	Giving Chase
Proper C20	Giving to make friends
Proper C21	Giving is better than recieving

Parable of musical chairs

This is interesting. I've never before thought of parables as needing to represent something else.

The parables read here (vv. 7-11) and the ensuing exhortation are connected by their common context in a meal of Jesus. The parable looks like a piece of prudential advice on how to behave at a dinner party so as to avoid embarrassment.

But since it is a parable, it must not be interpreted as a piece of worldly wisdom or even as a lesson in humility, as usually understood. It deals rather with an aspect of one's relationship with God.

God, in the person of Jesus (see verse 8), is inviting all people to the messianic feast. The only way to respond to this invitation is to renounce any claim or merit of one's own.

The Pharisees expected the best seats as a reward for keeping the Torah, but, like the outcast, they have to learn that salvation has to be accepted as an unmerited gift— exactly as we interpreted humility in the first reading.

The ensuing exhortation is likewise not a piece of worldly advice but a kind of parable, its point being that people's final acceptance at the messianic banquet depends on their acceptance of others now.

In other words, forgive and God will forgive you.

Thus, humility in the Christian sense is not purely a passive virtue; like faith, to which it is closely akin, it is highly active.

Which law to obey

This is from Tolstoy in his work "My Religion"

One day I was walking (in Moscow) in the Borovitskiya Gates. At the gates an old lame beggar was sitting, with a dirty cloth wrapped about his ears. I was just taking out my purse to give him something. At the same moment down from the Kremlin ran a gallant ruddy-faced young soldier, a grenadier in the crown tulup. The beggar, on perceiving the soldier, arose in fear, and ran with all his might toward the Alexanderovsky Park. The grenadier chased him for a time, but not overtaking him, stopped and began to curse the poor wretch because he had established himself under the gateway contrary to regulations. I waited for the soldier. When he approached me, I asked him if he knew how to read. “Yes; why do you ask?”

“Have you read the New Testament?”

"I have."

“And do you remember the words, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him’….?”

I repeated the passage. He remembered it, and heard me to the end, and I saw that he was uneasy. Two passers-by stopped and listened. The grenadier seemed to be troubled that he should be condemned for doing his duty in driving persons away as he was ordered to drive them away. He was confused, and evidently sought for an excuse. Suddenly a light flashed in his intelligent dark eyes; he looked at me over his shoulder, as if he were about to move away.

“And have you read the military regulation?” he asked.

I said that I had not read it.

“Then don’t speak to me,” said the grenadier, with a triumphant wag of the head, and buttoning up his tulup he marched gallantly to his post.

Consuming fire and the prophetic

Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” Imagine him going through the countryside announcing “The Kingdom of God is near you!” in words like this.

“Am I a God near by,” says the Lord, “and not a God far off? ...Do I not fill the heavens?” The Kingdom of God is at hand. Literally it is in the air we breathe. God goes on: “Is not my word like fire,” says the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” This kingdom at hand, near as the skin on our bodies, and nearer still, is the Kingdom of the consuming fire! The Psalmist declares that he will judge the world and pleads with him to do it. “Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you.”

Jesus came to start a fire. The kingdom of God has come to men. Will that kingdom smooth things over? No! The kingdom of God has always been one to turn the world upside-down or rather upside-right. Hebrews gives us the roll call of faith—faith that saw the kingdom from a far off and lived in it as though it were their very own. Quixotic and in love with their God who promised, they lived in his kingdom and brought it into the world around them.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace. And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection.

This kingdom of God is subversive and counter to the system of the world. Those who would become its citizens would forever be separated from the world, sin, and by extension all who stand against this Kingdom. They would know the loneliness of Jeremiah, and also the fire he had shut up in his bones. They would be seen as a threat to the world system. They would live a life that would bring them ridicule, hate, and persecution. This is the way it has always been. Those who live by faith in a kingdom not of this world commit high treason to this world's system. Hebrews continues with their roll.

Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

Jesus finishes saying that we know how to tell when the seasons are changing, how is it then that we miss the God-season that is upon us. He is here! He surrounds us like the air, he is near and a far off, there is no hiding, there is no escape from his loving gaze. We are surrounded by a cloud of faithful witnesses who have entered the kingdom by ruthless faith and reckless abandon. The sensible thing to do is to enter into the kingdom among us and be consumed by his fire.

American Dream - Switchfoot

When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
As top of the mind becomes the bottom line
When success is equated with excess

If you’re time ain’t be nothing for money
I start to feel really bad for you honey
Maybe honey put you’re money where your mouth’s been running
If you’re time ain’t be nothing but money

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom

(chorus)
This ain’t my American dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain’t my American dream

When success is equated with excess
When we’re fighting for the beamer, the lexus
As the heart and soul breathing the company goals
Where success is equated with excess

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom

(chorus)

Cause baby’s always talkin ’bout a ring
And talk has always been the cheapest thing
Is it true would you do what I want you to
If I show up with the right amount of bling?

Like a puppet on a monetary string
Maybe we’ve been caught singing
Red, white, blue, and green
But that ain’t my America,
That ain’t my American dream

(chorus)
SWITCHFOOT - AMERICAN DREAM LYRICS

(via american dream switchfoot - Google Search)

Life, Life, Life - Miss Angie

My heart and tongue
They will rejoice
Dance and sing for the king of my choice
Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life

I am the apple of His eye
I know this ’cause He came here
And He died
Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life
He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life

Redeemer, Redeemer, Redeemer...

He is the way for me to say
He is the way for me to say believe
In life, life, life, life
Miss Angie - Life, Life, Life Lyrics

(via "life, life, life" lyrics miss angie - Google Search)

I am thinking of using a picture like this to illustrate the three characters. Jesus, the image of the invisible God, Martha's hospitality, and Mary the apprentice of prayer.

Strangeness in this weeks readings

There are some incongruities that texture this week's readings. Martha seems often to be our negative example of discipleship. To be sure she is distracted, but she is concerned with hospitality and the physical needs of Jesus and his party. Is that not the mercy of the Good Samaritan? Doesn't Abraham offer this kind of hospitality to the Lord?

Like Martha, Sarah is distracted with preparations. While Abraham is standing by pleasantly watching his guests eat, Sarah remains in the tent. Though the Lord is far from condemning Sarah, instead he promises her the blessing of child.

All Martha's preparations are good and well, her devotion to Jesus is expressed in the lavish meal she is preparing. We are reminded with her that all our acts of devotion, all of our disciplines are means to an end. We seek Jesus and when we are in his presence even our best actions seem dull in his light. As The Message puts it,

"Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it's the main course, and won't be taken from her."

Mystic Martha

Lost in God

This is the notion of Eckhart and some other 13th-century mystics of living "without a why." "Living without a why" means that you don't ask, What's in it for me? or Why am I doing this? You just do the good spontaneously, the way that God acts. God doesn't act because of the why or for any interest of his own....

In his treatment of the Martha and Mary text (Luke 10:38-42), Eckhart defends Martha's focus on the tasks of hospitality. Is that a striking departure from the traditional understanding?

Yes, Eckhart is the first commentator to elevate Martha above Mary. The earlier commentators tried to show that both Martha and Mary were necessary, though Mary's approach is higher. Eckhart says that Mary is the one who's still learning, whereas Martha is the one who has learned perfectly because she combines contemplation and action--though Eckhart doesn't use those words--in an unselfish, detached way. She can now operate as the soul "without a why" and be effective spontaneously without losing that contact with God. Mary's just on the way to that. She needs to learn life.

I get the feeling that living spontaneously in God, or living without a why, is a lot like living the Christian life generally. At some point it becomes second nature, and goodness and holiness seem effortless. But getting to that point is the hard part.