Real Estate Purchases Amid Judgment and Faithfulness

Proper 21C 2013

Jeremiah 32; Ps 91; 1 Timothy 6:6-19;Luke 16:19-31

Father Adam Trambley

September 29, 2013, St. John’sSharon

In our first reading today, God is preparing to do two incredible, unexpected, and almost totally unbelievable things.  Both of them are being lived into by Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is currently in jail.  He is in jail because he has been proclaiming the first unfathomable act of God toward his people in Jerusalem.  Jeremiah has been telling the people that the Babylonians are going to defeat Judah and take the people into exile.  And not only are the Babylonians going to win, but God is currently on their side, so the people should stop fighting, accept the rule of Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, and have as nice a life as possible under this pagan ruler.  The king and leaders of Jerusalem can’t accept this prophecy.  After all, the Lord God of heaven and earth is supposed to be on their side.  They know that God saved Jerusalem miraculously from the face of the great Assyrian army when all looked lost.  They have been promised that a descendant of David would rule forever, and it hasn’t been forever yet.  Plus, a whole lot of other prophets are perfectly willing to tell them exactly what they want to hear. 

So Jeremiah is in jail.  The Babylonians are at the gates, threatening Jerusalem.  The King knows that Jeremiah is a prophet and a holy man, but he wants his army and all the people fighting.  If the people go off to Babylon, or even if they believe they will be defeated, then he knows he’ll lose.  So rather than let Jeremiah lower the city’s morale, King Zedekiah locks him up in the guardhouse in the palace.

We probably should mention some of the reasons why God was going to use the Babylonians to defeat Jerusalem.  God’s decision wasn’t capricious.  He didn’t stop caring about his people.  He didn’t stop loving them.  But they stopped caring about him and they stopped loving each other.  They took advantage of the poor.  They used positions of power to pervert justice.  They ignored their marriage vows for passing pleasures.  And they ran after gods whose worship allowed them to get away with whatever they wanted.  They abandoned the Lord God and the covenant made with him that required them to live with integrity in their personal, commercial, political and religious lives.  They chose the idols they had made, and could control, instead the living God who created them and therefore could make demands upon them.  Things had finally gotten so out of hand, that God decided that he had to put an end to the earthly kingdom in Jerusalem.  The Creator of the universe was going to use the Babylonians to do his work to transform the way his people were behaving, and exile was going to be part of that transformation.

This message isn’t really anything new.  Jeremiah wasn’t the first prophet to proclaim the need for justice and righteousness to roll like mighty waters, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed by the Assyrians.  Nor would Jeremiah be the last to expound the consequences of unrighteous living.

Both our Epistle and our Gospel readings today, in fact, talk about similar themes.  Saint Paul talks about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil, with ruin and destruction as the inevitable results of senseless and harmful desires.  Then Jesus gives us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 

                                                         

This whole parable is the same issue Jeremiah is dealing with but written as a morality story with two

individuals instead of engaging the historical reality of an entire people.  The rich man’s selfish attitude leaves God no choice but to segregate him across a huge chasm from Lazarus.  During his life the rich man never cared enough to even share what he couldn’t actually eat with poor man literally dying on his doorstep.  Then, after death, he still doesn’t see Lazarus as a human being beloved by God.  Lazarus is still seen as some sort of hired servant errand boy.  “I’m in agony here.  Have Lazarus dip his finger in water and walk through the flames to touch my tongue.”  Really?  The dude starved to death while dogs licked his open sores on your patio, and you’re going to have him spend eternity dabbing water unto your tongue?  I don’t think so.  Nor is he going to your equally self-centered family, who probably wouldn’t let him in even if he did do some sort of Zombie run all the way from Hades to their house.  No.  Lazarus is going to a safe place where he can be loved by God through the caring of Abraham and you are going somewhere, anywhere, else.  We should also expect anyone else holding a similar sense of entitlement or attitude of injustice to be sent somewhere similar, whether in Jeremiah’s time or our own. 

Lest we pass by the point of Jesus’ parable too quickly, we should stop and note that the incredible purple and linen clothing the rich man wore are nothing compared to the warmth, color, variety and sheer number of clothes and accessories contained in the average American closet.  Feasting sumptuously every day probably meant, among other things, being able to have meat frequently.  Ancient Palestinian eating sumptuously may or may not be equivalent to the amount of food available to us as part of our expected meals and snacks.  Lazarus was longing to eat the scraps from the rich man’s table and we have so much extra food we can’t eat that our dogs have to go on diets.  We better make sure that no one is dying on our watch while we are too busy stacking the dirty plates out of the way before the next course.  Somebody has come back from the dead to warn us, so we best pay attention.  We know that in Jesus time the leaders didn’t pay attention, and things went badly for them.  In Jeremiah’s time, the leaders ignored God’s word, too, so the Babylonians came and took them into exile.

But just a short time before that exile, while Jeremiah is sitting in jail, the same God who is preparing to put an end to the injustice among his people has something else in store.  Jeremiah is told in prison that a cousin is going to come to sell him some land, and that he should buy it.  Based on everything Jeremiah has been saying, Judean real estate would not seem to be a good investment.  King Nebuchadrezzer doesn’t really care which Israelite’s name is on the land he is about to take over.  Anyone of political, economic or religious importance, like Jeremiah, is either going to flee to Egypt or be carried off to Babylon.  If Jerusalem is going to fall, a Jewish deed isn’t likely to be worth the paper it’s written on, and buying land with money that will be needed to survive in the middle of war is likely a very bad idea.

But Jeremiah listens to God and buys the land.  The closing is described in great detail, and closings haven’t changed much in twenty-five-hundred years.  They make copies of the deed.  Witnesses confirm the deal and seals are put to the documents by the equivalent of the ancient Palestinian notary.  The financing is carefully weighed.  They probably even have a papyrus that says if Jeremiah forgot to sign something, he’ll promise to sign it later.  Then they put the deed on record, not in courthouse, but in an earthenware jar so that the record will be as permanent as possible.

Then Jeremiah tells everyone that this transaction is not about buying this piece of property but a sign that houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in that land.  God has such an amazing sense of the fidelity to his people that after they are defeated by the Babylonians, after they are sent into exile, after their entire life is turned upside down, after everyone would expect them to lose their identity and their religion into that of the Babylonians, God is going to do something so that they can buy and sell land in the promised land again.  Through the next chapters of Jeremiah, we are going to hear more of that promise.  We are going to hear about how God will set his law in their hearts so that they can keep his covenant.  We are going to hear how they are going to go from being this stubborn, unjust people to the people that can live out the life God has always wanted for them.  But even before that full completion of God’s plan comes to fruition, Israelite property will be bought and sold in Judea by God’s people, and the deeds they now have will be worth something.  This promise is amazing.  After God does the inconceivable in tearing apart the political structures of Judah and Jerusalem, he is planning to recreate them again in an equally unbelievable fashion. 

None of this should surprise us, however.  God’s kingdom is always a place of justice and love.  He is continually tearing out our selfishness and hatred so that we can do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with him.  We can expect to have our pride and greed, our selfishness and our self-seeking, whether individual or collective, thrown down.  If we decide to hold on tightly to such destructive behaviors, we can expect to be thrown down with them.  Those who define themselves by their wealth and power, whether Lazarus’s rich neighbor, the Jerusalem elites of Jeremiah’s time, or our similarly blind contemporaries, should not expect a future.   But when we shun such things to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, and gentleness, we can expect God to build us up.  Even if we are far from achieving the fullness of kingdom life on our own, our faithful God will reward our efforts, and just like those who will eventually buy and sell land again in Jeremiah’s Israel, God will lovingly remake us as his people, living as his people, in his time.

God is just and faithful, and is capable of living out his justice and faithfulness with his people.  He is inviting us to join him, and he will make it possible for us to live out that life with him, although things may not happen between now and then quite as we might expect.      

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager

Proper 22C 2013

Jeremiah 8:1-8; Ps 79; 1 Timothy2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

Father Adam Trambley

September 22, 2013, St. John’sSharon

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager

Jesus’ parable this morning is a bit tricky, mostly because we don’t want Jesus lifting up a dishonest person as his model for us.  Even though Jesus tag line at the end about serving God instead of money is quite clear, the rest of the story feels more difficult to figure out.  

A rich man has a manager who he has put in charge of everything he owns, and he finds out that the manager is squandering his money.  Whether through incompetence or a generous padding of the manager’s private accounts isn’t clear, but we are told that this manager squanders his master’s property just like the prodigal son squandered his father’s inheritance.  The master tells his manager to bring in the books because it’s judgment time.  Now before the day of reckoning, while he still has authority over the property, the manager calls in his master’s debtors and cuts them deals so that once he’s fired, they will have to be nice to him and he’ll have somewhere to go.  Then, when he has his meeting, his master commends him instead of firing him because he did what he needed to do in that difficult moment.  We can almost hear the master thinking, “this one may be snake-in-the-grass, but when the pressure’s on, he finds a way.  I may need someone else to audit the books regularly, but I can use this guy somewhere.” 

Two important points are made in this parable.  The first is the importance of knowing what to do when the master is coming to review the books of our lives, and, as a subpoint here, that he is coming.  Second, we are to deal with our master’s property in the proper way as we prepare for his coming. 

The first point is the importance of knowing what to do in preparation for judgment.  Let me tell you another story of a more honest manager.  Don Mattingly is the current manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Last year new owners, including Magic Johnson, bought the Dodgers and spent wheelbarrows full of money on some top notch players.  On July 1 of this year, though, the Dodgers were in last place, nine-and-a-half games back.  The owners told the manager, “Look, you’re squandering a couple hundred million dollars’ worth of players here.  Very soon you’ll have to give an accounting of yourself, and if things continue like they are, you can’t be our manager any longer.”  Well, the announcement of the pending judgment woke the manager up.  He started doing things he knew should be done, but that he was afraid to do, or uncomfortable doing.  He shook up line-ups and told coaches and players what was needed instead of what they wanted to hear.  He took a rising star and pulled him out of a game for lack of focus, and then fined him for being late for practice.  He did what he was supposed to do, but what he couldn’t get himself to do before he knew the day of judgment was approaching.  Now the Dodgers have won the division and nobody is talking about firing the manager.   

In Jesus’ parable, when the master commends the dishonest manager at the end, he is highlighting the fact that his manager recognized that the end was near and he took steps accordingly.  We, too, need to recognize that judgment is coming and should prepare ourselves.

Now we don’t know when judgment is coming, but we know that it is coming.  Maybe Jesus is coming back at some point in our lifetimes.  We could pray “Thy kingdom come” in a few minutes and have that prayer answered such that we end up with communion not at this altar, but at Jesus’ heavenly table.  Or Jesus could come back days, weeks, months, years or decades from now.  Then again, and perhaps more likely, our own deaths will be the trigger for our experience of the judgment of the living and the dead.  But that final judgment is one that God wants us to pass with flying colors.  Part of the reason for Jesus teachings, especially a parable like this one, is so we can learn to do what we need to do to pass through into eternal life. 

So how do we get through our day of reckoning?  By using the master’s resources shrewdly.  By putting everything on the line boldly and fearlessly so that the owner can’t help but keep us on.   We might be like Don Mattingly of the Dodgers and know what to do, but be too uncertain of ourselves, afraid of rocking the boat or doing something too drastic.  We might be like the dishonest manager and be too busy satisfying our own appetites to be worry about the right thing to do.  We might have any number of barriers blocking the right use of our master’s resources.  Jesus is telling us to get over ourselves and focus, because time’s a’wastin’.  We don’t have forever.  We have to stop frittering away what we’ve been entrusted with and use it to prepare us for the approaching time when we are called in to give an account.      

So what are those resources we have been entrusted with?  Everything we have.  Our bodies, our minds, our time, our family and friends, our money, our community, our church, our stuff, and anything else you can put after “our”.  But none of it is really ours.  All of it belongs to God who has allowed us to use it for a time, and that time is limited.  So we need to stop squandering our existence and do what God wants with everything we have.

Now after Jesus finishes the parable, he comments on the right use of money in particular.  He says to make friends with dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into their eternal homes.  So we need to figure out the people who are going to have eternal homes, and then use our wealth to make friends with them.  If you imagine the cartoon of Saint Peter at the pearly gates, we don’t want to even give him time to open up his book and find the page with our name on it.  We want to show him the guest passes we’ve been given to the important heavenly houses so he just waves us through. 

We know many of the people who have the eternal homes because Jesus tells us who they are throughout the Bible.  They are tax collectors and sinners (although paying the IRS isn’t really the same as making friends with tax collectors.)  They are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick and those in prison.  They are the children.  They are the poor in spirit, the meek, the sorrowing, the merciful, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness sake.  They are the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.

Now we know what to do, right? Instead of squandering our money, and our other resources, we use them as if we were trying to impress those people Jesus talks about having a place in the kingdom of God.  We feed the hungry.  We clothe the naked.  We visit and heal the sick.  We care for children.  We protect and look out for those who are hurting in some way.  We provide the means necessary for those trying to make the world a better place so they can do so.  We support people in places where the church is persecuted.  And, we throw birthday parties for whores at three-thirty in the morning (I know you were all waiting for that).   

We don’t just do these things when everything else is taken care of.  We make befriending these friends of Jesus our top priority because the master is coming, and accounts are going to be reviewed.  When Jesus asks what happened to the money he gave us, I don’t think he’ll be impressed that we got the premium HDTV package.  But when a child can come forward and show the winter coat we bought for her, and a family recounts how they were able to have a nice meal together every Saturday because of us, or a house church in Iran shows Jesus the Bibles they received, then we aren’t going to get asked any more questions.  We are going to be eternal guests of honor invited by God’s honored guests, and it doesn’t get much better than that.    

So make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, or any other wealth you may have.  Be shrewd enough to invest in eternal real estate.  Our manager will be reviewing accounts, and he wants to be able to commend us all.

Rejoicing Over Lost Sheep

Proper 19C

Jeremiah 4; Ps 14; 1 Timothy1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Father Adam Trambley

September 15, 2013, St. John’s,Sharon

Rejoicing Over Lost Sheep

The Pharisees and Scribes are upset with Jesus.  Surprise, right?  Apparently tax collectors and sinners are coming to listen to him, so Jesus is actually talking to them, and speaking about things that must matter to them, and telling them that God loves them, and, lest they think that God might love them but he doesn’t, he eats with them.  He even seems to be friends with them!  We can almost hear the religious leaders saying: It’s one thing Jesus to do your job as Savior of the World and offer sage counsel and advise to these poor lost souls, but at five o’clock turn out the light and go home to have dinner with good, decent folk, at least.

But of course, Jesus doesn’t.  Jesus builds community and eats with everybody.  Sometimes it’s sinners, sometimes it’s just his disciples, sometimes it’s Pharisees.  Jesus doesn’t listen to the Pharisees when they tell him not to eat with tax collectors and sinners, and he doesn’t listen to the tax collectors when they tell him not to eat with scribes and Pharisees.  (Even though we don’t find it in the Bible, you know they sinners were talking to Jesus about hanging out with the Pharisees.  “Why are you going to see those hypocrites?  Don’t they make you do all that hand-washing stuff, and then everybody makes a big deal about who sits where?  You know our parties are more fun, anyway.”)

But Jesus is sent to all the lost, including the religious people who may not look lost, but who can’t find their way out of a paper bag.  So Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees a couple of parables.

The first is the parable of the lost sheep.  One sheep, out of a hundred, somehow doesn’t make it to the green grass.  So the shepherd leaves the other ninety-nine in the wilderness and goes out searching for the lost sheep.  When he finds it, he brings it home and throws a party. 

Then Jesus adds the parable of the lost coin.  A woman has lost a hundred-dollar bill she had been saving, so she tears the house apart until she finds it.  Then she calls all her girlfriends and tells them how she had lost her money because she had put it in a special place so she wouldn’t forget it.  But then, of course, she forgot, and after being a total wreck most of the day, she finally remembered it was in the box under the thingy next to the doodad on the shelf with all the tchotchkes.  And all her girlfriends are happy to hear it, and so they all go out for frozen yogurt. 

Then Jesus adds the kicker at the end: Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.  The most important lesson for us in these parables is the rejoicing.  The shepherds rejoice; the girlfriends rejoice; the angels rejoice; God rejoices.  The scribes and the Pharisees? Not so much.  So how about us?  Do we rejoice when the lost come home? 

Let’s put this in Western Pennsylvania terms.  Cousin Harvey is supposed to drive back home to see the family, and the night he’s coming in there is a huge snowstorm.  Maybe it’s Christmas Eve or a bad Thanksgiving, or a very cold Fourth of July.  And everyone has gathered, and people are seeing news reports of highways closing and accidents and all sorts of problems.  He was supposed to be home now two hours ago.  People aren’t sure whether to start dinner or not.  They try to make conversation.  Everybody knows each other and they’ve had dozens of great parties without Harvey over the years, but no one knows if he’s OK or in a ditch or stuck in his car behind a tractor-trailer that has slid sideways and blocked the road  His cell phone doesn’t work.  A couple people say a quiet prayer, because they’re all Episcopalians and they know prayer matters but they wouldn’t imagine saying a prayer with everyone listening to them.  And then the doorbell rings.  Harvey is there, with snow covering his hair and eyelashes just from the walk from the car to the door.  He’s looks tired and exhausted.

 

Then the party starts.  Food is set out.  Drinks are poured.  Someone hands Harvey a mug of hot chocolate with lots of little marshmallows floating in it.  The house gets loud as people are talking and laughing and occasionally even singing.  The lost one has made it home.  There is great rejoicing.

The hosts of heaven and the great communion of saints before the throne of God have that same feeling every time someone is brought back among them who has wondered away.   They don’t judge.  They don’t care whose fault it was.  They don’t stand in the corner saying, well, I’m not sure this is true repentance.  None of the angels have side bet on how long it will be before somebody backslides.  They just rejoice because people who were wandering around in the snowstorms of life have somehow made it back home safe and sound and that is worth celebrating.

Notice in the parables how the sheep and the coin come back.  You remember how the sheep left a trail of breadcrumbs so the shepherd could find him, right?  And how the coin made sure it caught the sunlight just right so it could reflect in the woman’s eyes and she’d see it, right?  Of course not!  The sheep did nothing but get lost, and then probably got cold and tired and scared so that it made even worse choices that got it more lost that it already was.  The coin didn’t do anything – it’s a coin.  The shepherd searches high and low until he finds the sheep and picks it up, and sets it on his shoulders, and carries it all the way home until it is safe and the party starts around it.  Whoever Jesus gets to us, however they come, whoever they are, our first call is to rejoice over them.

The easiest part of this call should be rejoicing when people we don’t know show up here Sunday morning.  When people walk through the door, the angels in heaven are rejoicing, and so should we.  We may not throw streamers at them or blow horns or surround them and make them shake so many hands that their eyes start to glaze.  But we could get them a cup of coffee or a donut.  We’ll watch to make sure they know what they need to know to feel comfortable in the worship service.  If they look lost or alone, we can go up and introduce ourselves and ask them some simple questions like how they found us this morning, or where they live, or where they grew up or any kind of ice breaker questions.  We can walk with them into coffee hour and show them where things are.  We can invite them to join us for lunch, and offer them a ride if they need it.  We can also pray for them, quietly but intently, that whatever God is doing in their lives that brought them here would be completed; and that they would feel God’s love and joy and peace surrounding them; and that they could make whatever connections they need to here at St. John’s to be able to feel part of a loving church family, and believe they are beloved children of God, and find their purpose in life and how God is going to use them to make a difference in other people’s lives.  Most of all, we can actually rejoice in our hearts that they are here in a way that will deepen the quality of our worship together, help us care for people more fully, and bring the growth in our lives as Christians that God wants for us.

All of those components of rejoicing on Sunday morning are our opportunity to practice them for the other areas of our lives.  The next step is bringing those same components to our ministries.  We rejoice in some of those same ways as people come to our food pantry or our community lunch or our youth ministries or our Episcopal Church Women dinners or choir rehearsals.  We undertake these ministries with the intention of creating opportunities to throw parties for people Jesus is bringing home to St. John’s. 

But the real goal is to have that same rejoicing in all aspects of our lives.  Some of our best opportunities to rejoice with people are going to come out there, instead of in here.  Maybe with the people who seem to just be in the way in the grocery store.  Maybe with those we feel are taking too much of our time at work or at school.  Maybe with the people around us who aren’t living up to social expectations in ways that might invite snide comments or dismissive judgments.  Guess what?  Those people are in our lives for a reason.  The reason is so that we can rejoice that they are there.  Imagine rejoicing at the presence of anyone we come in contact with, even those we are just driving down the street with.  Imagine having an attitude of joy and hospitality and even love for everyone we encounter.  Imagine being so open to God’s redeeming work in the world that we would be expecting, or even praying, that all those we encounter would be either lost folks or those helping us host the parties for them.  Imagine the power of our lives if we welcomed everyone we met as if God wanted us to show them the joy that he had in creating them.  That’s what we are called to do – to go out of this place carrying the love and joy of Jesus so powerfully that everyone we meet experiences it.  Because when that starts happening, then God can send not just trickles of people, but whole floods of people to us, as fast as that Good Shepherd can bring them in, and the whole world begins to look more and more like the universal, never-ending party that is the Kingdom of God.

Here’s a great example of what I mean.  Tony Campolo, a sociologist and Christian pastor and speaker, talks about being in Hawaii.  Hawaii is such a different time zone, that he said he was awake at three am, and hungry.  When he couldn’t get back to sleep, he wandered around looking for a restaurant, but most things are closed at three am.  He finally found a little diner with a row of stools along a counter, so he went in, sat down and ordered coffee and a donut.  As he’s sitting there eating is donut and drinking his coffee, a group of prostitutes came in and, because there was only one row of seats along the counter, they sat down on both sides of him.  The woman on his right said to one of her companions, “You know, tomorrow is my thirty-ninth birthday.”  The other woman said, “What do you want?  You want me to sing happy birthday or bring you a cake?”  She said, “Why do you always put me down.  I have never had a birthday party in my life.  I don’t expect one now.”

So when everyone left, Tony asked the owner if they came in every night.  He said, “Yes.”  Tony explained what he heard and said he wanted to throw a party for her.  The owner thought it was a great idea and said he’d take care of the cake.  So the next night, Tony came in at 2:30 in the morning with decorations and the owner got the word out so that by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was crammed into this greasy spoon.  Then at 3:30, Agnes, whose birthday it was, came in and everybody sang and they brought the cake for her to blow out the candles and she started to break down.  The owner told her to cut the cake and she asked if she could take the cake two doors down to show her mother first.  It was her cake, so they let her, and she left and the room was silent.  An awkward silent.  So Tony says, “Let’s say a prayer”, and he prays for her, in the middle of the night in this diner filled with prostitutes.  Then, when he’s done praying, the owner gets in his face and says: “Hey, you’re not a sociologist like you told me.  You’re a preacher.  Just what kind of church do you belong to?”  Tony said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.”  “No, you don’t.  No, you don’t,” the owner said, “I would join a church like that.” 

Brothers and Sisters, we are in exactly that kind of church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.  Jesus started it.  We may not all be called to host that exact party, but we are called to be rejoicing somewhere, with somebody, in some circumstance that only God could bring about.  Look for the opportunities, because I guarantee God is sending them to you.  If people raise their eyebrows, or if you start raising your own eyebrow, just remember the scribes and the Pharisees, and decide instead to be like Jesus who ate with tax collectors and sinners and rejoiced with anybody that would party with him.

  

Special thanks to Steve Pankey at Draughting Theology for sharing Tony Campolo's video, "Party with Prostitutes":