Lectionary 29 A - Psalm 96:1-13

Psalm 96:1-13

Trees shout while the sea thunders and the fields rejoice and all creatures sing the refrain, “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.” The new song that the whole earth sings is prompted by the promise to judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with truth and equity. That is not good news for everyone as being judged in truth is a problem for those who prefer to live lies and despise righteousness. But for those who despite their sinfulness are drawn to the beauty of God’s holiness being judged with equity is an invitation to finally be free of the laundry list of all that diminishes life and makes us less than human. 

Lectionary 29 A - Isaiah 45:1-7

Isaiah 45:1-7

Cyrus the Great was good to all the gods who had been displaced by the Babylonians returning “the images of the gods… to their places and I let them dwell in eternal abodes.” (The Cyrus cylinder 538 BC) Granted he hoped for something in return. “May all the gods whom I settled in their sacred centers ask daily of Bêl and Nâbu that my days be long and may they intercede for my welfare.” But he was especially kind to the exiles from Judah and not only sent them home but funded the rebuilding of the temple and the reestablishment of sacrifices according to the Law of Moses. Not that he gave the God of Israel sole credit for making him “Cyrus, king of the world, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters...” But then Cyrus didn’t know he was a pawn in God’s game and that the little “g” gods couldn’t hear or answer any of his prayers. The lesson of Cyrus is that God’s good and gracious will is done with or without prayer (Luther’s explanation to the 3^rd petition of the Lord’s Prayer) so that sometimes even less than pious people perform holy acts. 

Lectionary 28: A - Matthew 22:1-14

Matthew 28:1-14
The lesson of a parable is in the punch line and this one has the perfect set up. Just when we think the story is over - with a happy ending for the people of the streets no less - Jesus throws a sucker punch and the poor schmuck with the rented tux is throw out into the proverbial place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And since kingdom parables are always about the nature of God the tossed out wedding guest without a suit and tie presents us with some difficulties. Which is to say can we trust that God’s invitational love is unconditional or is there a value added tax to the free gift of grace? There were no instructions as to attire for the good and the bad that were gathered as it appears as if the blanket invitation was for the sake of the king who was upset (and embarrassed?) by an empty hall at the wedding banquet for his son. We tend to be troubled by the one thrown out thinking it unfair but if we think about the king in the story it changes our perspective. What if the parable punchline reveals a God who is more inclusive than we are? What if the one not well dressed was wearing a tux and objected to the good and bad hanging out together at a royal wedding? Maybe what made the servants originally invited not worthy is that they refused to accept an invitation from a king who was willing to invite whoever as long as the hall was filled. Which may mean heaven is crowded and hell is a lonely place.

Lectionary 28 A - Philippians 4:1-9

Philippians 4:1-9

“Do not be anxious about anything” is a tall order in a world where anxiety producing events abound. From Ebola to the Islamic State to the persistent drought in California to ice caps melting and ocean temperatures rising to Russian aggression in the Ukraine to a weakened world economy the worry list goes on and on. But truth to be told we are fragile creatures on a fragile planet and we have in many ways always been at risk. Which is why Paul follows up “don’t be anxious” with an exhortation to give God your anxious thoughts through prayer and petition trusting that God is intimately aware of our deepest needs. “The Lord is near.” And if we follow his advice in the second chapter of this letter – let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus – then our minds let go of anxious thoughts in favor of the things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It's not simply the power of positive thinking. It is the peace of God that dispels anxiety when one realizes the Lord is near and has written our names in the book of life with a permanent marker. So do not be anxious about anything is not simply the power of positive thinking – it is the faithful response to trusting one's heart and mind is guarded in Christ Jesus.

Lectionary 28 A - Psalm 23

Psalm 23

Goodness and mercy following us all the days of our life is a good thing – a really good thing – but we have to slow down so that the goodness and mercy can catch up with us. That means we have to be satisfied with the Lord as our shepherd and not be distracted by the seemingly greener pastures that tempt us from the other side of the fence. So to be satisfied with still waters means we allow ourselves to slow down and be comfortable with what might appear to be “less than” in the midst of a culture that is never satisfied and always seeks to super-size. It means that the table “prepared for us” does not deny that the table is set “in the presence of my enemies” but rather trusts that the light of the Lord will illuminate the darkest valley especially if that valley is death itself. In the end the rod and the staff that comforts us is the cross upon which the Good Shepherd died for the sheep in a religious culture where sheep did the dying every day to make up for sins of shepherds. Which is to say "the Lord is my shepherd. I shall lack nothing."

Lectionary 28 A - Isaiah 25:1-10

Isaiah 25:1-10

Isaiah imagines God will dine on death and swallow it up forever while the vast multitude of “all peoples” feasts on Chateaubriand and toasts God with a well-aged Cabernet. “Cheers!” It is a universal dream for all who have lived in a city of rubble or a ruined town – whether literally or figuratively. By that I mean we might not experience the physical destruction of our cities and towns but still live ruined lives behind high walls or experience relationships reduced to rubble while appearing to have all things under control. Either way the promise is the same. God will deal a death blow to all that diminishes or dominates or disgraces the gift of life and love. When we live into the promise of God’s intimacy with death (I will swallow it up forever) and us (I will wipe away the tears from your eyes) we are set free to live the future mountaintop feast in our present valley of famine. Which means God is already wiping away the tears from our eyes even if our feast is not yet.

Lectionary 27 A - Matthew 21:33-46

Matthew 21:33-46

Since the text says Jesus is talking about “them” we can safely assume he is not talking about “us.” But then the living word, sharper and more active than a two edged sword, (Hebrews 4:12) doesn’t let anyone off that easily. In many ways we are like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They were well versed in scripture and loved the law that revealed the way of the Lord. They were familiar with the pattern of religious ritual that gave shape to their every day and marked the passing of the seasons. They trained up their children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6) so that when it came to the time of their passing God would not abandon them to Sheol. Jesus, the self proclaimed rock rejected, threatened the very fabric of their religious life and no matter how Matthew remembered it the pious people of Jesus’ day believed they were serving God by wanting to arrest Jesus and make him conform to the faith of his forebears. So what might that say about the “us” that objects to being identified with “them”? We have ways set in stone that elevate human traditions to divine status. We judge others by their ability to conform to the pattern of our faith. We might be well meaning but that doesn’t mean we aren’t misguided. The good news is that the stone over which we stumble and the rock that crushes our personal preferences is the precious cornerstone that for the sake of those outside the faith would have us give away the vineyard in obedience to the heir who owns it.  

Lectionary 27 A - Philippians 3:4-14

Philippians 3:4-14

Like the apostle Paul I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh. Born to Lutheran educators, baptized in my first month, memorized the liturgy before I could read, confirmed by my thirteenth year, graduate of a Lutheran grade school, high school, college, and seminary and served as a Lutheran grade school teacher, youth director and pastor. I know we’re saved by grace but surely a Lutheran pedigree like that counts for something? Of course it does and in many ways it is the reason I am able to press on to take hold of the Christ who took hold of me through the water of baptism and the faith of parents and teachers. Paul considers confidence in the flesh as loss but clearly values the heritage it represents as well as the brothers and sisters according to the flesh for whom he would sacrifice his salvation. (Romans 9:3) So while we place no confidence in our religious pedigree we are grateful for the formation that does not happen without the family of faith. 

Lectionary 27 A - Psalm 80:7-15

Psalm 80:7-15

The psalmist must not have read Isaiah who lays the blame for broken walls on the “pleasant planting” that produced sour grapes. There are times when we can clearly identify the cause and effect of choices made or delayed but there are just as many times when “Why, O Lord?” has no obvious answer. We cannot endure for very long with “Why, O Lord?” and so when the walls of our security have been broken down and the pleasant planting of our lives ravaged by calamity we cry aloud with the psalmist. “Restore us, God Almighty!” “Return to us, God Almighty!” “Look down from heaven and see!” Which is to say even when are no satisfactory answers to “why?” we trust the Lord still tends the vine of our lives.

Lectionary 27 - Isaiah 5:1-7

Isaiah 5:1-7
God’s lament sounds familiar because God’s sad song is so often ours as well. We invest time and energy and emotion into relationships that fail to produce hoped for results. Of course when human relationships go sour we say “it takes two to tango” while Isaiah envisions all the blame on the vineyard God planted. It is true that sowing wild oats (grapes?) is common enough to be cliché but Israel, a small country situated between hostile empires, can hardly be blamed for trying to survive the place of its planting. Maybe that was the point all along. Trusting God was not supposed to be like all the other nations who sacrifice everything, including their first born, to appease the blood lust of their gods. The people of God were to reflect the same sort of care to the widow and the orphan and the sojourner as God showed them. The fruit of righteousness was never meant to be about the sacrifice required by law but rather the law of living by love. In that respect God the gardener was all alone so I guess it does take two to tango after all.

Lectionary 26 A - Matthew 21:23-32

Matthew 21:23-32

During his last week in Jerusalem Jesus flips the tables of the temple money changers and turns the tables on the chief priests. He is one tricky Messiah and I imagine he smiled when he asked the elders about John the Baptist knowing full well the trap he was setting. Of course they will have the last laugh on the Friday we call “Good” but then maybe their answer “we don’t know” leads Jesus to forgive them for not knowing what they do (Luke 23:34) even though the Gospel of Matthew believes they knew exactly what they were doing. “Let his blood be on us and on our children.” (Matthew 27:25) The story of the two sons that follows the Q&A might be read as the cliff notes of the more well-known “son” story. (Luke 15) In the same way that the son who ran away comes home the unwilling son becomes obedient. And the stay at home son who says “yes” hits the snooze and sleeps in when it’s time to work. The bottom line is those who were out are in and those who were in are out but only so far as they continue to resist the One whose authority is a higher power.

Lectionary 26 A - Philippians 2:1-13

Philippians 2:1-13

The whole of the scriptures is expressed in Philippians 2:5-11 and if all we had was this ancient creedal hymn it would be enough to reveal the mind of the Divine. In Jesus it is God who is emptied into all of humanity and in servant form suffers a dreadful death designed by the children created in God’s own image. How is it possible that the church has such a sordid history of not finding any consolation in this expression of ultimate love, no compassion, no sympathy, demanding like minds be bound by hard cover catechisms where right belief matters more than loving fellow believers, let alone the world Jesus died to save? The promise is every knee will bow and every tongue confess that the Jesus emptied, serving, suffering and dying for creatures who could care less was what God was about all along. Being of like mind means be like Jesus who never met a sinner he didn’t love to death.

Lectionary 26 A - Psalm 25:1-9

Psalm 25:1-9

David trusts that the rebellious sins of his youth will not be remembered by the Lord and I have no doubt that the same applies to the sins of one’s middle age as well. That is because the Lord, who is our all day long hope, does not need to be prompted to remember great mercy and love for that is the character of the One who erases the record of everything about us that makes mercy necessary. Now if only we could do the same for others, and God help us, for ourselves. But the truth about us is that shame is our constant companion and we live with the memory of rebellious ways and youthful sins revisiting ancient history as if it happened yesterday. So maybe the instructions sinners need most is a lesson on forgiveness where charity begins at home.

Lectionary 26 A - Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

So what gives? Didn’t God commission Moses to set in stone the small print following the second commandment? “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.” (Exodus 20:5 & Deuteronomy 5:9) Or what about the good news / bad news of Numbers 14:18? “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, BUT he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.” On the flip side of the covenant coin both Jeremiah (31:29-30) and Ezekiel preach personal responsibility. Whoever does the crime does the time. So which is it? Jesus trumps both sides in favor of neither (the man born blind story in John 9 – “whose sin is it?”) and negates the conditional clause (neither this man nor his parents sinned) in favor of the gift of sight revealing the works of God. The work of God is this: the One who knew no sin (and I’m just guessing here but his Abba was pretty much perfect too) was made to be sin so that those who are in bondage to sin (parent and child) might be set free. So turn to the God who takes no pleasure in the death of anyone and live. 

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Lectionary 25 A - Matthew 20:1-16

Matthew 20:1-16

The kingdom of heaven is always a contradiction of common kingdoms that operate according to survival of the fittest where the winner is the one who dies with the most toys. So the all-day workers sweating in the sun obviously deserve more wages than the slackers who spent all but the last hour of the day playing 42 (the official domino game of the great state of Texas) in the marketplace. You can bet that the next time the master went looking for workers the marketplace had become a right to wait state and expecting a day’s wage for working one hour was the new normal. That is why the kingdom of heaven is like something that is never done in common kingdoms. Apparently God doesn't get how incentives work. But then the parable is not about the workers or even the wages. It’s about the landowner which means it’s about God and in this parable God gets to do whatever God wants to do which in this case is do something we would not. Surprise.

Lectionary 25 A - Philippians 1:20-30

Philippians 1:20-30
To live a life worthy of the Gospel is more about embracing grace than adherence to the law although there are always consequences for less than Gospel worthy ways of living. But as those who “are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves” we understand living a Gospel worthy life is always a work in progress. So we bear with each other recognizing that all “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and depend wholly on the mercy of God. Which means the Gospel way of living is to strive together side by side so that our mutual love and affection for one another bears witness to the God who loves all people equally.

Lectionary 25 A - Psalm 145:1-8

Psalm 145:1-8

“One generation commends your works to another” is the way the faith has been passed down through the ages so that the ancient story of mighty acts and awesome works is not lost. More than myth the ancient story is retold in the living language of the generation entrusted to bear it into the infinite future. Granted, the “passing on” generation always hopes that their way of telling the story will be as enduring as the story itself and that the generation “receiving” the gift will not throw away the wrapping. But the truth is “the Lord gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love” is the same for every generation, whether it's recounted on a Kindle or a scroll. 

Lectionary 25 A - Jonah 3:10-4:11

Jonah 3:10 - 4:11

Discussions of the Book of Jonah often focus on the detail of the “whale” and whether someone could be swallowed up and survive. Those who read the story as literal truth do so out of reverence for the scriptures as the source and norm of all doctrine and faith and believe if you doubt the literal truth of one story all the other stories are called into question. Those who read Jonah as a parable or allegory also reverence the scriptures as the source and norm of all faith and doctrine and believe a story does not need to be literally true to be true. The point of this story, which I am quite willing to swallow as literally true, is in chapter four. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew God would be merciful and forgive the enemies of Israel and that was “very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” (4:1) God provided shade to cool Jonah’s jets but then struck it down to make a point and Jonah sitting in the sun and lamenting the burned up bush was “angry enough to die.” (4:9) With or without the big fish story this is the part of the text that is literally true about us especially when like Jonah we care more about the bush of our own understanding than the “great city” of fellow believers whose fish story may be bigger or smaller than ours. 

Holy Cross Year A - John 3:13-17

John 3:13-17

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn it” but apparently the church didn’t get the memo. We've copyrighted the Son and condemn anyone who does not buy into the franchise. On the other hand John 3:18 (…those who do not believe are condemned already) seems to give us permission to divide the world into us and them. So what gives? Is there a password to paradise or not? Whenever I ask that question I hear my teacher and mentor The Reverend Doctor Walter Bouman saying “that’s the wrong question.” Which is to say we tend to rush to the end of the story without considering the narrative. God’s intention to not send the Son into the world to condemn it is first and foremost a statement about God. Every two bit small g god knows how to put on a light show and beat down the peasants into submission. The big G God of Israel abandons the place of power to make a small hill outside an insignificant city of an occupied nation the location of suffering that will be salvation for the world. What we do with that doesn't have anything to do with God’s intention even if our acceptance or rejection holds consequences that trump God’s desire. The world gets condemnation. We invented it and have spent considerable time and energy finding ways to be creative in our cruelty. God is not the one who condemns. We are. But God offers a way out of our inhumanity by meeting the world at its worst and letting the world’s way condemn the Son sent to love. So the choice we are given is to believe that in the end the way of love will overcome the condemnation that comes naturally to us. 

Lectionary 24 A - Matthew 18:21-35

Matthew 18:21-35

This is a troublesome text in that it appears that the “sin-ee” (aka the one sinned against) is at the mercy of the sinner even though the sinner is the one who needs to be forgiven. Even more troubling is that Peter doesn’t ask more questions once Jesus multiplies Peter’s seven times sin to infinity and beyond. (77 or 70 times 7 is Jesus math which always equals always) So what if the sin is always the same sin? At what point do you say the one who is asking for forgiveness is just getting permission to sin again? Hello. Doesn’t Jesus know about codependency? I’ll ask forgiveness for that last remark. Sorry for taking a parable to places it was never meant to go. The bottom line is this. Jesus commands the church that bears his name to consider forgiveness asked for forgiveness received period end of sentence. Where the parable draws the line is that there is a consequence for forgiveness withheld which once again places the burden on the sin-ee and not the sinner. But that’s the way Jesus rolls. That is not to say we cannot forgive, and love for that matter, from a safe distance. Jesus said to pick up our cross but he does not mean we should be crucified.