Gospeling Your Life ~ As as the persistent and persuasive

 

Read Luke 18-19 ~ So I love the persistent and persuasive woman who keeps begging the judge for justice.  I see her showing up in the courtroom, silently staring at the judge from the back row.  I see her waiting outside his chambers, following him home every night and arguing her case day-after-day.  I see her waiting in the morning as he is sipping his coffee.  She keeps showing up for justice.  Justice cannot be microwaved or manufactured.  Justice is not singularly/only up to us as humans and our own will power, rather justice is aligning ourselves with God’s work.  This is a place where we need to be careful not to assign roles in parables.  I don’t think the unjust judge equals God.  I don’t think God needs us to pester God to get our way.  God is the one who knows us better than we know ourselves.  God is the One who continually calls us and initiates the conversation with our souls daily.  God is more like the woman than the judge.  Maybe, I am more like an unjust judge than I care to admit or accept.  Hold this.  Hold Jesus’ inviting himself over to the house of the very one seen as an enemy. What would you do if God invited God’s self over to the house of someone you thought/saw as unworthy?  I would think, “What in the devil is God doing?!?”  And maybe that unveils the shadow side of envy.  I want God to come to my house, not that person’s house.  I want to hoard and control God, rather than let God be lavish/extravagant/wasteful (see Wednesday) with God’s presence.  I pray you are finding places in Luke where the Spirit is stirring and swirling, maybe even in ways you would prefer the Spirit not move.  I hope you have found a few narratives in Luke you’d like to return to and re-read in the days to come.  I pray as we move toward completing our third Gospel next week, you are discovering truths that are Good News, Gospel medicine, to your soul in these days. Amen. 

Gospeling Your Life in the midst of Inconvenience

 

Read Luke 16-17 ~ There are two powerful, provoking, parables in chapter 16.  The first is about an economic bargaining story that reeks of privilege and the second is about a rich man (who ironically isn’t named) and a poor man (who is ~ Lazarus).  If you turn to chapter 17, you can add one more parable about gratitude, giving thanks by the one leper (who of course is a Samaritan, because in Luke it is always the outsider who shows us the faithful way) who comes back to thank Jesus for healing.  I sense a thread and theme in these two chapters tying them together.  How do we see the world?  Is it a dog-eat-dog world?  Is it all about me, taking care of number one?  The manager in verses 1-9 seems to be out to save his own neck, the rich man in verse 19-31 care only about the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I ~ even as he knows (don’t miss that he knows!!) Lazarus’ name (see verse 24).  I am challenged that only 1 out of 10 people can be troubled to say, “Thank you” to Jesus, which those numbers might still hold today.  Our attitude toward life shapes us.  On Tuesday, we talked about Niebuhr’s framework of Christ and Culture, what conclusions you come to as you read through these parables and hold them do reveal something about you.  Too often, we give thanks to God on Sundays, only to say to God, “I’ll take it from here,” as we walk out the narthex/lobby doors.  Too often, we hide our calendars and checkbooks (which are moral documents that tell us what gospels we are following), because we don’t want to deal with our own contradictions.  Too often, I am more like the shrewd manager and rich man ignoring the beloved in need at my own gate.  These parables push and prod at me in ways that I don’t always appreciate.  Yet, to Gospel my life, is to let truths that are inconvenient get into my soul to rummage around and rearrange my life.  I pray you will lean in and listen to these words today and they might cause you to ponder prayerfully how you might be in the world today.  Amen.

Gospeling Your Life in Prodigalness

 

Read Luke 14-15 ~ Today you will read the Parable of the Prodigal Family (quick aside, the word ‘prodigal’ means ‘wasteful’ or ‘extravagant’ or ‘lavish’ ~ note how each of those words might have a positive or negative reaction for you.  I see ‘wasteful’ as negative and ‘lavish’ as sometimes appropriate and appreciated).  When I read this parable, I don’t just think it was the younger son who is prodigal, it is the whole family!  The younger son wastes money and relationship with his family; the older son wastes time trying to prove his usefulness to the father and ends up with such resentment seething off him.  I can feel the older son’s heat coming from the page; the father is lavish (even wasteful) in how he treats both sons.  Talk about a family that could use a good therapist. 

The question for you is where are you prodigal today?  How does that question even sit in you?  If prodigal is always bad, then you may never want to admit you are ‘wasteful’.   This could be in good/grace filled ways or wasteful ways ~ because both live in me.  I encourage you to read the parable several times.  Try to set aside all the pastoral sermons you’ve heard that tell you want you should think about this story.  Try to receive the words as they meet you lavishly where you are ~ just as the parent goes out to meet both the younger and older sons.  May these words awaken within you new insights and questions to explore with your life today.  Amen.

Gospeling Your Life in Culture

 

Read Luke 12-13.  In chapter 12, verse 49-53, Jesus talks about divisions.  Here we are in a fractured, fragile, fragmented world where the one emotion we hear the most around us is anger.  Living in a world where families are divided is not new.  In Jesus’ day, there were family fights about whether following Jesus as the Messiah was a good decision or just plain hooey and hogwash.  In Jesus’ day, people were pushed out of the Temple, because remember that calling Jesus the “Lord” was political language that was an affront to Caesar and could get you killed.  In Jesus’ day there was pain of people in crisis and countless voices claiming, clamoring for your attention/allegiance/money.  The Essenes said, just go get off the grid and the world is too corrupt.  Yup, I heard that today.  Pharisees said, the world is too corrupt but if you follow the rules and regulations, all will be well.  Yup, I heard that today.  The Sadducees said, “God can work through Rome, so let’s work with them.”  Yup, I heard that too.  I hear a mixture of all three positions.  H. Richard Niebuhr wrote about Christ and Culture.  He said there are three major choices: Christ is opposed to Culture.  If culture says “it” (whatever “it” is) is good, then “it” must be bad.  Second, Christ in agreement with Culture.  God works through human actions, organizations, and creativity.  Third, Christ is above culture.  Niebuhr said this means that sometimes Christ is with human ideas and other times against.  Or put another way, Christ will show up as culture and sometimes convert culture.  It is messy, because life is messy.  I find the framework helpful because it can help us ask questions about our lives.  This helps provide a bigger framework about our unconscious beliefs concerning the world around us.  In its most simplistic form we could ask, “What kind of car would Jesus drive?”  But in our more complex and contradictory form we can ask, “What would Jesus say to that relative who just posted that offensive meme on Facebook?”  There are no clear answers.  Perhaps it is not a singular choice once and for all, maybe Niebuhr is inviting us into the divine dance between our core values that do not change and situational ethics that are responding constantly to a changing world.  Both work in our lives and there are moments of tension.  I hope you will hold this framework as you continue to work through the Gospels and especially as you seek to live your life on this day. Amen.